German Church used Nazi forced labor during WW2

"The German bishops' conference has released an exhaustive study of the use of forced labor by Catholic institutions under the Nazi regime.
Nearly 6,000 people, including conscripted laborers and prisoners of war, were put to work at Church-administered institutions during the Nazi era. Their work is detailed in a study commissioned by the bishops' conference, entitled "Forced Labor and the Catholic Church: 1939- 1945."
Cardinal Karl Lehman of Mainz, the former president of the German bishops' conference, said that the 700-page study is "an important step along the way to constructing future unity." The cardinal said that the use of forced labor is "a burden of history that our Church will keep facing up to in the future."
The study shows that the 5,904 people were put to work at Catholic institutions, on orders from the Nazi labor office. In most cases they worked in hospitals, orphanages, cemeteries or other institutions run by Church, rather than in parishes. In some instances the laborers worked on monastery farms or on cleaning crews."

CWNews.com, Apr. 9, 2008

A review of the Organisation of Islamic Countries report on Islamophobia

"Islamophobia exists but the OIC report is the wrong way of going about it. A phobia is a strong irrational or powerful fear and dislikes of something, in this case, the religion of Islam.

[...]

Looking at the document, I would conclude that this was done by some under-graduates from a 3rd grade university hidden in a country-side somewhere, who have no idea about modern life and have suddenly stumbled upon the internet with their first lesson being Google search. As a result, this document starts off with the best of intentions and ends up rather fanning Islamophobia instead of helping to reduce it. It suffers from the following major defects:

* Total misunderstanding of the basic principle of Freedom of Speech. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to irritate and upset others. Freedom of speech does not include the right to discriminate against others though. For example, I can take the mickey out of suicide bombers wanting virgins and ending up with raisins. Or you can call me an infidel and say your religion is better than mine. These are completely acceptable, I have no issues. But you cannot tell others to kill me nor can I tell others to kill you. That is incitement to violence. The author seems to have deep intellectual issues in understanding this basic matter.
* Confusing racism with Islamophobia. Race belongs to a genetic category generally exhibited on the basis of a physical appearance. Islamophobia is a fear of Islam. Two totally different things. While in certain cases (such as black Muslims), they might blow over into being the same, but to confuse both of them as one shows muddled thinking. Muslims are not a race, and they do include a variety of different races and ethnic groups.
* Methodological and terminological confusion, which emerges from seriously flawed selection of incidents and coverage of incidents. Almost 50% of the incidents noted in the Appendix are not Islamophobic in nature, but belong to the category of freedom of speech or simple crime category. Islamophobia exists already without trying to add to it.
* A totally wrong emphasis on legal protections. They try to go deep into legal aspects of various conventions and institutions. But you see, those are already established, anti-discrimination laws exist, anti-violence laws exist anti-incitement laws exist and they are sufficient. For example, they are talking about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and completely forget that they themselves have repudiated it and have come up with a Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. Here’s an idea! How about the OIC signing up to and transcribing to domestic law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as most of the rest of the world has done?
* Be very careful about complaining about being a victim, because it only stands up when you yourself have not victimised someone else. Now if you look at the OIC minorities, one can come up with many examples of victimisation that they themselves have done. And we are talking about Muslims victimising Muslims here, forget about non-Muslims. Ranging from Shia, Sunni, Ahmadi, Baha’i, Ismaili, Darfurians and then all the way to the other side like Jews, Christians, Hindus Buddhists, etc. have been victimised in OIC countries. Now, consider the reaction if such a report on anti-Baha'i or anti-Shia or anti-Semitic discrimination is presented at the OIC? How about considering the fact that many if not most current anti-Semitic attacks in Europe are carried out by European Muslims?
* A totally imbalanced view of history. This entire report was so imbalanced in terms of its historical coverage that one does not even know where to start. What about the entry of Islam into the Caucasian world? Or the Chinese area? How about how it managed the entry and existence in South Asia and Africa? Islam has perhaps victimised more in many countries and regions than had been victimised against. Perhaps this is why their geographical scope of the report is so muddled (to avoid any facts which destroy their argument?)
* Significant challenges in the identification of the causes of Islamophobia. First of all, there is not one form of Islam; it is not a single view, sect or a monolith. More importantly it is not the role of the state to define it. So if you are an Ahmadi or a Shia or a Sunni or what have you, we simply do not care! If you have religious differences, then by all means, discuss them, but do not kill for those differences. For example, the list of seven points raised by the Runnymede Trust defining Islamophobia can, unfortunately be equally applied to anti-Semitism, Anti-Hinduism, Anti-Shia… in OIC countries, where they will be totally applicable. Consequently, ALL root causes of Islamophobia as identified in section 1.4.1 are completely wrong and misallocated.
* A clear misunderstanding of the role of the media and the level of control people can actually exert over them. Most - if not all - of the OIC have no or very little press freedom. On top of that, the Arab League, a subset of the OIC, has decided to take fuller control over their TV Media since February 2008. That is not how the media works in other countries. Do check out independent organisations such as Reporters without Borders.
* Israel – Palestine conflict. This is something that I can never understand. Curiously, more than 3/4th of all dead Palestinians have been killed by their fellow Arabs compared to the numbers killed by Israelis, but besides that breathtaking hypocrisy, I still cannot understand why they would include it in here. Or exclude say something like Bangladesh and Sudan? Pretty bizarre and intellectually vacuous."

