The Witch Trials Were Justified - It never happened, but they deserved it

Im pretty sure at least one person was executed in this manner. I could be wrong though.
Was that not just to get the confession? Been a while since I went to the museum in Salem
One did die by rock crushing but it wasn't an execution but he refused to confess and died in the torture.
edit: And as far as my memory goes about the fella, is quoted in saying when asked to confess,
 
The thing i love about fat white chicks that are in 'witchcraft' is that they have no understanding of how the early modern/ medieval mind understood it. 'magic' as it was then was a practical thing, at least from the confessions they gave. They didnt hex people or chant incantations. They usually confessed to being given an oinment by the devil which they used to attack the growth of the community. you look at the periods of which hunts and its always during or after large scale wars. Even in salem, king philips war had scarred the minds of those young girls.
 
A Matthew Hopkins stan account is such a gay idea that my T-helper cell count is actually negative now.
 
We can not empirically proved that the "witch trials" only killed innocent women. Therefore you must accept that possibly one real witch was burned at the stake

In my opinion that justifies the entire effort. Would you want to live in a world with witches? Not me. I can't sleep on that.

So the witch trials were 100% justified as long as one witch was burned.

A few weaknesses in your argument:

1. "In your opinion" is a weak justification. Why should we accept your opinion that the death of one real witch justifies the whole endeavor? You need to expand on this; give us a stronger reason to accept your proposition.

2. We must accept the possibility that one real witch was burned. That does not mean we concede that one real witch was burned, and thus, per your conclusion, are under no obligation to concede that the trials were justified.

3. Why 100%?

4. Is empirical proof necessary? What would you say to someone who asserts that "witch trials only killed innocent women" can be proven deductively, through reason alone? e.g. Witches did not exist / no woman accused of being a witch could be a witch / every woman killed in a witch trial was innocent.
 
The OP is gay.
We can not empirically prove that the OP is straight. Therefore we must accept that he is possibly gay.

In my opinion that justifies the argument. Would you want to post in a thread of a gay OP? Not me. I can't sleep on that.

So the OP is 100% gay as long as he had one single homo thought his entire life.
 
In Africa, people routinely get lynched on accusations of being penis shrinking sorcerers. But we can't empirically prove that none of them were actually stealing men's penises, so that's totally justified, bro
 
The thing i love about fat white chicks that are in 'witchcraft' is that they have no understanding of how the early modern/ medieval mind understood it. 'magic' as it was then was a practical thing, at least from the confessions they gave. They didnt hex people or chant incantations. They usually confessed to being given an oinment by the devil which they used to attack the growth of the community. you look at the periods of which hunts and its always during or after large scale wars. Even in salem, king philips war had scarred the minds of those young girls.
They also have no knowledge of American folk magic, which admittedly very few people do.

The short of it is that American pioneers had a wide range of spells, potions, superstitions, and practices they resorted to, some of the most interesting being the use of divining rods to hunt for treasure and “living by the signs” (of the Moon), where doing things at the right time astrologically would get you a certain result.
 
A few weaknesses in your argument:

1. "In your opinion" is a weak justification. Why should we accept your opinion that the death of one real witch justifies the whole endeavor? You need to expand on this; give us a stronger reason to accept your proposition.

2. We must accept the possibility that one real witch was burned. That does not mean we concede that one real witch was burned, and thus, per your conclusion, are under no obligation to concede that the trials were justified.

3. Why 100%?

4. Is empirical proof necessary? What would you say to someone who asserts that "witch trials only killed innocent women" can be proven deductively, through reason alone? e.g. Witches did not exist / no woman accused of being a witch could be a witch / every woman killed in a witch trial was innocent.
1. Yes

2. Post physique.

3. See 2.

4. I don't see anyone flying around on brooms ergo it must have worked. Also, post BR max.
 
I don't see anyone flying around on brooms ergo it must have worked.
That's an empirical argument. What I'm saying is, there are people who will not accept the premise that empiricism is necessary for resolving questions pertaining to witches. They will instead rely on deductive reasoning.

What's more, your conclusion is unsupported. You say that that you don't see anyone flying around on brooms, ergo it must have worked. But there are several other alternatives:

1. Witches are invisible, which is why you haven't seen.​
2. Witches no longer fly on brooms, as they now have airplanes.​
3. You don't see witches on brooms because witches never existed.​
4. You don't see witches on brooms because you are really just a brain in a bottle, kept alive by witches who feed your brain only that information which the witches feel would be in their own best interest.​
In fact, I would say that your conclusion is highly improbable, as even the witch hunters themselves admitted that their society was plagued with far more witches than they could bring to justice. Even if every witch in a given community were brought to justice, not all communities had witch trials. Indeed, entire kingdoms and nation-states went for decades, or even centuries, without so much as a single successful witch prosecution. If witches existed - and we will assume for the sake of argument that they did - then it stands to reason that many, most, or possibly even all, witches escaped justice.
 
