Atheists, Work With Us for Peace, Pope Says on Christmas

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“Peace is a daily commitment. It is a homemade peace,” he said.

He said that people of other religions were also praying for peace, and - departing from his prepared text - he urged atheists to join forces with believers.

“I invite even non-believers to desire peace. (Join us) with your desire, a desire that widens the heart. Let us all unite, either with prayer or with desire, but everyone, for peace,” he said, drawing sustained applause from the crowd.

nytimes.com/reuters/2013/12/25/world/europe/25reuters-pope-christmas.html
 
Did anybody else who watched the Pope’s address on EWTN here that comment being translated? I do not think I heard it.
 
Did anybody else who watched the Pope’s address on EWTN here that comment being translated? I do not think I heard it.🤷
 
Did anybody else who watched the Pope’s address on EWTN here that comment being translated? I do not think I heard it.:confused:
 
It is very important for the world of an atheist to be populated by people who practice the peace, love and helping others. After all, if right and wrong, good and evil, etc., are determined by your personal point of view, you better try to suppress the less benign people around you.

If people realize that in the world of the atheist that what is right and what is evil is merely a game of pretend amongst people, then only the strong will survive. Yes, they must desperately try to promote (in their fictional reality) peace and love, even though to the genuine atheist, these are merely immaterial illusions for the weak.

They must suppress the Stalins and Hitlers and Maos of the world - and their contemporary ilk that I will not name, primarily to avoid my entry being deleted.
 
_Abyssinia said:
Did anybody else who watched the Pope’s address on EWTN hear that comment being translated? I do not think I heard it

In this text of Pope Francis’ address the comment in the New York Times is not there

catholicnewsagency.com/news/peace-requires-daily-commitment-emphasizes-pope-in-christmas-message

But is in the Vatican radio text of the address
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That’s because it was not in the original script he was using, but he deviated from the script to say this.
 
Let us define 'atheist" in two ways: 1.) Those who simply do not believe in God, and 2.) Those who do not believe in God and want everyone else to follow their non-belief.

I have friends who just cannot find it to believe in God. Maybe someone suppressed them, hurt them, abused religion on them, and they just can’t work through the quagmire of feelings. Some just don’t seem to have the ability to understand, kind of like me with algebra: it exists but I just can’t comprehend the symbols. I can deal with their non-belief; they can deal with my belief and we remain friends. I quietly pray for them and they excuse my “getting religion”.

GOD MADE US ALL, EVEN THE ATHEISTS, and some atheists appear to be doing God’s work without even realizing it. Some atheists might even be doing more of God’s work than some Christians, mercy me! And some atheists are working for peace.

This is no news for a pope, or bishop, or even priest; they understand it. They have probably worked with atheists in hospitals, homeless shelters, businesses, in their own families.

I believe it is the number 2.) atheists who are and have been actively trying to rid the world of God through some kind of social architecture…the Stalin’s and Mao’s of the world that have destroyed more humans than any Christian has. They say peace but they mean peace after conversion to their ideology or die. Some might say that there have been religious people who have functioned this way: “believe in what I say or die”.

If you have ever read stories of atheists who miraculously converted you will realize that someone paved/prayed their way towards that conversion. I think that this is what Pope Francis and others extend when they discuss working together for peace: the belief that we are all God’s creations so let’s not allow ourselves to be divided as humans. Let’s unite.
 
A lot of atheists reject the Bible because they find the stories of the Bible not to be peaceful enough, with too much glorification of war, and the Lord of Hosts leading brutal campaigns that atheists cannot stomach.

The over-riding message of God Incarnate in the world, and the development of humanism that ultimately results in God becoming human, has not been lost on atheists. Atheists reject Christianity because in their own mind, Christianity is not Christian enough.
In terms of peace then, atheists are often great partners to enage with, if they will have us.
 
DaddyGirl said:
I trust he knows that most atheists are very peace-oriented, and their motives, desires and actions are often moved in this direction.
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Most of the atheists in power, that I’ve known of, have been more ruthless than their Christian or even non-Christian non-atheist counterparts. In addition when a Christian murders he is doing so against the teachings of God. When an atheist does this, he is doing this against?
It’s one of the reasons they often become atheists in the first place, actually–because they don’t like how many come to violence because of religious differences.
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The 20th century has shown us that atheism and militant secularism have led to most of the slaughter and suffering on previously unprecedented scales. How many people did the atheist Communists murder in the Eastern Bloc? How many lives and societies did they ruin? How many people suffer right now in atheist North Korea? atheist Cuba?