Bhaskar Dasgupta, The Cheers, 3. April 2008

The report(PDF).

Christmas abolished!

"Increasingly in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, many people, especially the more Godly, came to frown upon this celebration of Christmas, for two reasons. Firstly, they disliked all the waste, extravagance, disorder, sin and immorality of the Christmas celebrations. Secondly, they saw Christmas (that is, Christ’s mass) as an unwelcome survival of the Roman Catholic faith, as a ceremony particularly encouraged by the Catholic church and by the recusant community in England and Wales, a popish festival with no biblical justification – nowhere had God called upon mankind to celebrate Christ’s nativity in this way, they said. What this group wanted was a much stricter observance of the Lord’s day (Sundays), but the abolition of the popish and often sinful celebration of Christmas, as well as of Easter, Whitsun and assorted other festivals and saints’ days.

[...]

Specific penalties were to be imposed on anyone found holding or attending a special Christmas church service, it was ordered that shops and markets were to stay open on 25 December, the Lord Mayor was repeatedly ordered to ensure that London stayed open for business on 25 December, and when it met on 25 December 1656 the second Protectorate Parliament discussed the virtues of passing further legislation clamping down on the celebration of Christmas (though no Bill was, in fact, produced)."

"Why did Cromwell abolish Christmas?", olivercromwell.org

With all the talk about "war on Christmas" everywhere, I thought it would be appropriate to show that the only ones ever at war with Christmas were Christians themselves.

Unravelled Threads

""And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. (Matthew 27)"

Needless to say, there is no historical record of such an astonishing event, and no other book in the Bible so much as mentions it - a stunning omission, considering this easily qualifies as the most spectacular miracle of the New Testament. Yet if we are to believe Christian apologists who say that every word of the Bible is true, this mass resurrection really did happen, and then sank into obscurity without a ripple and was forgotten. Not a single person who witnessed it felt compelled to write it down or make any record. Nor does any Christian evangelist of the first several centuries ever refer to it in their preaching."

Daylight Atheism, 12, 2007

Islamic evolution

"Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring."

Encounter (ABC Radio transcript) 11 June 2006

So who wrote this? Darwin? Dawkins? No, an Islamic scholar called al-Jahiz (781–868/869) in the book Kitab al-Hayawan (Book of Animals). The Islamic golden age was surely impressive and is quite a contrast to the appalling conditions that Muslims today live under. The worst thing is that many Muslims today seem to think that the Golden Age mysteriously will come back with a little more Koran reading. But it wasn't Muhammed who made the Golden Age. He thought humans were made out of clay.

Was Jesus gay?

"The late Morton Smith, of Columbia University reported in 1958 that he had found a fragment of a manuscript which at the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem. It contained the full text of Mark, chapter 10. Apparently the version that is in the Christian Scriptures is an edited version of the original. Additional verses allegedly formed part of the full version of Mark, and were inserted after verse 34. It discusses how a young man, naked but for a linen covering, expressed his love for Jesus and stayed with him at his place all night."

Religioustolerance.org

I've often thought that speculating on whether or not Jesus was gay was, well, speculative. However, gay or not, this article with pro et contra was quite interesting!

For British historian Robert Service, communism is a religion.

"British historian Robert Service, in Comrades: a world history of communism, goes further [than Hitchens]. For Service, communism is a religion, a "secular credo" complete with millenarian overtones (apocalypse followed by paradise), an emphasis on scriptural exegesis (each communist party "was a synod of hair-splitting political discussion") and a theory of historical inevitability that looks suspiciously like a doctrine of predestination. Marx and Engels, Service suggests, enthusiastically encouraged devotion, with the consequence that they were "treated as prophets whose every word had to be treasured"."

The Sydney Morning Herald, August 25, 2007

A non-believer - say it isn't so

"In most industrial societies, the level of religiosity declines as the society becomes wealthier and more sophisticated, according to John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which regularly surveys attitudes towards religion in the US.

