Hitler wasn’t atheist. Luther wasn’t either.
And both were hellbent on killing jews. Truly hellbent. Next time someone tells you that the Holocaust was an evil perpetrated by atheists, show them these quotes:
Gems from Hitler:
Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord”(Hitler 1943, 65).
The undermining of the existence of human culture by the destruction of its bearer seems in the eyes of a folkish philosophy the most execrable crime. Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent Creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.” (Hitler 1943, 383)
Gems from Luther:
- “First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. …”
- “Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. …”
- “Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. …”
- “Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. …”
- “Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. …”
- “Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them. … Such money should now be used in … the following [way]… Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed [a certain amount]…”
- “Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow… For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.”
- “If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews’ blasphemy and not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from our country” and “we must drive them out like mad dogs.”
Quotes taken from PZ Myers’ blog.
Let there be no doubt: the second gravest crime against humanity in the twentieth century was Christian-powered. The first was Mao’s bidding, through impoverishment fueled not by atheism, but by communism. Look back in history, and you’ll see more examples. To even suggest that atheism had anything to do with them should be regarded as a blatant, bald-faced lie.
None of those crimes against humanity had atheism as their motive. None ever.
February 23rd, 2008 at 18:57
I find the motivation sort of ironic for Luther. He believed he was preaching the one true gospel, but the jews didn’t believe him! Rather than realizing he might be wrong he decided the Jews were evil. Mohhomud did the same thing as did the early Christians- the existance of Jews is a threat to the religions that are descended from them.
Wasn’t the worst the great leap foward? Despite how ruthless Moa was, I don’t think it was intentional- I think it was a combination of group think and ingorance- not really comforting to the tens of millions who dies though. I think it is fair to blame it on communism because such a situation could only occur under communism (rejecting “borguise” science, striving for industrialization, complete control of economy, etc.). I think the Holocaust is judged worst because it only makes sense in lala land- the justification was completely detached from the real world.
February 24th, 2008 at 9:04
The “gravest crime against humanity in the 20th century” was Maos bidding? Really? Ahahahaha. Indoctrinated much?
Skinner is right in mentioning group-think as one of the causes of the great famines, but pretending that his version of communism (rejecting “burgeosie science”? seriously?) is the only environment under which “such situation could occur” is preposterous.
I find “body-count” types of argument silly. By that logic we should all be buddhist-radical-pacifists, or whatever. For me the problem should be stated like this: Religion has always claimed to have the absolute fail-proof moral compass, atheism has never made such a ludicrous statement. That means even if Hitler,Stalin and Vldemort had killed a bunch of people in the name of atheism, such actions can never be brought against atheism, since atheism has never claimed infallible moral judgement. Atheism is basically just the statement “There is no empirical evidence for the existence of a god, therefore it makes sense not to waste my time with such an assumption”. Religion, on the contrary, does make the claim of ethical and moral perfect knowledge - after all since some god told you so, it must be the absolute truth, right?
Now, the use of violence in the name of some moral principle is of course not wrong per se, one could think of multilple examples we could all agree violence was necessary and justified: Wars of independence, guerrilla wars of liberation, etc. Thats not the problem. The problem is that religion has consistently shown its moral compass to be corrupt, self-servient and only interested in maintaining their economical/political power. And that shows religious doctrine to be nothing more than hypocritical bullshit.
If there were some religion, for example, whose only dogma was “People should never live under imperialistic oppresion”, and there were a bunch of wars started because of this religion, I personally would have no problem with it, since I happen to agree with such a statement. But when one reviews the very public history of the Catholic Church, how they tried to supress science, how they profited from feudalism, how they never denounced Hitlers genocide in Europe or the State Departments FAR WORSE GENOCIDE in Central America, the current Pope even denouncing in those times jesuit priests who were murdered and tortured in the Central American civil wars, for the crime of preaching Liberation Theology, since we all know that actually reading and understanding the Gospel and Jesus is “inciting violence against the upper classes”, etc. etc. ones only rational conclusion is that the Catholic Church are just a bunch of pedophilic hypocrites totally full of shit, and the last organization I would go to in search of moral guidance.
So, in short, the problem is not some “in name of whom were the most people killed” pissing contest, but the total hypocrisy of the Catholic Church and religion in general in claiming the moral high ground on anything.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:07
another example of what ive just said
http://www.eluniverso.com/2008/02/25/0001/21/76878F2D93BB4FFDBC79B183B094DBE4.aspx
man, those guys never learn
February 25th, 2008 at 11:32
pero no son solo cristianos, los ataques de los terroristas, por citar el mas visible, el del 11 de sept, fue musulman.
Lo que pasa es que, se interpreta como a uno mas le conviene la Ley divina.