The Inquisition has a bad rap.<\/p>\n
No, I\u2019m not talking about the Spanish Inquisition, though if you haven\u2019t heard, that also got a bad rap.\u00a0 The Iron Maidens and torture chambers and shadowy omnipotent clerical order were all myths perpetrated by rival powers.\u00a0 The BBC had a great documentary<\/a> about this. \u00a0And if you really want to get into it, this guy<\/a> offers a good analysis.<\/p>\n I bring these up because the Spanish Inquisition has been so tarred as systematic atrocity that the very concept of an Inquisition itself has been tarred as some barbaric relic of the past.\u00a0 But if we take the time to dissect what an Inquisition really is, we find that it has solid legal standing and has a proper place in civil society.<\/p>\n If you just look at the word itself, Inquisition, it comes from the same root at Inquire.\u00a0 It simply refers to an authority figure asking questions of people.\u00a0 You could compare it to Israeli airport security.\u00a0 The American experience of security is a humiliating one: you get shoved through a porn scanner and have to take off your shoes, get felt up, or worse.\u00a0 Israeli security focuses more on asking you a whole lot of questions. What is your purpose for flying, who are you coming to visit, where do they live, etc. \u00a0It\u2019s a much more respectful experience.<\/p>\n With this understanding, we can understand the Spanish Inquisition to be a far more benign and legal procedure.\u00a0 And we can also use it to try and solve some modern issues.<\/p>\n I became interested in the concept over time, over many debates with people.\u00a0 Not all debates are good natured, generally they are toxic affairs where you only know you\u2019re right when the other party changes the topic. And that\u2019s what makes a standard debate ultimately fruitless \u2013 you lack any authority to have the other person acknowledge their error.<\/p>\n These last few months of debates with Muslims have shed some new significance on this issue.\u00a0 Where they claim innocence, but when you press them on issues like insulting their prophet, Jihad or Sharia, they change the subject, become violent, or shut you out.<\/p>\n But here in Western Democracies, we have the right to know these things.<\/p>\n So, when it comes to fighting Islamism in the developed world, we have some options.\u00a0 Islamic reformers have said that its two main tenets that make it incompatible with Western society are Sharia and Jihad, and they have to reform away from that.\u00a0 Or else what?\u00a0 What\u2019s the incentive to voluntarily get away from it?<\/p>\n Why should the rest of us wait for Islam to have an internal reformation?\u00a0 Why can\u2019t we put pressure from without with an Inquisition?\u00a0 If they live in our countries, we have every right to ask them such questions. Do they acknowledge Sharia law as a higher authority than Civil law?\u00a0 Do they agree with Jihad and religious spread through violent conquest?\u00a0 Do they agree that if someone insults their prophet they should fear for their life?<\/p>\n Why can\u2019t we call them in for questioning on these issues?\u00a0 Why do we need to subject ourselves to all sorts of random surveillance, searches, and costly monitoring, when we see the ideology that is the wellspring of such violence?<\/p>\n The major criticism to anticipate is this violates the 1st<\/sup> Amendment.\u00a0 Which is nonsense.\u00a0 The freedom of religion does not grant the right to freely commit crimes under the guise of religion.\u00a0 If there were, for example, a rash of babies being stolen by Jews to be used to make Matza (i.e. if Blood Libel were actually true and backed by evidence), then this kind of Inquisition would be justified.<\/p>\n The other doubt to anticipate is that subjects could lie to the inquisitor\u2019s face.\u00a0 But that claim doesn\u2019t hold much water either.\u00a0 First of all, it doesn\u2019t match with my personal experience.\u00a0 People don\u2019t lie, especially when it comes to deeply held religious principles. \u00a0Apply that to religious leaders whose career depends on their word and that effect is multiplied.\u00a0 Besides, we\u2019ve gotten good enough in psychology to learn how to ask questions in ways so it\u2019s impossible to lie without eventually contradicting oneself.<\/p>\n At any rate, these are my thoughts on the issue.\u00a0 They are by no means final, let alone popular.\u00a0 It is more a thought experiment to get the ball rolling, and bring up some new ideas to deal with 21st<\/sup> century challenges.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Inquisition has a bad rap. No, I\u2019m not talking about the Spanish Inquisition, though if you haven\u2019t heard, that also got a bad rap.\u00a0 The Iron Maidens and torture chambers and shadowy omnipotent clerical order were all myths perpetrated by rival powers.\u00a0 The BBC had a great documentary about this. \u00a0And if you really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[211,201,214,213,212,215],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341,"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions\/341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}