Was the pope a member of the Nazi Party/Hitler Youth

[rex_clinton]

didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk to heretics?

thanks for asking but my library is all over the place, i end up reading 5 or 6 books at the same time and never seem to start one and just hack through it till i get to the end in short order.

i’ve read just about everything richard dawkins has written since the selfish gene came out when i was in high school. i’ve since discovered harris and hitchens and i’m working on them.

the bulk of everything else is a mish mash of non-fiction and the only literature i’ve found myself reading in recent years seems to be translated russian particularly bulgakov.

there you have it and i’ll be the first to say, like most people today, i don’t read enough anymore and i’m embarrassed to admit it.

All your statements on this thread are quite interesting…can you share your library with me. I am interested in how your opinions and perceptions were shaped. Who informed you? What books were your favourite? How did an idea grasp you over another idea and why?

 

[IvanKaramozov]

i would say earlier generations were not as fortunate because they suffered under the effects of faith’s retarding of science. the dark ages had it’s advances however consider the impediments placed in reason and science’s way by the church and rome’s disgusting infatuation with power. the church established universities yes, but they had more in common with a madras than with what we think of as a place of higher learning,

With all due respect that’s a shallow and superficial view, the dark ages was primairly the result of the collapse of the Roman Empire, not the Church, the Church did not reach the climax of it’s power untill several centuries later.

Characterizing it as black and white as you do is simply unscientific. The Church certianly did in some respects retard progress, clearly it’s inflexability to move past Aristotilian physics slowed accecptance of Galellio’s ideas, however their rejection of Galellio was qute reasoniable considering the time. Certianly the Church did not endorse individual liberties as much as they ought have.

As to your charge of it being like a madrassa, if you mean in the sense that it was a religious based education program sure, if you mean like a Wahabbist madrassa, I don’t think so.

and of course the historical revelations of the dark ages are changing the way we define that period but i think it is safe to say it will be very unlikely that we see anyone describing it as a period of achievement and a flowering of enlightenment. just imagine that romans had indoor plumbing but a thousand years later the average filth encrusted european cowed into a state of faith-based ignorance probably wouldn’t have any idea what a bath was.

Well taken

your article on the surface seems compelling but in the end it’s argument relies on the assumption that a scientist advances no further than the inspiration for his original hypothesis. occam’s razor is a good guide, evidence should not be unnecessarily multiplied. i.e., the simplest explanation makes the most sense. a good scientist soldiers on and regardless of the outcome he originally supposed, accepts the end result of a lot of hard work. his default explanation is never, “a magic man in the sky did it.”

Occam was a monk from the medeval period ironically enough.

so yes, those who take the view that the supernatural are responsible for events are by definition superstitious and intellectually lazy.

If you didn’t adress the issue like an ***, you’d probably get more people to view things your way.

 

[Zooey]

and what is it with these names? Mystic Warrior, Armor of God, Church Militant? did i stumble onto a hezbollah support group?

No, actually, we’re the:knight1: proud remains of the:knight2: Army of Northern Virginia.
[SIGN1]
(OK,OK, that’s just:tiphat: me…:blushing.

Yours truly,

Lady Zooey of the Troglydyte Guard
The Northern Most Confederate
Most Loyal Follower of General Thomas Jackson
President of the General Robert E Lee Fan Club
[/SIGN1]

 

[IvanKaramozov]

didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk to heretics?

thanks for asking but my library is all over the place, i end up reading 5 or 6 books at the same time and never seem to start one and just hack through it till i get to the end in short order.

i’ve read just about everything richard dawkins has written since the selfish gene came out when i was in high school. i’ve since discovered harris and hitchens and i’m working on them.

the bulk of everything else is a mish mash of non-fiction and the only literature i’ve found myself reading in recent years seems to be translated russian particularly bulgakov.

there you have it and i’ll be the first to say, like most people today, i don’t read enough anymore and i’m embarrassed to admit it.

Russian Litt is good, I generally drift to stuff from ex Yougoslavia.

Hitchens and Harris are, with all due respect, worthless intelectually. The are two bit shams who’s only mastery consists in sloppy analysis and straw man arguments, the possible exception being Hitchens writtings on Pain, Jefferson etc.

Dawkins is a fantastic scientist, I haven’t read his anti-religious stuff so I don’t know about that.

 

[adrift]

so yes, those who take the view that the supernatural are responsible for events are by definition superstitious and intellectually lazy.

