With Open Gates: The forced collective suicide of Europe

[BTGBullseye]

Would you mind showing some actual proof of your conclusions?

[Seattleite]

Is a book list okay? Because when it comes to stuff this old, you often do have to actually read a book. Even if these books are going to be downright painful. I mean, the first book to read is Mein Kampf and the last one is the Catholic Bible.

[Reverend_UshankaCat_]

I decided to stop discussing politics or religion on the internet, but I absolutely have to make an exception here. Are you seriously suggesting that the Catholics caused the holocaust? None of the nazis were religious. They have tried using religion to win more people for their sick cause, sure, but as soon as they were done murdering all Jews, they would have gone for the Christians. There is/was no such thing as a Catholic nazi.There is/was no such thing as a religious nazi (unless you consider national socialism a religion like Christianity, Buddhism,...). A quote by Pope Pius XI:

It is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is inadmissible; spiritually we are all Semites.

-right, maybe that wasn't their mindset during the crusades, but that shows that the times have changed. I also recommend this friggin' common knowledge that is a Wikipedia article, which disproves a whole lot of what you said.

Also, "Mein Kampf" was pure propaganda -that is the reason it even exists and why you can't just believe what it says. Hitler was an opportunist, he would have said anything to get people to join his party.

 

On the topic of The Passion of the Christ that you cited as a propaganda film created by the Catholic Church:

A quick Wikipedia search gives this quote by "A joint committee of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Department of Inter-religious Affairs of the Anti-Defamation League":

This is precisely the storyline that fueled centuries of anti-Semitism within Christian societies. This is also a storyline rejected by the Roman Catholic Church at Vatican II in its document Nostra aetate, and by nearly all mainline Protestant churches in parallel documents. ... Unless this basic storyline has been altered by Mr. Gibson, a fringe Catholic who is building his own church in the Los Angeles area and who apparently accepts neither the teachings of Vatican II nor modern biblical scholarship, The Passion of the Christ retains a real potential for undermining the repudiation of classical Christian anti-Semitism by the churches in the last forty years.

And another quote by Senior Vatican officer Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos:

Anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, distorts the truth in order to put a whole race of people in a bad light.

 

Religion, if done right (examples include Gandhi, Pope Francis, Christ himself,... ) is supposed to give people hope and strength to carry on through hard times in their lives, to give them a reason for existing, to teach them that others, no matter who or what they are, also deserve respect and love and that you should share that love with them. Of course there are a lot of examples of religion being used to justify bad things, but there are probably a lot more examples of religion being used to justify good things. Think of all the charities for example! As for ISIS, I have my own conspiracy therory here, as I don't think these people really know what their religion is about themselves.

Also, why are we even discussing this?

 

REFUGEE IMMIGRATION - GOOD OR BAD?

 

Lots of people seem to think that everyone will turn Muslim if we get more refugees. I think that's bollocks. I also think that the only proper solution to this problem would be integrating these millions of refugees into society, which sadly sounds pretty impossible. So... I'll just go back to not discussing these kinds of things.

[Binky The Rabbit]

Religion, if done right (examples include Gandhi, Pope Francis, Christ himself,... ) is supposed to give people hope and strength to carry on through hard times in their lives, to give them a reason for existing, to teach them that others, no matter who or what they are, also deserve respect and love and that you should share that love with them.

+1 I feel compelled to post this:

 

Religion may be considered outdated and unnecessary by many, but I don't consider it inherently evil. For my two cents, I believe that every religious text out there actually misrepresents its respective faith, because human error and ulterior motives have no doubt twisted, left out and added in various sections of the original teachings to suit their own ends over the millennia. Can I prove it? No I can't, because none of us existed when the Original Teachings happened. But my point is - to paraphrase BTG - "The big issue isn't that people follow religion, but that people exist." And for those who want to destroy the history of mankind, along with most of mindkind itself, religion is the perfect scapegoat, because "God told me to do it", "I do it for God, for He promises paradise for the chosen few". No amount of logic or rational persuasion will change that. They have to reject the ideaology themselves. Bombing the shit out of their home country won't help.

