some thoughts on God, Faith and atheism

[THOTH]

My how times have changed...

 

INGERSOLL'S VOW

Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899) was a famous attorney and orator whose brilliant lectures drew thousands. As a political figure, he came close to achieving the Republican party's nomination for governor of Illinois, but prejudice and intolerance denied him the opportunity because he was an atheist.

 

"When I became convinced that the universe is natural—that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world—not even in infinite space.

 

I was free—free to think, to express my thoughts—free to live to my own ideal—free to use all my faculties, all my senses—free to spread imagination's wings—free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope—free to judge and determine for myself—free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past—free from popes and priests—free from all the "called" and "set apart"—free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies—free from the fear of eternal pain—free from the winged monsters of the night—free from devils, ghosts, and gods.

 

For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought—no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings—no chains for my limbs—no lashes for my back—no fires for my flesh—no master's frown or threat—no following another's steps—no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

 

And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain—for the freedom of labor and thought—to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs—to those whose flesh was scarred and torn—to those by fire consumed—to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still."

[Stormig]

Oh, Japan has had its share, alright, worshipping their emperor-god. WWII is not that much further away from where Hitler stood.

[THOTH]

All you ever wanted to know about Agnosticism (and more). Not sure I know anything now (LOL)...(but I'm cerytain that I don't believe any of it!)

 

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01215c.htm

 

also -

 

http://skepdic.com/agnosticism.html

[Stormig]

Hitler was not excommunicated, neither was Mussolini nor Ante Pavelic.

 

For you guys to tell you something more about the Vatican:

 

-----------------------------

 

A Shameful Chapter In the History of Roman Catholicism:

Croatia 1941-1945

 

by Robert E. Nordlander, nord@powernetonline.com

25 April 1999

 

Although there are elements within the contemporary Catholic Church attempting to alleviate the misery of millions of people living in Third World countries under the ideological or theological rubric of "Liberation Theology," the Catholic Church's hierarchy is for the most part opposed to this trend and is more comfortable wheeling and dealing with right-wing despots, just as it was comfortable earning the favor of royalty in days gone by.

 

The Roman Catholic Church, under the present pontiff John Paul II. has been quite adamant in opposing a theology that might be more consistent with that part of the message of Jesus which puts him on the side of the poor and oppressed of the world.

 

While paying lip service to the cause of human rights around the world, Pope John Paul II has chosen to sully the honor of his church by initiating the ritual that will put the late Alojzije Cardinal Stepinac on the path to sainthood. This took place on October 3, 1998 in Marija Bistrica, Croatia when the pope beatified the late Cardinal by declaring him to be "blessed."

 

By thus conferring posthumous honors on the late Cardinal Stepinac, the Vatican is, in essence, conferring its blessing upon the regime for which Stepinac served as "chaplain." I am referring of course to the murderous regime of the Ustashe fascist Ante Pavelic, whose totalitarian Croatian state murdered some 750,000 Serbs, 50,000 Jews and 26,000 Romany (Gypsies) during World War II.

 

Today, Croatia is again an independent nation whose chief of state, Franjo Tujman, glories in the bloody and gruesome legacy of his country's Ustashe past. Unlike Germany, which has renounced its Nazi past, (at least officially), Tujman' Croatia takes pride in its own short-lived era of fascism. Pope John Paul has chosen to confer the highest ecclesiastical honor his church can confer on a person who served as a moral and ethical front for a regime that even exceeded Adolf Hitler's Third Reich in its zeal for murder in the name of ethnic chauvinism.

 

Pavelic was apparently one of the beneficiaries of the infamous Vatican- sponsored "Ratline" which enabled hundreds of Nazi and fascist war criminals to escape to Latin America or the United States. There was no Nuremberg war crimes tribunal for the likes of Pavelic and many of his partners in genocide.

 

Croatia's Poglavnik died in the German Hospital in Madrid on December 27, 1959. Prior to his death he had found refuge in a Franciscan monastery upon his return from Argentina. A Franciscan priest administered the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church to him. He was favored by Pope John XXIII with his own personal benediction. (Genocide in Satellite Croatia: 1941-1945, by Edmond Paris, pp. 278-279).

