lol. well...1999.

Y'know, some of my most irreconcilable differences with Catholicism rest with aspects of the Papacy, but darned if I don't think I like Benedict more than any Pope in my lifetime. He's got a pair, and is largely unapologetic for having the courage of his convictions. I don't know that me sitting down to discuss religion with him is a real good idea, but I wouldn't mind having a beer with him.

And if you're in to fucking children he can find a place where you'll never be held accountable.

Heck of a guy.

Not to mention his incredibly selective memory regarding the Nazi's being aetheists ... would have come as quite a shock to Hitler ..

Awesome video of Christine O'Donnell and Eddie Izzard on Politically Incorrect. Has everything. My fav "we took the bible and prayer out of schools, now we have weekly shootings."

You misread Jon's post (slightly).

"There's nothing I'm more certain of than my own religion, there's no level of proof that exceeds what a believer knows in their heart."

He says there is nothing that can exceed a believer's faith. Certain things can equal it, but nothing can surpass it. Faith in a Deity is just as high as anything else a believer can be certain in. So, to a believer, the reality of God is as real and certain as gravity.


Pining this simply on religious believers is problematic because this is quite common among all people. The masses, regardless of religious belief, don't do well with nuance. It's not because believers are all into cut-and-dry explanations, but because people are, in general, especially when the nuance will force them to give something up.

I THOUGHT she looked familiar!

Very much so.

I can only imagine that it rather sucks to have to interpret me, but FWIW, you're a pretty fair job of it & I appreciate it. You've gotten more than one of the points I was trying to make, although I have to admit I've been surprised by how difficult it seemed to be to do so, I really thought what I was saying (and the p.o.v. it was explaining) was pretty clear

For what it's worth, I did get that, but was mainly re-stating it as a stepping stone to the rest of my argument.


Again, I completely agree, but the point of my post wasn't to talk about the affect of nuance on the population in general, but for "believers" in specific and the knock-on ramifications I see from this.

The mass population will react to nuance and the gray areas of science in a myriad of ways. The "believers", will tend to react in pretty much the same way, and increasingly the way they're choosing to react is to simply question scientific principles and, by extension, scientists and intellectuals. Essentially it ends up being a pretty small step from not understanding the nuance found in complex science (or complex concepts for that matter), to just distrusting scientists (and, for that matter, intellectuals) on principle.

About those Hitler quotes...remember, this is Hitler we're talking about. He was a master at telling one group of people exactly what it wanted to hear, and then another group the exact opposite, because that was what the other group wanted to hear. That was especially the case in 1933-1938, when the Nazis had just seized power and were trying to consolidate it, and the risk of conservative or socialist/communist counter-revolution, or of successful foreign intervention, seemed real.

Telling clergy that he hated atheism doesn't mean that Hitler hated atheism--it means that, at that particular moment, it was to his political advantage to do so.

(Also worth remembering: although today we link terrorism and religion, historically, most terrorist organizations have been nationalist in orientation--and the real pioneers of modern terrorism were the late-19th-century Russian anarchists, all of them militant atheists).

Fwiw, I agree with your take on the pope's speech, and I agree that it is silly for believers in the USA to claim that they are persecuted or marginalized, when no candidate for political office could ever dare to admit to atheism, or even agnosticism, and hope to be elected.

Just trying to find the middle ground here ;)

I'm not saying anything about national persecution, I'm just talking about individuals in this thread (I think throwing out phrases like "fucking stupid" counts as lashing out, just one example) and the common sentiment expressed elsewhere, and I was just trying to articulate what that insecurity/bigotry might be based on.

And I always get annoyed by the high-and-mighty "figured it all out" atheist who thinks they're geniuses by referencing "science" and look down on anyone who doesn't follow that short, obvious, limited line of thinking.

Well it appears I didn't have to as flere understood it... but I don't mind interpreting you ;). Having been an atheist, I know that it can be incredibly hard to understand the mindset of a believer (and not just a nominal believer).

I don't think with him anyone truly knows where he stood on anything (beyond the fact that he had a ruthless lust for power and a totally heartless/evil approach to getting it).

However I do think the quotes justify at least questioning the Popes commentary that the Nazi's were aetheists.

Thats true enough, if you look at the French revolution you can see similar leanings in some of its members.

I'm not trying to argue a 'this way is best' with religion/aetheism/whatever* at all - just trying to indicate my disgust at the Popes speech and its obvious rabble rousing with what I consider as little regard to honesty.