 

Which brings us back to the topic at hand.

 

Simply put, refugees won't destroy Europe. A lot of them probably wouldn't mind returning to the Middle East if the terrorism, bombing and fighting stopped. Airstrikes on their countries only causes more refugees, and inspires more terrorists for revenge on the countries bombing them.

 

On a rather funny note, I'm now imagining an influx of US refugees to Europe if Trump wins.

 

“How could this man get even close to touching the White House? Within all of my American friends here, we are all kind of like ... if he wins, we are not going back. It’s a good way to get Americans out of your country. By electing Donald Trump. I am not interested in living in a country where he has jurisdiction over my body, my life, my livelihood, my friends’ livelihood. Not interested.”

 

[Seattleite]

I seem to have lost my post when I got logged out. So I'm going to keep this short and sweet.

 

The Nazis wore crosses on their uniforms and their official motto translates to "in god we trust", they had Catholic priests travel with their military units for spiritual support (yes, I am aware of the fact that the US also did this), and their secondary emblem was a cross, which was still the main emblem of their military. Pope Pius XI did make a pro-Semitic statement there, but had a long history of anti-Semitism himself, and had previously said Germany had a right to "defend itself" against Jewish influence, even in the middle of a speech against Hitler's ridiculous "Final Solution". His stance on the Jews was definitely negative, even if he was MUCH more mild than the Nazis were and hated their extreme take on anti-Semitism.

 

The Catholic Church's stance on the Jews has always been mixed, because that's inevitable in such a large organization, they never had any hard policies on the matter and have never, EVER taken any action against anti-Semites within their membership. They did create the Easter Drama and Passion Play, and both have anti-Semitic elements to them, portraying the unbelieving Jews as being at fault for the death of Jesus Christ, and that largely makes sense because the only other parties to blame are the Romans, and we're talking about the ROMAN Catholic church. The Catholic Bible also supports the idea of Jewish deicide, as well. However, there HAVE been a lot of pro-Semitic individuals in the Catholic church. They were a minority, especially amongst the popes, but even during the crusades some priests sheltered the Jews and even took up arms against the crusaders, even if both the Pope and the Antipope continued to fund these people afterwards and never condemned their actions, and of course the priests and monks travelling with the crusaders didn't either. The words of individuals of any status less than that of the pope are irrelevant here, and every pope before Pius XII has been anti-Semitic or ambivilant.

 

Even Pius XII, who has saved a whole bunch of Jews supposedly despite not having a firm number and it ranging from "thousands" to "hundreds of thousands" with no evidence as to what the actual number was, also never took a firm stance against anti-Semitism until the war was already over, and the Catholic church under his rule was one of several powers involved in smuggling Nazis out of Germany and taking them to Brazil. Also, read more than half a paragraph before you send something as a source.

 

Meanwhile, Nietzsche, the guy you people insist on blaming? He repeatedly made hard, definite statements that he had and wanted nothing to do with anti-Semitism or any anti-Semites, and that he thought of anti-Semitism as a cancer. Since you're a wiki fan, why don't you take a trip to Wikiquote and read what he had to say on the matter?

 

As for the actual topic, I should note I am 100% for allowing Muslim refugees into the EU and US. We are secular nations, after all, we should act like it. They'll need to register and go through the same paperwork as any other immigrants, and they'll need to follow our laws, but those are given. And in a couple generations they will not be significantly different from any other members of our societies, and many won't even be Muslims anymore. I call that a win/win.

[rliant1864]

"Gott mitt uns" is more literally "God is with us." The Wehrmacht wore that on their buckles while the SS did not. It's actually a very old motto.

 

But yes, we can very much attribute a lot of very old anti-Semetic elements to the days when the RCC controlled Europe.

[Seattleite]

I blame my translator. I got that info before I started learning German. And I realize the SS had no such motto, but they still had crosses.

[rliant1864]

A better example is the SS creed, the last four lines of which are, in officer/soldier question and answer format:

 

Also glaubst Du an einen Gott?

