The Catholic Church is definitely not to blame for this!

[MRT144]

****ing nepotism...Jesus getting the keys to the whole shebang from his dad.

[MRT144]

I bet his dad made him president of sales sight unseen.

[MRT144]

****ing god and jesus, hanging out on catalina island, on their yatchs, drinking white wine spritzers.

[Berzerker]

Its a sad irony Jesus led to the slaughter of Jews over the centuries, they became the ultimate scapegoat and the New Testament pinned the blame on them. That of all things makes me question just how much power Jesus has, if any... Assuming of course he is God. Not that I'm blaming Jesus, but if he was hell bent on getting himself killed for a cause he could have left the Jews out of it. He could have marched into Rome and told the pagans to get with the program.

[Berzerker]

Hmm...maybe Jesus aint in power yet... When he was tempted by Satan he declined an offer, an offer that appears legitimate - Jesus may rule any empire he chooses (even Rome). Jesus didn't reject it because it wasn't valid, he didn't want to rule any earthly power. But that means Satan had the power, not Jesus.

I understand there is an Armenian sect of Christians who include Satan in their offerings or prayers based on the belief Satan was in charge down here on Earth for a certain period of time and then Jesus will return.

Oh yeah, while we're on the subject, can we blame the Catholic Church for any role in the genocide of Jews? Didn't they more or less produce the New Testament?

[Alexander's Horse]

I'm mainly checking this thread for Ben's avatar

[kentonio]

Oh, the Nazis were responsible. But it's not like the average German on the street loved the Jews, did he? The Nazis got their support because they were telling the Volk exactly what they wanted to hear.

Remind me again which organization might have been responsible for a couple of millenia of Jew hating?

[Elok]

Okay, I put my foot in it there. But by the time of the Nazis, antisemitism had morphed dramatically. The RCC's policy throughout the middle ages (and beyond) had been to treat the Jews as second-class citizens, but allow them to live. With obvious exceptions like the inquisitions, of course--but Rome actually intervened to stop the earlier pogroms spawned by the Crusades. The Nazi version was spawned by folks like Wagner, who thought of Jewishness as a racial trait inherent in the blood, tied into new concepts of nationalism and race and blah blah blah. Of course, just saying "antisemitism was The Church's fault" is exactly the same lazy cop-out. No society is ever very fond of large populations of culturally distinct resident aliens. Which is why Gypsies didn't do much better.

Anyway, the Nazis were about far more than Jew-hating. The loss of WWI, Germany's subsequent humiliation and thirst for revenge--these were not the Church's doing. The Nazis merely provided a channel for popular anger.

[Elok]

According to William Nichols, religious antisemitism may be distinguished from modern antisemitism based on racial or ethnic grounds. "The dividing line was the possibility of effective conversion . . . a Jew ceased to be a Jew upon baptism." However, with racial antisemitism, "Now the assimilated Jew was still a Jew, even after baptism ... . From the Enlightenment onward, it is no longer possible to draw clear lines of distinction between religious and racial forms of hostility towards Jews... Once Jews have been emancipated and secular thinking makes its appearance, without leaving behind the old Christian hostility towards Jews, the new term antisemitism becomes almost unavoidable, even before explicitly racist doctrines appear."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_antisemitism

Was traditional Christian animosity towards Jews a strong root cause of modern anti-semitism? Of course. Was it the sole cause, such that the RCC could be said to be primarily responsible for Nazism? Hell no.

[kentonio]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_antisemitism

Was traditional Christian animosity towards Jews a strong root cause of modern anti-semitism? Of course. Was it the sole cause, such that the RCC could be said to be primarily responsible for Nazism? Hell no.

If you're going to quote authors, you should probably actually read what they says first.

'Many Jewish writers have said, quite simply, that the Nazis chose the Jews as the target of their hate because two thousand years of Christian teaching had accustomed the world to do so. Few Christian historians and theologians have been sufficiently open to the painful truth to accept this explanation without considerable qualification. Nevertheless, it is correct.'

[kentonio]

Okay, I put my foot in it there. But by the time of the Nazis, antisemitism had morphed dramatically. The RCC's policy throughout the middle ages (and beyond) had been to treat the Jews as second-class citizens, but allow them to live. With obvious exceptions like the inquisitions, of course--but Rome actually intervened to stop the earlier pogroms spawned by the Crusades. The Nazi version was spawned by folks like Wagner, who thought of Jewishness as a racial trait inherent in the blood, tied into new concepts of nationalism and race and blah blah blah. Of course, just saying "antisemitism was The Church's fault" is exactly the same lazy cop-out. No society is ever very fond of large populations of culturally distinct resident aliens. Which is why Gypsies didn't do much better.

Basically the church filled the house with gasoline, but it's not their fault that someone then struck a match? That's your argument, seriously?

Anyway, the Nazis were about far more than Jew-hating. The loss of WWI, Germany's subsequent humiliation and thirst for revenge--these were not the Church's doing. The Nazis merely provided a channel for popular anger.

Incidentally, you're quite right that anti-Semitism was not the cause of the rise of the Nazis, although it was most directly related to economic depression and post-war agreements combined with the rise of Bolshevism in the East. The Holocaust on the other hand was completely due to anti-Semitism, so let's not try and cloud that issue eh?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Shut up you lying peice of ****. The only reason we have any concept of 'bastards' is because of your ****ing death cult.

Did you really just say this?! Really?! This is like Kid levels of wrong.

[Elok]

Look, I don't really want to get into discussing the history of anti-semitism in particular. Just saying "it was all the Church's fault" is simplistic and stupid for almost any subject. Churches do not exist in a vacuum. They are deeply embedded in their societies, and responsive to those societies' wishes. Hence the loathsome "Prosperity Gospel" of modern America--taking the most repugnant and toxic portions of the American Dream, and putting them in Jesus's mouth. Those churches still represent religious authority to their parishioners, but it'd be idiotic to say "well, it's not their fault, the church told them that God hates poor people!" Yes, but they supported their church, didn't they? They chose to be active in it, they gave it their money, they encouraged Pastor Big-Hair and his message of Yacht Heaven. It's a two-way street.

Obviously it's a bit more complicated in a non-pluralistic society such as (I assume) Ireland in the mid-twentieth century. Be that as it may, the Irish Church was still the creature of Irish society, made up of and supported by individual Irish people. To shift all the blame onto the Church itself is to effectively deny all those people moral agency. To say that they were drones, or zombies, who could not look at the situation and see the many things wrong with it, and take some action.

[kentonio]

Did you really just say this?! Really?! This is like Kid levels of wrong.

It was intended to be the start of a a series of troll posts until people who should know better decided to jump in.

[AAAAAAAAH!]

OMG DON'T CIRTICIZE TEH CATHOLIC CHURCH BECUZ ITS NOT 100% RESPONSIBLE FOR BAD STUFF! POREHNERH JKH KD GKDFG