*I'm generally fairly open on the fact that I don't know best - my wife is a devout Christian but I don't share her faith, my belief is simply that I don't know for sure ... I do the best I can and hope that if there is a God, he judges me fairly, after all he designed me to be overly logical and cynical so I deem it a bit harsh if he then punishes me for that ;)

You tend to give this line of thinking lip service but your prior posts give an entirely different tone.

And even this, to me, considering the source, just sounds like a Republican talking about blacks or gays. It's the same kind of prejudice, disdain, grouping - if these people have to exist with their "lifestyle", just keep it out of sight and out of your face. (I forget who it was a few page ago that insisted people of religion were the biggest problem in this country - you can just replace religion there with "minorities", "immigrants", "gays", and the conversation is the same, just a different flavor of bigotry.

I think that's a tad bit unfair. The believers who tend to make the news are the ones who may react that way, but there are plenty who don't... they just aren't interesting enough to be covered by the media.

It turns out Koran-burning preacher that scared the world had 30 members in his congregation. That's like the number of people in a really active game of werewolf.

Which again, is a problem with the fucking media in this country.

Haha. Speaking of which - I need to check the WW forum.

It's funny, but although I've always been basically and atheist or at most an agnostic, I don't feel I've ever had a lot of trouble understanding the mindset of a believer, even a true believer. In fact, I find it easier to understand the mindset of a true believer than, say, one whose belief is not quite as strong but still there.

Additionally, I don't think they're any less of a person than I, or operating in some sort of fantasyland, or otherwise. Some are clearly misguided, such as those who come to conclusions clearly contradictory to their espoused beliefs, or those who ignore basic aspects of reality, but that's true of people of all stripes, including atheists.

It saddens me, though, that I'm often not afforded the same level of respect by these believers. And it's not as if I'm a militant atheist or something. I often get the impression that I'm being condescended to, that they think I'm some sort of "poor lost sheep" or whatnot. Well, I'm not a poor lost sheep anymore than you're (the general, hypothetical "you") a brainwashed simpleton, so let's knock it off, shall we?

I think that's how we get a lot of this:

"We should do X because that's what God wants."

"Well, I don't believe in God."

"Then any rationale you might have is immediately suspect."

"My rationale? Mine's based on rational thought, as opposed to a belief in something that doesn't exist!"

"You're going to burn in hell!"

"You're a moron!"

Etc....

Increasingly often I think both sides simply go for each others' throats instead of trying to find common ground off of which to build, and we're all the poorer for it.

I agree it's a small (though increasing) number. But as you point out, it's not the balance of believers who make the news and thus control the direction of this dialogue with everyone else. And there are also several examples in key positions of power, which makes it all the worse.

Well, once again, it depends on the believers. In my experience the vast majority of believers aren't going to discount your opinion simply because you don't believe in God... or think "that's what God wants" is a suitable reason for public policy.

I think that's true, I think you just have to come at it with something more than a mocking attitude and incredulousness. If you think you're Bill Mahr and try to tear them down, don't be shocked if they don't always react in the best way. Expressing doubts (but with respect) gets you a lot further. Many religions make some accordance with the concept of doubt within their own followers.

And I don't see a lot of "what god wants" arguments being thrown around mainstream political debates. Experiences in religion might help to shape someone's values, but an atheist's experiences in their own "faith" will shape theirs. All of our ideas come from something.

In my experience, the best theological back and forth discussions I've ever had have been with Mormons. They seem so open to hearing and processing your points and making cogent arguments back.

As the only non-mormon male in my office I'd have to agree with this. They respect my love of booze and caffeine and I respect how really good at life they all seem to be (in their careers, families - they all just seem so happy and put together). And if they ran for office - the horrors, they would be mormons in government. They wouldn't leave their religion at home, any more than I would leave any of who I am at home.

Hitler was catholic, not atheist. He was also very consistent in mentioning god and invoking gods name, from Mein Kampf, his speechs and up until he was dead.

As far as the russian anarchists are concerned, it's possible some of them might have been atheists, however, it is irrelevant due to the fact that their cause was not in the name of atheism or for atheism. It would be great if you could provide a source for that info. I've never heard of any russian revolutionary or anarchist movement being atheistic in nature and or its motivation.

Anarchism & communism is not atheism.

Wasn't he into a kind of pagan Christiantiy, where he was all obsessed with relics and their secret powers? Or have I watched too many history channel specials of questionable accuracy?

No one really knows what Hitler's private beliefs were.
In public Hitler followed what he thought was politically expedient.

Not necessarily Hitler, but the SS certainly was. It was part of their whole like...building a mystique and an aura around the organization.