Yet the US remains a highly religious place. Not the most religious place on the planet, but certainly more religious than Europe and Australia.

Green puts that down to America's historical roots. "Many people came to America precisely because they can practise their faith openly," he says. "Secondly, these extensive religious communities compete with each other for members. It means more effort goes into recruiting and maintaining members."

There is also a kind of counterintuitive argument about why religion has flourished, according to Green. Because of the separation of church and state, churches have had to build extensive private organisational structures to push their interests and so have become strong within the society."

The Sydney Morning Herald, August 11, 2007

The Muslim World's Embattled Secularists

"Who will defend the Muslim who doubts his faith? Who speaks for the man or the woman who might believe in Allah, by his or her own lights, but does not wish to worship? We hear a great deal in the West about the need for freedom of religion in the Muslim world, usually meaning for observant Christians and Jews. But what about freedom of non-religion: the liberty of the individual to think, to reason, to speak out loud rejecting the dictates of public piety? Few voices are raised, if any, in his or her defense.

[...]

Perhaps this was inevitable. Not so long ago, in mid-20th century, secularists were the great "modernizers": the leading intellectuals and artists, the ambitious military officers, the charismatic politicians and, yes, the dictators of the Arab world. They saw themselves and were widely seen, then, as the cosmopolitan voices of progress and, not least, of a proud and assertive nationalism.

Today Arab secularists are silent if not, in fact, silenced. The ideologies that once united many of them (Communism, Nasserism, Baathism) have been discredited by time and tyrants. The milder forms of intellectual liberalism – an openness to other cultures, faiths and ways of life; the questioning of opinions presented as absolute truths – find themselves branded as treason to some greater Muslim identity, or worse, as heresy."

Christopher Dickey, On Faith/Newsweek, July 2007

Western subversions of Muslim progress

"I shall address the internal structure of Islamic totalism as a major hurdle to democratisation, economic growth and progress in some future essay, but here I want to shed light on the way the west has consistently promoted reactionary Islamism, subverted progressive nationalist regimes, and thus controlled the destinies of the Muslim world by tying them down to a medieval mindset.

[...]

The second Western attack on Muslim modernisation was when King Amanullah of Afghanistan initiated an impressive programme to modernise his country. Industrialisation, modern education, liberation of women and many other such ideas were in the pipeline but the British in India recruited the most reactionary Mullah of Afghanistan, Mullah Shore Bazar, and a notorious bandit, Baccha Sakka, to launch a counter-revolution. They succeeded in overthrowing King Amanullah who was sent into exile in 1929.

The third assault on Muslim modernity was the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iran in 1953 because he had nationalised the Anglo-Iran Oil Company. The British and American intelligence services joined ranks and with the help of reactionary sections of the Iranian clergy masterminded the agitation that brought to an end the Mossadeq era.

[...]

Chronologically speaking it was not Wahabism that set in motion forces that undermined modernising processes in the Muslim world; it was Khomeini's reactionary revolution that initiated it. The Saudis reacted violently to Khomeini's bid to capture the leadership of the Muslim world. Their rivalry drove Muslim societies more and more towards extremism."

Ishtiaq Ahmed, The News, 28.07.2007

Faith-based initatives in foreign policy.

The Muslim faithless

Ridiculing and questioning Islam, Muhammad, the Qur'an and religion in general is an ancient tradition in Muslim countries.

[...]

Those Muslims who condemn such literature and views as un-Islamic and new-fangled western imports are obviously unaware of their own history. Some 12 centuries before these modern writers, Ibn al-Rawandi was establishing a controversial reputation for himself as the Richard Dawkins of ninth-century Baghdad (probably the wealthiest and most advanced city in the world at the time).

Belonging, as he did, to a more poetic age, his most famous work was not entitled The Allah Delusion, but had the more colourful title of The Emerald Book (Kitab al-Zumurrud). Nevertheless, he was no less sparing than Dawkins would be in his indictment and rejection of the divine authorship of the Qur'an, Muhammad's status as a prophet and organised religion. He argued that humans possess the gift of intellect, by which they can judge right and wrong, rendering the prophets and scripture superfluous.

According to Dawkins, most of the modern scientists who talk of "God" do so in the loosest possible sense of the word. Likewise, many of the greatest scientists of Islam's golden age sailed pretty close to the wind and, like their modern counterparts, were often deists rather than theists.

[...]

