Free Republic

I see. So that means when my beliefs are associated with the causes of the Holocaust, and I am otherwise insulted, I'm supposed to lie down on the ground to be run over some more? Hey, that's a heck of a charitable xmas religeous expression.

No. I'm making a point. The so-called "fact" that Hitler was an athiest does not in any manner demonstrate that athiesm caused the Holocaust. Apparently, when the shoe gets on the other foot, the rules of causal logic are suddenly re-instated.

That's balderdash. Dawkins is a very mild mannered fellow of charitable disposition, who is not advocating any kind of strong armed tactics, legal, social, or otherwise, against those who disagree with him. Unlike the historical anticedents of his deponents.

I presume you haven't read this report, or you'd not be trying to present it as evidence. Go to any biography of Hitler, and you will discover that everything I mentioned is, in fact, the case. No amount of psychological or metaphysical vague allusions and conjectures, or appeals to his fairly normal levels of hypocracy and wavering of faith, counter the actual facts of the case. Hitler was raised catholic and anti-semitic, and pounded that gavel, appealing to the german public's christian anti-semitism, to the day he died. This is not bilious conjecture on my part, it is commonly accepted, well-documented historical fact.

Merry xmas to you too.

...or as ignorant as people who say that because Hitler, Mao, and Stalin were athiests, that athiesm caused their genocides? They probably all drank mother's milk as well. Does that mean mother's milk causes genocides?

But I consider the source

Sure you do. And the sun shines black.

My bilge is the truth, as attested to by most historians, the catholic church, and USarmy intelligence.

You missed the fun a month or two ago on the crevo threads when a bunch of folks left for Darwin Central. Some were atheists, some merely scientists, some both, some neither.

Which has what to do with anything here?

But there is a difference between getting flamed by a non-scientist who attacks evolution without knowing what it is, and quote-mines from discredited sources, and getting flamed for calling Christianity bullshit on Christmas Eve.

...and where did I do that exactly?

As I said, go over to Tehran and try that--Muslim countries are far further gone than the US, and pose a direct threat to all of the opinions you hold, as well as to any pluralistic society which would allow you to hold them.

...disagreeing with someone is not, per se, disrespectful. If you hold a belief concerning which you want, for example, laws passed, or textbooks altered, or family rituals, or, perhaps a bit to the point, cessation of usual web site rituals, enforced over the objections of other members, you can expect a demand for a rational argument, and a demand for mundane objective evidence, which it is inappropriate to dismiss as simply arising from the bowls of your deponent's foul disposition.

Uh huh.

The way he uses God though, seems to be more institutional

Yea. You don't think I can find a gob of christians just like that every sunday at my Mass? I don't see the church falling all over itself to disown them, any more than the catholic church ever disowned Hitler.

No. Why should there be? Atheists (whom I won't distinguish of agnostics unless somebody makes me) aren't trying to sell a belief in an invisible and immaterial entity--which might actually require some hefty pursuasion, unless you are preaching to the choir.

or does it consists entirely of making belittling and needlessly confrontational remarks to theists?

You mean like comparing my beliefs to those of Hitler--that sort of remark?

The commandment specifically enumerates manservants,... "or anything that is thy neighbors". How does this not say that the manservant in question does not "belong" to the neighbor. I think you are twisting in the wind to not see the obvious. And, by the way, I'd suggest you give yourself a brief refresh on Genesis, before you try to press this argument any further. Many of the laws of genesis, straight out of God's mouth, are concerning the treatment of slaves.

And you don't think I can find mounds of professing christians in every city in the US who've done exactly the same?

In later life, Hitler's religious beliefs present a discrepant picture

And you don't think I can find christians that have had various levels of commitment to their faith at various times?

Hitler also entertained people who celebrated pagan rituals dedicated to Woden, and featuring tree sprites. Do you think that means tree sprites really sponsored the holocaust?

Read what you posted. It does not challenge the following points: Hitler was a christian, raised on christian beliefs in perhaps the most anti-semitic country in the western world, at the time, and he obsessively, blatantly, appealed to that sentiment in his speeches and propaganda, as you can easily verify at most any WWII museum.

