You may or may not have come across this...http://www2.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/gc.htm It's just an online version of Aquinas' Summa Contra Gentiles. In it he dives (as much as can be done) into the question of the quiddity of God's essence and existence. I'm not trying to convince you of God or not. Just thought you might like a rational discourse into the nature of God, if he exists.
Yeah I always find the Religion is the cause of all evil and all the death and all the wars argument a bit ridiculous, especially in light of 20th century history and the regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Pot, and Mao.
Nazis were not atheists as a group. Hitler was a self-identified Christian. Now maybe he wasn't a very good Christian according to some beliefs, but was he really much worse in practicing "his beliefs" than Fred Phelps or Pat Robertson, much less the pervasive "À la carte" Christians who pull out their religious flag when and only when it suits them?
I'm not sure, but I think he recanted that at some point. When they went all in, they went all in. At the very least, the 3rd Reich was not about religion.
Ummm. The will to power? Nietzsche pretty much makes the case that Christianity effeminated the Roman Empire. At the very least, it wasn't a religious undertaking.
You might want to read: http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521603528 http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/11/3/434 http://press.princeton.edu/quotes/q8820.html There were a lot of secular Nazis, but they were also fairly diverse and were not afraid to incorporate anything (false history, religion, racist fear, etc.) to promote their party and their mission.
interesting. However, I still think you are trying to use human logic to define something that is not defineable by human logic.
That's fine, but what Nazi fascism was had nothing to do with religion. The bottom line is there are problems with a government that doesn't recognize that rights are inherent in the dignity of man (from a Creator as the Americans declared, or from wherever secular humanists say rights come from). This is why we put one nation under God in the pledge, to recognize the prepolitical rights of man. When the state denies this, human rights abuses will follow.
You mean Communist Russia, or basically most of Europe for the first, what, 1500 years AD/CE? Nazis presented their own bastardized brand of Christianity, Hitler was a Catholic in good standing, and even quoted Martin Luther to support anti-Semitism. I wonder where this comes from, did they honestly not celebrate Christmas in Germany from '33 to '45?
Dude. You aren't a Catholic in good standing when you murder 6 million people and start a war. I'm just saying that might be a mortal sin. That and the fact that many Catholics were interred and killed in concentration camps. I've actually got a crucifix from a priest who was in Auschwitz. Bottom line is Hitler would do/say anything to keep in power. That's why he's so much of a contradiction in many of the history books.
So, to summarize: Catholics don't commit mass murder. If you were a Catholic, and you commit mass murder, then you are no longer a Catholic in good standing and don't really count as a Catholic. thus.... Catholics don't commit mass murder. Are you familiar with circular reasoning? Because your argument here is pretty much a textbook example.
Listen you're a smart guy, so let's parse out the sentence together. A Catholic in good standing means not in a state of mortal sin. Nowhere did I say a Catholic could not murder 11 million people, or that if you did you weren't a Catholic anymore. You simply wouldn't be in good standing. If you commit mass genocide of 6 million Jews and murder 5 million other people, make absolutely no act of contrition or seek repentance through the sacrament of confession then you are technically not a Catholic in good standing. Really, it's late at night, you seem a bit off of your game, so I'll let it pass, but it's not even close to what you are summarizing me as saying. And to add to the idiocy of the first post, he provided evidence that Hitler was a Catholic in good standing because he used Martin Luther to convince Germans to murder Jews. I mean really.
So you accept that he was the greatest Catholic mass murderer of all time, then? Just not in "good standing"? Ok. If that distinction has some meaning to you, so be it. I have no problem conceding what from my perspective is a meaningless point about "good standing". I only care that he was a Catholic. From my perspective it looked like you were trying to hedge on him being a "real Catholic" so you could write him off as not leaving any stink on the Catholic Church's impeccable record. But since, as we have now established, we are all agreed that he was a Catholic... Maybe I was just reading meaning into your words, but in that case, I don't understand why his standing with the Church is particularly relevant. But I guess while we're at it, I'll just say that Stalin wasn't an atheist in good standing. I never saw him at any of the meetings, and I don't know anybody who did. Also, he spent so much money and effort to revive and support the Russian Orthodox Church. No committed atheist would even think of doing such a thing. So if Hitler doesn't count as a Catholic, we probably shouldn't count Stalin as an atheist. Or we can count them both as. Which ever way you prefer.
Seriously. This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. No time for fooling around. The original poster intentionally stated that Hitler was a Catholic in good standing to attempt to prove that he wasn't an atheist. Considering Hitler pretty much renounced his Catholic upbringing, was in no way trying to live by the rules of the Church, led me to think the statement was more than a bit ludicrous. Whether Hitler was a Catholic or atheist doesn't speak to the fact that Nazi Germany did not attest to the pre-political dignity of man that we all have. This seems to be a common theme in recent societies that seem to be into killing millions upon millions of humans. These societies, tend to be atheistic with no trace of secular humanism (for my criticisms of SH, at least it recognizes the dignity of the human, despite the abortion exception). Other societies that tend to recognize a deity seem to say things about the rights of man and such. For what it's worth, Nazi Germany under Hitler was largely formed by a notion of the will to power as however misinterpreted by Hitler. This included the ability to just about say or do anything to keep power. I think that is at the heart of the Nazi regime. So if you'd like to contribute something of value to the discussion, that would be great.