Islam's glory was a secular one based on knowledge and science. This is what makes the current drift towards scripture, ritual and conservatism in many Muslims so alarming. Just because dictators and foreign meddling spoiled the modern secular experiment, that does not mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Khaled Diab, Guardian, June 30, 2007

Goebbels on Atheism

"The European Crisis
[...]
Behind the Soviet leadership's pious phrases, we detect the grotesque face of Bolshevist atheism. It has not been liquidated, but rather it is only waiting to begin again its own work of liquidation, completing its work of extermination in the European states that it began with hundreds of thousands of priests in the Soviet Union. Only then, perhaps, will the Christian churches learn what combative enmity to religion really means.

Goebbels, Das Reich, 28 February 1943


"Make Way for Young Germany
[...]
No, the Marxist traitors were the ones who betrayed socialism, and the church was betrayed by those who claimed to defend Christianity but in reality made coalitions with God-denying atheists, thus destroying the foundations of national and Christian morality.
We have two Marxist parties for the workers. Are things going well for workers?
We have two Catholic parties. Has Catholicism been saved? No, the opposite is true. Ever since the Marxist parties in Germany began their fevered games, the workers have lost their jobs and their prosperity, and since the Christian-Catholic parties have joined with Marxism, God-denying atheism has gone about its work unhindered. These parties are the cause of the misery of the German people; the best thing for Germany is to kick this dead system's fat hacks in the rear."

Goebbels, speech 31 July 1932

"Communism with the Mask Off
In Germany we have religious controversies which arise from profound questions of conscience but have nothing whatsoever to do with a denial of religion. These controversies are exploited sometimes by harmless and sometimes malicious critics and a parallel is drawn between them and the absolutely dogmatic atheism of the Bolshevic International."

Goebbels, speech 13 September 1935.

Am I the only one who thinks the rhetoric of Goebbels sounds uncannily familiar to the run of the mill American evangelical?

Ancient Atheism

"As the menace of the religious right has become increasingly clear, atheists have been increasingly driven to speak out in response and have become more visible. Viewing this trend, some commentators have erroneously concluded that atheism is a modern movement. But this is not so. Atheism is not a recent innovation. If we travel back into history, we can find clear evidence of atheists in many cultures and many eras, though their voices were sometimes more scattered and harder to discern.
In a thought-provoking post, Diganta of The New Horizon provides evidence by telling us about the atheist philosophies of ancient India:

"In Ancient Hinduism, there were a couple of schools who used to teach non-existence of God. The first one, Samkhya, used to believe in duality of existing things - as per the book, saamkhya kaarikaa. Prakriti (Nature) and Purusha (Consciousness) were thought to be the basic building blocks of everything.""

Daylightatheism.org, June 17, 2007

[History] Hitler's Christianity

"To deny the influence of Christianity on Hitler and its role in World War II, means that you must ignore history and forever bar yourself from understanding the source of German anti-Semitism and how the WWII atrocities occurred.

By using historical evidence of Hitler's and his henchmen's own words, this section aims to show how mixing religion with politics can cause conflicts, not only against religion but against government and its people. This site, in no way, condones Nazism, Neo-Nazism, fascist governments, or anti-Semitism, but instead, warns against them."

Nobeliefs.com

A very good collection. Especially, take a look at the photos.

[History] The National Day of Prayer

"The bill creating this national observance was signed into law in 1952 by President Harry Truman, and another bill fixing its date as the first Thursday in May was signed in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan. [...] Sadly, America has become blind to the wisdom of great men like Thomas Jefferson, who specifically refused to proclaim a national day of fasting and prayer when he was president:

"I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies, that the General Government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious exercises; the enjoining them, an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises and the objects proper for them according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands where the Constitution has deposited it… Everyone must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.""

Daylightatheism.org 10 May 2007

[History] Humanism in Ancient Rome

Although much of what we regard as the ancient forerunners of humanism tend to be found in Greece, the original humanists of the European Renaissance first looked to the forerunners who were also their own ancestors: the Romans.

[...]

Like Epicurus, Lucretius sought to free humanity from the fear of death and of the gods, which he considered the primary cause of human unhappiness.

[...]

Lucretius insisted that the soul is not a distinct, immaterial entity but instead just a chance combination of atoms that does not survive the body. He also postulated purely natural causes for earthly phenomena in order to prove that the world is not directed by divine agency and that fear of the supernatural is consequently without reasonable foundation. Lucretius did not deny the existence of gods, but like Epicurus he conceived of them as having no concern with the affairs or destiny of mortals.

atheism.about.com, May 3, 2007

[Philosophy] The 10 Reasons Why Christianity is Wrong

A good ten reasons!

10. It is Absurd
9. Jesus Has Not Returned
8. God Doesn’t Care
7. Other Religions
6. There is No Soul
5. Evil
4. The Bible is Not Consistent
3. Christianity Cannot be the Religion that Jesus Preached
2. The Gospels are not Historically Reliable
1. The Gospels are not History

October 30th, 2006