(March 5, 2013 at 8:57 pm)jstrodel Wrote: Of course no society in history has ever been run off of Golden Opinions, and the only atheist societies in history that have followed the utopian and naive dreams of a society ruled by good opinions have been the Communists, who, predictably, turned out to violate these utopian principles more than anyone else.

Except the Nazis, who were primarily Christian.
Crusades, inquisition, anyone?

(March 5, 2013 at 9:51 pm)Darkstar Wrote:

(March 5, 2013 at 8:57 pm)jstrodel Wrote: Of course no society in history has ever been run off of Golden Opinions, and the only atheist societies in history that have followed the utopian and naive dreams of a society ruled by good opinions have been the Communists, who, predictably, turned out to violate these utopian principles more than anyone else.

Except the Nazis, who were primarily Christian.
Crusades, inquisition, anyone?

The Nazi's were as Christian as Bill Clinton.

(March 5, 2013 at 11:38 pm)jstrodel Wrote: The Nazi's were as Christian as Bill Clinton.

Ah, the No True Scotsman. Haven't seen that fallacious bit of reasoning in a while.

Thanks for bringing out the old chestnuts for us, Strodel.

(March 5, 2013 at 11:43 pm)Esquilax Wrote:

(March 5, 2013 at 11:38 pm)jstrodel Wrote: The Nazi's were as Christian as Bill Clinton.

Ah, the No True Scotsman. Haven't seen that fallacious bit of reasoning in a while.

Thanks for bringing out the old chestnuts for us, Strodel.

The fact that you are calling a logical "fallacy" developed by an atheist to support atheism a fallacy is fallacious.

Of course not all Christians are identical. This is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. You do not measure a group by simply including in that group anyone that claims membership. If I said I was a democrat, but voted republican in every single election in the last 30 years, you would not call me a democrat. You would say - "I don't care what that person says about himself, he is a Republican". The idea of "No True Scotsman" presupposes so much about the nature of language that is absolutely contrary to ordinary usage. Language does not describe the world according to the labels that people assign themselves, it describes the features of the world as they exist.

The Bible does not define a Christian as "anyone who professes Christ". If you want to create your own category of what a Christian is, such that anyone who sees it as politically convenient to incorporate Christianity into their actions is a Christian, you may do that, but it is a non-standard definition of what Christianity is.

(March 5, 2013 at 11:38 pm)jstrodel Wrote:

(March 5, 2013 at 9:51 pm)Darkstar Wrote: Except the Nazis, who were primarily Christian.
Crusades, inquisition, anyone?

The Nazi's were as Christian as Bill Clinton.

Religion in Nazi Germany

wikipedia Wrote:The German census of May 1939 indicates that 54 percent of Germans considered themselves Protestant, (including around 15 percent non-denominational Christians) and 40 percent considered themselves Catholic, with only 3.5 percent claiming to be neo-pagan "believers in God," and 1.5 percent nonbelievers. This census came more than six years into the Hitler era.

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Nazi attitudes towards Christianity

Many Nazis promoted positive Christianity, a militant, non-denominational form of Christianity which viewed Christ as an active fighter and anti-semite who opposed the institutionalized Judaism of his day. Even in the later years of the Third Reich, many Protestant and Catholic clergy within Germany persisted in believing that Nazism was in its essence in accordance with Christian precepts.

The Nazi leadership made use of both Christian symbolism, indigenous Germanic pagan imagery, and ancient Roman symbolism in their propaganda. However, the use of pagan symbolism worried some Protestants.

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Some Nazis, like Alfred Rosenberg and Martin Bormann, viewed Christianity and National Socialism as competing world views. However other Nazis like Dietrich Eckart and Walter Buch, saw them as part of the same movement.