Merriam-Webster

1 a: a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation b: an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition2: a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary

 

[rex_clinton]

With all due respect that’s a shallow and superficial view, the dark ages was primairly the result of the collapse of the Roman Empire, not the Church, the Church did not reach the climax of it’s power untill several centuries later.

i don’t think i said otherwise. they merely took advantage of the situation and filled the vacum.

Characterizing it as black and white as you do is simply unscientific. The Church certianly did in some respects retard progress, clearly it’s inflexability to move past Aristotilian physics slowed accecptance of Galellio’s ideas, however their rejection of Galellio was qute reasoniable considering the time. Certianly the Church did not endorse individual liberties as much as they ought have.

how very relativistic of you. but true. the church was a creature of it’s time but that doesn’t mean we should remain creatures of that time.

As to your charge of it being like a madrassa, if you mean in the sense that it was a religious based education program sure, if you mean like a Wahabbist madrassa, I don’t think so.

well, that’s your opinion but i don’t think there’s a madrass today that would stick you in an iron maiden or have you pressed for disagreeing with their dogma.

If you didn’t adress the issue like an ***, you’d probably get more people to view things your way.

i really doubt it. people don’t respond to niceties if they’re headed for the rapture. an obnoxious smack on the skull would have a better chance of waking them up. don’t you think?

 

[SantaBenito]

Yes, He was in the Hitler Youth.

 

[Dwyer]

Hitler was raised Catholic, but I doubt by the time he served in the Bavarian Army in WWI in 1914, he was Catholic anymore or that Christianity played a role in his life.

Privately, Hitler hated Christianity for anti-Semitic reasons. Most of his cronies and inner circle believed in some sort of occultic Norse mythology and inspired neo-pagan religion also influenced by Theosophy.

The Catholic Church in Poland was openly persecuted by the Nazis because the Catholic Church in Poland was the backbone of that nation. German troops destroyed Catholic Churches and Polish Catholic priests were sent to Aushwitz and other concentration camps.

Also, if Hitler had won the war, he would have destroyed Christianity too. He was waiting to do this, and there are actual documents that exist that show the preliminary future planning for carrying this out.

Hitler was also heavily influenced by the German atheist philosopher Frederich Nietzsche (although many professional philosophers who admire Nietzsche try their best to downplay this), whose ideas still exert a very heavy influence on our own American society today.

Basically, Nietzsche said might makes right, there should be a master class and that they should rule and exploit the weak( the strong and the weak), that “God is dead” and a post Christian morality and new order based on this post Christian morality must be created, Christianity was a bad thing, and everyone should do their own thing. Many of these themes were used in the propaganda of the Third Reich and the German National Socialist movement.

 

[IvanKaramozov]

Hitler was also heavily influenced by the German atheist philosopher George Frederick Nietsche (although many professional philosophers who admire Nietsche try their best to downplay this), whose ideas still exert a very heavy influence on our own American society today.

He did, however Nietzsche was not, so far as anyone can tell, an anti-semite.

Basically, Nietsche said might makes right, there should be a masters class and slaves, that “God is dead” and a post Christian morality and new order must be created, Christianity was a bad thing, and everyone should do their own thing. Many of these themes were used in the propaganda of the Third Reich.

No, not really. Nietzsche beleived in an aesthetical morality, what you say has some truth to it, and Nietzsche was no friend of democracy or Christianity, but your simplified it a great deal and taken him much to literal.

“Birth of Tragedy” is actually a really good book btw

 

[IvanKaramozov]

i don’t think i said otherwise. they merely took advantage of the situation and filled the vacum.

fair enough.

well, that’s your opinion but i don’t think there’s a madrass today that would stick you in an iron maiden or have you pressed for disagreeing with their dogma.

I think that punishments like that were functions of the state, not the University. Of course I beleive most of the great Universities wer built in the Medeval period, after the dark ages wern’t they?

i really doubt it. people don’t respond to niceties if they’re headed for the rapture. an obnoxious smack on the skull would have a better chance of waking them up. don’t you think?

I don’t care, I need to go to bed, I just found your points largely good, but likely to turn people here off from the tone

 

[rex_clinton]

it’s been quite a few years (and as clint eastwood says, “i’m not like that anymore.”) but as i recall, a person with your sense of humor could be fatal for a person like me when there was weed around.

