In a synagogue in Germany that was destroyed in 1938. Interesting, since we are today reliving 1938. From AP, with thanks to Mrs. Obelix:
COLOGNE, Germany - Pope Benedict XVI warned Friday of rising anti-Semitism and hostility to foreigners during a visit to a synagogue that was rebuilt after being destroyed during the Nazis' infamous Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938.Benedict became only the second pope to visit a synagogue, praying and remembering Holocaust victims with Cologne's Jewish community — Germany's oldest.
"Today, sadly, we are witnessing the rise of new signs of anti-Semitism and various forms of a general hostility toward foreigners," he said.
Yes, and those foreigners in Europe are the foremost purveyors of this new anti-Semitism. It would have been good for the Pope to have addressed that.
As a Catholic, you're right Robert. I wish the Pope would address this issue too instead of side-stepping around the proble.
But for him to make a comment like that would be frowned upon.
Yes yes, lets all mock these filthy "pagans". Hitler led a neo'pagan movement, you see? Thats how you become when you try paganism! You see now why we the church exterminated the whole of 'pagan' population of Europe? If we wudnt have, we wud have had millions of fascist Hitlers! Ah those demonic pagans always out to perform child sacrifices!
Yes, it is unfortunate that he choose to phrase his statement the way he did. That deserved a little more qualification.
Also, while anti-Semitism is certainly on the rise, anti-Infidelism also has hit an all new high. This is for the most part, due to a certain foreigners and their unwillingness to tolerate, let alone accept, the cultures of the countries they immigrate to.
Civilized people, when visiting someone else's home, don't walk in and start imposing their standards on the hosts or make changes in the decor to suit them. No, you show respect and gratitude toward your host, accept or decline what is offered to you with grace and leave before you wear your welcome out.
Honest, civilized people, when applying for and or accepting a job, don’t misrepresent themselves or their requirements during the hiring process so they can then turn around and attempt to change the workplace to suit them after they are hired.
When foreigners don't conduct themselves like the guests they are, then I believe governments have every right to boot them out the door like you would any ungracious and imposing guest in your own home.
I wish the old boy would have said something like that.
f.g.
http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/afx/2005/08/19/afx2185931.html
AFX News Limited
China bans branch of Islam in Xinjiang and arrests 179
08.19.2005, 07:04 AM
BEIJING (AFX) - China has banned a branch of Islam in its Muslim-dominated Xinjiang region and arrested 179 followers, saying it 'poisons' people's minds, a rights group and state media said Friday.
Authorities in the Yili Autonomous Prefecture announced that the Sala religion -- a Chinese branch of Islam -- has been banned because of its dangerous doctrines, according to the German-based World Uighur Congress.
The religious group was accused of misleading ordinary people with its 'pseudo-science' and 'anti-society' doctrines, said the Yili Daily, quoting the Yili prefecture government.
Zhang Yun, who is in charge of supervising the prefecture's religious affairs, warned government and communist party officials of the 'dangerous' nature of Sala and said it had be to banned along with other illegal religions, the report said.
vy/mp/mtp/dk
Tushar,
I'm a neopagan and I agree with you 100%. It shows you there's more to intolerance and dominionism than Islam. Popes used to preside over the burning of infidels at the stake until a few centuries ago, when their political power was curbed.
However, like it or not, we'll have to take the pope, as well as other intolerant Christians, as our allies against the Muslims. Islam is the greatest danger to civilisation right now.
Setting the record straight on Hitler: he was neither a Christian nor an atheist nor a pagan. He was a racist, that's all, and for furthering his ideology he was willing to use any scientific and religious ideas available.
Speaking as a pagan, I must say that, while Islam is by far the greatest threat against Europe, Christianity is not much better - after all, they both came out of the same source: semitic, dogmatic and universalist spiritual imperialism.
Speaking as an atheist, who by definition is a "pagan" himself, I disagree with your statement that "Christianity is not much better."
Modern Christianity as a whole, when compared to Modern Islam, is extremely tolerant of other belief systems. Christianity as a whole upholds and defends human rights and freedom of choice. I say this, having grown up a Christian in the United States during the 60s and 70s.
