Posted on 04/13/2009 8:09:17 PM PDT by PanzerKardinal
In an Easter sermon that has drawn widespread criticism, the Catholic bishop of Augsburg has linked the crimes committed under Nazi and Communist regimes to atheism. Atheist groups have reacted with fury and accuse the cleric of rewriting history.
A Catholic German bishop has come under fire for his remarks condemning atheists. In a sermon given on Easter Sunday, the bishop of Augsburg, Walter Mixa, warned of rising atheism in Germany. "Wherever God is denied or fought against, there people and their dignity will soon be denied and held in disregard," he said in the sermon. He also said that "a society without God is hell on earth" and quoted the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky: "If God does not exist, everything is permitted."
Most controversially, he linked the Nazi and Communist crimes to atheism. "In the last century, the godless regimes of Nazism and Communism, with their penal camps, their secret police and their mass murder, proved in a terrible way the inhumanity of atheism in practice." Christians and the Church were always the subject of "special persecution" under these systems, he said.
[...]
The Easter sermon was not the first time that Mixa has made comparisons to Nazism for rhetorical purposes. In February, the bishop compared the number of Jews murdered during the Holocaust with the number of abortions performed over the past decades, according to a newspaper report. The bishop's spokesman also responded to criticism of Mixa from Germany's leading Green Party politician, Claudia Roth, who called the bishop a "crazy über-fundamentalist," by comparing her words to Nazi propaganda.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
No, people who don’t believe in shared humanity, in the brotherhood of man are responsible for much of the atrocity. That includes not only atheists but other “exclusionists”. We can neither condemn nor exonerate atheists or any other group as a whole. There are bad religious folks and bad atheists, and good ones also.
Hitler inspired Germans to be Nazi's and kill Jews based on a number of appeals. Nationalism. Socialism. Antisemitism. Anticapitalism. etc.
But one cannot credibly deny that Hitler did use the traditional Christian grievances against Jews to whip up hatred against them. Thus one of the motivations for why the Nazi's killed Jews was that they thought they were, in Hitler's words, “avenging our Saviors blood upon the Cross”.
I'm a big believer in human solidarity; I believe it's manifestation in most people is more responsible for charity and the helping of fellow man than which ancient text you choose to hold up as divinely inspired.
There are bad religious folks and bad atheists, and good ones also.
True. There is one thing for sure about religious belief (and/or non-belief); it is never an automatic indicator for character or good nature.
Except anti Semitism isn't coming from Christians in Europe. I'm not sure if your multitude of posts is either a defense of atheism or a pre-emptive defense of evolution (which these posts usually turn into). In any even, the Nazi's were post Christian. Going to church doesn't make someone a christian any more than eating tuna fish makes someone a cat.
But you have done a wonderful job of diverting the subject.
But is it possible that he was actually trying to make the Nazis (and Communists) look bad by associating them with atheists?
I suppose if you're an atheist it amounts to the same thing, but what the bishop may have been doing was very common in mid-century America, when there were Communists and sympathizers with fascism, but very few admitted atheists.
"PanzerKardinal"? Creepy nickname. What gives?
But if someone goes to a Christian church and says they are Christian and is motivated to hate and kill Jews based upon “avenging our Saviors blood upon the Cross”; by what criteria are you claiming they are anything other than what they claim to be?
Were the Russian Christians who engaged in pogroms similarly “post Christian”?
The premise of the article was that the Nazis were inspired by atheism. The Nazis were very publicly ANTI atheism and claimed to have “stamped it out”.
I wouldn't, and didn't, say that.
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For you, brothers, became imitators of God's churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men ...-- Paul said that, blame St. Paul.
When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am innocent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your responsibility!"-- "Matthew" said that, blame "Matthew".
All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!"
Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.-- Jesus, or rather, "John" said it, blame "John".
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.-- Stephen, or rather "Luke" said that, blame "Luke"
"that from that time seditions and wars and mischievous plots followed each other in quick succession, and never ceased in the city and in all Judea until finally the siege of Vespasian overwhelmed them. Thus the divine vengeance overtook the Jews for the crimes which they dared to commit against Christ."-- Eusebius said that, blame Eusebius of Caesarea.