 

That the Roman Catholic has Church had no hesitancy to back fascism in the name of the crusade against "godless atheistic communism" needs no documentation here. But there is an interesting chapter in the history of Roman Catholicism's bloody alliance with fascism that is virtually unknown to people who are not literate or fluent in the Serbian-Croatian languages. One person who chose to write about this dark side of Vatican history in English was Branco Bakun, whose book Spy in the Vatican was published by Praeger in the United States in 1973. This work deserves to be re- printed today and translated into as many languages as possible because this work should inform American and other readers how Croatia fits into the political psychology of Yugoslavia.

 

I would like to introduce this book to readers of these words with the hope that they will be able to locate it and read it. Perhaps, in light of the tragedy unfolding in Yugoslavia courtesy of the NATO gangsters, this work will be re-issued by a publisher interested in presenting a true and honest account of an event in history that ought to be a part of everyone's historical memory. If this were to occur then people in America would be able to appreciate why Yugoslavia is being ill-used by the Clinton-Blair gang for ends, which this writer must confess, that he is unable to fathom.

 

Branco Bokun was a young man of 21 years when his mother was able to obtain an appointment for him in the foreign service of Yugoslavia shortly before Hitler's invasion of that country in April, 1941. When the royalist government was quickly disposed of by the invading German military machine, the personnel of the foreign office was transferred to the Red Cross which was allowed to function by the occupying power.

 

Branco Bokun was fluent in at least two foreign languages. He was able to speak Hungarian like a native and Italian well enough to enroll at the University of Rome as a Hungarian in order to study the political economy of fascism as practiced in Italy. He was ordered to do this by his boss in Yugoslav intelligence-also a Red Cross employee-to serve as a cover for his real mission which was to get the Vatican (that is, Pope Pius XII) to order the Roman Catholic Croatian dictator Ante Pavelic to stop his massacres of Serbian Orthodox Christians. Bokun's mission was a dismal failure (although he did earn his degree in economics from the University of Rome in 1945).

 

The following is an excerpt of a speech by Mike Budak, Croatian Minister of Religion, made on July 22, 1941, three months after the Croats won their independence from Yugoslavia by joining the Axis cause during World War II.

 

"The Ustashi movement is based on the Catholic Religion. For the minorities, Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, we have three million bullets. A part of these minorities has already been eliminated and many are waiting to be killed. Some will be sent to Serbia and the rest will be forced to change their religion to Catholicism. Our new Croatia will therefore be free of all heretics, becoming purely Catholic for the future years." (From Spy in the Vatican)

 

At this point over 300,000 Serbs, Gypsies and Jews had been murdered by the Croatian fascists known as the Ustashe. A grand total of 826,000 human beings, mostly Serbian Orthodox Christians, were to fall victim to the Ustashi gangsters who did their killing in the name of Holy Mother Church.

 

Bokun quoted a Roman Catholic priest as having made the following remarks on June 13, 1941:

 

"Brethren, up to now we have worked for the Holy Roman Apostolic Church with the cross and the missal. Now the moment has come to work with a knife in one hand and a gun in the other. The more Serbs and Jews you succeed in eliminating, the more you will be raised in esteem in the heart of the Roman Catholic Church."

 

A game that was played by the Ustashe personnel who manned the concentration camp was called "cut throat." According to the author, whoever was "able to kill a Serb or a Jew causing the least agony is the winner." On July 14, 1941. the Pope received, and gave his blessing to a hundred Ustashe policemen. The delegation was selected from the winners of "cut-throat."

 

Bokun described some photographs an intelligence boss asked him to look at before he left for Rome.

 

"I saw a picture of an Orthodox Church in the village of Glina. In front of the church was a pile of bodies, with two Ustashes in the foreground throwing the body of a dead Orthodox priest on the pile. To the left of the photograph, a Catholic priest stood watching.

 

"The next photograph depicted an Ustashe in the act of beheading an Orthodox priest, his axe raised, ready to strike. In the background several other Ustashis were standing around laughing.

 

"The third picture showed an Ustashe brandishing a knife dripping with blood, at his feet the bodies of several women and children.

 

"My eyes fixed on a naked child in the front who could not have been more than three years old. The look of surprise in his wide-open eyes made him look as if he were still alive."

 

Bokun was only able to deal with one significant Vatican bureaucrat, and that was done only through his administrative assistant. The bureaucrat in question was the future Pope Paul VI, who was then Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, Pro-Secretary of State of the Vatican, Secretary of the Department of Ordinary Affairs. Montini accepted the version of events concocted by the government of Croatia claiming that the atrocities were the work of communists who maliciously attributed them to Catholics.