Although hardly perfect in either of those regards, Christianity does not teach violence and hatred as a matter of religious doctrine. Islam on the other hand, has been demonstrated here on numerous occasions to do just that.
Modern Christianity does not teach the imposition of theocracy by force in world government. Modern Islam on the other hand does.
There are many other extremely contrasting differences between Christianity and Islam which can easily be picked up by reading Robert Spencer’s, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades. A book that challenges you to check the facts in the Koran and of history itself.
f.g.
Islam is not really a religion. It is a theocratic cult looking to establish itself world wide. It tries to look like a government, levies a tax, like governments do, has its own set of laws, political/religious hierarchy, and millions of foot soldiers waiting for orders.
The status of Islam, as a religion, and the Church are given tax exempt status in the US and other countrys.
The Church is similar to Islam politically in the respects, that it too looks like a government. It has it's own country, The Vatican, and even has ambassadors in most countrys. It to has its own set of laws, levies taxes called tithing, and has its own hierarchy.
What it is missing is the millions of foot soldiers waiting for orders. Also missing are calls for jihad comming from Catholic Cardinals or the Pope.
The Catholic Church is not the soul depository of Christianity. It only represents
a particular view of Christianity and is not Christianity in itself. The difference with Islam is, that it is, Islam. It is the sole depository, the one and only. The perfect and last religion for all of mankind. And all you have to get in on this spiritual gravey train, is to accept as truth that "There is no Ilah but Allah, and Mohammad is his messenger", do the five times a day prayers a prescribed, pay the tax, and renounce agreements with Jews and be willing to launch a jihad when ordered, or the spirit moves you... OR, you can become a dhimmi,(f you are still alive), OR you get to die...swell...So far no Christian Church that I know of,has made an offer like that...
As the population of Muslims grows in the West, so will anti-Semitism grow, too!
I would like to propose that we stop defending the acts perpetuated in the name of Christianity that are more than say, oh, 200 years old, maybe even 100. While they are important historically, serving to explain how we arrived at the present time and provide context and background for understanding who we are and how we came to be(Christians and, due to the effects of Christianity, non-Christians), I think we fall into a trap defending the "moral equivalence" argument of islamofascist who point to archaic Christian actions as if somehow these place islam and Christianity on an equal footing, or absolve modern day terrorists of the crimes against humanity that they commit on a daily basis NOW.
The fundamental issue is that the Christianity of 1000, 500, or even 100 years ago is not the same as modern-day Christianity, period.
The same cannot be said for islam.
Tautalos,
I tried to stress that I was talking about Modern Christianity and it's practice. The pertinence of the actions of Christianity during the time period you mention to the present Islamic problem is questionable. Christianity has ‘matured’ and adapted, albeit slowly, to more modern thinking, Islam has never done so.
As far as the sticking point of Jesus being proclaimed as the only way to the Father … well you have to understand that is the central doctrine that differentiates that religion from all others. Modern Christianity does not force this on anyone against their will. I hardly find that insulting or threatening in any way. I understand it to be part of the requirements of joining the religion. As an atheist who is a former Christian myself, I understand we are free to disagree with this doctrine without fear of getting beheaded for your trouble. That is a large difference in my book between fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Moslems.
The present stuggle isn't about "Eternal Spiritual Truth" or some such, it is about the real world and our lives in it. Aligning with Christians, Jews, Hindus, and others against fundamentalist Islam is the reasonable thing for atheists to do at this point in time.
A prefer a world where freedom to believe as you wish is a fundamental right of existance. The Islamic world view hardly promotes that. Christians will stand for your right to believe as you wish even though they may tell you doing so will send you to hell. Hardly a real threat unlike those made by Islamists every day in the news.
f.g.
Every so often I just have to ask myself W.W.Y.D. (What Would Yoda Do?) :)
That should have read:
"I prefer a world where freedom to believe as you wish is a fundamental right of existance."
f.g.: "The present stuggle isn't about 'Eternal Spiritual Truth' or some such, it is about the real world and our lives in it."