From the mid 1930s, anti-Christian elements within the Nazi party became more prominent, however they were restrained by Hitler. In 1937 all Confessing Church seminaries and teaching was banned. Dissident Protestants were forbidden to attend universities. During Hitler's dictatorship, more than 6,000 clergymen, on the charge of treasonable activity, were imprisoned or executed. The same measures were taken in the occupied territories, in French Lorraine, the Nazis forbid religious youth movements, parish meetings, scout meetings, and church assets were taken. Church schools were closed, and teachers in religious institutes were dismissed. The episcopal seminary was closed, and the SA and SS desecrated churches, religious statutes and pictures. 300 clergy were expelled from the Lorraine region, monks and nuns were deported or forced to renounce their vows.

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The Nazis weakened the churches' resistance from within and a significant number of the clergy, particularly Protestant, supported National Socialism, but the Nazis had not yet succeeded in taking control of the churches, evidenced by the thousands of clergy sent to concentration camps.

It looks like they were trying to take over Christianity. (If you don't believe the above, you are welcome to look at any of the 105 sources referenced)
Note that I don't mean to say that Christianity is responsible for the holocaust, but rather that atheism isn't responsible for whatever communists did.

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(March 5, 2013 at 11:48 pm)jstrodel Wrote: The fact that you are calling a logical "fallacy" developed by an atheist to support atheism a fallacy is fallacious.

Huh?

(March 5, 2013 at 11:48 pm)jstrodel Wrote: Show me one logic textbook that includes "No True Scotsman"

Does this count?
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
straight to entry

(March 5, 2013 at 11:48 pm)jstrodel Wrote: The fact that you are calling a logical "fallacy" developed by an atheist to support atheism a fallacy is fallacious.

Of course not all Christians are identical. This is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. You do not measure a group by simply including in that group anyone that claims membership. If I said I was a democrat, but voted republican in every single election in the last 30 years, you would not call me a democrat. You would say - "I don't care what that person says about himself, he is a Republican". The idea of "No True Scotsman" presupposes so much about the nature of language that is absolutely contrary to ordinary usage. Language does not describe the world according to the labels that people assign themselves, it describes the features of the world as they exist.

So, what? You determine who's christian or not by their acts? But how do you develop a metric for that, given that so much of what modern christians believe is a watered down and reinterpreted version of what's actually in the bible?

I am just as much correct to judge violent actions as christian by the violent acts in that damn book as you are to do otherwise. In the end, it all comes down to the fact that you want to exclude any inconvenient members from your club and claim moral superiority, doesn't it?

Dietrich Bonhoffer, one of the most influential protestants, tried to kill Hitler. I do not doubt that many Christians yielded to Nazism. My grandparents were Catholics in Nazi occupied France. They were part of the resistance. I am sure that some yielded to the Nazi's.

The question of de facto Christian support for Hitler is different than the de jure atheism of the Soviet Union. Yes, some Christians did support Hitler (as did Heidegger and many atheist intellectuals as well as occultists and other groups). But this is different from seeing the institutionalization of atheism. Communism is distinct from atheism and it is definitely false to claim that all atheists are similar to the Communists. I know plenty of atheists who are nice people.

That being said, the fact remains that the only atheistic civilization in history that I know of, and there have been atheists here and there for thousands of years, but the only one that I know of was Communism, one of the most imperialistic and most destructive, callous and wicked civilizations that has ever existed. I am sure you are a nice person and you would not do any of the things that the Soviet Union did, but people as nice as you have been rare as they exist apart from the support of religious authorities and the culture they create.

(March 3, 2013 at 12:48 pm)archangle Wrote: Golden rule came from religions. Golden rule is about thinking about others first and not you. That too is "religion".

Religions have the Golden Rule because everything points to our species having evolved a certain form of behaviour for group living. Did you read the article about The Evolution Of Empathy? That came first and adoption into religions and philosophies dating before Christianity came second.

(March 5, 2013 at 8:57 pm)jstrodel Wrote:

(March 3, 2013 at 7:13 am)Confused Ape Wrote: golden rule

Atheism says there is no more reason to obey the golden rule than to obey it,
Atheists do not have the Golden Rule, atheists have the Golden Opinion.

