Via JMG: Bill Donohue Is Very Upset About Cosmos

Last night Fox debuted its 13-episode series, Cosmos; A Spacetime Odyssey, which is hosted by noted astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and is produced by Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane.  Catholic League blowhard Bill Donohue is very upset about the first episode, which shamefully depicted the Spanish Inquisition as a bad thing. 

The propagandists involved in this show, represented most conspicuously by Seth MacFarlane, told viewers last night that “the Roman Catholic Church maintained a system of courts known as the Inquisition and its sole purpose was to investigate and torment anyone who dared voice views that differed from theirs. And it wasn’t long before [Giordano] Bruno fell into the clutches of the thought police.” The ignorance is appalling. “The Catholic Church as an institution had almost nothing to do with [the Inquisition],” writes Dayton historian Thomas Madden. “One of the most enduring myths of the Inquisition,” he says, “is that it was a tool of oppression imposed on unwilling Europeans by a power-hungry Church. Nothing could be more wrong.” Because the Inquisition brought order and justice where there was none, it actually “saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.” (His emphasis.)

All that torture and disemboweling? Good thing! Cardinal Fang, fetch the comfy chair for Bill.

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Labels: Bill Donohue, Catholic Church, Catholic League, Cosmos, crackpots, Fox TV, Neil deGrasse Tyson, religion, Seth McFarlane

Reposted from Joe Jervis