Posted on 09/16/2010 10:59:51 AM PDT by Nachum
The Pope has compared ''atheist extremism'' to the Nazi tyranny of WWII in a speech given in Edinburgh as he begins a four-day visit to the UK. The pontiff praised Britain's fight against the Nazis - who ''wished to eradicate God'' - before relating it to modern day ''atheist extremism''. (snip) ''As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the 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,'' he added.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Just can't think of it.
The Pope is exactly right.
The atheists are not satisfied that they do not have to say a prayer; they will not be satisfied until they take that right and privilege away from everybody else.
Remarkable observation. If I had read this statement and didn't know who had said it, I'd have sworn it was from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
That description could rightly be applied to Lenin and Stalin and Mao, and is a part of communist ideology.
Hitler may have personally been an atheist but he tired to co-opt the Christian churches in Germany, not ban them. The Nazi party was not officially atheist, as the Communist Party (pretty much all of them) were.
I am not a Roman Catholic, but sometimes the Pope is right on and I vehemently agree with his comment. Secularism in the post-modern era can easily morph into some kind of oppressive regime... Unfortunately, we have already embarked on that path and this secular liberal hijack of our country can only be reversed when Jews and Christians stand up to this reverse-discrimination of the two greatest faiths and contributors to the development of western civilization, bar none.
Liberalism is truly a mental disorder and secularism ultimately leads to communism inevitably, in an effort where society needs to fill the gap that accountability and faith in a higher power so adequately fulfills.
I am more and more convinced of this with each passing day.
Hitler was an occultist and Nazism was an occultic ideology.
It’s not a strange connection at all. The pope’s point was that the end result is the same.
A lot of atheists certainly do seem unhealthily obsessed with controlling others’ beliefs. But saying it’s just because they’re evil, ill-willed Nazis is like a bad writer who can’t conceive of a character having more than one dimension.
I think a lot of atheists envy religious people, and long to take part the beauty, splendor, history, ritual, etc. of religion, but they think not being dead certain of the existence of God excludes them from it—they mistakenly think faith is the absence of doubt, when it is actually making peace with one’s doubts and choosing to believe in spite of them. Nevertheless, if they can’t have all that is wonderful about religion, they don’t want anyone else to have it, either.
Good article. This pope is an impressive man.
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.
No, it is spot on.
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."
Again, it is spot on. Aggressive atheism, which is what he is referring to, very much wants to dominate and exclude the God they don't believe in from the public square.
Hitler was a madman whose brain was being rotted away by syphilis.
My opinion of atheists is that they are sad or maybe even angry people who do not have anything in their lives to feel joy about or can look to in times of trouble. Maybe atheists just don’t have a productive enough life or are so empty that they cannot fathom or imagine something other than everything around is is not the result of some cosmic accident.
My opinion of atheists is that they are sad or maybe even angry people who do not have anything in their lives to feel joy about or can look to in times of trouble. Maybe atheists just don’t have a productive enough life or are so empty that they cannot fathom or imagine something other than everything around us is not the result of some cosmic accident.
The Pope is the most profound thinker in our world today. What he claims is absolutely true, and being a German, he understood the socialism and godlessness that prevailed in the corrupt Wiemar Republic—homosexuality was considered the “National Vice” of the Germans by every other Nation that had to deal with their diplomats. They were always warned. The brownshirts and leaders of the NAZI party were mostly homosexual or had other sexual perversions like Hitler and hated Christianity because it condemned them. Hitler made the State god. You have to consider a country like that as atheistic and amoral....it certainly was not Christian.
The Pope sounds exactly like our Founding fathers....the need to believe our rights come from the Creator, and for all the Founders, virtue was synonymous with happiness—you can’t have happiness without virtue—not possible.
The Catholic Church aligned their beliefs to Natural Law through the brilliance of Thomas Aquinas which is the foundation of all our laws and rights.
Things which are against Natural Law can NOT be sanctioned—it is understood that laws that go against Natural Law are unjust. Progressives lie and say that Natural Law can “evolve” just like the Constitution.
Most atheists are not overly concerned with what other people believe, and mostly just want to be left alone without having someone try to shove religion down their throat. As an atheist I’ve never had a problem with most religious folks, other than a few truly offensive ones, and never felt any particular desire to try to talk other people out of their faith. Unlike a lot of people on this forum, I don’t lump all religious people in with the relatively few who are truly aggressive or offensive. Not that we get much respect from a lot of those people, who would rather judge people by what they claim to believe than by their actions.
That Hitler had "issues" is beyond dispute but madman is a dangerously dismissive term used to describe a man who came very close to winning the war.
Absolutely. But the Pope is talking to us in the UK, and (like a gracious guest) is commending our part in the fight against the Nazis.
If he'd been visiting Finland, I guess he would have used the USSR as an example instead.
I hear you, and it is indeed profoundly dangerous to dismiss madmen. Some form of madnesses do not reduce a man’s power to do evil: rather they enhance them.
Hitler was (debatably) a paranoiac monomaniac who ruthlessly gained control of the German War Machine.
His madness made him more dangerous and capable. Whereas if he had believed he was a goldfish, he wouldn’t have been dangerous.
We can see this again today. Ahmadinejad is Hitler’s heir: a genocidal realist, paranoid and monomaniac. Is he safer because he is monomanically focused on destroying the Jews? Is he less able to do evil because he is a ‘magical’ thinker who believes that he is the central figure of Islamic prophecy?
Indeed not. We recognize that both men were less than men in certain ways: e.g. their reduced insight. But they possess (or possessed) the very qualities that make a man dangerous in war - and pitiable in peace.
Well written post. Thanks.
Well said as usual.
Regards,
AR
What did he say about Fundamentalist Muslims?
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