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The VERY Strange Trend Where People Murdered To Be Executed

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Rating: 4.5; Vote: 2

A soldier shooting a sailor on the street in broad daylight, a mother bumping off her entire family, a description of the new Purge movie? Actually, a real-life crime wave that swept through Europe in the 17th and 18th century, all in the name of eternal salvation. But what the heck would possess someone to do something so heinous? Well, today, we're unpacking the strange trend that had people committing murder just to be executed. But before we get started, we're dying for you to subscribe to the Weird History Channel. Then head down into the comments, and let us know what other strange historical trends you want to know about. For now, let's kill some time with history. Medieval Christians argued about a lot, but they could all agree on one thing. if you off yourself, you are damned to hell. So the laws around it were written accordingly. Before the word suicide entered the nomenclature in 1651, the act was simply known as self murder, and like any other crime of that nature, the penalties were harsh. In the sixth century, Christians decreed that to whack your body was to whack your soul, a religious crime worse than any capital offense. Canon law even made it illegal to give victims of self euthanasia a Christian burial. But you could probably still get one in Vegas. And then there was Dante, who wrote in his Inferno that violence against the self is worse than violence against others. In his story, victims of self-inflicted harm are condemned to live as twisted trees, deprived of the bodies they had on Earth, as if the ents in Lord of the Rings weren't sad enough. There wasn't just a religious push against self harm, either. Harsh laws against the act came into action by the 16th and 17th centuries. Back in 1544, for instance, English judge Sir James Hales took his own life after being forced to convert from Protestantism to Catholicism. This act got him a scarlet letter C for criminal after it was declared the, "forfeiture of the goods and chattels, real and personal, of Sir James Shelnutt have relation to the act done in his lifetime". In short, Sir Hales took himself out, and the crown took all his property as punishment. The justification was that is a crime against the state. And therefore, the threat of taking one's possessions would be enough to prevent altogether. Geez. Ben Franklin talked about death and taxes, not death with taxes. Martin Luther was a religious reformer who founded the first Protestant denomination Lutheranism. But he also named it after himself, so maybe he wasn't as into reform as he claimed. And if naming an entire religious sect after himself didn't raise enough eyebrows, the dude practically revolutionized the trend of fatal crimes that swept through Europe's Lutheran countries, especially Denmark. Scholar Tyge Krogh tells us that Luther promoted an extremely literal interpretation of the Old Testament. Unfortunately, the Old Testament God was really ticked off most of the time and would occasionally wipe out a bunch of people he was mad at. To Luther, the text was clear. If you off somebody, even yourself, you can expect the most extreme punishment, which, on Earth, is generally considered to be execution. However, offenders who repent their sins could be rescued from the lakes of fire and suffering. This resulted in hundreds and potentially even thousands of cases of people whacking each other in Denmark alone. The penalty for such an act was almost always death by execution, which sounds a bit redundant when you look at what they were trying to prevent. But the big difference between murder and suicide in the minds of 17th century Europeans was that murderers could beg for forgiveness just before their execution, sending them straight to heaven instead of hell, like pulling an Uno reverse card just when you're about to lose. But despite their protest, the government's plan worked, and the wave of offing thee to off me finally ended. So what do you think? Was this trend totally crazy? Or did it make some kind of crazy sense?
Date: 2024-02-07

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Comments and reviews: 10

dynad00d15
Religion beliefs sometimes goes way off course of the main purpose: Spirituality is supposed to be like a soothing cloak for the anxiety that life provokes. To provide some relief so that one can keep moving on it's day to day life.
Religious leaders made the lives of their followers so restrained that the pressure added to all the stress they were subject to, just made the people snap.
And it's not because they had a choice either! Being an atheist in those days was even worse because they would socially rejected and considered on the same level as criminals by their peers.
Life was hard, back then. Real hard.
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DrumWild
Typical of Christians to ignore one of their Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill.
Anyone who still buys into that scam isn't stopping to think for themselves. Superstitious and afraid is no way to go through life. Grown adults should know better.
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longsnoutpug7248
Dude, James Hales taking his own life after being forced to convert from Protestantism to Catholicism makes me think of what it would be like if a far right person would be forced into far left and vice versa nowadays.
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longsnoutpug7248
Person commiting suicide due to depression cause it wasn't diagnosable cause it wasn't a thing they did back in the day:
People then: you are a criminal and your body is gonna be taken apart and spat on
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btetschner
Eating ANOTHER Weird History meal!
Eating HAMBURGER HELPER DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER MACARONI. while watching this Weird History video!
From the Weird History video The White-Gloved History of Hamburger Helper
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weird_history
Martin Luther didn't give the lutherans that name it was used as an insult by the other types of Christians in the beginning I like oh my god there goes a bunch of those crazy lutherans and it just stuck
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Wolf-Odonnell
Great topic but some enthusiasm on the script reading would help bring this up to the bar set by the OG narrator. I hope you keep it up!
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Rezolv.
But you talk alot about Catholism and Christianity. Which states that demonic possession is very real. And make people do unnatural acts.
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ThirtytwoJ
Sooo theyve always been hypocritical, psychotic, and delusional. Not to mention i see a lot of blind belief like modern wokeism
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weird_history
Isn't there enough censorship on yt without self censoring The bleeps are irritating and condescending. so is the narrator.
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