No, actually, we’re the:knight1: proud remains of the:knight2: Army of Northern Virginia.
[SIGN1]
(OK,OK, that’s just:tiphat: me…:blushing.

Yours truly,

Lady Zooey of the Troglydyte Guard
The Northern Most Confederate
Most Loyal Follower of General Thomas Jackson
President of the General Robert E Lee Fan Club
[/SIGN1]

 

[patrick457]

i don’t think i said otherwise. they merely took advantage of the situation and filled the vacum.

Let’s see the state of the Christian churches during the fall of the (Western) Roman Empire:

The Roman Church: The Church in Rome suffered with the city as it was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 (they moved southward towards Africa in 412 and sacked it in turn, depriving Rome of her grain supply. A storm came however and destroyed the fleet),
-threatened by the rise of the Hunnic Empire who raided the Balkans, Gaul and Italy in 434-453 (the Roman population, which was 500,000 in 450 eventually declined to 50,000 in 550),
-the Vandals in 455 (Pope Leo I prevented wholesale massacre and bloodshed in the city at the time, fortunately. After the sack, the Pope ordered that every silver ornament in St. Peter’s be melted down to make chalices for the city churches, which were perhaps pillaged out),
-the deposition of the last Western Roman Emperors (Julius Nepos and Romulus Augustus) in the period between 475-480 and the subsequent rule by Odoacer as King of Italy (the Ostrogothic Kingdom).

Add to that pestilences and epidemics of malaria due to the marshes around the city, which is a breeding ground for mosquitoes (some even say this is the reason why the city fell and why Attila chose to back out from his planned conquest of Rome).

How could the church take advantage of the situation when at this time it was composed of different local churches (who, at times usually lost contact with each other for some time, such as the case between Rome and Britain)?

how very relativistic of you. but true. the church was a creature of it’s time but that doesn’t mean we should remain creatures of that time.

That’s where Catholics will disagree with you. In Catholic idea, the church is old yet ‘forever young’; it is outside of time, just as God is outside of time. Though I expect you won’t buy that, though.

well, that’s your opinion but i don’t think there’s a madrass today that would stick you in an iron maiden or have you pressed for disagreeing with their dogma.

Not really. Iron Maidens are actually late 18th century inventions, perhaps not being used in actual practice (a lot of the iron maidens in many museums around the world date from the 19th century) until as late as the 20th century.

It is believed that they are misinterpretations of the Schandmantel (Cloak of Shame), which is an wooden barrel lined with iron invented in the 13th century.

Unlike the Iron Maiden though, it does not extend full body and does not contain any spikes. It’s purpose is to merely keep a criminal in place (it is portable, yet heavy and stiff) as crowds come and pelt him/her with rotten fruit or vegetables. While this device causes physical discomfort, it is intended to deal psychological pain than a physical one.

Wolfgang Schild, a professor for criminal law, criminal law history and philosophy of law at the University of Bielefeld, has argued that any known iron maidens were in fact pieced together from several artifacts found in museums, in order to create spectacular objects intended for (commercial) exhibition.

So how did Iron maidens get associated with the medieval period?
A philosopher named Johann Philipp Siebenkees merely made up a ‘history’ of the Iron maiden of Nuremberg (the most famous of them all) in 1793. According to him it was first used in August 14, 1515 to execute a coin forger.

 

[beckycmarie]

Bill Maher accused the Pope of being a Nazi on his show last week.

Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights president Bill Donohue responded:

Maher also lied when he said the pope ‘used to be a Nazi.’ Like all young men in Germany at the time, he was conscripted into a German Youth organization (from which he fled as soon as he could). Every responsible Jewish leader has acknowledged this reality and has never sought to brand the pope a Nazi. That job falls to Maher.

 

[latin_rite]

a good scientist soldiers on and regardless of the outcome he originally supposed, accepts the end result of a lot of hard work. his default explanation is never, “a magic man in the sky did it.”

First off you’re a atheist. Then a skeptic then. Well then you go on to say that all atheist are as bad as people who believe. Then well you go around in circles.

You say that scienctist don’t believe in the man in the sky. Are these people not scientist?

John O’Keefe (astronomer at NASA): "We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures… … If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in

George Greenstein (astronomer): “As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency - or, rather, Agency - must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?”

Tony Rothman (physicist): "When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it’s very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it

Frank Tipler (Professor of Mathematical Physics): “When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics.”