 

One highly-placed person in the Vatican bureaucracy, Cardinal Eugene Tiserant, Secretary of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, was informed about what was happening in Croatia in the name of the Roman Catholic Church. He informed Pope Pius XII but to no avail.

 

The Vatican was especially proud of one facet of Croatian domestic policy: new abortion laws in Croatia justifying the persecution of Jews since "most practitioners of abortion were Jewish."

 

Wrote Bokun in his journal dated June 12, 1943: "When millions are being slaughtered the Vatican has nothing better to do than to honor Croatia for pronouncing abortion illegal. What is even more ironic is that his bloody Excellency is preventing abortion by murdering the parents."

 

Spy in the Vatican documents the holocaust no one knows about, as well as giving a memorable account of life and politics in Rome and the Vatican from 1941-1945.

 

Admittedly, this brief look at Roman Catholicism's World War II love-affair with Croatian fascism is hardly complete. It is hoped by the author that it will serve to enlighten people unfamiliar with Yugoslav history who some of the true villains were in World War II, villains which have been and are engaged in their infamous goal to destroy the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Those people, along with "Holy Mother Church's bloody skirts, should be a constant reminder to be on our guard against the lying propaganda of those who have launched the present aerial blitzkrieg against Yugoslavia.

 

The Vatican could be forgiven for its dismal support of Croatian fascism during World War II and its commencement of the process of sainthood for Cardinal Stepinac by taking seriously the Just War theology of the Roman Catholic Church. It could pronounce the NATO war against Yugoslavia to be an unjust war. Then it could ex-communicate and anathematize any Roman Catholic who participated in this unjust war against the people of Yugoslavia that NATO is waging.

 

The Roman Catholic Church has often asserted that it is a moral organization, whose moral and spiritual authority comes from Jesus Christ himself. That claim would be far more credible should Pope John Paul II take the suggestion just made and declare that NATO's war against Yugoslavia is an unjust and unholy war. Then and only then could the Vatican be forgiven for its complicity in genocide in Croatia during World War II.

 

Robert E. Nordlander, nord@powernetonline.com

 

[ January 22, 2003, 01:34 PM: Message edited by: Stormy ]

[Sasun]

Many crimes have been committed by organized religions in the name of God. That is the worst thing about organized religions. IMHO, any religion that has any degree of power in non-spiritual, earthly matters, or if it has significant material property cannot be a right and should not be followed. Not to mention that religion should stay out of politics.

[hyebruin]

Right on!, Sasun jan

[nairi]

I guess you're too old for Harut as well then

 

Lol, that was too funny though! You can change it in your profile.

[564312]

haha Nairi

If harut sees me he might have a heart attack

boooooo

[nairi]

I assume from your good looks

 

Btw, I meant, your birthday was really funny, unless you really are 103 today, then I can't help but to deeply respect you! But if it isn't, you can change it in your profile if you want.

[axel]

I am clearly not an apologist of the catholic church but I cannot stand your lies anymore so here are some facts.

 

A Righteous Gentile: Pope Pius XII and the Jews

 

By Rabbi David Dalin, Ph.D.

 

About The Author

 

Rabbi David G. Dalin, a widely-published scholar of American Judaism and the history of Christian-Jewish Relations (...)

 

In recent years, Eugenio Pacelli, who became Pope Pius XII in 1939, has been the subject of considerable public criticism, and even vilification, for his alleged failure to speak out against Hitler during the Holocaust. Pope Pius' alleged "silence," in the face of the worst Nazi atrocities, has led some of his harshest critics to accuse him of being a Nazi sympathizer or an anti-Semite. In 1999, the British journalist John Cornwell created an international sensation with the publication of his best-selling attack on Pius XII, vilifying Eugenio Pacelli as "Hitler's Pope."

 

(...)