Precisely. Fringe Christians like Rushdoony's Reconstructionists apart, Christianity is now content to "render to Caesar" and engage in a war of words. Islam, on the other hand, is a law-code religion and can't be anything else. It is centred on the right of God's law to regulate people's life from the tying of shoelaces to the crowning of kings. Islam always will be a threat to the Western way of life, and it's important for all those living in the West to lay aside their credal differences and be a single front against this anti-civilisation.
Paganism in the sense used by the Pope is the worship of self, its desires or its constructs before God. This is pretty standard theology from the time of St Augustine. In practice it means that if I indulge in sex all day and seek means to propitiate it, then for me Sex is the Idol no matter what I confess in church. Again if some economist were to invariably offer that the "market will sort it out" as the answer to all econonic problems from Russian unemployment to outsourcing, then for him the Market is an Idol. In this sense whether we pray in bare synagogues or mosques or churches and temples filled with representations we are mostly idolators. In Germany the Christian constraints against this form of idolatory were loosed, with the result that they gave themselves over to the worship of Race, Nation, Violence and brutal Efficiency .
Anything but Islam should be the creed.
All other faiths and non-faiths, from neo-paganism to Orthodox Judaism, Baptists to Mormons, Taoists to atheists, ALL allow the existence of one another, and are willing to talk about the reasons for their beliefs.
Islam, unlike these tolerable belief systems -or even more tolerable unbelief non-systems- declares itself the Earthly King. And claims it MUST rule all things. (From dietary laws to the brainpower of women.)
Every other monotheistic creed went through the purifying fires of Enlightenment, and learned humane restraint.
It has been a hard and bloody path to reach the present position of freedom of conscience that the West has bestowed on the rest of the world.
To allow a throwback cult to undo the work of thousands of years -and million of lives- sacrified to bring reason to power over superstition would be the height of irrationality.
I'll take the Sermon on the Mount over the Thrill Kill Cult of Allah.
And prefer the poems of the formless Tao above the headlock of the crazy Koran.
We must all work together to keep free and struggle against the anti-freedom impulse of Imperialistic Islam.
Even a bumbling, p.c.-infected Pope shouldn't weaken our resolve to pat him on the head ...and know he means well and is on our side... if unable to speak as clearly as Christ, who said of the dogmatic hypocrites of his day:
"They are as white-washed sepulchres, clean and bright on the outside, but within are full of corruption and decay."
Islam is such a sepulchre. For the mind. The spirit. And the Future.
I hope the next Pope reads Jesus a little more and the EU press a little less.
Even a parable or two could say it without actuality naming it.
"...without actually naming it"...
I meant to type.
This thread has revelled in a pack of anti-Catholic and anti-Christian lies from the moment that Tushar Saxena, who evidently read the same textbooks as Hitler, spewed out his pack of lies. To those who "defended" Christianity by making the oh-so-accurate point that it has not been murdering so many people lately, thanks for nothing. I will not even bother answering Tushar's lies, which imply total ignorance of European history; but Michael Zaretski and Tautalos, who support him, are even worse. The liberty to tell the kind of lies you invent for your own masturbation, boys, comes from the civilization created by the Catholic Church. Not that I expect you to be open-minded enough to even consider the notion; to invent trash about the Church "massacring pagans" is so much better for your egos.
Paolo,
The past atrocities of the Catholic Church are a fact. Before church-state separation, there were no reins to the Church's tyranny. The Inquisition is a fact. The auto da fe is a fact. To deny all this is historical revisionism.
No-one's saying the Church does those things nowadays. But it did in the past, for the same reason people are stoned or beheaded for blasphemy in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan: no separation of religion and state.
This separation of religion and state, and this liberty we have to speak out our minds, is not the fruit of any Christian Church, but of the heritage of Ancient Greece (pagan Athens) and of the 18th century Enlightenment (deists and atheists). It is to those values I swear allegiance.
I'm awfully sorry. But Paolo was just asking for it.
