RE: Why hate Athiest?
March 7, 2013 at 2:28 am
(This post was last modified: March 7, 2013 at 2:31 am by Mystical.)
(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.
If I were to create self aware beings knowing fully what they would do in their lifetimes, I sure wouldn't create a HELL for the majority of them to live in infinitely! That's not Love, that's sadistic. Therefore a truly loving god does not exist!
Dead wrong. The actions of a finite being measured against an infinite one are infinitesimal and therefore merit infinitesimal punishment.
I say again: No exceptions. Punishment should be equal to the crime, not in excess of it. As soon as the punishment is greater than the crime, the punisher is in the wrong.
Quote:The sin is against an infinite being (God) unforgiven infinitely, therefore the punishment is infinite.
Dead wrong. The actions of a finite being measured against an infinite one are infinitesimal and therefore merit infinitesimal punishment.
Quote:Some people deserve hell.
I say again: No exceptions. Punishment should be equal to the crime, not in excess of it. As soon as the punishment is greater than the crime, the punisher is in the wrong.
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