If Hitler was an atheist kindly explain the Indiana Jones films.

All this Hitler talk makes me nostalgic for the historical drafts

Awww...historical drafts!!

He did think that his plans were from some divine providence from what I can remember off the top of my head, that's probably not the exact quote, but, it's along those lines. But it also had to do with the Aryans rising up and taking what was 'rightfully theirs'. I guess some of the stuff that he did could be considered paganish, but, christianity adopted a few things from paganism anyway, so, it's hard to say really. He definitely was not a every sunday church attendee though.



True, to a point. I think Mein Kampf was a pretty good look into the mind of Hitler:

"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator." Mein Kampf, pp. 46

"This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief." Mein Kampf, pp.152

"Catholics and Protestants are fighting with one another... while the enemy of Aryan humanity and all Christendom is laughing up his sleeve." Mein Kampf, pp.309

"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so" Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941

"I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker." Adolf Hitler, Speech, 15 March 1936, Munich, Germany

And in 1933, he outlawed atheist and free thought groups in Germany.

Regardless though if he was catholic or atheist, the dude was pure evil and I've never associated his actions with his religion. He was in it for himself, first and foremost and his religion was probably secondary (at most) to his motives.

Remember, that's why they opened up the Ark on that island, it was so they could get the Jewish ritual out of the way so they could open it before bringing it to Hitler. :D

I think JiMGA is probably creaming at the thought that the Obama thread has turned into a thread about Hitler...

Interesting.

"The best thing, is to let Christianity die a natural death. A slow death has something comforting to it. The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science." - Hitler, October 1941

"Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of human failure," and "Christianity is a prototype of Bolshevism: the mobilization by the Jew of the masses of slaves with the object of undermining society."

Christianity was a drug, a kind of sickness: "let's be the only people who are immunized against this disease."

Hitler emphasized again and again his belief that Nazism was a secular ideology founded on modern science. Science, he declared, would easily destroy the last remaining vestiges of superstition. - from Richard J. Evans' "The Third Reich at War"

He kinda seemed to embrace a civic religion. A faith to unite the country.

I would venture to say that Hitler was as much a Catholic as a modern day politician is what his constituents want him to be.

It's also interesting to note that while Hitler was huge into Lebensraum for his people and that was part of the reason they invaded Russia, the overwhelming reason for the war was, as others have noted, his belief that others (basically Jews, gypsies, the mentally deficient, Negroes, etc.) were below them on the evolutionary chain and that Germany/Aryans deserved to rule the world. Nazism itself was big on eugenics, survival of the fittest (and, in fact, a lot of American science embraced eugenics at the beginning of the century) and Darwinistic theory. That's one of the reasons he never surrendered - he thought it was the German's own fault they lost the war and their weakness will result in them "getting what's coming" to them.

I just find it ironic that these thoughts are never given the label of "war starter", like religion is. We can say a great many wars are fought on religious lines (and, of course, I can name many examples where religion had nothing to do with a war), but it's interesting to note that an ideology built on early 20th century science caused a war that decimated approximately 60 million people.

I don't recall any particular link between anarchist & religion, but at least the Marxist-Leninist version of communism was pretty clear on the subject.

In Religion, Lenin wrote Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism.

And in the popular Bolshevik propaganda book from the Russian Civil War, ABC of Communism, we find "Communism is incompatible with religious faith"

Oh that crazy Hitler saying contradictory stuff again. It is not a secret that he contradicted himself often. One thing he never said though, was that he was atheist.

From wikipedia:

Speech to the Stuttgart February 15, 1933: "Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany’s fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity. Fourteen years they have gone arm in arm with atheism. At no time was greater damage ever done to Christianity than in those years when the Christian parties ruled side by side with those who denied the very existence of God. Germany's entire cultural life was shattered and contaminated in this period. It shall be our task to burn out these manifestations of degeneracy in literature, theater, schools, and the press—that is, in our entire culture—and to eliminate the poison which has been permeating every facet of our lives for these past fourteen years."

To the extent he believed in a divinity, Hitler did not believe in a "remote, rationalist divinity" but in an "active deity," which he frequently referred to as "Creator" or "Providence". In Hitler's belief God created a world in which different races fought each other for survival as depicted by Arthur de Gobineau.

Goebbels notes in a diary entry in 1939 a conversation in which Hitler had "expressed his revulsion against Christianity. He wished that the time were ripe for him to be able to openly express that. Christianity had corrupted and infected the entire world of antiquity."

