Concerning Martin Luther: Scapegoat for Laymen and the Credulous

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I am not a Christian: however, Catholics bashing on Luther is an instant give-away to the fact that these Catholics know only the most basic and cursory history of the Reformation or of the Medieval Church, and that they themselves have not bothered to actually investigate, relying solely on surface-level knowledge.

First of all, Luther was not particularly 'responsible' for the Reformation: his ideas were not unique (many would-be reformers with similar ideas had independently of each other risen only to be quashed since the 13th century - from the Cathars to Waldensians to the Bogomils/Paulicians and the Hussites and the Lollards). As such, Luther was merely riding on a current, simply articulating sentiments that were already extant and prevalent. He was not even the only reformer at the time.

Second: why bash Luther so much, but not Calvin or Zwingli or Oekolampad or Servetus, or, going back, people like Wyfcliffe or Jan Huss, who were infinitely much more 'radical'? Luther was comparatively conservative - he established an institutionalized church body with a clergy (in contrast to many movements that saw a call to return to a style of popular but unofficial preaching), explicitly avoided extreme change, based his Lutheran liturgy on the Catholic service he had known and retained various elements from it; he stuck with the Catholic doctrine of the real presence, and for most of his life was attacked by other Reformers for being too "Catholic" and not revolutionary enough.

It's just plain lack of historical knowledge or the context of his life.

t.atheist