Who were worse, the Catholics or the Nazis?

[Aleksandr]

It is my belief that this thread's sole purpose is to demonise Catholics. No post about other religions, and I'm thinking of one in particular, would be tolerated here, so why is it acceptable to bully Catholics on this forum?

[Ryedo40]

I haven't said that what happened hundreds of years ago is irrelevant what I have said is that you can only draw a comparison in a single frame of reference.[/Quote]

 

You can make comparisons; especially with repetitive attitudes and behaviours in a given culture over time; in this case European Christian culture. A great many of the attitudes and behaviours towards Jews stemmed from early Christian history and were ongoing and repetitive in nature: ones that lead to - or inspired the Christian Nazis to slaughter the Jews.

 

So lets take a look at the frame of reference - WW2. In WW2 the Nazis murdered over 20 million people of various flavours.[/Quote]

 

In a war against communism: one that the Pope supported.

 

In fact so strong was the Catholic church in the face of the horrors of Nazism that Albert Einstein...

 

Yet the same Catholic church wasn't so strong and against the horrors committed by the Catholic Utasha; the Catholic fascists who forcefully converted over 200,000 Orthodox Serbs and slaughtered over 600,000 - including 30,000 Jews.

 

No. That same Catholic church appointed Archbishop Stepinac as the spiritual leader to the Utasha. He, along with other clergy, held positions in the Utasha parliament. Nuns marched in military parades while giving the Nazi salute and priests were employed as police chiefs and guards to the Croatian leader. Catholic friars and monks were also the ones decapitating the Serbs & Jews - including children. After the war, the Pope promoted Stepinac - who'd been sentenced to 16 yrs hard-labour for his involvement - to Cardinal for his great service to the church.

 

Strangely enough, the strongest opposition to what was going on in Croatia didn't come from the Catholic church, but from the Nazis who petitioned the Pope & Hitler to intervene. They did nothing.

 

So something doesn't quite add up with what the apologetics have been claiming about the Pope - and the catholic church - after the war.

[evildrneil]

No I didn't miss that point, you seem to have missed the OP which asks us to consider the long view, because clearly, if we only looked at the period when the nazis were in power, then it would be no contest who was worse. That's rather the point, whether the centuries of corruption, malice, and bigotry of the catholic church adds up to as much as the horrors of the Nazis. Personally, I don't think it does but it's an interesting discussion and if anyone deserves to be godwinned, it's the catholic church.

 

And, once again, you can't make that sort of comparison without a common frame of social reference. Yes the the Catholic church did some crappy things at the same time when doing those crappy things was the norm. To take those crappy things out of that context and measure them against today's social norms produces a meaningless comparison.

 

Seriously? You chastise me about "only being able to make comparisons in the time and society in which they took place" and then you compare two campaigns that 700 years apart? for real?

 

That wasn't a comparison - you made a single claim that the Catholic church "mobilised most of europe to mount one of the largest military campaigns of all time" which I was pointing out was a patently false claim.

 

In any case all of this is a sideshow, you completely ignored my main point which was a rebutall of your false portrayal of the catholic church as being a benign organisation that mostly does good but just attracts a few bad apples. Like 'aw poor little catholic church, they try to do good, but are let down by a minority'.

 

For the majority of Catholics that's exactly what it is...

 

I'm sorry but that is absurd, it is a sinister backwards force that held back human progress for centuries, and caused the deaths of who knows how many people.

 

Rubbish. The early monastic settlements were havens of learning - they preserved and built on the scientific discoveries of the classical cultures. Cathedral schools were the only ones available and rapidly became universities - such as Oxford. Early scientific research was an attempt to discover God's laws and as such was carried out by religious scholars. Some of the greatest scientific theories have been proposed by religious scholars - genetic heritability (Mendel) and the big bang theory (Georges Lemaître) to name but two. And that's before we even mention the work of the Jesuits.

 

And right up to this day it is still corrupt, they are still more concerned about the image of the church than they are about the safety of the children in their care

 

Which is, of course, why Bishops have been told that they must co-operate with the police in any investigations? Yes the abuse of children by priests (or anyone else for that matter) was and is a vile occurrence but to claim that nothing is changing in the Catholic church with regard to it is just plain false.

 

they are still contributing to the aids crisis in africa.

 

I assume you come to this conclusion as they oppose the use of contraception? Of course they also promote abstinence which, were it followed, would be a better way of stopping the spread of aids then the use of condoms which will always have a failure rate. You can hardly blame the Catholic church for the fact that people only follow part of what they say.

 

Mother Theresa raised millions under the pretense of caring for the sick, and then the overwhelming majority of the money goes to building new convents to train more nuns to spread the religion further.

