What the Pope Said

Today, on his visit to the UK, Pope Benedict XVI stated the following:

“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.

“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,”

“May it [Britain] always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate,”

Great, so... Atheism leads to Nazi-like tendencies? OK, little boy molesters.

Hitler wasn't even an atheist. In fact, didn't he claim to have "eradicated Atheism from the face of the earth"? Stalin was, in fact, an atheist. Sometimes bad people do have good ideas.

But that the Pope himself would say such things, make such comparisons, shows only how ignorant he is on what atheism is truly about. Talk about disgusting. I find Atheists to be more moral humans than most religious people.

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on September 17, 2010 at 5:40pm

*presses "like" button*.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Brian Stewart on September 17, 2010 at 9:02am

From "Moses was a Liar" Raider Books 2009: "While I personally have no problem with Jews, I’m continuously amazed that the western world so easily prescribes to a Jewish God and a Jewish Rabbi. Even Hitler who was a Christian, ironically enough believed in Jesus, a Jew. Jewish hatred did not spring from Hitler though; it came from the preaching of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers throughout Germany for hundreds of years. Martin Luther himself hated the Jews and their Jewish religion. In his book, "On the Jews and their Lies," Luther set the scene for Jewish hatred in Protestant Germany up until World War II. "

and further on:

"During a terrible and vicious war in the mid 20th century, the leader of the German people, a man called Adolph Hitler, convinced his followers that the Jewish people were a curse on the earth and had to be eradicated. He created falsities to scare his people that an evil existed and that the state should take every step possible to protect their homeland. This gave him the power to invade other countries and eventually to kill over 6 million Jewish people. Adolph Hitler was a Catholic and often used this to justify his actions against the so-called Christ-killers. ... There was also another man called Artuković who in a country called Croatia was found guilty by the authorities of the mass murder of Serbs, Jews, gypsies and other minorities. He had studied at a Franciscan Monastry which was part of the Catholic Church much like the Jesuits here. This all happened during the Second World War. When he fled after the war, he was assisted by Franscican monks to flee. Many other war criminals were helped by the so-called Vatican Ratlines to escape justice and they fled to other countries. It was well established that the Vatican actively sheltered and assisted war criminals."
"Why would a church do this?" one girl asked. "I thought they were against such things."
"The ends justified the means in their minds. The destruction of the Jews, Muslims and other ‘enemy’ religions was seen to be justified by people such as a Fransiscan priest called Draganović. Of course the Catholic Church denied that these priests had official approval to do these things, but the evidence seemed to show otherwise."

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on September 17, 2010 at 5:41pm

hahaha...U2.

I dont know if I could live with seeing a nun stripper though.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mario Rodgers on September 17, 2010 at 12:52pm

Keep it up, Emperor Palpatine. You and your disgusting ilk will one day fall, and I will personally see to it that I'm there to witness either you or the whoever the head of the Catholic Church will be on his knees! Ironic that you say these despicable words in the land where Catholics executed thousands of Protestants at the stake for heresy. Religion has done a damn good job of truncating virtue from life. Secularism has only improved society for the better.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mario Rodgers on September 17, 2010 at 1:01pm

Burn It Down--Five Finger Death Punch. Caution: Explicit Lyrics.

You think you know me, you don't know shit
I've seen the world through your eyes and it makes me sick
I question all of your answers, they're fucking lies
I won't conform to your system, I'd rather die

I burn it down just to watch it go
I burn it down so everybody knows
I burn it down just to see it torched
Burn it down, I hate it to the core

You think you're a martyr, not hard to see
You wanna rule the fucking world, you've gotta get through me
Your iron fist will be broken, no soul to sell
You think I'll burn for my actions, see you in hell

Burn it down, I do it for myself
I burn it down for me and no one else
I burn it down just to watch it fall
I burn it down, I hate you fucking all

I burn it down just to watch it go
I burn it down so everybody knows
I burn it down just to see it torched
I burn it down, I hate it to the core

Aptly describes my growing anger.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Michael Sizer-Watt on September 17, 2010 at 2:26pm

The Nazi beltbuckles read “Gott Mit Uns”, which translates to "God is With Us".

And I think it is absolutely disgusting that they canonized Edith Stein. How dare they betray her to her death and then subsequently canonize her. F-ing sickening.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Chelle on September 17, 2010 at 3:45pm

Ok so I have been discussing this with my devil's advocate hubby, and I am going to try to see the Pope's side.

His first contentious statement:

Even in our own lifetime, 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. I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth 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 to a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny”

He says we are reflecting on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism, so I wanted to try to find out what he thought was this extremism and I think he means that when you kill people for believing in something in this case Jews, that is atheist extremism. So is he right could this be considered 'atheist extremism', persecuting someone for being a theist?

Later he says:
'Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society. In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate. '

And here he says more aggressive forms of secularism, is he referring to perhaps overt promiscuity or other godless acts, which while I disagree that they are necessarily negative it is acceptable that the head of the Catholic church would not.

I am interested to hear responses to this, is it atheist extremism to persecute the religious?

And he seems to be making an implication that we need to reflect on atheist extremism to conclude that without god in our lives society will turn bad. Now while I disagree with him perhaps this is a reasonable position for the head of the catholic church to hold.

What do you guys think?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Chelle on September 17, 2010 at 5:50pm

Thanks for your thoughts, I also believe that the Pope has an agenda, his message is propaganda, and that he has his convenient 'extremist' out. At least with this in mind he is not an idiot who has not thought through his address, but rather a crafty fellow. I am not sure if this appeases me or not. :-/ I think it mostly worries me, but then I was already sufficiently worried.