Pope associates atheism with Nazis

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Pope associates atheism with Nazis

Post by Dardedar »

Well this does it, I am done with this guy.

The Pope made his remarks in his opening address to the Queen at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.

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He said: "Even in our own lifetimes we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live.

"As we reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny."

A statement from the British Humanist Association said the Pope's remarks were "surreal".

It said: "The notion that it was the atheism of Nazis that led to their extremist and hateful views or that it somehow fuels intolerance in Britain today is a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God.

"The notion that it is non-religious people in the UK today who want to force their views on others, coming from a man whose organisation exerts itself internationally to impose its narrow and exclusive form of morality and undermine the human rights of women, children, gay people and many others, is surreal."

The rest at BBC News

A most excellent summary of the evidence for the Nazi/Christianity connection can be viewed here.
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Re: Pope associates atheism with Nazis

Post by Dardedar »

More on the evidence for the Nazi/Christianity connection can be viewed here:

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/ ... _23_4.html

And:

http://www.evilbible.com/hitler_was_christian.htm

Read a debate about it here:

http://www.debate.org/debates/Hitler-wa ... deolgy./1/

The only thing that appears to have some merit is some of the Table Talk quotes, attributed to Hitler that some Christians like to pass around. Historian Richard Carrier demolishes this here.

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Re: Pope associates atheism with Nazis

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Dawkins responds:
“Despicable outrage,” Dawkins howled, describing himself as “incandescent with rage” as he called for a letter-writing campaign against the pope, to the papers and British Broadcasting Company. Dawkins writes: Even if Hitler had been an atheist, his political philosophy was not based upon atheism and had no connection with atheism. Hitler was arguably (and by his own account) a Roman Catholic. In any case he enjoyed the open support of many of the most senior catholic clergy in Germany and the less demonstrative support of Pope Pius XII. Even if Hitler had been an atheist (he certainly was not), the rank and file Germans who carried out the attempted extermination of the Jews were Christians, almost to a man: either Catholic or Lutheran, primed to their anti-Semitism by centuries of Catholic propaganda about ‘Christ-killers’ and by Martin Luther’s own seething hatred of the Jews. To mention Ratzinger’s membership of the Hitler Youth might be thought to be fighting dirty, but my feeling is that the gloves are off after this disgraceful paragraph by the pope.
From Skeptic Money

Dawkins schools the pope
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Re: Pope associates atheism with Nazis

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As seen on Skeptic Money

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The poster was printed for the Reichstag election of 12 November 1933, when voters were already being presented with a single list of candidates to be approved or rejected as a group: the “Hitler list”. The poster is titled “Why is a Catholic obliged to vote for the parliamentary list of Adolf Hitler?” It answers this question by enumerating the benefits to the Church of the concordat negotiated by Pius XII, and signed just months before.

Naturally, the poster doesn’t mention that the Reichskonkordat also contained a Secret Supplement providing for a future German mobilisation, in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles. The secret part of the concordat indicates that already in 1933 the Pope expected Germany to go to war against Russia. And a recently discovered letter shows that ten years later, when this indeed happened, Pius hoped for a German victory. It was a marriage of convenience: Pius got a favourable concordat and a German army to fight Communism, whilst Hitler got the “Catholic vote” to help bring him to power.

And it worked. The German voters had no idea that their Führer and their Pope were conspiring to send them off to war. In the November 1933 election 93% of the unspoiled ballots approved the Nazi decision to withdraw from the League of Nations and 92% endorsed the “Hitler list”. This election doomed the Reichstag to political insignificance. Now posted online for the first time is a clear photo and an English translation of Hitler’s fateful pink election poster.

Translation

Why is a Catholic obliged to vote for the parliamentary list of Adolf Hitler? Because in the National Socialist state intrinsically and through the Reichskonkordat

1. the Faith is protected,

2. peace with the Church is assured,

3. public morality is preserved,

4. Sunday is hallowed,

5. Catholic schools are maintained,

6. the Catholic conscience is no longer burdened,

7. a Catholic has equal rights before the law and in the life of the nation,

8. Catholic organisations and associations, insofar as they exclusively serve religious, charitable and cultural purposes, can operate freely.

Therefore a Catholic is obliged on 12 November [1933] to vote thus:

Referendum: yes

Parliamentary election: Adolf Hitler

Further reference here
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Re: Pope associates atheism with Nazis

Post by Buchmann »

I'm pretty sure the pope's argument/universal claim that all atheists are Nazis could be used to say all catholics (including the pope) are pedophiles.

Those of you with PhD's, what do you think? I haven't taken propositional logic in a year now but I'm pretty sure it's right :roll:
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Re: Pope associates atheism with Nazis

Post by Savonarola »

Buchmann wrote:I'm pretty sure the pope's argument/universal claim that all atheists are Nazis could be used to say all catholics (including the pope) are pedophiles.

Those of you with PhD's, what do you think? I haven't taken propositional logic in a year now but I'm pretty sure it's right :roll:
That would imply that a significant portion of atheists are Nazis, in the same way that a significant portion of Catholics are pedophiles. I don't think that the former is true.
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