LONDON (Sept. 17) -- Pope Benedict XVI has been accused by secularists of making "a terrible libel" during his first papal visit to Britain, after he appeared to associate atheism with the crimes of the Nazi regime during World War II.
In a speech to Queen Elizabeth II and members of the Royal Family in Edinburgh, Scotland, the pope noted that the "Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews," had resulted in the Holocaust. He then asked the increasingly non-believing British public to "reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century" and urged "respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate."
Atheist organizations -- which are staging nationwide protests against the pope's visit -- condemned Benedict's remarks. "The notion that it was the atheism of Nazis (who were mostly not atheists in any case) that led to their extremist and hateful views or that somehow fuels intolerance in Britain today is a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God," Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, said in a statement. He added that it was "surreal" that such a claim was being made by a "man whose organization ... [undermines] the human rights of women, children, gay people and many others."
During WWII the Vatican was surrounded by Fascist Italy and the Pope kept quiet about the plight of the Jews rather than speaking out. IMO the current Pope is trying to smokescreen that shameful episode by shifting the blame elsewhere.
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Feisty survivors populate this site. Avoid controversies unless you have a very thick skin.
LOL The Pope is "evil incarnate" - hardly. I personally believe he is a man who has a deep faith and I disagree with a great deal of his theology. You are much closer to being "evil incarnate" in my opinion.
BTW - The Pope needs to expand his social circle to include some atheists and he might stop making such silly statements.
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"I was curious. Since I'm not a cat, that's not dangerous." - Greg House
LOL The Pope is "evil incarnate" - hardly. I personally believe he is a man who has a deep faith and I disagree with a great deal of his theology. You are much closer to being "evil incarnate" in my opinion.
BTW - The Pope needs to expand his social circle to include some atheists and he might stop making such silly statements.
This is why the vatican includes the acceptance of evilution, and alien life from other planets.
No evilution isn't really a word, but i think that you get the idea.
The idea being, you are now using songs by Danzig to make some kind of convoluted point or that you went from just plain weird to bat shit crazy? Yes, I get it.
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I had to ask about the word because I saw Paulwa use it last week. I thought he was only being 'cutesy', but when Ronnie used it, I thought maybe it was a new Christian extremist word.
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"A lot of things were acceptable--until we stopped accepting it." -- Al Sharpton '12