 

So, your trying to say that Mother Theresa and her Missionaries of Charity have never cared for the sick? Before even being considered as a novice people who wish to join the order have to spend a year tending to the sick and dying in one of the free hospices set up in India by the order. As to the building of new convents I assume you mean the 600 plus missions, hospices, treatment centres, orphanages, schools and soup kitchens set up and run by the order?

 

the amount of money they horde in the vatican is obscene, Jesus would be so ashamed of the way they live whilst millions of his followers starve and die.

 

The Vatican has a lot of non liquid wealth (art and architecture) which is largely accessible to all. It's liquid wealth by comparison is tiny - it runs on about 260 million per year which in organisational terms is a pittance.

 

They are pretty much indefensible.

 

Or would be if your claims were true or at the very least not taken wildly out of context.

 

The size of the crusades does not alter my point, at all: The popes have wielded and abused enormous amounts of power over the centuries, to the point of what amounted to being able to dictate foreign policy to multiple powerful states.

 

To multiple powerful states - who subscribe to Catholicism. There's the point you are missing in your diatribe. The Catholic church can only dictate to Catholics not to the world in general. It may make statements of how it wishes the world to run but unless you happen to be a Catholic these hold no more weight than a statement by any one else.

 

Personally I have little time for organised religion - they have pro's and con's but they aren't for me. However I can take a relatively unbiased view of them something which given your obvious hatred of religion you appear not to be able to do.

[flamingjimmy]

And, once again, you can't make that sort of comparison without a common frame of social reference. Yes the the Catholic church did some crappy things at the same time when doing those crappy things was the norm. To take those crappy things out of that context and measure them against today's social norms produces a meaningless comparison.

Meaningless: No, just not as good as comparing things that are closer together in time.

 

If the comparisons were completely meaningless then we might as well throw out all of history except for the last few hundred years because it would have nothing to teach us.

 

That wasn't a comparison

Yest there was, you directly compared them.

you made a single claim that the Catholic church "mobilised most of europe to mount one of the largest military campaigns of all time" which I was pointing out was a patently false claim.

There was an implied 'up to that point in history' obviously. Pretty much every war over the last few hundred years has been bigger than pretty much every war before that time. And in any case as I have said whether the army was 30,000 or 3,000,000 my point remains, undiminished, that the catholic church has wielded enormous political power certainly comparable to that of nation states.

 

For the majority of Catholics that's exactly what it is...

Well then the majority of Catholics are either ill-informed or deluded.

 

 

Rubbish. The early monastic settlements were havens of learning - they preserved and built on the scientific discoveries of the classical cultures. Cathedral schools were the only ones available and rapidly became universities - such as Oxford. Early scientific research was an attempt to discover God's laws and as such was carried out by religious scholars. Some of the greatest scientific theories have been proposed by religious scholars - genetic heritability (Mendel) and the big bang theory (Georges Lemaître) to name but two. And that's before we even mention the work of the Jesuits.

I'm not saying that religious people didn't help contribute to human progress, there's so many of them that of course they did. I'm saying that the institution of the Catholic church held back human progress. The pope didn't sit there and say 'no, go out and do science', no he sat there and said 'go out and kill muslims'.

 

 

Which is, of course, why Bishops have been told that they must co-operate with the police in any investigations? Yes the abuse of children by priests (or anyone else for that matter) was and is a vile occurrence but to claim that nothing is changing in the Catholic church with regard to it is just plain false.

Well that's ok, because I didn't say that. Simply that they are still more concerned about the image of the church than they are about the safety of children in their care, which is a vastly different claim to 'nothing is changing'. Please don't strawman me like that.

 

I assume you come to this conclusion as they oppose the use of contraception?

Yes, obviously, and it is true.

 

Of course they also promote abstinence which, were it followed, would be a better way of stopping the spread of aids then the use of condoms which will always have a failure rate. You can hardly blame the Catholic church for the fact that people only follow part of what they say.

Abstinence does not work, because it denies human nature. That's rather like saying 'communism is a better way of organising a fair society than capitalism'. If everyone were capable of abstaining and no-one was greedy then we could live in an aids free socialist utopia, the problem is that we live in the real world, and in the real world abstinence and communism don't work because of human nature.

 

So, your trying to say that Mother Theresa and her Missionaries of Charity have never cared for the sick?

No, I'm saying that they cared far more about spreading their religion and the image of the church than they do about caring for the sick. The whole mother theresa thing was a brilliantly organised PR coup. the whole world thinks she cared tirelessly for the sick when as I have pointed out the majority of the money she raised did not go to such causes.

 

Before even being considered as a novice people who wish to join the order have to spend a year tending to the sick and dying in one of the free hospices set up in India by the order.

