Meaningfulness v meaninglessness; theism vs atheism;

[Ubermensch]

Someone needs a history lesson. Gott mit uns mean anything to you?

Point of order, "Gott Mit Uns" was on German military belt buckles before Hitler was born. And rather than reinforcing Hitler's catholicism (which incidentally is historically well-known), it merely goes to show that every side believes god is on their side. Barring the sides that of course do not believe in god.

Furthermore, the catholic church never condemned anything the Nazis did and indeed only excommunicated one of them. Goebbels. And that was because he married a filthy protestant. What a fucker eh?

You know as a Christian who important God is to me. Yet you do not even take the least amount of respect into consideration.

Respect must be earned and not given. I am under no obligation to respect your beliefs any more than I am obliged to respect the beliefs of someone who claims that we have hordes of leprechauns hiding in our bodies causing out limbs to move.

And finally, if I may throw in my 2 cents. Atheism is freedom. If you are not bound by the dogmatic beliefs and petty morallities of the worlds established religions, you are free to decide to live by whatever rules you so choose. I am unfettered by your morallity and I wouldn't give up my freedom for anything.

[dqualk]

Many of you are only making yourself look worse. You demonstrate that you do not post, at least not on this thread, to learn or to open dialouge, you post to insult and in general make a fool of yourself.

Ryft thank you for saying clearly, and without tangent, what I intended to say. Once again my only point in starting this thread was to demonstrate that atheist lack sujective value, and I believe that Theism is a well respected and intellectual position which gives subjective value, so why would one not choose a subjectively meaningful system.

The Catholic Church has consistently condemned Nazism to this day and will continue to in the future, including all the Popes since Hitler. Many many priests and Bishops lost their lives condemning nazism. The Pontiff did not condemn it in his day for fear that it would cause the destruction of the Vatican and the loss of even more Catholic lives around the world. Many people do not realize that what the Pope says can cost the lives of thousands, indeed millions.

It is meaningless to say Hitler was a Catholic. He clearly hated everything about the Catholic Church. Would I be an atheist if I consistently called myself an atheist but I sought to root out atheism in the world because I thought it was stupid? Hitler may not have been an atheist, but he certainly wasn't a Christian. I personally think he was an atheist because his motivations came from the idea that evolution was the key destiny of man, and that the chief job of "good" men was to further evolution by destroying the lesser races, and conditioning the greater race to evolve well. And he clearly had no fear of God whatsoever. If anything at all that is an atheistic motivation, in that you seek the meaing behind destiny and right and wrong from a natural source rather than a supernatural source. However, I suppose he could have been a deist or some other jacked up theist, I'm not saying deist are necessarily jacked up, but he would be one jacked up diest in this case.
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THE FOLLOWING IS QUOTE FROM EINSTEIN TO DEMONSTRATE MY POINT:
Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks….
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Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.
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- Albert Einstein, Time magazine, 23rd December, 1940 p. 38
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Another good bit of evidence is that the Chief Rabbi of Rome converted to Catholicism after WW II and took Pope Piux XII name as his baptismal name. Why? Becuase the Pope heroic effort to selflessly save every Jew he could and his constant commitment to ending the evil of Nazism.
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AND NOW QUOTES FROM HITLER TO DEMONSTRATE MY POINT

National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (p 6 & 7)

Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (p 43)
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A Hitler Youth marching song (Grunberger, A Social History) illustrates it:
We follow not Christ, but Horst Wessel, Away with incense and Holy Water, The Church can go hang for all we care, The Swastika brings salvation on Earth.

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Ubermensch its called propaganda. Here is a quote frome Mein Kamf on Hitler's idea of propaganda.

"To whom should propaganda be addressed? … It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses… The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. The whole art consists in doing this so skilfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself … its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect… it's soundness is to be measured exclusively by its effective result". (Main Kampf, Vol 1, Ch 6 and Ch 12)

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Its called propaganda Ubermensch.

"To whom should propaganda be addressed? … It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses… The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. The whole art consists in doing this so skilfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself … its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect… it's soundness is to be measured exclusively by its effective result". (Main Kampf, Vol 1, Ch 6 and Ch 12)

How about you silly athesit (not that all atheists are silly) try to prove that Hitler was a Christian with personal statements of his orthodox belief and his behavior? Did Hitler go to Mass? Did he do anything that would suggest that he actually was a Christian with Christian convictions? Did he do anything that might suggest he HATED Christianity, like perhaps kill Christians, destroy churches, threaten the Pope and break nearly every teaching of the Catholic Church?

[Ashendant]

The Catholic Church has consistently condemned Nazism to this day and will continue to in the future, including all the Popes since Hitler. Many many priests and Bishops lost their lives condemning nazism. The Pontiff did not condemn it in his day for fear that it would cause the destruction of the Vatican and the loss of even more Catholic lives around the world. Many people do not realize that what the Pope says can cost the lives of thousands, indeed millions.

They can condemn all they want, doesn't change the fact that hitler and most nazis were Christian

It is meaningless to say Hitler was a Catholic. He clearly hated everything about the Catholic Church. Would I be an atheist if I consistently called myself an atheist but I sought to root out atheism in the world because I thought it was stupid? Hitler may not have been an atheist, but he certainly wasn't a Christian. I personally think he was an atheist because his motivations came from the idea that evolution was the key destiny of man, and that the chief job of "good" men was to further evolution by destroying the lesser races, and conditioning the greater race to evolve well. And he clearly had no fear of God whatsoever. If anything at all that is an atheistic motivation, in that you seek the meaing behind destiny and right and wrong from a natural source rather than a supernatural source. However, I suppose he could have been a deist or some other jacked up theist, I'm not saying deist are necessarily jacked up, but he would be one jacked up diest in this case.

