How the Protestant Reformation was like the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Religion and Secularism
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"Now, Luther's theory was that if everyone just returned directly to the scriptures, they would see the one single truth, and the church would be restored to its original simplicity.

Yeah, no. I have a message to the restorers of history. There is no original simplicity!

The thing is, once you start making scripture accessible to everyone and tell them that their opinions are just as good as those of the clergy, what happens is that people start, you know, having different interpretations of what religious truth is.

So, Luther’s protests started creating spin-offs: the Zwinglians, and the Calvinists, and the Anabaptists. And then the spin-offs had their own spin-offs.

It’s like how first there was Iron Man, and then there was The Avengers, and then, you know, like an Avengers TV show, pretty soon we’re gonna have Ant Man get his own movie. The Protestant Reformation is pretty much just the exact same thing as the comic universe, but no Thor, because he’s pagan.

Anyway, many of these new denominations will be familiar to you: the Anglicans, the Puritans, the Quakers, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Baptists.

Each of these new Protestant churches thought that it new the one true way to worship God, and that, you know, everyone else was going to Hell, and this led to some fighting. And also some disemboweling."


John Green said it best.

 

2

What? were the movies full of fart jokes also?

http://conradaskland.com/blog/martin-luther-on-farts/

https://churchpop.com/2014/08/10/29-of-martin-luthers-most-hiliariously-over-the-top-insults/

 

:wink:

 

3

I’ve heard Martin Luther had a great sense of humor and loved a good beer. It’s also pretty clear that he suffered from the Scrupulocity OCD I’ve talked about so much. I’d really love to like him, but I can’t get past his antisemitism, which has been soft-pedaled over the years.

4

I was taught to admire him as a kid, being as I was Lutheran for a while back then. Then I started learning about the man, he was actually kind of an obnoxious, too full-of-himself, jerk - but then who else could have taken on the Catholic Corporation. Makes me think of Joseph Smith the convicted con artist who created the Mormon Church and then Brigham Young bringing it to fruition near Salt Lake and with his palatial cabin and the up stairs crammed full of little cells down a long hall, for his many young wives, then his own huge well appointed bedroom at the end of the hall.

My mom related that scene to me after touring the place many many years ago.

Know what my mom’s commentary was after giving me that description?

“The Pig.” (with emphasis) … she was wonderful woman.

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Those Martin Luther insult quotes were something else. Greta Thunburg should have added this quote from Luther to her scathing rebuke of the forces of climate change. : “You are desperate, thorough arch-rascals, murderers, traitors, liars, the very scum of all the most evil people on earth. You are full of all the worst devils in hell – full, full, and so full that you can do nothing but vomit, throw, and blow out devils!”