Both American (here) and foreign politicians (here) have recently blamed atheists and secularists for everything from plagues to plaque. Christian (here) and Jewish (here) have joined in the growing chorus that secularists are a threat to the future of our species. Bishop Anthony Fisher of Parramatta has added his own bizarre list of ills from secularism, blaming it for Nazism, Stalinism, mass murder and abortion in his Easter message.
Archbishop Fisher is considered a favorite of the Pope and expected to be the next head of the church in Australia. He called the harm from “godlessness” to have been “devastating” in the last century, noting “‘Nazism, Stalinism, Pol-Pottery, mass murder and broken relationships: all promoted by state-imposed atheism or culture-insinuated secularism.” Pol-Pottery? Sounds like a community college ceramics class.
The Nazi illusion has appeared in past attacks on secularists despite Hitler’s repeated emphasis on faith.
This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief. The great masses of a nation are not composed of philosophers. For the masses of the people, especially faith is absolutely the only basis of a moral outlook on life. The various substitutes that have been offered have not shown any results that might warrant us in thinking that they might usefully replace the existing denominations. …There may be a few hundreds of thousands of superior men who can live wisely and intelligently without depending on the general standards that prevail in everyday life, but the millions of others cannot do so.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 10
He also insisted that
By helping to lift the human being above the level of mere animal existence, Faith really contributes to consolidate and safeguard its own existence. Taking humanity as it exists to-day and taking into consideration the fact that the religious beliefs which it generally holds and which have been consolidated through our education, so that they serve as moral standards in practical life, if we should now abolish religious teaching and not replace it by anything of equal value the result would be that the foundations of human existence would be seriously shaken.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 2 Chapter 1
Hitler was actually baptized as Roman Catholic, attended a monastery school, was an altar boy and claimed to be a “soldier of Christ.” There is a debate over his view of religion when he died, but Hitler actually encouraged faith among his soldiers and citizens in his twisted view of the world. He also wrote “I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.” (Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 2).
It appears that this is a new coordinated message of the Church, citing the scourge of secular humanism while struggling with its child abuse scandal. Not only has the Pope advanced this theme, (here) and Jewish (here), but other Church leaders used the issue as part of their Easter messages.
For example, Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, also attacked atheism. Cardinal compared Catholic charities to those other people, noting ”we find no community services sponsored by the atheists.” That is perfectly bizarre since Pell is suggesting that atheists do not support such charities, including religious charities. There are a host of non-religious-based charities from environmental groups to human rights groups to anti-poverty groups. It appears that Pell has confirmed that there are no secularists supporting those groups, though he did not say how he completed that survey. Such ridiculous statements move these statements from preaching to propaganda.
For the full story, click here.
Considering that organized religion as opposed to blief in dieties is a very recent human activity, the logic of their argument doesn’t get much beyond the giggle state.
Goodness. The man needs to read his Bible: the love of money is the root of all evil. All evil stems from sin (not secularism).
R.J. Rummel, in my opinion, proves HOW that absolute power kills and kills absolutely. The Catholic Church has some experience with absolute power, does it not?
The Catholic Church ought to decentralize its power some by making its leaders more accountable and provide more transparency to its followers. For its own sake.
As far as abortion goes, after leftists have sex with each other, I can understand how they would want to destroy the evidence of it. Still, the poor little innocent fruit.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/departments/book-review-death-by-government-by-rj-rummel/
It has already been well established that the decline in the number of Pirates is responsible for (among other things); Global Warming, Hurricanes, Earthquakes, the Gay, Nazism, Stalinism, Mass Murder, and Abortion.
Yes, it’s those pesky thinkers causing all the world’s problems, not the believers.
Read with twice the usual amount of sarcasm.
And what mespo said.
Hitler wasn’t just a Catholic. He was a “good” Catholic. And a vegetarian to boot.
I heard this same nonsense, that secularism is the cause of the 20th century’s moral decline as evidenced by Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao, and humanists, back in the 1970’s. It was promulgated by some loon named Francis Schaeffer, a pseudo-intellectual with a Christian ashram in the Alps. Looks like the more things change the more they stay the same right, Archbishop Fisher? The future is uncertain but the end is always near.