Hitler "once said" lots of things. Do you think you cease being a christian because you get drunk some evening and start railing against your priest and the underhanded way, say, the diocese hides it's child abusers? Hitler's speeches are repleat with pleadings aimed at christians to support his treatment of the jews. Hitler had plans toward the end to establish a state-sponsored christian church all would be required to attend. There is a prominant cross, with embedded religeous icons, right in front of his home at Eagle's Nest. He made a living, early in life, painting religeous themes from the bible. He aspired to be a priest, for goodness sakes. The claim that Hitler wasn't a christian has no legs in pursuasive material evidence. Tell you what though--if you refrain, as several here have not, from denegrating athiests because Hitler was an athiest, I'll drop the question.

Do we have to put up with the crap on Christmas Eve?

This "crap" happens to be what the catholic church has to say about the holocaust, by the way.

Truth is an adequate defense against charges of slander. How is it that we can put up a thread for the purposes of maligning athiests, but athiests can't argue back because it's xmas? You think there aren't atheists who are staunch supporters of Free Republic? You think they're supposed to lie down and take it while their beliefs are maligned?

So...I guess likewise, the proof that God's acolytes are insincere is that so few of them go off to Darfur to share their good news? Do you have numbers on this? Do you think the ratio of atheists serving in Iraq is smaller than the ratio of believers preaching and serving in Durfur? If so, you need to check in at the reality clinic for a few weeks.

All over genesis. Including the 10 commandments. Or do you think the rule against coveting a manservant means you can't hire someone for higher wages than he was getting elsewhere?

The buttons on the SS jackets with the pictures of a cross were official buttons. The pictures maintained at the holocaust memorial of SS troops attending holy mass took place at official churches. However much you may enjoy sticking your head in the sand, Hitler's catholicism is a fact documented in every one of his biographies, including that compiled by USarmy intelligence. There is no reasonable doubt that Hitler was a christian, and that the holocaust was materially fueled by christian sentiment toward the jews that was flagrantly anti-semitic in Lutheran and catholic germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Trying to dismiss this with a cheap, dismissive fluffball of an insult is whistling past the graveyard.

I got an advanced degree by writing programs that generate formal proofs--why don't you try me. I'll be happy to see your formal proof of any statement you've made so far. Good luck with that.

In Plato’s Euthyphro, Socrates advanced argument that piety to many gods, who all want conflicting devotions and/or actions from humans, is impossible. Socrates exposed pagan esoteric sophistry.

Indeed he did, and yet, for example, there are and were many people who accepted christian beliefs without abandoning other beliefs. What do you think this demonstrates? Perhaps that if you believe in immaterial entities, they can contradict themselves till the cows come home, because, they are, after all, immaterial entities, and it won't shake the average believers faith an iota. Why should it? Faith isn't adopted, generally, due to logical reasoning.

Likewise, morals are such a construction of idols used by the Left as a rationale for them to demand compliance to their wishes in politics, which most often are a skewed mess of fallacies in logic. "Morals" are a deceptive replacement for the "avoidance of sin."

I don't think this means much of anything, and I don't think the Left has, generally, much interest in morals. At any rate, there are perfectly good natural explanations for the existence of an urge to morality in the human makeup, and perfectly good, prudent arguments for wanting to promote the existence of such morals for the long term benefit of the community. It doesn't require transcendental interference to see why this should be so.

The fact you mentioned Christians specifically, instead of Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc., shows your un-objective bias.

Well, that's just more silly-ness, trying to strain for an insult. I mentioned christian issues because that's what was on the plate when I got here. I'll be more than happy to doubt the likelihood of Odin, Raynard the Fox, Shiva, or any other immaterial entity that has ever been offered up, as, for example, a reason to kill unbelievers, on equal grounds.

Really? You mean like all the believers who dutifully followed the rules god laid out in Genesis for the treatment of slaves? All of them? All the jews that dutifully followed God's word and took for slaves the virgin daughters of the mideanites? All of them? Wow.

Hitler was guided by the obsessive daily doses of anti-semitism he was fed every day at the catholic school he was educated at, and at which he aspired to become a priest.