04-01-2006, 11:43 PM | #841 | ||
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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04-01-2006, 11:47 PM | #842 |
the Shrike
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*wants to know if Lief's "research" involved actually reading the Koran ::hmm::
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04-01-2006, 11:50 PM | #843 | |
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04-01-2006, 11:59 PM | #844 | |
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- quoting Hitler himself: "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." Although Hitler did not practice religion in a churchly sense, he certainly believed in the Bible's God. Raised as Catholic he went to a monastery school and, interestingly, walked everyday past a stone arch which was carved the monastery's coat of arms which included a swastika. As a young boy, Hitler's most ardent goal was to become a priest. Much of his philosophy came from the Bible, and more influentially, from the Christian Social movement. (The German Christian Social movement, remarkably, resembles the Christian Right movement in America today.) Many have questioned Hitler's stand on Christianity. Although he fought against certain Catholic priests who opposed him for political reasons, his belief in God and country never left him. Many Christians throughout history have opposed Christian priests for various reasons; this does not necessarily make one against one's own Christian beliefs. Nor did the Vatican's Pope & bishops ever disown him; in fact they blessed him! As evidence to his claimed Christianity, he said: "My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. -Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942) So, Lief, what was that you were saying about connections between Hitler and Christianity? Hmm?
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~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Last edited by Lotesse : 04-02-2006 at 12:01 AM. |
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04-02-2006, 01:44 AM | #845 | |||||||||
Elf Lord
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Cardinal Pacelli was appointed by Pope Pius XII (the pope accused of blessing Hitler). Pacelli oversaw the writing of the document that allegedly supports Hitler, and he dismissed Hitler's claim that it implied approval for national socialism. Here are his comments on it:
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This link is sufficient to prove to you the strongly anti-Christian stance of the Third Reich. Though of course, as Christians were so large in numbers in Germany, it is logical that Hitler would make statements like, "For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people." The comments of the article that "neither the Catholic leadership nor the Protestant clerical hierarchy officially protested the persecution of Jews or the horrors of the "Final Solution"" are sad. They don't imply approval to Nazi policies of course- disapproval of the Nazi murders when under their power would certainly be a very, very freaky stance to take. I wish they had, but not all of us are that brave. Raising no voice on it does not mark approval, however. And it is plain from the above article that the Nazis persecuted many Christian groups and groups that have similar beliefs to those of Christians. Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 04-02-2006 at 02:12 AM. |
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04-02-2006, 01:48 AM | #846 | |
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"Purification of the Bible-- what of its spirit remains?"
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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04-02-2006, 02:17 AM | #847 |
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The actions of Hitler and the Nazis were as “Christian” as those of people during the Crusades or the Inquisition. Some leading Nazis preferred a neo-pagan theistic religion over Christianity, but this was never officially endorsed by the Nazi Party or by Adolf Hitler. Christians may not like seeing Nazism as having anything to do with Christianity, but Germany saw itself as a fundamentally Christian nation and millions of Christians in Germany enthusiastically endorsed Hitler and the Nazi Party, in part because they saw both as embodiments of German and Christian ideals.
http://atheism.about.com/od/adolfhit...iChristian.htm
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04-02-2006, 03:02 AM | #848 |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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I would like to make an announcement.
I am now a Muslim. And I find things about killing people in the Koran. So I'm going to go out and kill people, and that will say bad things about Islam. Whoops! Now I'm a Christian again. But because I said I was a Muslim and did bad things, that shows how bad Islam is. [/point]
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
04-02-2006, 03:12 AM | #849 | ||||
Elf Lord
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Another important point is that Hitler kept his concentration camps under wraps. He did not reveal what he was doing to the Jews to his people. Thus, Christians who "agreed" with him would have been unlikely to know what he was really like. They knew he had reestablished their country's economy. They knew he was bringing anti-Semitism, and I know that that has been strong in the church sometimes (never mind that God called the Jews his "chosen people"). Christians may also have believed his lies about other countries and why they should go to war. But that doesn't mean they knew about his concentration camps or many of the Gestapo's horrors. He kept many of those things very, very under wraps. Hindsight is easier to see with than vision in the present, especially when what one sees is controlled by a totalitarian regime that wants to make itself look good. Anyone, Christian or no, could be deceived under those conditions. It's important to keep in mind our current reference frame.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 04-02-2006 at 03:31 AM. |
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04-02-2006, 04:18 AM | #850 |
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The discussion of Hitler and Christianity does not belong in the Muslim thread. There are other threads for that. Please stay on topic.
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04-02-2006, 08:52 AM | #851 | |
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He's also been implying that people who follow the muslim faith are more or less violent by nature and people who follow the christian faith are not. Yet, nazi germany is a perfect example of a nation that was vastly christian (over 95%) and allowed all sorts of violence to exist. Basically, Lief is saying that muslims are guilty for everything they have ever done wrong throughout history, yet christian shortcomings always have a justification. That kind of attitude is exactly why religions, given enough power, often turn violent. I will point out, and continue to point out, that no group of people are superior to another, which history proves if you are willing to look at the whole picture.
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04-02-2006, 09:57 AM | #852 | ||
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I agree with R*an.
