William of Orange Quotes
In all things there must be order, but it must of such a kind as is possible to observe...to see a man burnt for doing as he thought right, harms the people, for this is a matter of conscience.
William was a Catholic himself. Spain then controlled Holland.
William of Orange, 1533–1584, (William the Silent & Prince of Orange), Dutch Noble & Member of the Council, Leader of the Dutch revolt against Spain, Statement about Spanish King Philip II’s executing Dutch people who were Protestants
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
While Christianity and other religious groups were the inventors of these particular devices of compulsion of conscience, in modern times, but almost all other groups have given up torture and execution as a means of compelling religious obedience, many Muslim nations, even in modern times use the machine gun or the headman’s sword or other barbaric means to punish heretics. At the beginning of the third millennium, Islamic theocracies such as Iran, commonly executed followers of the Bhai and other non-Islamic religions. Many historians feel that the Muslims learned from the Christians such barbarity, but maintained the practices long after the questions had abandoned them. In addition, Shiite and Sunni Muslims have been butchering each other for centuries in dominate Islam nations and trying to force their interpretation of Islam in each other. The practice still continues.
Prior to Vatican II, freedom of conscience was not explicit in Catholic Doctrine. The controlling view had been that of Pope Pius IX a hundred years earlier. See {612299}.
Despite this clear statement, later the Colonial legislature withdrew the franchise from Roman Catholics. See {624149}. Despite this temporary restriction of religious freedom, Rhode Island and Connecticut were far ahead of the other New England colonies in freedom of conscience.
Historically, when Christian Europe was torturing and butchering people over differences of religious opinion, Islam was for the time, in most places, a model of tolerance. Suhrawardy died before Islam degenerated into an intolerance that almost rivaled in brutality that of the Christians centuries ago. And while his statement about the invention and initiation of brutal intolerance is correct, he would be shocked at the behavior of 21st century Iran, Pakistan and some other Islamic nations who from a traditional Islamic perspective had degenerated.
John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian minister with evangelical sympathies, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
