MJPB

Your attempt to defend Philo further undermines your credibility. First he claimed that Dawkins is a fool - there is no evidence of such, he presents as an extremely intelligent man. Then Philo uses a fact, 12 + 12 + 24 as an item of faith. He is contradicting himself.

When I was taught arithmetic, I could see immediately that it was true. No faith was required. Another example, being taught to brush one's teeth does, in fact, produce clean teeth.

Absolutely fascinating, MJPB, how you can pervert reason to support your claims. You are very good at it. I guess to continue believing in religion you need this ability.

Dear Foxy,

Possibly you have conflated three concepts - Christianity, the church and atheism. Hitler very much resented the fact that both the Lutheran and Catholic churches were power centres that conflicted with the totalitarian demand for unchallenged dominion. One can be anticlerical, oppose the churches as institutions and still be a believing Christian. One may reject Christianity but still not be an atheist.

To the best of my knowledge Hitler at no time expressed the idea that there was no God so it is not right to call him an atheist since there is, as far as I know, no substance for that charge. Whether he was a Christian is another matter.

His public pronouncements certainly paint him as a Christian. However, one changes through life, and Hitler, like other humans, also did.

I have read that Hitler as a youth considered being a Catholic priest. Generally that desire is confined to believing Catholics so Hitler was at one time a believing Catholic.

According to Dawkins (“The God Delusion”) p. 276 “Hitler was always adamant that Jesus was not a Jew.” If Hitler had rejected Christianity why would he care whether Jesus was a Jew?

Dawkins finds reason that Hitler believed in some sort of a deity. (“The God Delusion”) p. 276

“Even when he was railing against Christianity, Hitler never ceased using the language of Providence: a mysterious agency which, he believed, had singled him out for a divine mission to lead Germany. He sometimes called it Providence, at other times God. After the Anschluss, when Hitler returned in triumph to Vienna in 1938, his exultant speech mentioned God in this providential guise: ‘I believe it was God's will to send a boy from here into the Reich, let him grow up and to raise him to be the leader of the nation that he could lead back his homeland into the Reich.'”

Hitler opposed the institutional church, may possibly have remained a believing Christian and almost certainly believed in a supernatural power. There is no reason to think he was an atheist.

Dear David F.,

Thank You.

I went back to the book by Richard Dawkins,
and I rather like what Dawkins has to say
about the Hitler/Stalin debate:

"Stalin was probably an atheist and Hitler
probably wasn't; but even if they were both
atheists, the bottom line of the Stalin/Hitler
debating point is very simple. Individual
atheists may do evil things but they don't
do evil things in the name of atheism.
Stalin and Hitler did extremely evil things, in
the name of, respectively, dogmatic and
doctrinaire Marxism, and an insane and unscientific
eugenics theory tinged with sub-Wagnerian ravings..."

Thank-you David F and Pelican for responding to my last post.

David F i wouldn't class myself or Muslims in general as those who would use "faith" as proof.

Thank-you to others, notably Foxy and Severin, for their attempts to clear the way for a constructive dialogue.

I have replied to AGIR and AJ Philips concerning their accusations of paedophilia against the Prophet and even myself, but it does not appear management sees any need to put a stop to this sort of hounding and so there is no point pretending management is about to change their attitude.

salaams

What an eventful day! I’m not even sure where to start.

Okay firstly, I’m a bit puzzled as to why my opinion on the topic of religion is apparently so authoritative. After all, there are a few atheists on OLO who criticise Islam and stevenlmeyer, for example, criticises both Islam and Christianity. So I’m not sure what the difference is with me.

If I’d known that my opinion could cause me to be a 'poster boy' for a statement like, “Islam permits child sexual abuse”, then I probably would have worded my post a bit more carefully; My use of the word “paedophilia” instead of “child sex abuse” - as Boaz correctly pointed out - for example.

Boaz,

I’m glad you liked my post, but I feel a little uneasy having my opinion being used to reinforce a statement as blunt as, “Islam permits child sexual abuse”, without there being any context put to it.

Without a few sentences to provide some context, I would feel more comfortable with something like, “Islam’s doctrine contains verses that talk about child sex abuse as though there were nothing wrong with it”. There are several reasons as to why I feel uneasy...

Firstly, unlike the term “Christianity”, “Islam” can be used to refer to an entire people, and most Muslims wouldn’t condone child sex abuse (although I know that’s not what you meant).

Secondly, ostracizing a minority can only breed more fundamentalists and in my opinion, would be counterproductive. If Christians ever become a very small minority in the Western world, whose fundamentalists start murdering because of their disagreements with our way of life (I mean more than what already happens), then I will re-think my way of criticising their religion. But while they are (superficially) less of an IMMEDIATE - albeit insidious (as Severin mentioned) - threat, whose religion has become are far too big for its boots and needs to be put in its place in a modern society, I’ll be less likely to show a bit of sensitivity in my criticism.

Continued...

...Continued

Finally, criticizing a religion by pointing out nasties in their holy books isn’t really my style. I prefer to criticise religions by using pure reason and - if I have to point to their holy books - would rather do so to highlight inconsistencies rather than awful verses that the majority of them just explain away with fallacious arguments anyway.

But since I’m on the topic of nasty bits in holy books, the Bible filled with verses that would make even the hardened of today’s criminals blush, and no, saying that Jesus came to change it all doesn’t work for two reasons...

Firstly, because a perfect being like a god would remain perfect and unchanging. A humanoid form of that god wouldn’t be able to just come to Earth and change everything without seriously damaging their claims to omnipotence or the credibility of the existence of that god to begin with.

Secondly, while most of the words and sentiments of the alleged Jesus are an improvement to the evil god of the Old Testament, he did also say that he didn’t come to change god’s rules, but to uphold them:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.” Matthew 5:17 NIV

grateful ,

Yes, your interpretation was also mentioned at *13 of what Boaz linked to.

My initial interpretation of the verse Boaz directed me to was influenced by the fact that child sex abuse was more frequent and widely accepted back in those days, and considering this, it’s a bit of a stretch to claim that the verse wasn’t condoning abuse.

If god is so perfect and the Qur’an is his inerrant word, then how could he be so gosh darned ambiguous there? One would think he’d foresee the possibility for misinterpretation and ensure the wording was clear.

In regards to your more recent post, I object to being painted as a bigot, and I fail to see how giving my interpretation of a passage in the Qur’an constitutes “hounding”.