[corollary to R*an's point, I think] I have an announcement too. I am also Muslim. I believe that a jihad is a spiritual battle within oneself, and strive to do good works and live a good life, as servants of Allah should. But none of this "counts" because I'm "liberal" and therefore not a "real" Muslim. Actually, you know what, I'd rather be Christian after all. I will continue to do good works and not commit violence toward my fellow human beings, and this says something about Christianity, apparently. [/corallary]
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04-02-2006, 12:07 PM | #853 | |||||
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I know there are peaceful and really good teachings in Islam too. But there also are outright calls for violence. Muslims throughout history have heeded that call, and today's Islamic terrorism is another form of this from that same "larger picture" you say we should pay attention to. This is another reason why you don't have any equivalent to the Ottoman invasions in Christian history, in scale of attack. As the Nazis persecuted the church in Germany and struggled with church leaders, trying to steal their power, and as most of the Nazi leaders didn't even pretend to be Christian, it is absurd to say that was a Christian movement. I suggest reading this book: Nazi Persecution of the Churches
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 04-02-2006 at 12:16 PM. |
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04-02-2006, 12:12 PM | #854 |
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On the whole, there are MORE tenants about violence to those who do not accept Islam, then there are about peace, in the Qu'ran.
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04-02-2006, 12:14 PM | #855 | |||
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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04-02-2006, 12:30 PM | #856 | |
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Clearly, you don't regard the conquest and genocide of the Aztecs, the British colonisation of Australia, Asia and Africa (including the virtual extermination of native populations in North America and Australia), mass extermination of the Jews in Germany (which, whether or not Hitler got on with a few bishops, drew on a very deep-rooted anti-Semitism for support) or even the current Iraq war as being in the same category of "military conquest". It leads me to believe that the only thing you are looking at is jihad, and you have defined your terms in such a way that it is impossible to draw any other conclusion. Could you please define what you mean by "conquest"? |
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04-02-2006, 03:06 PM | #857 | |||||
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The way the European powers took over in countries was often through trade rather than military power. The British East India Co. took over large parts of India without the government's support. Also, they often took over through trade and economic policy rather than military violence (though there was some of that too). The British East India Co. though, which was highly involved in the conquest of India, was not an official government or religious group. Sometimes the European powers took over through sheer force, but the colonizations sometimes were in spite of, rather than supported by, missionaries. Quote:
It may interest you that at church I read an account too of a Christian Nazi who was told to work at the concentration camps, and once he got there he sacrificed his life so that a Jewish friend could escape. I know a single example is irrelevant and it's major trends that matter, of course , but just thought you'd be interested. The Nazis hid from their own people the horror they were committing in the concentration camps too, and lied to their people about the causes of the wars. Christians can be deceived, just like anyone else can. Christians nowadays are among the strongest supporters of the Jewish people. Quote:
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My point still stands. Christianity hasn't tried to conquer the world. Islam has. Christianity has no calls for jihad in its holy text. Islam does. Christianity has not been involved in violence on the scale of Islam. We have our Religious Wars- but so do the Muslims, and their religious wars were right after their religion's beginning rather than over a thousand years later. We have our imperialism, but that is also obvious in the form of the Ottomans. In our conquest of India, we also didn't butcher about 80 million Hindus, which is what historian Alexander Durant accuses Islam of doing over a period of 500 years. In his words, "The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history." According to German historian Koenraad Elst, "The Muslim conquests, down to the 16th century, were for the Hindus a pure struggle of life and death. Entire cities were burnt down and the populations massacred, with hundreds of thousands killed in every campaign, and similar numbers deported as slaves." Christians were not behind the Holocaust, and the Holocaust also was nothing on the scale of these invasions. The Ottoman invasions were worse than European imperialism in violence and aggression, and they came before the European imperialism, which took over Ottoman lands often through economics rather than violence. And the Crusades are nothing compared to the Islamic invasions of the Sassanid and Byzantine Empires. There's just no comparison between the two . . . the Muslims have done much worse, and claiming to desire to conquer the world. When Christians conquered territories, they showed willingness to stop somewhere. They attacked often for specific reasons because of something they saw as evil, and then they stopped once they'd accomplished that goal. That is not at all the same as Islam, which has teachings that it is divided between houses of peace (governments controlled by Islam) and houses of war (all countries controlled by non-Islam governments), and there are only houses of truce in between, for Islam must conquer the world. Islamic conquest of the world is also central to Shi'ite theology.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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04-02-2006, 03:27 PM | #858 |
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OK, Lief, I will do the reading before replying in depth, but just one quick observation.
You make a distinction between Christian missionaries, many of whom did indeed oppose the oppression of colonised peopes, and their governments. To my mind, that is applying a degree of detail to your own side which you do not afford Islam when you generalise it in such a way. I think you also made a mistake by putting the ideology before the violence. In my view, the desire to dominate others comes first, and the religion is used to justify it post hoc. Seen from that perspective, "Christian" empires (or, more specificially, "empires rationalised through a Christian world-view") far outstrip Islamic ones in both aggression, geographical ambition and body count. |
04-02-2006, 03:51 PM | #859 | ||||
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I also have not seen much objection from the major modern Muslim communities to the suicide bombers or al'Qaeda, except in Jordan when a Muslim hotel was destroyed. There have been some objections from some Muslim leaders-and statements of approval from others -but nothing on a massive scale. People in France are protesting all the time in their hundreds of thousands over a new labor law, so why don't the Muslims stage protests of condemnation for Osama Bin Laden's Al'Qaeda or Al'Zarqawi's insurgency? I wish they would. It would put me much more at ease. Quote:
But I think the Ottoman invasions were easier to justify by the Muslim religion than the Christian invasions were, because Islam divides the world into houses of war, houses of truce and houses of peace (the Islam controlled governments). The Muslims can just invade on the pretext that it's a house of war and their religion says they should go in. That's a key pretext Muslim fundamentalists use now. Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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04-03-2006, 10:28 AM | #860 | ||||
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