As atheists are group living animals like religious people, the Golden Rule is as useful for atheists to obey as it is for religious people to obey. How well individuals manage to apply it depends on how empathic an individual is. An atheist with a highly developed sense of empathy will follow it a lot more successfully than a religious person with a poorly developed sense of empathy.

[quote
I am just as much correct to judge violent actions as christian by the violent acts in that damn book as you are to do otherwise. In the end, it all comes down to the fact that you want to exclude any inconvenient members from your club and claim moral superiority, doesn't it?
[/quote]

No. It comes down to the fact that I meet people all the time who say that they are Christians, but when they talk, I sincerely doubt that they have the Holy Spirit. This might not be convient for anti-Christian social science research, but unfortunately, God did not see fit to order the world according the prejudices of anti-Christian social science research.

Probably the best way to judge who is a Christian is just to use different scales and maybe label the term Christian with some kind of qualifier, such as "considered himself to be Christian" or "devout Christian".

You are free to use a non-standard definition of the term Christian and use people as representatives of the faith that are very far from Christian doctrine, such as Hitler, who was involved in the occult. But if you are serious about understanding the world, you will recognize that it is fallacious to consider Christianity to be the same kind of civilization as Scotland. Christianity, from the time of the monastic rejection of the pagan Roman empire has always acknowledge the existence of large numbers of unsaved or barely saved people in the churches and has not formulated its authority based on the number of people saved or understood its identify through this, but through real conversions.

It is not a fallacy to distinguish between real converts and false converts, it is fallacy to not do so. Christianity is not like voting for a politician, people can create their own "fallacies" of reasoning that match their goals (of undermining Christianity), but if you want to understand Christianity, consider the Christians who actually follow Christ.

(March 6, 2013 at 12:03 am)jstrodel Wrote: Dietrich Bonhoffer, one of the most influential protestants, tried to kill Hitler. I do not doubt that many Christians yielded to Nazism. My grandparents were Catholics in Nazi occupied France. They were part of the resistance. I am sure that some yielded to the Nazi's.

I don't doubt there were Christians who did as your grandparents did. But you cannot deny that the rest of the Christians also are responsible for their actions in the war as well. Your authority on whether or not these were 'true' Christians, is insubstancial as you are no authority on Christianity, nor are you 'god appointed' authority. Once the Catholic church denounces Pope Pius and Picelli, then maybe they may be considered non-Christians but to this date they are "Christians".
I decided to look up Christianity, Catholicism, and the WW2 involvement tonight. Here's what I found just this evening--I plan to continue my study on the subject as I find it interesting that none of this was included in my school literature/studies. I suggest you do the same.


In the 1920s Pacelli presented his credentials to the Weimer government where he stated, "For my part, I will devote my entire strength to cultivating and strengthening the relations between the Holy See and Germany." Pacelli's stay in Germany with his familiarity with their political, religious, and racist views must have influenced his later work to unify Catholicism with Germany.

The March 1939 election favored Pacelli and four days later, Pacelli made it clear that he would handle all German affairs personally. He proposed the following affirmation of Hitler:

"To the Illustrious Herr Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer and Chancellor of the German Reich! Here at the beginning of Our Pontificate We wish to assure you that We remain devoted to the spiritual welfare of the German people entrusted to your leadership.... During the many years we spent in Germany, We did all in Our power to establish harmonious relations between Church and State. Now that the responsibilities of Our pastoral function have increased Our opportunities, how much more ardently do We pray to reach that goal. May the prosperity of the German people and their progress in every domain come, with God's help, to fruition!"
-Pope Pacelli at the beginning of his Papacy

A Concordat with the Catholic Church in 1933 stated:

The German Reich guarantees the freedom of the profession and the public exercise of the Catholic Religion. Catholics “shall enjoy the protection of the State in the same manner as the employees of the State.”

