Papal Visit to the UK

[Elok]

Okay, can we please not get into the old argument over whose belief system/ideology/general outlook has been responsible for more carnage over the centuries? I mean, hell, whoever wins, both sides lose: "Oh yeah? Yours were marginally larger atrocities!"

[Alexander's Horse]

I'm sure the Pope is gay. Seriously, the way he minces his words, walks, flutters his eyes, purses his lips, the vestments he chooses for services, did you see that pink number???

[Barnabas]

Have you seen his pink shoes?

[Alexander's Horse]

No! I'll keep an eye out for them. If he was any more camp you'd have to put up a tent.

[Cort Haus]

But he's just FABULOUS!

[Alexander's Horse]

Pope as gay icon.......move over Madonna

[Cort Haus]

From a speech Hitler made in Munich:

“My feelings as a Christian point me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognizsed 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.” "

And from Mein Kampf:

“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.”

[Cort Haus]

[SlowwHand]

All over. Hitler has been introduced to the thread.

[Boris Godunov]

[OneFootInTheGrave]

"God with us", sounds a lot like "In God We Trust", there is even an eagle, but I guess it is not a bald eagle.

[Boris Godunov]

From a speech Hitler made in Munich:

“My feelings as a Christian point me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognizsed 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.” "

And from Mein Kampf:

“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.”

To be fair:

There's no way of knowing for certain exactly what Hitler's personal religious views were later in life, as these quotes were made long before the Holocaust. There are also quotes from him expressing contempt for Christianity, at least insofar as it robbed loyalty from the Nazi state. Hitler tended to not like anyone competing for loyalty with the Reich, whether they were priests or whatever.

That being said, the Nazis targeted and persecuted atheists, which is not something they did to Christians as an entire group. Hitler openly attacked atheism.

It frankly doesn't matter whether or not Hitler was a Christian, Deist, agnostic or even atheist. It's undeniable that the vast, vast majority of Europe's population WAS Christian, and it's these Christians that carried out the Nazi atrocities without hesitation. Hitler didn't actually kill anyone himself, you know. And the millions of Christians who followed him didn't exactly do so unwillingly. So Hitler could have believed in the Invisible Pink Unicorn on the Moon and it wouldn't matter, because it was overwhelmingly Christians who formed the rank-and-file of his murderous machinery.

[MikeH]

Mike, I hope you realise that it's folks exactly like you and your foaming at the mouth that brought me into Catholicism in the first place.

You thought "Catholicism stands for all these outrageous things, that are so against the views of modern society that I'll join their church just to infuriate reasonable people"?

So essentially, you joined the Catholic Church to troll?

[MikeH]

Just because an answer hasn't been determined yet, doesn't mean it never will.

Exactly.

And actually we can answer where did you come from, from a infinitesimal fraction of a second after the big bang, to the present in incredible detail. And have an excellent model for what was "before" the big bang, although "before the big bang" it turns out is not a meaningful concept.

And we know that "why" we are here is a human invention. It's anthropomorphising the universe. Why does there need to be a why, other than because humans are generally so arrogant they can't accept that their being here is just a consequence of some simple natural laws, a bit of probability within an unimaginable volume of space.

Why do you want to know why? Why do you think there is a why? "there must be" isn't an acceptable answer.

[Boris Godunov]

Nobody here is surprised to learn that BK joined the Catholic Church for an utterly ridiculous reason rather than genuine faith. He's repeatedly shown himself to be a terrible Christian, even by Catholic standards.