[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Richard Dawkins Furious At Pope For TyingGodless To Nazis

[C. G. Estabrook]

  If anyone took Dawkins seriously before this, I doubt they will now.

For those who are still abject believers, I recommend Terry Eagleton, "Reason, 
Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate"  (Yale UP pbk, 2010).

If I thought anyone took Ditchkins seriously, I'd propose a symposium or panel 
on the subject.  I doubt I'd find many takers.

Actually, I'd be willing to host it on my UPTV program, News from Neptune.

But I don't think anyone's interested enough for that.


On 9/19/10 9:31 PM, E.Wayne Johnson wrote:
> Most importantly, the Nazis were German.
> That fact explains the lion's share of the variance.
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     *From:* Jenifer Cartwright <mailto:jencart13 at yahoo.com>
>     *To:* Peace-discuss <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>     *Sent:* Monday, September 20, 2010 1:32 AM
>     *Subject:* [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Richard Dawkins Furious At Pope For
>     TyingGodless To Nazis
>
>     Have at it, folks.
>      --Jenifer
>
>     --- On *Sun, 9/19/10, fransears/>/* wrote:
>
>
>         Richard Dawkins Furious At Pope For Tying Godless To Nazis
>
>         Posted in Liberaland by Alan • September 17, 2010,
>
>         Pope Benedict’s speech to Queen Elizabeth in England praised how
>         Britain fought “Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from
>         society,” prompting one of the world’s best known atheists, Richard
>         Dawkins, to proclaim it  “a despicable outrage.” What set off Dawkins
>         is this paragraph:
>
>         “Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders
>         stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society
>         and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were
>         thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime’s attitude to
>         Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed
>         the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect
>         on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth
>         century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and
>         virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man
>         and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his
>         destiny” (Caritas in Veritate, 29).”
>
>         Dawkins responds:
>
>         Even if Hitler had been an atheist, his political philosophy was not
>         based upon atheism and had no connection with atheism. Hitler was
>         arguably (and by his own account) a Roman Catholic. In any case he
>         enjoyed the open support of many of the most senior catholic clergy in
>         Germany and the less demonstrative support of Pope Pius XII. Even if
>         Hitler had been an atheist (he certainly was not), the rank and file
>         Germans who carried out the attempted extermination of the Jews were
>         Christians, almost to a man: either Catholic or Lutheran, primed to
>         their anti-Semitism by centuries of Catholic propaganda about
>         ‘Christ-killers’ and by Martin Luther’s own seething hatred of the
>         Jews. To mention Ratzinger’s membership of the Hitler Youth might be
>         thought to be fighting dirty, but my feeling is that the gloves are
>         off after this disgraceful paragraph by the pope.
>
>         Dawkins is urging a letter-writing campaign to British media in
>         protest, adding:
>
>         I am incandescent with rage at the sycophantic BBC coverage, and the
>         sight of British toadies bowing and scraping to this odious man. I
>         thought he was bad before. This puts the lid on it.
>
>
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