I'm not saying she didn't like sick poor people. She loved them, she just wasn't that bothered about changing things she thought their suffering was great.

 

"The suffering of the poor is something very beautiful and the world is being very much helped by the nobility of this example of misery and suffering,"

 

"the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ"

 

As to the building of new convents I assume you mean the 600 plus missions, hospices, treatment centres, orphanages, schools and soup kitchens set up and run by the order?

Missions, orphanages and schools where they can spread their faith and indoctrinate children as the price for treatment, how altruistic

 

When Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Price, she used the opportunity of her worldwide telecast speech in Oslo to declare abortion the greatest evil in the world and to launch a fiery call against population control. Her charitable work, she admitted, was only part of her big fight against abortion and population control.

 

Mother Teresa did not serve the poor in Calcutta, she served the rich in the West. She helped them to overcome their bad conscience by taking billions of Dollars from them. Some of her donors were dictators and criminals, who tried to white wash their dirty vests. Mother Teresa revered them for a price. Most of her supporters, however, were honest people with good intentions and a warm heart, who fall for the illusion that the "Saint of the Gutter" was there to wipe away all tears and end all misery and undo all injustice in the world. Those in love with an illusion often refuse to see reality.

 

sauce

 

The Vatican has a lot of non liquid wealth (art and architecture) which is largely accessible to all. It's liquid wealth by comparison is tiny - it runs on about 260 million per year which in organisational terms is a pittance..

If Jesus ran the catholic church he would sell the art and the architecture and use the money to help the poor. They sit there on their golden thrones in their lovely buildings enjoying fine dining while millions and millions of their 'flock' suffer and die.

 

Or would be if your claims were true or at the very least not taken wildly out of context.

You say that, and yet you seem to have to twist my claims into ridiculously exaggerated versions in order to argue against them, funny that.

 

To multiple powerful states - who subscribe to Catholicism. There's the point you are missing in your diatribe.

I don't miss that point at all, nor does it diminish mine in anyway.

The Catholic church can only dictate to Catholics not to the world in general.

Which contradicts nothing I have said.

 

You tried to suggest that the catholic church is benign and played down the political power it has wieled over the years.

 

Pointing out that the pope was able to on his words alone instigate a massive invasion consisting of multiple powerful states blows what you said out of the water.

 

Of course they're only catholic states, but how does that make a difference to my point?

 

Personally I have little time for organised religion - they have pro's and con's but they aren't for me. However I can take a relatively unbiased view of them something which given your obvious hatred of religion you appear not to be able to do.

I don't hate religion, I certainly hate the catholic church, but most religion I just laugh at. Just because I'm passionate about the catholic church does not mean I'm biased.

 

Also, was there any point at all in this final paragraph other than an insult and self-aggrandisement? 'la la la I'm reasonable and your not' seems to be what it amounts to.

[Chris_Sleeps]

Rubbish. The early monastic settlements were havens of learning

They were also seats of oppression. The creation of an elite clerical class that had control of your soul. If you wanted forgiveness, atonement of sin, it was at their price - at their calling.

 

They were hardly an educational powerhouse either. An organisation so set on sending out the message of Jesus that they did it in a dead foreign language that few people could understand. If you wanted heaven, it was only through the Catholic Church that one could find it.

 

Some of the greatest scientific theories have been proposed by religious scholars

And many others have been crushed by religion; Galileo being the prime example.

 

I assume you come to this conclusion as they oppose the use of contraception? Of course they also promote abstinence which, were it followed, would be a better way of stopping the spread of aids then the use of condoms

What's wrong with promoting abstinence and also promoting the use of condoms? I've never understood the catholic obsession with sperm. It's not a batch of a million swimming souls waiting to be born into Christ's love.

 

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I'd also like to add that anti-semitism has its foundations in Catholicism. It took them nearly 2000 years to forgive the Jewish people for murdering their messiah.

[Ryedo40]

It is my belief that this thread's sole purpose is to demonise Catholics. No post about other religions, and I'm thinking of one in particular, would be tolerated here, so why is it acceptable to bully Catholics on this forum?

 

Maybe we should ban the history channel because there are no end of documentaries about the Nazis - as well as our own not-so-pleasant British history. Obviously, those programs are meant to demonise and bully today's Germans & Brits.

[Bloomdido]

If Nazism was taught in schools as a positive way to live one's life, supported by Government legislation to ensure that schools had to endorse it and provide room in the curriculum for it and prominent Nazis were put in the highest house and asked for their opinions on all sorts of moral issues, I am sure there would be many more people embracing its ideology.

 

Perhaps one day Catholicism will be as popular as Nazism is today.