Zaretski: you are an ignorant ideologue who learned his history from Communist comic books or lesbian-feminist wiccan websites. The "facts" you refer to have nothing to do with reality. It so happens that I am a historian, and you are trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs. What is more, you are doing so while under the delusion that billiard balls are eggs. I am also an anti-clerical, and I could easily write a denunciation of the Church that would be twenty times more convincing than your pitiful resurrection of nineteenth-century pamphleteering. But I refuse to waste any energy on the likes of you and Tushar Saxena, whom I have already castigated elsewhere. Take your ignorance to the toilet and flush it down the pan, and you will do what passes for your brain a favour.
"Zaretski: you are an ignorant ideologue who learned his history from Communist comic books or lesbian-feminist wiccan websites."
Anyone who denies the past atrocities of the Catholic Church is someone who has learned his history from one of the Vatican-sponsored seminaries.
"It so happens that I am a historian,"
If you have a PhD, it should be revoked right away.
"I am also an anti-clerical, and I could easily write a denunciation of the Church that would be twenty times more convincing than your pitiful resurrection of nineteenth-century pamphleteering."
Then you should tell your beloved pope to stop blaming Nazism on paganism. If that isn't inaccurate history--a resurrection of 3rd-century Christian heresiology--then I don't know what is.
"But I refuse to waste any energy on the likes of you and Tushar Saxena,"
"Refuse", "refuse", yet you already have.
"Take your ignorance to the toilet and flush it down the pan, and you will do what passes for your brain a favour."
0 facts from Paolo, and loads of insults instead. Could it be you have no argument that you must resort to insults? Nahhhh, couldn't be...
Bye there, bub. I really hate to keep on hurting sore losers.
All right, sir. Since you insist, I will test your right to have any opinions at all on these matters. Give an intelligent answer (not one that agrees with me, but one that shows that you know what you are talking about) to a single one of the following questions, and I will admit that you are something more than a moron. I doubt whether I will be forced to, however.
1) Give a brief account of the difference between Socrates' view of the afterlife, as described in Plato's Phaedo, and Plato's own.
2) How did the position of the Roman Emperor Magnus Clemens Maximus compare with that of the English King Henry IV, and what effect did this have on their relationship with the Church in their time? Pay attention to the role of Martin of Tours.
3) What is your view of Henry Kamen?
4) What was the prevailing form of government in Europe in the high Middle Ages (1100-1300), and in what way was it innovative as compared to anything that had happened before? Give an account of St.Thomas Aquinas' theory of government. Mention Modum tenendi Parliamentum if you can.
5) What was Voltaire's view of Count Cesare Beccaria, and how did it relate to Voltaire's view of the ideal government?
Of course, should you refuse, whatever the posture you assume, to show your historical knowledge, we would know that you have none. We are too used, on this site, to seeing through the bluster of Taqqiya-spouting ideologues, to be taken in by any simple refusal to answer question.
The same, of course, goes for Tushar Saxena and the other hatemongers.
It is beneath my dignity to be tested like a schoolchild. This is not admission of defeat--I can easily answer every one of the questions posed to me above--but a statement of my refusal to be insulted and trodden upon.
Paolo, you're a foolish person. Like any JW and DW reader, you must know very well what we're up against. Yet, despite that, you've permitted your ire to be raised by and energies to be expended upon questions of academic accuracy.
I'm not permitting myself to be sucked up into this. I could argue with Christians for ages on the historical records of Christianity and paganism*, but that would be a very unwise allocation of resources considering the common danger of Islam we're facing right now. So I will not respond to you upon these matters any longer.
---------
* For the record, I recognise the not-so-nice historical track of paganism in ancient times. Unexpected of a historical ignoramus, isn't it? Only the pope still seems to think, though, that paganism hasn't changed through all those ages. Perhaps he should go to a university to study for a PhD in history.
Have you ever been King before? If so, state how many times; also whether deposed, beheaded, or died of surfit.
Are you prepared to marry Margaret of Angouleme? If Isabella of Hainault preferred, give reasons. (Candidates are advised not to attempt both ladies)
Have you had the Black Death?
What have you done with your mother? (If Nun write None)
How do you propose to die? (Write your answer in BLOCK CAPITALS)
NB Candidates should write on at least one side of the paper
Do not attempt to answer more than one question at a time.
