About the ideas of our forefathers.
I was not saying that we need to embrace them. Only remember them... If you lived when they did, you would also believe things that seem crazy now.
It is too easy to pick out examples of things from history that are horrific. But right next to those ideas and events you mentioned are also some great ideals.
I am not even French, and I have a great love for some things that came from France. I mentioned Charlemagne before. Sure he was a man, he did some bad things (by our standards today) but he also did some great things that history will remember forever.
We can not judge history by modernity. We must understand it in its own context.
Those things that were done, that you mentioned, they were done in an effort to make scene of reality. They were wrong, but the goal was not wrong.
The man in the story in the OP, lost all connection with history, and thus with reality. He did not remember that he was a man, and so he stopped behaving as one.
The crimes of the church that you mentioned lead us from complacency, they lead us to Calvin and Luther, who lead us to freedom. If the things you mentioned did not happen, there would have been no improvement. You would still be just like our ancestors.
The sins of our Fathers are as much a part of us as any good thing they ever did. Remember them.
History shows us very clearly, every nation who forget their fathers, falls.
