Nailing it

Michael Egnor has a recent post to which I wish to draw Gentle Reader's attention, and also to a comment by 'Big Rich' that nails it -- Does Catholicism minus the Enlightenment equal the Inquisition?, which is in response to a piece by John Zmirak, in which is asserted that "Catholicism minus the Enlightenment equals the Inquisition."

As you may (or may not) know, I have no use for the Roman denomination; I think Christianity would be much improved were all Catholics to wash themselves of the effluvia of the Cloaca Maxima and become Protestants. That said, I wholly agree with Egnor that it is a "damnable lie" that "Catholicism minus the Enlightenment equals the Inquisition."; I also agree with him that the Inquisition itself is not inherently bad or immoral.

Here is the comment by 'Big Rich' I wish to bring to your attention:

Does Catholicism minus the Enlightenment equal the Inquisition? The better and more obvious question is, does the Enlightenment without Christianity equal the holocaust? And the answer is, of course it does. It also equals the guillotines of the French Revolution, Mao's and Stalin's purges, America's forced sterilizations and the -- the greatest genocide perpetuated on mankind and done specifically in the name of enlightenment -- the slaughter of the unborn. The death toll which lays directly at the feet of an unrestrained enlightenment is the better part of a billion human lives, but according to sons of the Enlightenment like Peter Singer -- we need to be more dead bodies -- just not his or course.