 

For Jewish leaders of a previous generation, this harsh portrayal of Pope Pius XII, and the campaign of vilification against him, would have been a source of profound shock and sadness. From the end of World War II until at least five years after his death, Pope Pius enjoyed an enviable reputation amongst Christians and Jews alike. At the end of the war, Pius XII was hailed as "the inspired moral prophet of victory," and "enjoyed near-universal acclaim for aiding European Jews." Numerous Jewish leaders, including Albert Einstein, Israeli Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Moshe Sharett, and Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, expressed their public gratitude to Pius XII, praising him as a "righteous gentile," who had saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. In his meticulously researched and comprehensive 1967 book, Three Popes and the Jews, the Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide, who had served as the Israeli Counsel General in Milan, and had spoken with many Italian Jewish Holocaust survivors who owed their life to Pius, provided the empirical basis for their gratitude, concluding that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." To this day, the Lapide volume remains the definitive work, by a Jewish scholar, on the subject.

 

The campaign of vilification against Pope Pius can be traced to the debut in Berlin in February 1963 of a play, by a young, Protestant, left-wing West German writer and playwright, Rolf Hochhuth. The Deputy, in which Hochhuth depicts Pacelli as a Nazi collaborator, guilty of moral cowardice and "silence" in the face of the Nazi onslaught, is a scathing indictment of Pope Pius XII's alleged indifferences to the plight of European Jewry during the Holocaust.

 

Hochhuth's play ignited a public controversy about Pius XII that continues this day. Despite the fact that The Deputy was a purely fictional and highly polemical play, which offered little or no historical evidence for its allegations against Pope Pius XII, it was widely discussed and acclaimed. Indeed, it inspired a new generation of revisionist journalists and scholars, who were intent on discrediting the well-documented efforts of Pope Pius XII to save Jews during the Holocaust. Their denunciation of Pius received widespread publicity with the commercial success of Hitler's Pope, in which John Cornwell denounced him as "the most dangerous churchman in modern history," without whom "Hitler might never have…been able to press forward with the Holocaust." Although an unusually harsh and bitter judgment, it was one with which Pius XII's other recent detractors, such as Wills and Zucotti, implicitly concur. Moreover, in their persistent efforts to vilify Pius, and defame his memory, his detractors have largely dismissed or completely ignored Pinchas Lapide's seminal and comprehensive study that so conclusively documents the instrumental role played by Pope Pius XII in rescuing and sheltering Jews during the Holocaust.

 

The Historical Record: What Pius XII Did for the Jews

 

Despite allegations and misrepresentations to the contrary, it can now be documented conclusively that Pope Pius XII was responsible for saving hundreds of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. Although the villainous "silence" of the Pope has been repeatedly alleged since the early 1960's, there is much historical evidence to confirm that he was not silent, that before and after he became Pope he spoke out against Hitler and that he was almost universally recognized, especially by the Nazis themselves, as an unrelenting opponent of the Nazi regime.

 

Pius XII publicly and privately warned of the dangers of Nazism. Throughout World War II, he spoke out on behalf of Europe's Jews. When Pius learned of the Nazi atrocities in Poland, he urged the bishops of Europe to do all they could to save the Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution. On January 19, 1940, at the Pope's instruction, Vatican radio and L'Osservatore Romano revealed to the world "the dreadful cruelties of uncivilized tyranny" that the Nazis were inflicting on Jewish and Catholic Poles. The following week, the Jewish Advocate of Boston reported the Vatican radio broadcast, praising its "outspoken denunciation of German atrocities in Nazi [occupied] Poland, declaring they affronted the moral conscience of mankind."

 

In his 1940 Easter homily, Pius XII condemned the Nazi bombardment of defenseless citizens, aged and sick people, and innocent children. On May 11, 1940, he publicly condemned the Nazi invasions of Belgium, Holland, and Luxemburg and lamented "a world poisoned by lies and disloyalty and wounded by excesses of violence." In June 1942, Pius spoke out against the mass deportation of Jews from Nazi-occupied France, further instructing his Papal Nuncio in Paris to protest to Marshal Henri Petain, Vichy France's Chief of State, against "the inhuman arrests and deportations of Jews from the French occupied zone to Silesia and parts of Russia."

 

The London Times of October 1, 1942, explicitly praises him for his condemnation of Nazism and his public support for the Jewish victims of Nazi terror. "A study of the words which Pope Pius XII has addressed since his accession," noted the Times, "leaves no room for doubt. He condemns the worship of force and its concrete manifestations in the suppression of national liberties and in the persecution of the Jewish race."