Begging your pardon, Gentlemen, for interrupting your serious altercation, but you so reminded me of the classic English work that I could not resist the quotation.
Naah, Granny, there is no serious altercation here. All there is, is a blustering, hate-mongering ignoramus who's been got bang to rights and sees no way out of it except for more bluster and more propaganda. Tell me, Mickey lad, are you sure you are not Mohiddeen Ibramsha in disguise? But no... he has a better temper.
Naah, Granny, there is no serious altercation here. A serious altercation would be one with someone like Hugh or Cubed or you or even Giaour, someone who has a right to have opinions even where I may think they are wrong. All that is happening in this thread is that a bunch of ignorant, blustering hate-mongers have been got bang to rights, and, while the rest have shut up, one of the worst insists on his tactics of bluster and propaganda. (Nobody who knows any culture history would ever use the term "paganism" as signifying one single religious system, or imagine that the Pope, who is after all an ex-university professor, would use it as such.) I said that he would bluster and refuse to answer; instead of which, guess what, he refused to answer and blustered. You should not surprise us like that, Mickey lad.
Paganism?
The classical AND archaeological evidence clearly (very clearly) show that pre-Christian paganism relied heavily on human sacrifice. What about the ritually killed & well preserved corpses they found in Denmark?
Don't tell me that Classical sources were biased. In the 16th century the Catholics wrote of Inca child sacrifices - for centuries afterwards it was considered to be Catholic propaganda - then in the late 20th century they started finding the well preserved child corpses.
The "paganism" you talk of is some hippie New Age concoction and has nothing to do with pre-Roman Britain or Germany.
The Catholics wiped the pagans out? Well at least they did something good!
Timbo, don't do me any favours. There is no such thing as paganism. When you speak of the human sacrifices among the Celtis and Germans, please speak of "Celtic (or Druidic) religion" or of "Germanic religion"; at most, of "Germanic paganism". To talk otherwise would imply that they had something to do with Roman or Greek religion, which largely rejected human sacrifice, or indeed with Phoenician, which indulged it on the grand scale and in particularly obscene ways. No. Each ancient culture had its own religion and religious practices. And contrary to what the hatemongering morons have said, Christianity exterminated nothing. There are precisely two countries in Europe whose conversion took place by force: Saxony (the current German federal state of Niedersachsen) and the Baltic lands (Prussia, Latvia and Estonia). Every other country was converted peacefully by missionaries. This is a plain historical fact, documented over and over again, in complete contrast with the practice of Islam, and in complete contradiction with the lies of Tushar and the Blusterer. So please don't accept their lies and their ignorance as anything to defend.
What is depressing is that I had already had to assert this simple and obvious fact, in this very site, only a few months ago. Ignorance, it seems, renews itself for ever.
It would be useful for those who want to debate Catholic culpability in barbaric actions in the past to consider Pope John Paul II's words on the subject. He officially and irrevocably apologized for the whole ball of wax, the stupidity, the venality, the overboard clerics, and the psychotics who should never have gotten near power. He did it for all Catholics, religious, priests, and laity. From this you can draw a few points.
1. It's not debatable for a faithful Catholic that abuses occurred. The Pope laid it down pretty forcefully and nobody of any consequence is bucking it.
2. If you're a non-Catholic who remains offended, you're essentially mad at the living who are not personally culpable through their direct actions. Any consistent application of that standard would lead to the conclusion that pretty much everybody is evil and we all might as well slit our wrists in an orgy of nihilism. This isn't very productive.
So let's all give up the Catholic bashing, please.
I think that Benedict XVI is no dummy and he's trying to head off an orgy of violence that most on this board aren't even aware of the danger of yet. The last stone is on the pile and the landslide has started. Europe might degenerate into the internecine violence that characterized the pre-modern diplomatic system called westphalianism or, if we're very lucky and blessed with perceptive leadership, Europe can chuck westphalianism for something better, something that is just beginning to take shape.
The Islamists have struck at the heart of the westphalian system and introduced the first serious non-state based war in several centuries. How we deal with that is key to winning not only the war, but the subsequent peace. The Pope's out ahead of the crowd and so many of you just don't see it.