Poor historian, the good Archbishop. Likely, he forgot Hitler’s purge against atheists:
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.>/i>
~ Adolf Hitler, Speech in Berlin, October 24, 1933
A little stroll around the Vatican archives and he could have found out that the first treaty Hitler ever signed as leader of Germany was the Concordat of 1933 with the Pope. It is a treaty he never broke, and he christened the event with these chilling words:
The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgment of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie.
~Adolf Hitler, speech to members of the Nazi Party on the Nazi-Vatican Concordant, July 22, 1933
And Hitler reminded us that Nazism and Catholicism have this little intersection of interests as well:
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
Actually, some of the worst attrocities have been committed in the name of God/Religion including but not limited to The Crusades, The Holy Inquisition (now known as The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith).
Despite its monopoly on morally, religion has do very little to actually stop conflict. And, more often than not, it has and continues to contribute and give support to conflict/war.
Nothing has changed in the RCC. In 2008 here I asked:
Is this not the same religious institution that created a modern army of pedophiles, and sought to obscure their crimes? Is this not the same institution that condemns use of condoms as a moral offense, while millions die of AIDS after abstinence miseducation? Is this not the same institution that enslaved girls in the Magedelene Laundries for decades in Ireland? The same institution that would rather see children in orphanages than facilitate adoption to gay parents, all the while plying donations from the poorest across the world… as the media covers what wine is fit to be served the leader of this cult?
This is rich coming from an organization that is in the midst of one of the largest sex scandals in history – against children no less; an organization that has killed and maimed many innocents in the name of God over the years; an organization which tells its followers to ‘live as Jesus lived’ (ie, poverty and humility), and purports to do so itself, yet its hierarchy lives as richly as a monarchy; an organization that has shown its cowardice and hypocrisy time and again over the ages by blaming all others for its failings.
In my mind, religion in general is the problem.
“…his own bizarre list of ills from secularism, blaming it for Nazism, Stalinism, mass murder and abortion…”
Oh please… the problem is Christianity. There were NEVER any problems with this Nazism and Stalinism business when Zeus was given his proper respect and adulation, were there?
Quite obviously the responsibility for all this mess falls quite squarely on the Catholic Church and its unholy reverence for its do-nothing impotent “God”. To be fair, one has to give this Jesus fellow due props for his reasonable attitude about respecting the privacy of what happens behind closed doors between a priest and his adulant. But one must also call out sloth when one sees it displayed so plainly.
Correction, P.T. Barnum once said ‘There is a sucker born every minute’ and they collect under the name of religion
That’s funny coming from such a murderous organization as religion that, currently, has problems with raping little boys, hordes money from those that are starving and dying which it got, in no small part, from those that are starving and dying by feeding on their fears and hopes and all in the name of an imaginary being in the sky. If such a group existed under any other name these disgusting trolls would be removed from society. Then they have the utter gall to claim ANY kind of moral superiority? I would NEVER come anywhere close to what these disease-ridden scabs of humanity have done to mankind yet they want to claim Godless people are the root of many of the problems?
Infinite, all-powerful, all-knowing God or an infinite Universe? Hmmmm, gee, I think I will go with the one I can touch, feel, and see.
As P.T. Barnum once said ‘There is a fool born every minute’ and they collect under the name of religion.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ope-1Zb5t-k&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
How about indifference?
It is possible to have ethical, secular people who do not believe in Nazism, Stalinism, Mass Murder, and Abortion.
Some have left the morality of their religions behind, but still kept some principles of conduct.
Hence, morality gets replaced with ethics.
The problem is that ethics is humanistic, and can reflect a personal view, rather than an absolute law by a Creator. This is why some behavior is ok to one person and not ok to another.
In true religion, which is not what you see much of today, codes of conduct are determined by the Creator.
What you see now is, many times, false religion imposing its own personal views, making it similar in conscience to the secular group.
Hmmmm … our right wing religionists seem to have an ideology that has already been around the block.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/05/your-god-wears-combat-boots.html