 

Pius XII's Christmas addresses of 1941 and 1942, broadcast over Vatican radio to millions throughout the world, also help to refute the fallacious claim that Pope Pius was "silent." Indeed, as The New York Times described Pius' 1941 Christmas address in its editorial the following day, it specifically applauded the Pope, as a "lonely" voice of public protest against Hitler: "The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas…In calling for a 'real new order' based on 'liberty, justice, and love'…the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism.

 

(...)

 

These points are especially significant in evaluating Pope Pius XII's enduring legacy for twentieth, and twenty-first, century Jews. It needs to be remembered, as noted earlier, that no other Pope in history has been so universally praised by Jews. So, too, the compelling reason for this unprecedented Jewish praise for, and gratitude to, a Pope needs to be better remembered than it has been in recent years: Today, more than fifty years after the Holocaust, it needs to be more widely recognized and appreciated that Pius XII was indeed a very "righteous gentile," a true friend of the Jewish people, who saved more Jewish lives than any other person, including Raoul Wallenberg and Oskar Schindler. A new authentically Jewish history of Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust, emphasizing his historic role and accomplishments as a "righteous gentile," may help to bring some long-overdue recognition to his too little known and appreciated legacy as one of the century's great friends of the Jewish people.

[Stormig]

My knees are shaking..

 

All you did was glorify the then-pope and nothing else, whereas the Franciscans had a role in all of that and today John Paul II has beatified the cardinal in question, and people have claims against the Vatican Bank - no, NOT the Swiss, although those, too. So much for "lies."

[Stormig]

In fact, I just looked over my post before yours and saw that I hadn't high-lighted anything pertinent to the then-pope, about whom actually there IS a certain amount of dirty laundry exposed.

[axel]

I was only refering to the fallacious assertions associating catholicism with national-socialism in order to put the discredit on Christianism. These claims are utterly wrong so my integrity would not let me sit idle (although I do not have much respect for cesaro-papism and consider it to be a negation of Christianism).

 

Anyhow, this is quite off-topic as most of what you and THOTH posted in this thread. What does Orthodoxy and Armenian Christianity in particular have to do with all of this?

 

I didn't get the answer to my initial question. Is Justice the ideal of a society? if so, why? You should first answer this fundamental question. After all, if you consider your position to be valid, you should be able to defend it.

[Stormig]

Threads wind, twist, and develop. My posts started out because of Thoth's one post about roles of religion and religious clergy.

I don't remember involving Orthodoxy or the Armenian church.

 

Moreover, I have not been saying anything about Christianity itself. I won't bother. Like I said, I got inspired by Thoth's post, hoping to point out how today, despite all the facts, people haven't disowned that hierarchy and body of power. Instead, I get papal excusing from someone who says they don't care much about them anyway but wants to go on anyway because their dignity won't allow for it - a bit confusing for me.

 

As for your initial question, would justice be the ideal of society, yes, it should, not because someone tells you so, but because you know if you want "good," you have to bring good most of the time to the greatest number of people - optimize it. Otherwise, I rob you, you rob Thoth, Thoth robs Sip, etc., and we're not going anywhere. That should be enough to explain why we want good. I don't even feel like indulging into this, unless we want to discuss why the French Revolution or some such took place or something.

[axel]

I didn't say that but if you intervene in a thread and put forward some arguments that appear to support the claims of one side (thothist atheist in this case ), you should at least be aware of the topic at hand and not lose everyone in considerations that do not belong there.

 

Fine for me.

 

If you had taken the time to read my posts, you would have understood that I am quite opposed to the catholic standpoint and to the Vatican I consider to be an earthly power.

 

No papal excusing. Just restoring some facts and pointing out that THOTH claims are false allegations.

 

I for one never said that God existed because someone had told me it were true and I never resorted to any such argument in any circumstance.

 

This is a simplistic view, one can do evil and yet be spared by evil. If you were assured not to suffer the consequences of your evil deeds, would you still do good?

 

If you think the french or the bolshevik revolutions were about "justice" and "freedom" or if you consider them to be spontaneous uprisings then you should ask yourself why the first one ended up in persecution and mass-killing of poor peasants, and the other one in yet worse atrocities (you might consider reading Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago).

 

Revolution is about the greed of the masses being manipulated by a small "elite" that substitutes itself for the one in place. All the rest is propaganda.

[Stormig]

Now I am really lost.

 

Then I fail to see an obstacle in recognizing Vatican involvement in crimes - NOT some "standpoint."