The whole religious intolerance thing is overblown. Right now extreme secularism is showing intolerance. Someone can be fired for expressing their conscience. We also have more obvious things like euthanasia and abortion which most atheists and secularists support. Religion, empirically, is not necessary for intolerance. Intolerance can and does exist among those who claim to be tolerant. To reject religion for this minor and not-religion specific aspect of human nature is, for me, unjustified.

And let’s not forget the intolerance of atheist bigots such as Dawkins and Peter Bogdohsian. The latter claims that religious faith is a mental illness. The former hates religious people. He has even said that religion is worse than some forms of child abuse. Many people call Dawkins their hero. The atheist cult of gnu, which is does not believe in God has created their own intolerance, so it’s pointless to say God belief is responsible for intolerance. It’s just empirically unjustified.
Just because someone does not believe in a deity, it doesn’t mean they do not want peace and love among their fellow brothers and sisters…and I’m sure Pope Francis knows this…so good on him!
Merry Christmas, Pope Francis!
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Atheism is silent on issue of morality. If anything, atheistic materialism or naturalism imply that there is no purpose to life and any purpose one creates for oneself is a delusion. This means that a pedophile can create a justified purpose for himself in molesting children, while a more giving person can create a purpose for themselves in feeding the hungry. There is no objective morality. An atheist who lives his life consistent with atheism can be a good person but can also be a very bad person. And one cannot draw on atheism and say “No God, no purpose, everything is an accident, so do good deeds”. What is good even?

Now many atheists are good because we live in a cilvilised society which has been shaped by thousands of years of Christian and theistic and even non-Christian religions. Even the non-Christian religions have elements of some transcendent goodness which originates from God. But pure atheism, as we see in North Korea, Kampuchea and other Marxist countries before they collapsed is terrible.

Merry Christmas to you. Nothing personal meant against you. You sound like a good person but that goodness comes from God. 🙂
 
DaddyGirl said:
And…of course…Hitler was baptized and raised Catholic, he was an altar boy. And in his political speeches, he used the word “God” often. The Nazi belt buckle was engraved with “Gott Mit Uns”–which means “God With Us”.
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Of course he was. But he did not practice what Christ taught. He did not practice what the Catholic Church teaches.

Imagine a doctor who is licensed to practice medicine but uses witchcraft to treat his patients. Oh but he calls himself a doctor. He even put his MD degree on his office wall. He must be a physician - he has a license and a degree. Well that license should be revoked and will be and he’ll still retain his degree, but the treatment with witchcraft element, even if he endorses it with “MD” after his name, is not part of his medical training or licensing requirements. The same with Hitler. Hitler did bad things despite being Christian to some degree. However we could cite where he went wrong. The Church did not say “Herr Hitler you can murder millions of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Gays etc. We give you our blessing. Those filthy sub-humans were not created in God’s image and were not saved by Jesus Christ. It’s not our job to evangelise to them so you can just do what you want with these soulless non-entities.” With an atheist what can we say?

There is no God. Everything is there because of chance. So we must do good things? What is good anyway? There are NO OUGHTS. A sadist can molest, a humanitarian can feed, etc. The person is a slave to her passions.
 
Gee, I know plenty of atheists. I feel very sorry for them. They live in a world created by themselves that is not real in a very fundamental way because they deny the existence of God. Too many think an atheist is someone who does not believe in God. That is not really the distinction. It is someone who actively denies that God exists. That leads to a multitude of problems. And there is a multitude of reasons why people fall into this profound error in thinking. We should feel sorry for such people and try to help them. But it is facile to believe that the fundamental lie which underpins their world-view is anything but evil.
 
Most of the atheists and agnostics I know are as descent or more so, than the Christians I know.

I would certainly prefer the company of a kind atheist to that of a pontificating Protestant Evangelical.
 
