This podcast mentioned the Anabaptist revolt within Munster, Germany near the middle of the podcast. This event began with the Anabaptist rebelling from the formal government of the city of Munster and forming their own communal sectarian government, although Dan Carlin viewed it as a sort of communist state. It began with a group of fairly influential people who got the impoverished to vote for their group in order to form a theocracy. Although it began pretty well, it ended up turning into a sort of dictatorship, with people being executed for not following certain laws or for just not necessarily believing in everything they were told. This became semi-normal for a certain bit of time until somebody staged for a fairly influential member to rise to power through the word of God. This all happened whilst the bishop of the area, who had been exiled, attempted to siege the town and reinstate Catholic law. All of the attempts were less than successful, with the Anabaptist fending them off and forcing them to retreat. After a certain point, the bishop starved out the city, allowing for a siege and execution of the main political leaders and other prominent leaders, which brought by the Catholic central power to the city.
The Anabaptist movement held quite a bit of inspiration from Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and other major reformation leaders. While Luther was not about the aggressive form of the reformation, he did teach that instead of a Pope deciding who goes to heaven, the bible should teach one how to be faithful and have an altruistic view to God. Those ideas were some of the major beliefs that the Anabaptist held, the idea that God is the one who decides whether a person should go to Heaven, not a priest or Pope. Zwingli had similar beliefs to Luther in the sense that the Church should not hold as much power as it did, although he was much more about the aggressive viewpoint of standing up for a person's beliefs with arms. This tied right in with the Anabaptist's views, where they literally put up battles with the bishop's armies, unlike Luther who tried to reason with the Church and get them to believe in his views, or at least accept them. Calvin was sort of the oddball out in this situation, until he came to lead his own theocracy. He was extremely passive and never straight up fought for his ideals, although he did with words on paper. Once he came into power, he became much like the dictatorship that sort of formed within Munster, where he would basically separate people from God unless they followed the laws that were enacted.
People generally did not accept the Anabaptist views and practices, and were pretty brutal with their backlash. They believed that children should not be baptized until they have the mental capacity to decide for themselves, which makes perfect sense if one thinks about it. Of course, nobody really thinks if it conflicts with their ideals, so what they would do is drown the person and call it their, "third baptism." This was considered comical, which was beyond cruel because they were basically killing people and insulting all they stood for with one fell swoop. Personally, I would not blame the Anabaptist when they adopted their radical beliefs, because they never truly got the chance to express their opinions without the possibility of execution. This rung out all across history, almost every radical vision began because of a minority's beliefs being oppressed or just straight up denied. It is just stunning that people just refuse to accept another person's point of view, and even go so far as to kill another just so they can prove a point almost.
I personally quite enjoyed the podcast overall, the content was elaborate, interesting, and he shed light on interesting points. Dan Carlin kind of reminded me of Martin Luther, in a sense that he could see that these acts were horrible, and he was able to express why they were. He not only made me think about how the people were given a brutal impediment in terms of thought production and reasoning, and how blessed modern culture is to have such a free and lavish way of thinking. Modern standards make things that some people went through in those days seem horrendous and grotesque, but they were the standards on the time. It was not uncommon to not know how to read, express one's beliefs, and even reason. I personally quite enjoyed the content, and I plan to listen to more of these. Some things that I disliked about the podcast were generally just hat I do not enjoy podcasts normally. They feel too long and the person speaking seems to just always ramble on for too long, but Dan kept my interest peaked throughout most of it, and I hope to listen to more of his stuff in the future.
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