Attn: Christians, We've Heard Them Already

[fr0d0]

Christianity was more popular back then? I dunno about that. Stats or it didn't happen. Maybe more devout, I could go with that but that only bolsters my argument don't ya think?
Face it, secularism has been a defining cultural influence on history since WW2. Minus the George Bush mishap

The stats say between 3 & 6% in the UK currently. The culture was way different in WW2. It was taught in school. It was integral to all areas of life. Today there's no collective worship or Christian education.

Power mongers feed off a good cause. Religion is a popular way to manipulate people. With the irreligion of today other excuses have to be found.

You disagree that racism and hatred of an immigrant population exists then, not fueled by some obscure and incorrect interpretation of the Christian message?

[Mystical]

Fair enough fr0d0, there are less religious in the world. Far less devout. The amount of world wars is inversely proportional, so hey.

Why would you rephrase your question to encompass more general perameters with an assumption of my disagreement?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Europe

Over the last several decades, religious practice has been on the decline in a process of "Secularization." European countries have experienced a decline in church attendance, as well as a decline in the number of people professing a belief in a god. The Eurobarometer Poll 2010 found that, on average, 51% of the citizens of EU member states state that they believe in a god, 26% believe there is some sort of spirit or life Force while 20% do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god or Life Force, and 3% declined to answer. [8] According to a recent study, [9]

47% of Frenchmen declared themselves as agnostic in 2003. This situation is often called "Post-Christian Europe".

A decrease in religiousness and church attendance in western Europe (especially Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden) has been noted. The Eurobarometer poll must be taken with caution, however, as there are discrepancies between it and national census results. For example in the United Kingdom, the 2001 census revealed over 70% of the population regarded themselves as "Christian" with only 15% professing to have "no religion", though the wording of the question has been criticized as "leading" by the British Humanist Association. [10]

[fr0d0]

Sorry the 3% is Christian Church attendance. I think those poll figures are worthless. I don't question that people said that. I question their understanding. I know the vast majority would have less reason to believe than the majority of atheists on this forum.

[Mystical]

Here in America I grew up wearing a cross, teachers talked openly about god because we were all Christian. They never brought up issues pertaining to god because they didn't have to. The education they were giving was purposefully omitting information and leading. What's more it was fully inadequate. I feel ignorant for having gone to school here, and I graduated with honors. I used to wonder why secularists and equal rights advocates had to throw a circus to be heard. No more do I wonder. If you want my honest opinion, an assumed deism in the form of the "in god we trust" slogan is considered collective worship. Exclusion of opposing viewpoints or facts detrimental to the collective Christian majority iis Christian education. I don't disagree that racism is an assumed factor in discrimination towards immigrants but I feel the driving force of that-- the engine of the car: is and has almost always been one religion calling on its supreme being to trump its followers into feeling comfortable about being racist. You don't need people willing to put the Jews in an oven themselves, you just need to give them adequate reasoning to believe those people deserve to be ostracized from the collective group. Other driving forces like cowardice, sadism, revenge, patriotism, codependency, manipulation, greed, etc. Fuel the mechanism. Without the engine though, the car wont go. Without that driving force pushing people over the edge of no return by means of a trump god card, I don't think that there would be Samantha incidences of straight up genocide.

[CleanShavenJesus]

Actually Stalin was an atheist.

That doesn't mean he committed evil actions because of his atheism, just like Hitler didn't committ evil acts because of his Christianity.

The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc, because it recognized the Jews for what they were".... I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent 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.

We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the morality and moral sense of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession. It combats the Jewish-materialist spirit within and without us, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent health from within only on the principle: the common interest before self-interest.

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.

...well, maybe he did.


.

[Polaris]

I'm really getting tired of self proclaimed Christians that know fuck all about their own theology...

Those views date back to the time of Martin Luther...Hitler just built upon the hatred to create a scapegoat.

Dial back the controls of your fuck-tardis at least 1500 years more to find the origins of anti-semitic thought.

Paul was actually quite supportive of the Jewish...he was only mad at those who had killed Jesus and who had constantly been thwarting the Christian cult from reaching out to the non-Jewish community. This was from 1 Thessalonians.

What a load of ignorant Christian interpretive bullshit. Paul initially courted Jews, but they rejected his message (your sacred scriptures are very clear about this). Care to share with us why? Clue...it has 'something' to do with the fact the Jesus was put up for the weekend, but has nothing to do with your baseless assertion that Paul was mad at Jews for the deed.

Why again is it that an atheist has to take you god-botherers to school regarding your own theology?

You aren't taking anyone to school, but you do need to take yourself there.

From the letter previously mentioned.

14 For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews 15 who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone 16 in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.[b]

Paul was all about stating that Jews and Gentiles were just the same.

Yeah Paul was a real testament to your faith, wasn't he? Bigot.
Don't know why you pick on Christian Americans when we're talking European indoctrination but OK

It is actually quite sociopathic in my eyes that you are aware of the shortcomings of Paul and your religion, yet are sitting here defending your Creed so blazee blazee.

You're full of shit, but you can continue in your bigotry. It's not like you're ever going to change at this point.

[Mystical]

Are there quotes from Stalin giving reasons for his atrocities being attributed to his atheism?

And Polaris, so you don't have a rebuttal? I'm just a bigot? Is that it?

That was easy.

[Polaris]

Are there quotes from Stalin giving reasons for his atrocities being attributed to his atheism?

And Polaris, so you don't have a rebuttal? I'm just a bigot? Is that it?

That was easy.

Yes. I find Americans like yourself who just throw out the word bigot have nothing important to say and you didn't have a fucking point except to use ad hominem, so what did you fucking expect?

[CleanShavenJesus]

Are there quotes from Stalin giving reasons for his atrocities being attributed to his atheism?

And Polaris, so you don't have a rebuttal? I'm just a bigot? Is that it?

That was easy.

Yes. I find Americans like yourself who just throw out the word bigot have nothing important to say and you didn't have a fucking point except to use ad hominem, so what did you fucking expect?

The irony hurts.

[Polaris]

Yes. I find Americans like yourself who just throw out the word bigot have nothing important to say and you didn't have a fucking point except to use ad hominem, so what did you fucking expect?

The irony hurts.

Well when I do resort to such tactics, it's actually included with a point, gringo.