Of course the Pope is right…many athiests do want peace…and if knowing that Christians are praying for the same thing then maybe it will lead to conversions for some…which is what we as Christians want…what concerns me is that athiests don’t have the same moral values as we Christians do…they don’t see abortion as a sin because they don’t believe in sin…the same for homosexuality…same sex marriage…they don’t believe in Christian moral principles…they have a humanistic approach that humans are the makers of their own destiny…there are no moral laws that cannot be changed as society deems it…communism is an example of mans attempt to usher in a utopian atheistic society…look how many tens of millions have been killed under atheist dictators…many Christians were killed because they chose God over atheism…many are still being killed…tortured and imprisoned for their Christian faith…even here in the US and other Christian countries we are under persecution to an extent because our Christian values are being eroded…how much longer will we be immune from violent persecution as Christians continue to take a stand against this creeping secularism in society and in government… the two opposing “faiths” are totally the opposite of one another…for atheism to become stronger Christianity must be ultimately destroyed as it would be seen as a constant threat to a secular humanist society…
 
DaddyGirl said:
of the thousands of atheists I have met, their belief in what is right/wrong is not “pretend” and they don’t have a “fictional reality”
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That’s a really impressive number. With your Hitler comment, are you saying that belief in God induces violence more than atheism? Or is that just a random, anecdotal comment on your part?
 
I’m an atheist, too. But I maintain good relations with people of all faith, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan or a member of Scientology. Its part of my job, too since I work in the healthcare field. Richard Dawkins is just a thorn in the atheist movement. His tone is more of hostility towards believers which I can’t fathom. If he is mad at them, why should he go to the extent of condemning these people. Why be angry at something that you don’t believe in the first place. He allowed his emotions to control him rather than his intellect. I’ve read his books and they don’t dwell much on the scientific side.
 
new_atheist said:
I’m an atheist, too. But I maintain good relations with people of all faith, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan or a member of Scientology. Its part of my job, too since I work in the healthcare field. Richard Dawkins is just a thorn in the atheist movement. His tone is more of hostility towards believers which I can’t fathom. If he is mad at them, why should he go to the extent of condemning these people. Why be angry at something that you don’t believe in the first place. He allowed his emotions to control him rather than his intellect. I’ve read his books and they don’t dwell much on the scientific side.
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Richard Dawkins is a hero to many if not most gnu atheists. He only fell out of disfavour with some over the Elevatorgate Affair where he did not support a female activist (Watson) who was verbally sexually assaulted in an elevator by a fellow atheist.

Anyhow as you can see by Dawkins, Myers, Coyne, Boghossian, O’Hare, Hitchens and others, atheists are capable of intolerance and dogma. So the arguments that religion is responsible for such falls flat as eliminating religion entirely as in North Korea (USSR, etc) and also being a new atheist in a secular Western society does not make one immune to these things, and probably makes one more intolerant and more hateful in general.
 
MarcoPolo said:
That’s a really impressive number. With your Hitler comment, are you saying that belief in God induces violence more than atheism? Or is that just a random, anecdotal comment on your part?
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There’s no greater cognitive dissonance then believing that life, the universe, etc is all a meaningless accident but at the same time maintaining that one can lead a meaningful life (by granting some higher privilege to one’s feelings) and one should do good things in such a universe, whatever arbitrary definition of good exists. I guess it’s all good if it makes you happy except when you’re a sadist, rapist, person with intolerant conservative views, etc then you can’t do good things … you must do bad things I guess.
 
new_atheist said:
I’m an atheist, too. But I maintain good relations with people of all faith, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan or a member of Scientology. Its part of my job, too since I work in the healthcare field. Richard Dawkins is just a thorn in the atheist movement. His tone is more of hostility towards believers which I can’t fathom. If he is mad at them, why should he go to the extent of condemning these people. Why be angry at something that you don’t believe in the first place. He allowed his emotions to control him rather than his intellect. I’ve read his books and they don’t dwell much on the scientific side.
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I am of the opinion that the atheists that express the most animosity against the Christian message are in rebellion against what the Church teaches about sexuality. The huge amount of energy needed to maintain that kind of animosity seems to be to be as primal as our sexuality itself.

Those atheists who don’t believe simply because it is unbelievable, and angels and demons and resurrections and miracles are simply outside of their experience of the world tend not to have sufficient motivation to expend all that energy opposing something that does not effect their lives in the slightest.
 
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