"The Jews who slew Him [Jesus], and would not believe in Him, because it behoved Him to die and rise again, were yet more miserably wasted by the Romans, and utterly rooted out from their kingdom, where aliens had already ruled over them, and were dispersed through the lands (so that indeed there is no place where they are not), and are thus by their own Scriptures a testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ."-- Augustine said that, blame St. Augustine.
"Shall I tell you of their plundering, their covetousness, their abandonment of the poor, their thefts, their cheating in trade? the whole day long will not be enough to give you an account of these things. ...-- John Chrysostom said that, blame St. John.
"But before I draw up my battle line against the Jews, I will be glad to talk to those who are members of our own body, those who seem to belong to our ranks although they observe the Jewish rites and make every effort to defend them. Because they do this, as I see it, they deserve a stronger condemnation than any Jew." ...
Are you Jews still disputing the question? Do you not see that you are condemned by the testimony of what Christ and the prophets predicted and which the facts have proved? But why should this surprise me? That is the kind of people you are. From the beginning you have been shameless and obstinate, ready to fight at all times against obvious facts."
"Hold most firmly and doubt not that not all the pagans, but also all the Jews, heretic and schismatics who depart from the present life outside the Catholic Church, are about to go into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."-- Fulgentius of Ruspe said that, blame St. Fulgentius
Permit me one more?
How about the most charming antisemitic evah, Martin Luther:
[The Jews are] "venomous beasts, vipers, disgusting scum, canders, devils incarnate. Their private houses must be destroyed and devastated, they could be lodged in stables. Let the magistrates burn their synagogues and let whatever escapes be covered with sand and mud. Let them force to work, and if this avails nothing, we will be compelled to expel them like dogs in order not to expose ourselves to incurring divine wrath and eternal damnation from the Jews and their lies." ...-- Martin Luther said that, blame Luther.
There is no other explanation for this than the one cited earlier from Moses — namely, that God has struck [the Jews] with 'madness and blindness and confusion of mind.' So we are even at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians which they shed for three hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the blood of the children they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them."
Oh, I agree.
I was merely pointing out the fallacy of anti-Christians using this tactic with such enthusiasm while claiming that it isn’t valid applied to them.
Many. All top Nazi's were occultists. The Nazi party arose from the occultic Thule Society. Hitler dedicated his book Mein Kampf to his occult mentor Dietrich Eckart. The Nazi's did not share identical occult beliefs. Hitler was not as big of a fan of Nordic occultism as was Himmler. Hitler appears to have passed through the Nordic occult phase and into black magic sometime prior to his rise to power. Himmler was the big proponent of Nordic occultism although Himmler also incorporated aspects of other occultic beliefs as well.
A person familiar with paganism and the occult should have no difficulty recognizing the trappings surrounding The Third Reich.
One example of occult services/ritualism is the SS history of Wewlsburg Castle.
Game. Set. Match.
"PanzerKardinal"? Creepy nickname. What gives?
x
LOL
Just come out and say it. You know you want to. I know you're just busting at the seams to say it. You'll feel better once you let it out. Don't hold back.
Honestly between you and me didn't you really want to say "That German Bishop is a McCarthyite!"
Don't you feel better now that it out?
I understand you don't want to be too obvious. By calling anyone a McCarthyite here, you might as well be seen wearing a IWW membership pin or singing the "Internationale".
But don't worry your secrets safe with me.
On the topic of my user name. You got me there.
I picked it out just so I could creep you out.
If you really want to know what it means, there's something called Google. And while you're at it you should also google the word snarky and the word troll.
Quotation from Leon trotsky’s last testament “For forty-three years of my conscious life I have remained a revolutionist; for forty-two of them I have fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to begin all over again I would of course try to avoid this or that mistake, but the main course of my life would remain unchanged. I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth. “
Interesting information. Thank you.
A million comments that blame the Jews for Christ's death will not make those comments the ONLY rationale that Hitler used for killing Jews.
As you must have noticed, I was not denying the fact that those statements have been made.
I was replying to a specific post by allmendream.
I don't agree with allmendream, that "The main tactics that Hitler DID use to drum up Jew hatred, was talk about them being responsible for Christs crucifixion."
I think Hitler drummed up racism and arguments that Jews were greedy.
As I said above, at least 2 times, Hitler used any argument he could against the Jews.
Now that's tagline-worthy right there!
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