The Apalling Spectacle of American Christianity

[*End Is Forever*]

It's a complete moot point.

The fact that those people were atheists was irrelevent; it had no bearing on their actions.

We're talking about people whose actions are caused by their beliefs - people who kill people because they "murder babies" (hypocrisy anyone?), and spread homophobia, sexism and racism.

[DinoDoc]

I can not let this pass without comment

Originally posted by absimiliard
(In recent history your church doesn't do so well either, witness it's actions during World War II)

Let's look at the actions of fg's Church/Pope during World War II then. It was during that that the Church put out the only encyclical it has ever issued in its history that was written in German denouncing the Nazi regime.

From the Encyclopedia of Catholic History: "the encyclical was a strong denunciation of Nazism, noting that the Nazis had broken several points of the concordat and were actively involved in anti-Catholic and anti-Christian programs, such as the removal of the OT [Old Testament] from schools and the promotion of the so-called German National Church. The encyclical was read from the pulpit of every German church on March 21, 1937".

More info on the Pope:

The New York Times editorial on December 25, 1942 (Late Day edition, p. 16) states: This Christmas more than ever he is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent... Pope Pius expresses as passionately as any leader on our side the war aims of the struggle for freedom when he says that those who aim at building a new world must fight for free choice of government and religious order. They must refuse that the state should make of individuals a herd of whom the state disposes as if they were lifeless things.

And finally:

The Israeli consul, Pinchas E. Lapide, in his book, Three Popes and the Jews (New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1967) critically examines Pope Pius XII. According to his research, the Catholic Church under Pius XII was instrumental in saving 860,000 Jews from Nazi death camps.

[Shi Huangdi]

The reason why we have more religious nutjobs is becausewe have more religious people in general and a more religious society. You have a more religious society, the religious come in all types, especially in countries with a protestant majority. America's greater amount of religion is reflected with politican saying "God Bless America" and us having "In God we trust" on our coins.

Of course, some of you Europeans need to look at your own countries harder, especially those of you that live in monarchies. The Monarch is, among other things, supposedly the protector the faith and the head of the state church(English Monarchs even today take the title "Defender of the Faith"). In some countries, such as Denmark, taxes go to support the state church. In England, the leader of the Church, the Archbishop of canterbury, is selected by the government.

Dinodoc is also indeed correct, in fact most Jewish orginizations praised Pius XII after WWII for his actions.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by *End Is Forever*
We're talking about people whose actions are caused by their beliefs

That would be Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Hitler, etc. Now can we cut with the idiotic contest to see who's belief system spawns the most killers. It is so ... childish.

[*End Is Forever*]

Bill,

I quite agree, it's a silly argument. But once someone's said something, it's difficult not to respond. Those weren't religious beliefs or lack thereof though...

[absimiliard]

I apologize DinoDoc. You are of course, correct.

[Dr Strangelove]

Who says we have a monopoly on religious nuts? Haven't there been a couple of extremist religious societies in both Canada and Europe in the past few years? I recall a group in Canada that staged a mass suicide a few years ago, shortly followed by a similar incident somewhere in Europe.

About 80 to 85% of the American population call themselves Christians, that's about 225 to 240 million people. Of that group think that 35 to 40% are Roman Catholics, totaling somewhere around 90 million. That leaves about 140 to 150 million Protestants, of which only 40 million are Baptists. That leaves a lot of Lutherans, Presbyrtarians, Methodists, Congregationalists, and etc. as the remainder. You don't here much from these groups because, believe it or not, they don't favor the showboating style of the televangelists.

Many of these groups are struggling with the great issues of our day, i.e., the acceptance of gays as parishoners and clergy, and the acceptance of women as clergy. In this respect our mainstream churches are way ahead of Europen churches. In the past the Protestant Episcopal Church has maintained a continuing dialog with representatives of the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. That was up to the first ordination of a femal priest In New Jersy, adter which the conferrences were ended and have never been resumed by the Catholics. More recently one of our most outspoken advocates for gay clergy was given a complete cold shoulder by the Anglican Conferrence in England. Maybe the problem is that we're just so far ahead of the churches of Europe.

