http://www.booktalk.org/post100971.html
On page 9.
This is cherry picking, Ant.Ant:
We can see, across history, consequences related to "godless" States. How inflexible were these non religious individuals: Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pot
Moral absolutes would have perhaps prevented the horrors related to the aforementioned amoral monsters. There are irrational religious and non religious people.
Slippery slopes are, and always will be unavoidable terrain in need of negotiation. Christ's doctrines of love, charity, etc are more than reasonable starting points when considering morality. Naturally, you as my neighbor no longer have oxen or an ass in your driveway to covet. If I covet your SUV and steal it, the bible and the law considers it immoral and an affront to society.
Godless states… like Sweden?
http://www.gadling.com/2007/08/23/least ... countries/
Stalin, Hitler, Mao and the others are the figure heads of state religions in a basic form. They were the cult of personality, and they, like your god, would have no god before themselves, so they tried to purge religion. Why? Because they wanted that fanatical zeal for themselves.
Loving Jesus meant not loving the beloved leader. Meant not looking to the state to put meaning in their lives. They may have been atheist, but they were not irreligious. It’s just that the focus of that unquestioning, un-flinching, devotion was transferred from an incorporeal god to a flesh and bone god-king.
And besides, Hitler was no atheist.
I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.
- Adolf Hitler, to General Gerhard Engel, 1941
By its decision to carry out the political and moral cleansing of our public life, the Government is creating and securing the conditions for a really deep and inner religious life. The advantages for the individual which may be derived from compromises with atheistic organizations do not compare in any way with the consequences which are visible in the destruction of our common religious and ethical values. The national Government sees in both Christian denominations the most important factor for the maintenance of our society. ...
- Adolf Hitler, speech before the Reichstag, March 23, 1933, just before the Enabling Act is passed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_A ... abling_Act
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 ...we need believing people.
- Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordant
We were convinced that the people need and require 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.
- Adolf Hitler, Speech in Berlin, October 24, 1933
"In Freethinkers Hall, which before the Nazi resurgence was the national headquarters of the German Freethinkers League, the Berlin Protestant church authorities have opened a bureau for advice to the public in church matters. Its chief object is to win back former churchgoers and assist those who have not previously belonged to any religious congregation in obtaining church membership. The German Freethinkers League, which was swept away by the national revolution, was the largest of such organizations in Germany. It had about 500,000 members..."
- The New York Times, May 14, 1933, page 2, on Hitler's outlawing atheistic and freethinking groups in the Spring of 1933, after the Enabling Act authorizing Hitler to rule by decree
"We demand freedom for all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or conflict with the customs and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the standpoint of a positive Christianity, without owing itself to a particular confession...."
- Article 20 of the program of the German Workers' Party (later named the National Socialist German Workers' Party, NSDAP)
I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 2
What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator.
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 8
But if out of smugness, or even cowardice, this battle is not fought to its end, then take a look at the peoples five hundred years from now. I think you will find but few images of God, unless you want to profane the Almighty.
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 10
Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1
It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god.
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2
Hitler was religious.
That isn't different really, than saying that so and so was an atheist. What does that have to do with it?
To the degree in which somebody finds their status in some group to be motivation to do something, then it becomes important.
What atheist is killing in the name of atheism?
Who kills in the name of god?.... take your pick.
Now, Atheism is simply a digital response to the question, believe in god? No. But when religious people say “atheism” they are usually talking about empirical rationalists.
Were the Nazis guilty of being too questioning of authority? Were they too meshed with critical thinking? Were they guilty of letting the facts take precedent over their biased dogma? Was that their problem? Or was it that they came to irrational conclusions, independent of evidence, facts, and immune to rational discourse so that they could continue to believe what they wanted to believe no matter what it cost anyone.
Being religious doesn’t cause immoral behavior, but it is no check on it.
Religion has never been a bar to the commission of atrocities. By some counts there were upwards of twenty million native Americans here before the highly religious, preacher-in-tow, conquistadors slaughtered not just whole populations, but wiped cultures off the map entirely.
Something which is not in disagreement with the bible, by the way.
And that is exactly what they did. They showed up, said we are better than you, you will be our property, to do with as we want, or you will all be slaughtered on the spot, and we’ll rape and pillage and burn to our hearts content in any case.“As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.” ---- Deuteronomy 20:10-14
Being religious didn’t stop Europeans from uprooting native Americans, stealing their land, giving them small-pox blankets and sending them on a march of death across the continent. Being religious didn’t prevent the exploitation, rape, murder, and enslavement of Africans either.
By the millions.
What about the crusades, the inquisition, and the witch slaughters, all done specifically in the name of god?
Why do we know and rightfully hate the names of Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and Pot, but not the names of the monsters who convicted and murdered witches? Mass murder was being committed out of the raving madness of religious hysteria. Between 40,000 and 60,000 people were executed (read, tortured, maimed, forced to indicate other innocent people then usually burned at the stake, followed by the same treatment for those unlucky enough to be named.) Whole villages, hundreds of people, were exterminated in this way.
What exactly are you saying? Being religious prevents immoral behavior? That doesn’t hold up at all.