[b]The teaching of the Catholic religion in the elementary, vocational, secondary and superior schools shall be a regular subject and shall be given in conformity with the principles of the Catholic Church.
(Hitler’s Third Reich: A Documentary History edited by L. Snyder, Nelson-Hall)

Modern Pope Benedict said of Pope Pius XI: "Wherever possible he spared no effort in intervening in their favour either directly or through instructions given to other individuals or to institutions of the Catholic Church.

Yet in an encyclical on anti-Semitism, titled Humani generis unitas (The Unity of the Human Race) by Pope Pius XI, a section claims that the Jews were responsible for their own fate. God had chosen them to make way for Christ's redemption but they denied him and killed him. And now, "Blinded by their dream of worldly gain and material success," they had deserved the "worldly and spiritual ruin" that they had brought down upon themselves. [Cornwell, p. 191]

Quotes of Hitler himself:

"I will devote my entire strength to cultivating and strengthening the relations between the Holy See and Germany." [Cornwell, p. 136] (Hitler, spent more time and effort on the concordat with Pacelli than on any other treaty in the entire era of the Third Reich [Cornwell, p. 150]
According to John Cornwell, this papal endorsement of Nazism helped seal the fate of Europe which makes it plausible that these Catholic prejudices bolstered aspects of Nazi anti-Semitism. [Cornwell, p. 28]

On April 25, thousands of Catholic priests across Germany became part of an anti-Semitic attestation bureaucracy, supplying details of blood purity through marriage and baptism registries in accordance with the Nazi Nuremberg laws which distinguished Jews from non-Jews. Catholic clerical compliance in the process would continue throughout the period of the Nazi regime. [Cornwell, pp.154]

Cardinal Bertram sent Hitler an effusive telegram, published on October 2 in the Nazi newspaper Volkischer Beobachter, "The great deed of safeguarding peace among the nations moves the German episcopate acting in the name of the Catholics of all the German dioceses, respectfully to extend congratulations and thanks and to order a festive ringing of bells on Sunday." [Cornwell, p. 202]

"I have been attacked because of my handling of the Jewish question. The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc, because it recognised the Jews for what they were. In the epoch of liberalism the danger was no longer recognised. I am moving back toward the time in which a fifteen-hundred-year-long tradition was implemented. I do not set race over religion, but I recognise the representatives of this race as pestilant for the state and for the church and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions."

Hitler viewed traditional Christianity as a corruption of the original ideas of Jesus by the Apostle Paul. In Mein Kampf Hitler writes that Jesus "made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross." Hitler, Adolf (1998). Mein Kampf. Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Houghton Mifflin, p. 307

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
Hitler, Adolf (1999) Mein Kampf. Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Mariner Books, p. 65.

Nazi General Gerhard Engel reported in his diary that in 1941 Hitler stated, "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."

"The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavour to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today." Baynes, Norman H. ed. (1969). The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939. Vol. 1. New York: Howard Fertig. p. 385.

Consensus among historians who treat the matter of Christianity in prewar Nazi Germany is that the Nazi-backed "positivist" or "German Christian" church was endeavoring to make the evangelical churches of Germany an instrument of Nazi policy. "Confessing Church" in Dictionary of the Christian Church, F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingston, eds.; William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), pp. 235 f.

During negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of April 26, 1933 Hitler argued that
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith." Ernst Helmreich, The German Churches Under Hitler. Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1979, p. 241.

Hitler stated in a speech to the people of Stuttgart on 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."
Norman H. Baynes, ed., The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942, p. 240.

In a speech delivered in Berlin, October 24, 1933, Hitler stated: "We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.'
Norman H. Baynes, ed., The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942, p. 378.

Historians point out that any support the Pope Pius XII did give the Jews came after 1942, once U.S. officials told him that the allies wanted total victory, and it became likely that they would get it. Furthering the notion that any intervention by Pius XII was based on practical advantage rather than moral inclination is the fact that in late 1942, Pius XII began to advise the German and Hungarian bishops that it would be to their ultimate political advantage to go on record as speaking out against the massacre of the Jews.