csteele respectfully reaches out to give davidf a gentle tug on his sleeve.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2952&page=0#68552

Posted by david f, Thursday, 6 August 2009 9:05:06 AM

Quote

csteele wrote: "Rather I am with respect making the point that you are in danger of directing the same stereotyping and sweeping generalisations toward Christianity that you would condemn them of directing at Jews."

He objected to my statement: “Hitler was a Christian who used the hate inspired by hundreds of centuries of Christian bigotry to order the Holocaust which was applied Christianity.”

To call the Holocaust 'applied Christianity' is inflammatory, and I apologise for it. It was unnecessary and a sweeping generalisation. ...

End quote

Foxy,

Antipathy to Jews predates Christianity. In fact, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, never before have so few been hated by so many for so long.

Robert Wistrich documents the history of Jew hatred in his newly published "A Lethal Obsession".

http://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Obsession-Anti-Semitism-Antiquity-Global/dp/1400060974/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277094398&sr=1-1

I completely agree with you about Yalta. It was a dreadful tragedy.

David f wrote:

"Where Christianity is tamed as it is in the secular democracies it is mostly reasonable…"

Just so.

And I have no doubt that Islam may be "tamed" in the same way but with one qualification. We must not go down the path of appeasing Islam.

Christianity was not tamed through appeasement. It was tamed because it was confronted. And, to tame Islam, freethinkers must be prepared to CONFRONT Islam.

It is not helpful to muddy the waters of every critique of contemporary Islam by referring to what Christians may or may not have done in the past or to use MEANINGLESS words like "Islamophobia" or phrases such as "whack a mozzie". Nor should we ever conflate expressions of loathing for Islam with racism.

As I have said ad nauseam, the danger stems not from Islam but the appeasement of Islam.

And again I repeat my warning; give in to Islam and you will soon confront a newly UNTAMED Christianity. Open THAT Pandora's box once and you have no idea what horrors will escape.

Remember, you cannot make concessions to Islam without making those same concessions to Christianity.

But at least we have passed the "Islam is a Religion of Peace" phase. I don't think anybody on OLO still believes that tripe

Foxy,

Thank you for your kind comments way back when. There has been 12 pages of posts since I was last in here so there is a fair bit to read to get up to speed.

Since I was so tardy in acknowledging your kind words previously I though I should respond to you first.

I agree with what you said in your most recent post. The Roman Catholic nun Dr Edith Stein PhD is probably one of the best known examples.

David f,

"Some books by Catholics telling of the Christian role – “German Catholics and Hitler’s Wars” by Gordon Zahn, “Constantine’s Sword" by James Carroll, "A Cross too Heavy: Egenio Pacelli" by Paul O’Shea, “The Anguish of the Jew” by Edward Flannery who wrote, "the Jewish people did not find in the Christian churches an ally and defender but one of their most zealous detractors and oppressors."

That of course can be contrasted with other books by Catholics and the book by Rabbi David G Dalin "The Myth of Hitler's Pope".

Severin,

"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."

With such a lack of credibility I guess there is little to lose so that might explain my confort with my perversion of reason/sophistry as you describe it. Are you saying that the reason particular mathematical knowledge/this particular mathematical knowledge isn't held on faith is because you personally didn't require any faith for it so noone else could?

CONT.

You reinforced your argument with an example where anyone would know the fact without recourse to faith. How do you know that everyone gets mathematical facts as easily as the tooth brushing example? When I was at school some kids struggled to even retain them.

Also, I note that I quoted Philo's full paragraph in spite of discussing only Philo's arithmetical assertion. I apologise if this misled you to think I was arguing about Dawkin's intellect.

A J Philips,

"Firstly, let’s be clear here that we are talking about “faith” in the religious sense: Belief for no good reason; belief against evidence to the contrary."

You seem to be referring to blind faith. That is not my understanding of faith in the religious sense. However if that was the definition the rest would flow from it.

You repeatedly request reasons supporting God generally and the Christian god specifically and suggest anything proposed as rational reasons is obfuscation and sophistry. You also like linking to previous discussions to save time. To avoid repetion have you got a link where you addressed the standard lines of proof that Boazy has put forward?

"The atheism of many atheists - including myself - has progressed past “mere absence of belief”, but that’s irrelevant as the original claim from which atheism as a response is derived is the original claim." (because of http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10176&page=0 )
I'll look into it.

"<<How do you know that divine revelation hasn't created any real knowledge about reality?>>

Because practical knowledge (i.e. things we can objectively ‘know’- not just ‘believe’ - that we acquire from our day-to-day living) tells us otherwise."

Can you expand further?

Dear csteele,

Thanks for your gentle tug.

Dear stevenlmeyer,

We should have insisted that we have a right to treat Islam as we treat any other religion. We can tell others to be brave.

Dear Foxy,

You are right. Anti-Judaism proceeded Christianity, and Lithuania has been betrayed.

Probably the first incident in history of anti-Judaism was the polemic of Manetho, an Egyptian priest, in the third century BCE. However, I was not outlining a history of anti-Judaism. I was writing of the influences that led to the Holocaust.

My mother's father came from Latvia, and her mother came from Lithuania. My uncle wrote a family history of which unfortunately I don't have a copy. He concluded that after the partitions of Poland in which Lithuania and Latvia were absorbed into czarist Russia there was a progressive lowering of spirits and increasing meanness of the people in those countries as a result of czarist oppression. As part of the Polish-Lithuanian Lublin union they were a fairly free people. Lithuania has a tragic history. The Teutonic Knights mounted a series of Crusades against Lithuania as it had a pagan ruling house. In 1386 the ruling house became Christian, and Jogaila married the Polish Christian princess, Jadwiga. After that pagans, Jews, Muslims and other non-Christian people in Lithuania became second class citizens. Lithuania was a genuine multicultural society with freedom for all before 1386. It became Polonised and Christianised. However, life was still much better than it became after the partitions. After WW2 when western European countries were liberated from the Nazis Lithuania remained an occupied country. You know all that. I am stating that I know it, too. Most of the world ignored the plight of the Soviet occupied countries.

However, I am a tribal creature and what happened to the Jews concerns me.

I think it’s a mistake to talk about Stalin and Hitler as though they personally did the dirty. They had millions of helpers, and we can ask why they helped. I also think it’s a mistake to concentrate on Stalin when Lenin started the evil system.

Dear stephenlmeyer,

Also stated, incorrectly, by Winston Churchill;

“There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistic Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews.”