[Alexander's Horse]

It goes back to the roots of the United States. As I posted in another thread - the United States is a child of the protestant reformation. The fundamentalist religious impulse goes back to the religious refugees who founded the United States. There is nothing new about it. That is why the U.S. is different on religion - its intimately bound up with the origins of the country and other concepts Americans hold dear like "liberty" and "freedom".

[uh Clem]

Of course for every Stalin or Mao you have a Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Ladin. Plenty of inhuman beasts to go around on both the religious and non-religious sides.

In Saddam's case, I don't think that Islam has had much to do with it; when he first came to power, he was pretty secular IIRC, and no more likely to be an Islamist than, say, Fidel Castro would be a devout Roman Catholic. Of course, in recent years, he's no doubt looked for allies where he can find them, so it's quite possible he's friendlier to Moslem fundies than in years past.

[absimiliard]

I would agree that Saddam is mostly about power. I do believe he uses religion very effectively in rallying his people though. Similar to how a cynical, power-mad, cult leader might before holing up in Waco, or wherever.

[Goingonit]

Reigion is completely separated from whether you're good or bad. Religion is more of a "security blanket" than anything else - we want to believe that existence doesn't end with death, and we're willing to believe a lot of BS just to get that affirmation. In the past, religion also explained the things man couldn't - who created the mountains? Why does it rain? Of course, it's a lot more complex then that, but both atheism and religion have saved people in their own ways - neither has been proven to lead to either good or bad, and both sides are going to say that they're right, because obviously they think that.

There are bad people who use religion to excuse their actions, but it is clear that one doesn't need religion to attempt to justify one's actions. As has been abundantly pointed out, Hitler didn't need to - but the innumerable zealots and crusaders certainly used it effectively.

[Dr Strangelove]

Pat Robertson is a Presbyrtarian, but he's not ordained clergy. The official doctrine of the Presbyrtarian church is much more liberal towards women and gays than he is. Consider though that he recently stepped down from his positions at his TV network and organization, so we won't be seing much of him anymore. He seems to have absorbed much more damage from Falwell's post 9/11 faux pas on his TV show than Falwell has.

[Alexander's Horse]

The televangelist is the direct descendent of the 17th century travelling preacher.

The United States has an amazingly high population of Baptists. Cromwell considered Baptists to be a plague of vandals far worse than catholics. He used them for his political purposes but it was the fear of Baptists and their fundamentalist ilk ever coming to power again in Britain that averted civil war time and again in 18th century Britain. The Brits were very glad when the bulk of them decamped to the Americas where their influence has been felt ever since.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Pat Robertson is a Presbyrtarian, but he's not ordained clergy. The official doctrine of the Presbyrtarian church is much more liberal towards women and gays than he is. Consider though that he recently stepped down from his positions at his TV network and organization, so we won't be seing much of him anymore. He seems to have absorbed much more damage from Falwell's post 9/11 faux pas on his TV show than Falwell has.

Yeah Robertson is not a good example of what Presbytarians are really about.

I've always been an anti-fan of Robertson's, on most of his programs, he compeltley tries to tell his audience which way they should vote. Total politics.

Every few days I drive by the Trinity Network, it's sortof an impressive looking building but is very gaudy looking just like the sets are on tv.. (It's the tv program with the lady with the big hair).

[Shi Huangdi]

"As I posted in another thread - the United States is a child of the protestant reformation."

Actually, more then anything else the United States is a child of the Enlightenment. Nearly all of the founding fathers were deists-- they would have despised the Religious fundamentalists we have today. The USA took the idea of the Enlightenment philosophers and put them into practice, especially Locke and Montesqieu. But of a course, a consequence of being founded on Enlightenment ideas is freedom of religion, meaning we could never do what Cromwell did and kick out the baptists...

And as further evidence we don't have a monopoly on Fundies:

https://www.ianpaisley.org