Col Rouge wrote:

“Regarding Nazi’s… I thought a lot of core Nazi “theology” was founded in paganism / occultism (swastika runes etc) more than Christianity.”

People often make the claim that Adolph Hitler adhered to Atheism, Humanism or some ancient Nordic pagan mythology. None of these fanciful and wrong ideas hold. Although one of Hitler's henchmen, Alfred Rosenberg, did undertake a campaign of Nordic mythological propaganda, Hitler and most of his henchmen did not believe in it.
Many American books, television documentaries, and Sunday sermons that preach of Hitler's "evil" have eliminated Hitler's god for their Christian audiences, but one only has to read from his own writings to appreciate that Hitler's God is the God of the Christian Bible. Hitler held many hysterical beliefs which not only include, God and Providence but also Fate, Social Darwinism, and ideological politics. He spoke, unashamedly, about God, fanaticism, idealism, dogma, and the power of propaganda. Hitler held strong faith in all his convictions. He justified his fight for the German people and against Jews by using Godly and Biblical reasoning. Indeed, one of his most revealing statements makes this quite clear:
"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."
Many Christians try to deny the links of Christianity with the Holocaust by emphasising the minor role of the occult in Nazi philosophy. Like Polycarp they get angry when the Holocaust is recognised as a Christian product. Many Christians agreed that Hitler was doing the work of the Lord.

Dear Polycarp,

Christianity became the official Roman religion in 371 CE. 14 years later Christianity committed its first murder. Priscillian, bishop of Ávila (died 385), was the first person in the history of Christianity to be executed for heresy.

Since Priscillian Christianity has persecuted and murdered many more.

In the New Testament it says that ‘ye shall know them by their fruits.’ The fruits are intolerance, persecution and massacre. It’s very bad to say, but that’s the historical record.

PELICAN.. an insightful post there :)

You said:

<<A set of laws in themselves do not produce righteousness nor adherence.>>

They 'might' produce adherence if the penalty is sufficiently strong, but compliance has nothing to do with inner feeling.

This is the whole POINT about the core truth of the Christian faith.

The Law... (Of Moses) simply served to SHOW our sinfulness... because under law we see that deep down, there are certain aspects of it which we would love to go against if we can get away with it.

The law was pointing/leading to ... a Messiah. One who, in the words of Paul would be:

<<But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.>>

Notice the key words "apart from Law"?

This is a fulfilment of Jeremiah's prophecy

33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time," declares the LORD.
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts."

Failure to understand this is also the reason David F goes wrong when he condemns 'Christianity' for ugly world events. He simply does not understand "Christ-ianity". (nor his own Torah by the looks of it)

CJ is in one of his 'close but no cigar' moments :) He thinks the appeal was successful on the basis of a rejection of the failure to distinguish between moderate and radical Muslims. No..it was succesful on other grounds.

So the success of the Dannie's appeal has zero relevance to my assertion about the contents of the trial transcript in connection with David F's comment.

David's last post simply shows how 'power corrupts' it says nothing about 'Christianity' as a faith.
It says as much about 'the Faith' as the paedophile priest going directly against His Lords command does. (i.e.. nothing)

But David and I have irreconcilable differences on faith and history so..I don't expect him to agree here either.

Grim “So long as we are all in the market for cheap clothing, countries that do not have strong laws against child labour will continue to supply that market.”

The Nixon “China initiative” demonstrates, the path to fair trade agreements is through basic “agreements”, trade and otherwise. From discussions can come forth greater discussion, from exclusion comes only exclusion.

I feel, to your expectation of ‘fair trade agreements’, the words ‘walk before your run’ could be applied.

Further, I ask again, through a withdraw of trade, do you feel you improve the condition of the serfs or exasperate them?

The reality is, the only way any nation improve the lot for its population is through adoption of democratic processes. Without a political process which is constituted on democratic principles, the lot of the serfs will remain the same.

Address the political system (eg Zimbabwe, which has gone backward, along with a lot of the rest of Africa) first and the ‘trade issues’ will follow.

“Keating famously called for a 'level playing field'? –

he did not, Hawke did.

Hawke also said no Australian child will live in poverty.

He lied about that too.

David F I was observing recorded history, I am not bothered by the exactness as it might apply to Christianity other than to say, every faith and religion has its extremists, including the atheists (Lenin & co as an example) and the Jews, as well as the Christians and Muslims.

My view is the responsibility is to other practitioners of every faith to recognize the extremists and demonstrably distance oneself from them.

What every extremist claims and use to justify their extremism is founded in intolerance

and “Evil”, the topic of the thread, feeds on intolerance.

Dear Polycarp,

What NT texts justified the evils done by Christianity? From Bishop Spong’s site:

http://www.johnshelbyspong.com/bishopspongon_theTerribleTexts.aspx

RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY: "No one comes to the Father but by me" (John 14:6) This text has helped to create a world where adherents of one religion feel compelled to kill adherents of another. A veritable renaissance of religious terror now confronts us and is making against us the claims we have long made against religious traditions different from our own.

ANTI-SEMITISM: And the people answered, 'His blood be on us and on our children'" (Matt. 27:25) No other verse of Holy Scripture has been responsible for so much violence and so much bloodshed. People convinced that these words conferred legitimacy and even holiness on their hostility have killed millions of Jewish people over history. Far more than Christians today seem to understand, to call the Bible "Word of God" in any sense is to legitimize this hatred reflected in its pages.

SEXISM: For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man." (1Cor. 8-9)The message of the Christian church was once that women are evil to their core and it was built on the story of Eve. She was taken out of man and was not his equal, but his helpmeet. Evil entered human history through the weakness of the woman. She was made to bear the blame and the guilt. She was the source of death.

david f,

Regarding the association of Nazis with the Church -

http://nobeliefs.com/mementoes.htm

Hitler, like too many before him and too many since, used religion to feed his desire for power. The religion in this case was unequivocally Christian. Those who deny this truth are not doing Christianity any favours by so doing, nor are they learning from the horrors of the past.

For this reason, religion is still being used to commit further horrors. Denial is a blindfold over acceptance and progress to enlightenment.