The Indignity Of Atheism

[Hellbound Alleee]

Don't be fooled into thinking church leaders opposed Hitler's machine for any reason other than the loss of their own power. It's PEOPLE who care about real things, like morality, not social constructs like THE CHURCH, or big catherals with legs fighting Hitler. The idea of THE CHURCH fighting anything is absurd. Count the people who cared, group them together in the religion of your choice, and voila, "the church" is "opposing Hitler."

 

There you go again: big powerful groups taking credit for individual morality, just like the dope who wrote the article that said atheists don't have morality.

 

But the truth is, social constructs cannot have morality. Big buildings cannot have morality. GROUPS CANNOT HAVE MORALITY. Morality is related to individual action, because only an individual can make a choice. If he is making it under force of a group, then it is an AMORAL action.

 

Furthermore, religions cannot "give us" morality any more than Jesus can pay for our sins. Morality is a study of cause and effect of human action. It is not some guys with beards saying what other people shouldn't do. It is not 20 something college philosophy undergrads talking about what you would do if you were in a sinking boat with two other people and it's on fire and a train is coming, etc etc. It is not about what other people shouldn't do. It's about your own choices you make every day. Like it or not, those choices are only moral if they are related to reality, not if some imaginary entity approves, whether it's a church building or a god. There are no Christians in foxholes, folks.

[Reverend AtheiStar]

What a moron. I don't trust people who believe there needs to be a higher power to keep their actions in line. Methinks they are projecting.

 

To me, Hitler was acting very godly. He ordered the deaths of millions of people in death camps. God killed all of the world's population, except for small sample, by drowning them. Hitler loved to torture his victims by burning them alive in ovens. God invented Hell and a ton of easily breakable rules so people could be tortured forever. Hitler was just trying to be like his SkyDaddy™.

 

 

damn! ive never thought of that. that would make a great bumber sticker. "hitler was the most godlike man ive ever heard of" or something to the extent.

 

I started a thread a few years back called Hitler Loved Jesus -- on a Christian forum. Man, did it piss them off. Another thread was eventually started called Jesus Loved Hitler. Had the character been real, I would've totally agred! Jesus clearly stated in Matthew 10:34 that he came to bring a sword, not peace and loved to talk about unquenchable fire, the gnashing of teeth and the worm that dieth not (amongst some other pretty negative ideas). It chimes very well with Hitler.

 

My wife and I have a sticker shop on Cafepress. I'll see what we can do about working it into a sticker.

[Joyous1]

I am really amazed by the responses here, amazed that so many of you latch onto half-truths just because they support your worldview. I too am an atheist, but I can find plenty of reasons to hate Christianity without making shit up. I wish I had time now to respond but I will be working straight through the holiday weekend.

 

For now all I can say is that I find it very difficult to believe that Albert Einstien would have allowed Time to get away with misquoting him. He lived another 22 years after that article was published, but never wrote a letter to the editor protesting the misquote? If Enstein himself never wrote anything refuting that quote, why should I believe what anyone else says to refute it?

 

And those of you who are gullible enough to believe that Buddhism -- or Neo Paganism or any other religion for that matter -- is more peaceful or virtuous that Christianity, I truly pity you.

[Amethyst]

But the truth is, social constructs cannot have morality. Big buildings cannot have morality. GROUPS CANNOT HAVE MORALITY. Morality is related to individual action, because only an individual can make a choice. If he is making it under force of a group, then it is an AMORAL action.

 

Furthermore, religions cannot "give us" morality any more than Jesus can pay for our sins. Morality is a study of cause and effect of human action. It is not some guys with beards saying what other people shouldn't do. It is not 20 something college philosophy undergrads talking about what you would do if you were in a sinking boat with two other people and it's on fire and a train is coming, etc etc. It is not about what other people shouldn't do. It's about your own choices you make every day. Like it or not, those choices are only moral if they are related to reality, not if some imaginary entity approves, whether it's a church building or a god. There are no Christians in foxholes, folks.

 

Excellent points.

[Reverend AtheiStar]

I am really amazed by the responses here, amazed that so many of you latch onto half-truths just because they support your worldview. I too am an atheist, but I can find plenty of reasons to hate Christianity without making shit up. I wish I had time now to respond but I will be working straight through the holiday weekend.

 

For now all I can say is that I find it very difficult to believe that Albert Einstien would have allowed Time to get away with misquoting him. He lived another 22 years after that article was published, but never wrote a letter to the editor protesting the misquote? If Enstein himself never wrote anything refuting that quote, why should I believe what anyone else says to refute it?

 

And those of you who are gullible enough to believe that Buddhism -- or Neo Paganism or any other religion for that matter -- is more peaceful or virtuous that Christianity, I truly pity you.

 

 

No one is "making shit up." The Catholic Church worshipped Hitler like a god. They did so because they were, as they are now, attracted to immense power. Once he killed himself, however, they began to distance themselves from their golden boy.

 

http://www.ronaldbrucemeyer.com/rants/0420a-almanac.htm

 

"War with the world was not far in the future, and Hitler's key uniting precept was his scapegoating of the Jews for all of the troubles in the economically depressed country. His Catholic upbringing, coupled with a disbelief that a Jew could really be a German, along with personal observations that Jews seemed to be too prominent in German society — Jews controlled the press of Berlin, the theater, the arts; there were too many Jewish lawyers, doctors, and professors — informed his opinion, expressed in Mein Kampf, that Jews were a "pestilence, worse than the Black Death." Elsewhere in the same political autobiography, Hitler wrote, "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."

 

He was baptized a Catholic, attended a monastery school early in life, and was a communicant and altar boy as a youth. During his years as Chancellor and then dictator of Nazi Germany, he was never excommunicated or condemned, even though the Vatican knew much of his policies and activities. The only major complaints from Rome regarded interference in Church matters. And those were largely silenced by the 1933 Concordat with the Vatican, under Pope Pius XII, which to Hitler meant that the Catholic Church recognized the Nazi state.

 

And, indeed, Pius XII ordered German Catholics not to oppose Hitler. No prelate of any influence in Germany did so, even after the June 1934 Blood Purge that took the lives of several Catholic leaders. The wartime Pope made only mild and highly generalized protests against any Nazi actions and pretty much acquiesced in Hitler's treatment of the Jews, about which Pius had a pretty good idea. For their part, the Roman Church got support for mandatory school prayer and for "family values" — much like the Christian fundamentalist wish list in the modern US."

 

As far as Einstein not disputing Time's misquoting and wild exaggeration, how do you know that he didn't? Do you have all his letters in your posession? Have you even tried to view them? It would seem that you blindly accept your position, as a Christian does his. The evidence is clearly and overwhelimingly on our side.