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Religion, Practice and Science of Non-Violence
purchasers were promised that their stay in purgatory after death, would be shortened. One of the oft-repeated statements about the purchase of indulgences was: 'As soon as the money clinks in the chest, the soul flits into heavenly rest.' Christ was pictured more as a stern and cruel judge than as a loving Saviour. The sale of indulgences became an encouragement to sin.
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Several crusades fought for about 175 years (AD 1096-1270) to free the holy city of Jerusalem, involved a lot of expenditure and killings. The occupation of Jerusalem in AD 1099, by the Christians led to an unmerciful massacre of the Turks. Blood flowed in the streets where the Saviour had once walked and preached. Even during their most brutal moments, the Turks had not been guilty of such slaughter. Yet, when the slaughter was completed, the same crusaders who had murdered the enemy in cold blood knelt bare-headed and prayed at the Holy Sepulchre.
The crusades cost Europe five million young men, whose lives should have been devoted to works of peace. Even the lives of children were lost in these crusades. The saddest of all the crusades was the Children's Crusade which was undertaken in AD 1212. It was believed by many that children because of their innocence could win where their sinful elders could not. As a result of this mistaken idea, a little shepherd boy in France, rallied 30,000 children to the cause of the cross, and a boy in Germany led out 20,000 children at the same time. These children expected miraculous aid in conquering the Holy Land. Many died on the way from starvation, disease and exhaustion and very few of the 50,000 returned to their homes.
Religious-minded people who did not agree with the Papal authority were excommunicated, exiled or put to death. John Wycliff (1415), John Hus (1415) and Savonarola (1498) are some prominent examples.
The atrocities committed by the established authority of the Church, however, did not and could not last long. The futility of the crusades, the enlightenment brought about in the Renaissance period, the Copernican concept of the astronomy and the recognition of the place of man in the universe, the Industrial Revolution and opening up of vast new areas of the globe to mankind, and the Reformation of the Church by
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