Hitler's private statements about Christianity were often conflicting. Hitler's intimates, such as Joseph Goebbels, Albert Speer, and Martin Bormann suggest that Hitler generally had negative opinions of religion, although the historical validity of some remarks has been questioned, particularly the English translation of Hitler's Table Talk. Historian Ian Kershaw remarked upon the questionable nature of Table Talk as a source, stating "the `table talk’ monologues of the last months (the so called `bunkergespräche’) of which no German text has ever been brought to light must be treated with due caution." Historian Richard Carrier goes further, contending that certain portions of Table Talk — especially those regarding Hitler's hostility of Christianity — are poor mistranslations. Carrier states that Hitler was criticizing Catholicism in particular, while remaining entirely religious. Albert Speer confirmed the authenticity of Henry Picker's German transcripts, which was published in 1951 as Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier. Carrier states, "It is clear that Picker and Jochmann have the correct text and Trevor-Roper's is entirely untrustworthy."

So which Hitler do you choose? The religious, god invoking Hitler or the Hitler that never even hinted that he was even remotely atheist?

Because that's not why the war was started. This sounds eerily like something a creationist/IDer would say.


Wikipedia:
Anarchism in Russia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - No where does it state that it had anything to do with atheism and not all were associated with religion.


Yes, Lenin was atheist. However, I'm struggling to find that any of his motivations were due to his atheism. I would say, if you wanted to pick someone who DID actively promote atheism, that would be Stalin.


Yes, communism is incompatible with religious faith, no doubt about it, due to communism relying on the fact that any competition to the state is a threat.

Marx was an athiest.

But then again, as I would take so many pains to point out, Marx wasn't a communist. And Communism/Stalinism wasn't Marxism.

I choose the skilled politician Hitler, who knew that his constituency was 95% Catholic/Protestant, and could use religion as a reason for the masses to accept the impending war with "godless" Bolshevism.

Ok, help me out here - why did it start? Nationalism, expansionism, racism, etc. Much of it was born out of the Nazi ideology which was born out of a racist, survival of the fittest message.

I agree with that and having the luck to be at the right place at the right time to promote himself as the person that would bring Germany back to power and glory.

Umm ... that's pretty much what I said, that I didn't recall any particular link between anarchists & atheism.

We get it JK. You're a rebel, a renegade, you fear nothing, you love to stir the pot, you're the all-american badass, but next time how about you climb down off your fucking anti-religion high horse & read what I wrote, m'kay?

Nationalism is not Darwinism, expansionism is not Darwinism, racism is not Darwinism, Darwinism is not atheism and the only thing close to the 'survival of the fittest' in Nazi Germany, was purging the German land of non Aryan blood to promote the master race. I guess if you read into that, you could say, that looks a lot like Darwinism, but, that's just not true.

There are things that Darwin wrote about that have proven to be false. A lot of what he wrote about (regarding 'On the Origins of Species' and the theory of natural selection) was correct. However, none of it promoted any kind of framework or guidelines for a society, even though people have tried to use it in such a way. I think if you want attribute anything to what the Nazis did concerning eugenics, it would be more that they were following Mendelian genetics.

Darwin said in the Decent of Man: "'aiding the weak to survive and have families could lose the benefits of natural selection', but cautioned that withholding such aid would endanger the instinct of sympathy, 'the noblest part of our nature', and factors such as education could be more important." Sympathy, not being a word I would associate with Hitler and the Nazis.

Why did the war start? Because Germany was lead by a crazy lunatic that wanted to dominate the world with an Aryan race. Not because of atheism, darwinism, catholicism or any ism. It wasn't a religious war and it wasn't an atheist war.

Reading what I wrote, I meant to say: "But, no where does it..."

The great thing about being on my 'fucking anti-religion high horse' is, that I can read quite clearly what people write. It's a great view actually. Context Jon, context. The argument being: was Hitler a catholic or atheist and that some of the russian revolutions were atheist in motivation. Reading back through the posts, I see no 'anti-religious' quotes other than ones attributed to Hitler.

Funny, you don't seem to have a problem with the other two items of yours that I responded to. It's cool though, I do selective reading sometimes too.

There could be an interesting turn of events in the Alaska Senatorial race, as it sounds like Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who was defeated in the primary by Tea Party/Palin candidate Joe Miller, is going to run as a write-in candidate.

If she decides to run and stays in the race, it could be enough to swing the election in favor of the Democratic nominee. If I am not mistaken, there is no love lost between the Murkowski family and Palin.

?

Wait until his "Democrats are full of shit" mailer.