"Justification by Faith" vs. "The Spark for the Reformation; Indulgences"

The two of these religious points of view are very opposite of each other. 

Martin Luther lived on the brighter side of life he believed that by just believing in God, your sins will be forgiven/earning salvation. He said that God was a caring and loving person and that you don’t have to waste and destroy your own life to be forgiven for your sins. He had believed you do not have to serve the church to earn salvation. Justification by faith was believing in God, and for that being forgiven for sins, but not believing you will always be forgiven.“The offering of [the body] is called a spiritual sacrifice because it is freely sacrificed through the Spirit, the Christian being uninfluenced by the constraints of the Low or the fear of hell.” (The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. IV, "First Sunday after Epiphany," p. 10)

Then on the other hand we have the complete opposite, Johan Tetzel, the one who believed God was a negative person. God was a mean and harsh observer. He claims that you must be his slave to earn salvation. All humans are sins, therefore he thought that with any deed you do you will spend 7 years in purgatory. All these facts of this evil God people were scared so they accepted Tetzel’s offer; indulgences. They were too scared not to buy any. Tetzel states that this piece of paper releases you from a sin, because really you have no other chance of NOT spending 7 years of purgatory aside from buying a indulgent.

“As soon as the gold in the casket rings; the rescued soul to heaven springs”-Johan Tetzel (famous claim)

Martin Luther Hero or Heretic?

We all have different opinions on this particular topic, and both sides have quite a lot of evidence to them. It's hard not to sit on the fence, but there is one side that does seem stronger to me, and maybe that is only because I looked into it more then I had looked into the fact that he was a heretic. I would say he was somewhat a hero. 

Martin Luther showed interest in the church. He was following the church rules, until he started to question it in quite logical ways. In the middle ages, the rule of the Roman Catholic Church was absolute. They also limited access to the Bible, insisted that masses be held in Latin and that prayers were to be said only in Latin (there were cultures that would burn a person at the stake for teaching their children prayers in their native language). Luther didn't want this to go on, he wanted to translate the Bible into his own language (German) so that more people can have the privilege to read and interpret the Bible however they wanted to. Before the Holy Scripture was translated people had only followed religion out of culture, and because the church had ultimate power. The result was that by keeping the masses ignorant, a priest could teach its parishioners anything they wanted to teach. A true hero would fight for his and other people’s rights to interpret the church, religion and Bible on there very own. This is one of the reasons why Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation when he posted his list on the church door (95 Thesis). He realized that the church had strayed from the original teachings of scriptures, because they were overwhelmed with the power and they knew that they couldn’t risk the power.
His interpretations on the church were only later adapted. After he was thrown in jail by Pope Leo X, he finally escaped and went to Germany to translate the Bible. When Martin Luther died Pope Leo III accepted some of his rules. So technically they waited for him to die to accept his rules and thoughts, that’s being hypocritical, so really they don’t have the right to call him a heretic when they are being ones themselves. The Church was hypocritical in the sense that they accused Martin Luther of heresy for questioning the church and for his beliefs. And then later they outlawed themselves during the Catholic Reformation. Pope Leo X was also quite a heretic himself; there are many quotes that can easily prove his heresy.
Martin Luther stands accused as a heretic yet who is the Church to call him a heretic when they were corrupt and heretics themselves. "How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ has been for us".  - Pope Leo X, the man who convicted Luther for heresy is going against the Church and calling it a lie! Luther tried to reform the Church and in the process started the Protestant Revolution. He cried out against indulgences and the sale of positions


Martin Luther was a true hero, because he didn't care about the power or the attention, he wanted to get his idea across, even though they locked him up sometimes, he was still a fighter for his and other peoples rights.
(Some information used from our debate note sheet.)

"Blood alone moves the wheels of history." - Martin Luther

We would say that in this qoute there is a metaphorical meaning behind it. When we say blood we mainly mean, the family roots. This qoute is saying the moving of every generation keeps history going and moving. History will never stop as long as we keep the human race going. Some people will always stay remembered, and they are of certain blood, his/her ancestors are keeping thehistory going, and keeping family history. Blood is representing somehting living. Us humans created history, and we will alwyas keep history, we wrote history, we know history. We are history and that is why we keep it going! 

The Sale of Grade Points

School, what is school really? School is made for educational reasons mainly. School makes us become informed citizeen, increase apreciation in art, tradition, culture, teach problem solving, and open up our minds to creativity, and many other reasons. School makes us become something we mainly want to be in the future, but you have to wok your way through to get to your goal. But what if really there was a somewhat easier way to become something you want to be by doing nothing, absoulutely nothing, just giving away money to the head of the school. Easy way to get through. We all know many rich people will succeed with whatever grade they graduate with, mainly becuase they have monye, and they dont have to work for it because its already there. Well the "ISB Indulgences" is the easy way to get out. You pay for a certificate to make up for the bad grade you got on a test or essay or pop quiz, or whatever. For 1,000 you can perfect your score in anything. That is how it was in the Church during the Renassaince period. If you had done somehting horrible, most of the people would go to the church and sin. But when the renassaince started the church was loosing power, inlcuding money. So they created indulgences, which were certificates that was a reminission of temporal punishment, many people believed that if you get a certifacate then its really something, it is not just a confirmation. With this the church was gaingin money just like our school attempted to!

The worlds a stage- William Shakspeare

This quote has different meanings and interpretations. I must say I agree with it. This quote to me means that people can play any role in there life. They can lie throughout there hole life, they can choose to be themselves as well, and there you create a character, a character on stage, and i think in this quote the stage represents life. Life is the stage, and you will choose how to show off your character, because really when we watch a play we discover who someone is acting as through his/her actions. And the actions in real life you represent yourself with will tell people who you are.
Another interpretation that i made is, plays that are played on stage are a series of events, just likke our life. Our life is full of "stages (lives)" that are different, and thats what i think this quote is trying ot tell us. We go through various stages in our life (infancy, childhood, love stories, education, soldier, justice, old age, etc.)
Also another interpretation on this quote is, manipulation. There is a lot of it these days, and it always existed, and always will. What I am trying to say here is that human beings are now treated like puppets, and are manipulated to do things they are not wishing to do, as if it were a human puppet show.
I think this quote applies to everyone, that is why i like it, everybody has different stages, and different changes observed or noticed by others whether the "actor" thinks there alone or not.

The end justifies the means

Doesn't matter what you do as long as the outcome is your wished result. This quote is not always true. Because it can be covered as both good and bad things. the final outcome becomes the reflection of your earlier acitons. For example, if the goal your trying to achieve are negative, you should not try to approach it that way. This qoute does make sense, and is true, but it can be considered as both positive and negative.
The person who wrote this quote was Machiavelli,  a man that was very negative about liufe, and believed in fear and hate. Based upon this fact we can say that this qoute cannot be placed as a ALL- situation quote.

Outer Beauty is the True Sign of Inner Goodness

I strongly disagree with this quote because your outer doesn't reflect the beauty you contain inside you. Outer doesn't reflect on your character. Outer beauty is something your born with. And character is something you choose to be, and someone you want to be. You can choose to be nice to someone, or mean to certain people, but you cannot change you outer beauty in any means (in those days at least). You can change you outer beauty, but the inner goodness is the true sign of beauty. The beauty you have inside you can make up for the outer flaws.