Alison Chabloz: On Inquisition, learning and Social Change

Alison Chabloz: On Inquisition, learning and Social Change

If we to continue talking about what is offensive, grossly offensive and extremely offensive, Humanity would be stuck in the Stone Age for every time there has been a leap into the future we have to deal with those who feel offended by evolution.

As a Catholic, I reject the Catholic Church as a political, often repressive and hierarchical institution that in many respects has been guilty of the worst atrocities in human history. The Earth is not the centre of the Universe despite the fact that Galileo Galilei was arrested and forced to explain himself in front of an Inquisition. 

We would be living with the unnecessary threat of deadly illnesses and still believing that bleeding a human being is the way to get rid of the said illnesses if people had not gone out of the way and risked their lives to dissect human corpses to get to know about the human body and the bodily functions of the human body. 

We cannot know the full truth about conflicts happening in our time but there are those who issue laws and promote fear to prevent people from inquiring and researching to get a better picture of what really happened and what is really happening. For many years, the German Wehrmacht was blamed for the execution of Polish officers. It was easy to blame Germany for it because after all Germany had been defeated in war and the Soviet Union was the winning partner although the partnership soon came to an end with the beginning of the Cold War. The Polish soldiers had actually being executed by Soviet Soldiers following Stalin's orders, the same Stalin that decimated by the Soviet Army by executing practically all high ranking officers of the Soviet Army to the point that the Soviets faced catastrophic defeats both when fighting Finland and Japan.

There isn't one version of history. In fact, there is one version of every conflict for every individual involved or affected by it and not even the most capable historian would be physically capable of understanding and knowing the full extent of a single conflict, let alone the complexity of  what we know as World War Two. The number of those who perished is absolutely irrelevant and in any case nobody can honestly say that he or she knows exactly how many died, how the died and in some cases not even where they died because they just vanished in the widespread mess of war.

To accuse Alison Chabloz of being a Holocaust Denier is an insult. She doesn't deny that Jews and others were persecuted. She expressly stated in court and outside the courtroom that she never denied that persecution and killings happened. She questions the means and the numbers and there is a living human being who could state without a shadow of a doubt that he or she knows how, where and how many people lost their lives but, once again, Intolerance and Stupidity get on the way - sometimes in a very threatening and forceful manner on the way of those who want to get a better picture of what really happened.

If as Humanity we are stuck with myths and half-truths, we are going to be deprived of a fundamental freedom that it is the freedom to find the truth and the freedom to evolve. Socrates didn't go to his death for nothing. He chose to drank poison and die because he was dying for a fundamental principle. Socrates stated: Say something and I will prove that you are wrong. Say the opposite and I will prove that you are wrong. But some of those who say that they admire Socrates are the first ones to pass laws to prevent individuals from questioning official versions of events. Another great philosopher - Descartes - said "I think, therefore I exist". We exist because of the capacity to think and our thinking must not be dictated by intolerant idiots that want to force us to accept myths and mythology.