Barry Parker (cosmologist): “Who created these laws? There is no question but that a God will always be needed.” ."

Heres one from the messiah of athiest world wide

Stephen Hawking (British astrophysicist): “Then we shall… be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God.”."

And my favourite.

Robert Jastrow (self-proclaimed agnostic): “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

 

[rex_clinton]

when you put the dates all together like that it sounds like it all happened in a week. however we’re talking about almost a century. think about what happened in the twentieth century. much, much more and yet people lived lives of all sorts.

there were quiet days and crazy times as well but the world didn’t end. is your point that rome couldn’t catch it’s breath and just collapsed from excitement? it didn’t. it was a slow decline over centuries punctuated by brief moments of terror. and the catholic church wasn’t the reason rome declined. it was just there to collect the pieces.

Let’s see the state of the Christian churches during the fall of the (Western) Roman Empire:

The Roman Church: The Church in Rome suffered with the city as it was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 … Gaul and Italy in 434-453… -the Vandals in 455 … 475-480 and the subsequent rule by Odoacer as King of Italy

That’s where Catholics will disagree with you. In Catholic idea, the church is old yet ‘forever young’; it is outside of time, just as God is outside of time. Though I expect you won’t buy that, though.

again, what does that mean? can you back that up with some fact? do you understand or better yet can you even conceive of what “outside of time means”? that’s a poetic sounding concept that in practical terms has no meaning for humans.

Not really. Iron Maidens are actually late 18th century inventions

what about pressing? now that’s one we can all get on top of!

 

[Valke2]

Bill Maher accused the Pope of being a Nazi on his show last week.

Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights president Bill Donohue responded:

Isn’t Bill Maher a comedian?

 

[Mirdath]

Hitler was raised Catholic, but I doubt by the time he served in the Bavarian Army in WWI in 1914, he was Catholic anymore or that Christianity played a role in his life.

Oh, he claimed to be Catholic for quite some time after that – well into the 20s and 30s, at the very least.

Privately, Hitler hated Christianity for anti-Semitic reasons.

Whatever those reasons, he claimed that his hatred for the Jews was a mission given him by God. It’s true that what we know of what his writings and private meetings leaves plenty of room for debate both ways, but is it too hard to just let all that go? Make you a deal: I won’t hold Hitler up as a reason to bash Christianity if you won’t hold him up as a reason to bash unbelief. Neither of us wants him, how about we just put him in the closet of Things Not To Be Repeated?

Also, please leave Nietzsche out of this:

Hitler was also heavily influenced by the German atheist philosopher Frederich Nietzsche (although many professional philosophers who admire Nietzsche try their best to downplay this), whose ideas still exert a very heavy influence on our own American society today.

It didn’t quite work out that way. Nietzsche’s sister, Elizabeth, was a Nazi, and she cherrypicked and edited his writings into Der Wille Zur Macht, which became the Nazis’ philosophy textbook. Nietzsche himself was vehemently anti-nationalist and hated anti-Semites with a passion. But unfortunately, being dead, he couldn’t do much about Nazism.

 

[rex_clinton]

if you were following i think i explained myself well enough. to elaborate: no one can say with certainty that a given thing or condition does not exist. there are an infinite number of things that can exist and just because you have not observed them you cannot say or prove they do not exist.

invisible pink unicorns are very unlikely to exist but it wouldn’t make sense for anyone to say they do just because they feel their existence and their love. i think anyone here would agree with me on that point.

the same applies to gods. you can say you feel these gods exist and love you but because they have never been proven to exist it is probably unlikely that they do.

most atheists are really agnostics and most agnostics are just plain undecided.

First off you’re a atheist. Then a skeptic then. Well then you go on to say that all atheist are as bad as people who believe. Then well you go around in circles.

You say that scienctist don’t believe in the man in the sky. Are these people not scientist?

Heres one from the messiah of athiest world wide

And my favourite.

 

[Mighty_Q]

invisible pink unicorns are very unlikely to exist but it wouldn’t make sense for anyone to say they do just because they feel their existence and their love. i think anyone here would agree with me on that point.

An invisible pink unicorn cannot exist. “Pinkness” and “invisibleness” are contradictory attributes.

 

[rex_clinton]

it’s a mystery.

An invisible pink unicorn cannot exist. “Pinkness” and “invisibleness” are contradictory attributes.