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

[Morton K. Brussel]

So what do you disagree with in Dawkins' reply? Arguments would be more useful than sneers. Perhaps you should read his book(s) and doff your parochial hat.. 

His remarks were both apt and appreciated. 

--mkb

Thanks, Jenifer, for relaying these remarks. 

On Sep 19, 2010, at 9:44 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> 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
>> To: Peace-discuss
>> 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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