He was still Christian, yes he was anti-organized religion but he still fully believed in Christianity, otherwise he wouldn't have gone to church, just saying that he worshipped deism and theism doesn't make up for the fact that he was going to Christian church, his vision was just more materialistic than of other people

How about you silly athesit (not that all atheists are silly) try to prove that Hitler was a Christian with personal statements of his orthodox belief and his behavior? Did Hitler go to Mass? Did he do anything that would suggest that he actually was a Christian with Christian convictions? Did he do anything that might suggest he HATED Christianity, like perhaps kill Christians, destroy churches, threaten the Pope and break nearly every teaching of the Catholic Church?

He did go to church, he was a Christian that was anti-organization, the inquisition did the same to the jews that refused to convert, he hated organized religion in general, Christian kill Christians so this argument is moot, i don't know if he destroyed churches, pope was a powerful figure, and so do every Christian everyday

Ryft thank you for saying clearly, and without tangent, what I intended to say. Once again my only point in starting this thread was to demonstrate that atheist lack sujective value, and I believe that Theism is a well respected and intellectual position which gives subjective value, so why would one not choose a subjectively meaningful system.

Not it's not a intellectual position, in fact you have to be a moron enough to believe it without evidence, and usually just gives people a bloated ego, after all they are the sons of god, i've seen furries give a better anti-drama argument for their silly beliefs it's called "Fuck you, I'm a Dragon".

[dqualk]

All men are sons of God, including you Ashendant (women included).

Also, the inquisition is far more complex than all that. For one thing the inquisition rarely killed people, in relation to Nazism. What happened in the Spanish Inquisition (the most notorious of all, which the Vatican forced the kings to stop) was that earlier there had been a decree that all non-Christians be expelled from Spain. They did this mostly for stability reasons. They used religion as propaganda when it was helpful, the primary goal was to stabalize Spain by getting rid of Muslims and Jews. The only Muslims and Jews that were allowed to stay were those who said they converted to Catholicism. Naturally, many of these said they converted when in fact they just said that so they could stay and run the family business. The Kings suspected this and so they began the Spanish Inquisition whose goal was to make sure that these supposed Catholics were true blue Catholics. They did things like make you eat pork etc. If you wouldn't they burned you at the stake for apostasy. It was an evil thing to do but it was in large part motivated by political reasons, not religious. As a matter of fact, the only valid reason to burn someone at the stake according to the Church was in defense of the secular realm. So kings would argue that they were killing these people to eliminate instability which in truth often escalated into massacres both by heretics and by orthodox against heretics. There are many examples of whole Medieval villages being taken over by crazy heretics who went about rapeing any woman and massacreing anyone who got in the way. Obviosuly this would cost the crown a lot of money, leading to the kings doing everything in their power to create stability. Unfortunately at the time they were convinced by bad but valid arguements that religious tolerance created instability. Thank God for John Locke (a good Christian) for seeing that that was an illigitimate arguement and effectively ending such barbaric practices. So the Church only ever allowed for such behavior, as the inquisition, when it was done to protect the secular realm, something akin to the Just War doctrine would be used in this instance. (approx. 1080-300 people were killed over the course of approx 400 years). Also, the majority of people were not killed, but freed.

And witch hunts were the result of ignorance as well. How can the Church condemn the killing of people who sacrificed babies to Satan and went around causing evil? Of course, chances are these were just ordinary women who got a bad rap for some peculararity about them, but how is the Church supposed to know that? We are talking about pre-modern times, ignorance was rampid as a result of bad technology and poor anaysis. But guess what!!! When modern times gave to us the beauty of technology and modern analysis the Church has condemned the killing of innocent people. The point of this is that the Church alwyas and everywhere condemns the killing of life apart from necessity, and even then it is considered permissible and not the best route. And necessity is contrained by many moral issues, a good example of moral constraints places upon necessary killings is the Christian Just War Theory.

[The Omnissiunt One]

What about the Crusades? Can you honestly say that those weren't religiously motivated massacres?

[Shell B]

All men are sons of God, including you Ashendant (women included).

Women are sons of god?

[thesummerqueen]

That was the laugh I needed today.

[Minimalist]

Point of order, "Gott Mit Uns" was on German military belt buckles before Hitler was born

Being "fuhrer" means he could have changed it had he wished. He did not so wish. Hitler thought he was doing god's will...just like loads of other fanatics. He was far from the atheist that xtian fools try to claim he was because they find it embarrassing for him to be a member of their little club.

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All men are sons of God, including you Ashendant (women included).

Women are sons of god?



Take THAT, woman!!!!!

[Shell B]

I'm sorry, my butt hurts and I can't be bothered to quote your post, dqualk. Just know that I am responding to you.

1. There was more than one Inquisition and nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

2. You cannot excuse the Catholic church from any responsibility in witch hunts because "ignorance was rabid" (or however you horribly misspelled rampant). These people were not only ignorant, they were assholes. Have you ever read the Malleus Maleficarum? There is no fucking way witch-hunters believed that bullshit, yet they killed people solely on the "knowledge" this book held. They wanted to find and kill witches, whether real or imagined. After reading that epic failure, I have no doubt of that fact.

[thesummerqueen]

By the way, eliminating all other religions as a form of "control" over society in favor of one particular religion sounds...at least slightly religiously motivated.