Witches were believed to cause real harm, to be really in league with demonic forces, and to actively cause suffering(not to mention hellfire) for everyone they were involved with.

If you were living in southern germany circa 1640, your community is devastated, armies keep on pillaging the country side, so much so wild animals have returned to former farmland, your baby died in the night, your wife for some reason can't have any more children, your boy went into the woods and never came back, and there is a woman who walks in the fields alone, who never attends church, who no one has ever seen the inside of her dwelling, who has been rumored to dance in the woods naked with Satan, doing so around the same time your little boy disappeared.

What do you think your going to say when someone points a finger at her and says "she killed your children, she poisoned your crops, she is actively seeking your destruction, she is in league with the devil".

Your going to tie her to a wooden post with the rest of the community and burn her alive.

If you lived in that world, you'd absolutely agree with witch burnings.
 
Witches were believed to cause real harm, to be really in league with demonic forces, and to actively cause suffering(not to mention hellfire) for everyone they were involved with.

If you were living in southern germany circa 1640, your community is devastated, armies keep on pillaging the country side, so much so wild animals have returned to former farmland, your baby died in the night, your wife for some reason can't have any more children, your boy went into the woods and never came back, and there is a woman who walks in the fields alone, who never attends church, who no one has ever seen the inside of her dwelling, who has been rumored to dance in the woods naked with Satan, doing so around the same time your little boy disappeared.

What do you think your going to say when someone points a finger at her and says "she killed your children, she poisoned your crops, she is actively seeking your destruction, she is in league with the devil".

Your going to tie her to a wooden post with the rest of the community and burn her alive.

If you lived in that world, you'd absolutely agree with witch burnings.
Would you, though?

Maybe you would, I don't know. However, there were many people who disagreed with witch burnings, even in 1640. One of the reasons witch trials didn't last long, and are currently remembered as "crazes" instead of "what was normal for a thousand years", was the fact that the majority of people - secular figures as well as church authorities - disputed the need for, efficacy of, and humanity in, massacring suspected witches.

My own theory is that human beings do not fundamentally change, generation to generation. This isn't really a controversial idea, and it looks as though you'd concur with me. Some people, by virtue of genetics or personality or circumstance, are predisposed towards certain modes of thinking and patterns of behavior that manifest themselves, time and time again, throughout the historical record. The same people who would have been burning witches and heretics at the stake had they been born four centuries ago, are now cancelling witches and heretics on their social media apps. Mob mentality was not unique to 1640, and it's safe to say that many moderns, were they living at that time, in that society, would have acted in precisely the same manner. That's true. I agree with that observation.

But, here's the important distinction: not everyone did. Not everyone does! For every modern who would have burned a witch, there are considerably more who would not have. Many people, then as now, would be skeptical. Some would go along to get along, some would keep their mouths shut, some would be far enough away from the mob that they'd have the luxury of shaking their heads at the ignorance of foreign people, and some would even speak out against the mob, possibly dying for the trouble. All of these things did happen, and would also happen; the question being, which side would you be on?

Furthermore, we have to remember that there is a third alternative: turning to witchcraft. Edgelords are nothing new. Some people, if told that witchcraft was a potent force, and gave the practitioner the ability to exercise power over their friends and enemies, would throw their lot in with the witches. It's no accident that, despite suppression by the church, the Medieval and Early Modern Ages gave us some of the most popular and sophisticated systems of magick the world has ever known.


So, it's impossible to say "YOU WOULD DO THIS" with any great degree of certainty, as history was never a unanimous thing, and communities always have people who disagree on fundamental issues. Furthermore, I think it's rather ridiculous to tell Kiwifarmers, of all people, that they would be the ones burning witches to death.

I think what is more likely is that most Kiwifarmers would fall into one of three categories:
  • autists who reject the idea of witches outright.
  • rougish opportunists who would probably stay at home, but might be compelled to join the burning if the witch in question was fat, a thot, a tranny, or otherwise such that her death would be funny.
  • actual witches.
The only Kiwifarmer who'd be likely to burn witches unironically are BP regulars.
 
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