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To: elmatador who wrote (15513)	2/24/2002 12:13:55 AM
From: Scott Bergquist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Sorry, Martin Luther won't apply here. Martin Luther disparaged and made efforts to suppress Copernicus' idea that the Earth was not the center of the universe, and that the sun didn't revolve around the Earth. Martin Luther also believed in a flat Earth! Here is the abuses that brought forth the Reformation, as told in William Manchestor's "A World Lit Only By Fire": Rodrigo Borgia became Pope Alexander VI, throwing wild sex parties before and after his appointment. His lusty partners included his own daughter, and he especially enjoyed women whose weddings he had presided over. "Archbishops, bishops ---- even lower orders of the clergy -- grew fat and frequently supported concubines on their fees and tithes." Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar sold indulgences: "Who then, " he asked "would hesitate for a quarter-florin to secure one of these letters of remission?" Anything could be forgiven. He gave an example. Suppose a youth had slipped into his mother's bed and spent his seed inside her. If that boy put the right coins the pontiff's bowl, "the Holy Father has the power in heaven and earth to forgive that sin, and if he forgives it, God must do so also." Tetzel even appealed to the survivors of men who had gone to their graves: "As soon as the coin rings in the bowl, the soul for whom it is paid will fly out of purgatory and straight to heaven." After watching Tetzel perform, a local friar wrote "It is incredible what this ignorant monk said preached. He gave sealed letters stating that even the sins a man was intending to commit would be forgiven. The pope, he said, had more power than all the Apostles, all the angels and saints, more even than the Virgin Mary herself, for these were all subjects of Christ, but the pope was equal to Christ." Luther declared Tetzels letters of indulgence as frauds. Tetzel then, momentously, denounced Martin Luther. And so it began. Islam suffers no such abuse requiring a Martin Luther. If anything, those being realistic are deviating from the "truth" in the Qu'ran.