 

I have failed to see Thoth degrading the then-pope on whom you have focused - especially the WWII aspects.

 

I fail to see the connection between "God" and justice.

 

Argh. You demand from the system a guarantee that nobody does evil to you and, consequently, to no other. Are we not to learn a lesson from what is quoted as some politically-undesirable German during the Third Reich - or something? "First they came for the communists. I did nothing. Then they came for the homosexuals. I did nothing. Then they came for the Jews. Again I did nothing. Then they came for me. And then there was no-one left to speak up for me." Or something down those lines. Simplistic? I think not.

 

I wouldn't do evil, that's for sure. It is something foreign to me.

 

I said "why" - reason - NOT "what after?" - result. Even carefully planned wars don't steer the way you would expect them to. AND - discontent fuels revolutions, not chest-thumping.

 

Agreed - "Revolution substitutes one ghastly government for another." But to call it "greed of masses" is a stretch. I rest my case.

[axel]

This is off-topic. I am no apologist of the Vatican and I know of its crimes. But it cannot serve as an argument in the context of this discussion.

 

Thoth was arguing that nazism had a connection with catholicism. It did not. That was my point.

 

It depends on how you define "God".

 

That was not what I meant. It was intended to serve as an introduction to the following question for I understood your position as saying one should do good in order to be spared by evil and not just for the sake of doing good. this is obviously not the case given the answer you provided to the question that followed

 

why? (what I am trying to argue is that there is no rational basis for such an attitude)

 

But why then didn't the oppressed russian masses deliver themselves from their bolshevik tyrants whose regime was far worse than the one they had put down? Force and terror was enough to control the masses. Doing "good" was not necessary to bring about an equilibrium. But is reaching an "equilibrium" something to be satisfied with as your reasoning seems to suggest? (I'm not saying that this is the way you think but that is how I understood your words)

 

Public opinion and discontent is something that can be induced by propaganda.

[THOTH]

Axel - you begun this thread essentially by putting down Atheism and Atheists - go back and read post 1 please. I find this insulting. I find it funny that you cry foul when folks post to contradict your narrow views.

 

BTW - you have not in any way countered my (referenced) claims that Hitler saw himself/was a Catholic/Christian.

 

Your claim that man would not do good with fear of punishment from "God" is both false - and it undermines the pitfalls of your beliefs - again placing man as "bad" and with only the fear of punishment from some outside source foe doing good. I find this a disgusting self-hating concept. I have no need to fear punishment or to rely on some ficticious entity for the source of love & compassion. I find these concepts to be very primative and demeaning to me and to all humanity.

[THOTH]

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you were assured not to suffer the consequences of your evil deeds, would you still do good?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I wouldn't do evil, that's for sure. It is something foreign to me.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

why? (what I am trying to argue is that there is no rational basis for such an attitude)

 

And belief in some external force to enforce such is a rational explanation?

 

So a question for you - If we cannot love (each other - singly or as a whole etc) independently of "God" - how is it that we can love "God" - as he demands? Sees to me a great paradox - no?

 

How is love rational BTW? Explain that...

[axel]

I am not a rationalistic thothist atheist . You should answer this question. This is precisely what I have been trying to express.

 

I see no "paradox". Orthodox Christians do not consider God as a "demanding" entity for Christ gave man the freedom to follow Him or not (=> forced conversions, as practised by catholicism, negate the essence of christianism). Could you rephrase the question, I am not sure I got your point.

[axel]

But I hold the same view. You do not understand Christianism if you think true Christians do good for the fear of "hell" or the hope of "heaven". Those who act this way are not Christians. I for one would follow my conscience even if the highest authority were to tell me I would "burn in hell".

[axel]

Christianism is not the religion of authority. It is the religion of Freedom.

[axel]

This is what he may have claimed. But there is a difference between what someone claims and what someone is. If you look closely into this question, you will find out he was also versed into paganism and occultism. The superiority of the aryan race, eugenism and the like have nothing to do with the message of Christ (at least as I understand it )

[Stormig]

Axel, you are sorry and bore me to my grave. The question was not whether Hitler was a Catholic or just plain Christian but what that hierarchy did for his allies. You claim to acknowledge yet you can't sit without itching to supposedly disagree with bits of irrelevant knitpicking - in other things as well. Go fly a kite before you talk to me about propaganda.

[axel]

What does this mean? Sorry, english is not my native tongue.