– Ja, ich glaube an einen Herrgott.

 

Was hältst Du von einem Menschen, der nicht an einen Gott glaubt?

– Ich halte ihn für überheblich, größenwahnsinnig und dumm; er ist nicht für uns geeignet.

 

Translation:

 

So you believe in a God?

– Yes, I believe in a Lord God.

 

What do you think about a man who does not believe in a God?

– I think he is overbearing, megalomaniacal, and foolish; he is not suitable for us.

 

I wouldn't go after the crosses either. Yes, they're Christian in origin for sure, but they're so old a symbol of Germany in Hitler's time that they symbolized Deutschland more than they did Christ. And of course that's just the Iron Cross. The Balkenkreuz (the squared one) was created during the First World War to aid identification of German aircraft, and was implemented in the last year of the war.

[Seattleite]

Well, yes. That would have been better. But I didn't think of it, for some reason, despite having read the SS creed. Also, to clarify, I am in week 3 of learning German, and it is a hobby effort through Rosetta Stone, made entirely because three generations back there was not a single member of my family who didn't have German as a first language.

 

Also, my family is half Jewish. Guess why they aren't in Germany anymore.

 

And one note, to Vapymid, I can't believe I haven't made yet: "Human nature" is a massively overused and misused term to the point where it can pretty much be retired because people will never use it right. "Human nature" almost does not exist in reality, and people use it to mean "everything that humanity does, most of the time, right now, within this very strict context, as edited from my world view". There is basically no such thing as human nature, and what little their is we can roll right over, rewrite and override as we damn well please, because the human psyche is just that flexible and WILL adapt to its surroundings as much as it needs to. Religion is not a requirement. There is no evidence it existed before recorded history, just us thinking "well it must have" and inserting it wherever the hell we wanted to. And even if religion had been with us for most of our history, humans can erase anything from their programming that they damn well please, and do so all the time (in a historical sense).

 

NONE of our mental constructs is bound to us, we can destroy any of them when they are no longer needed, and religion was never needed, it was only ever a thing forced on us by the powerful to keep them in power. We CAN destroy it, we SHOULD and we WILL. Religion as a whole WILL die, and we WILL be better for it, because it IS an evil tool the powerful use against the powerless, and it IS nothing but a detriment, and we ARE growing wise to it. More people leave it with each passing year, and more will continue to leave it until there is nobody left in it. And good fucking riddance.

[rliant1864]

I'll be enrolling in German 101 next semester as part of my university studies. Should be interesting!

[Jeb_CC]

@Seattleite: Weeelll... I'm religious and I can say it's one of the reasons why I'm so optimistic. It can't be THAT bad...

+1 I feel compelled to post this:

 

^ +500 recurring forever.

 

Just cause I'm religious, doesn't mean I'm aiming to kill any atheist who tells me I'm wrong. :I You can do whatever the fuck you want to do, I don't give a shit. XD Just don't go raining on my parade. Religion makes me happy because it gives my own life some extra meaning. Why am I here? Because God put me here and if I do good, I get the glorious reward of heaven. That sounds fucking amazing. Why wouldn't I want to believe in that? XD

Some things are so misunderstood, and it gives religion a bad name. Okay, so thousands of people died in the Bible. Thousands of people died in your history text book, and there came the quote; "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it"

But oh no, when the Bible is involved, suddenly it's the bane of humanity and needs to be burnt to a crisp. Wonderful! -_-

 

Also, human nature is TOTALLY a thing. It comes a lot from evolution, how we behave, what we want, what we desire. Without human nature, we wouldn't want to have sex or have kids or whatever. We'd just go about our own business and be boring as fuck. XD Humans will just die out. Humans are always seeking knowledge, so they either turn to religion, or science. Or both! The people who kill in religion's name will also kill without religion. They'll find some excuse to murder people.

As for religion dying out, thaaaat's not going to happen. Oh no.

[rliant1864]

>Just don't go raining on my parade.

 

While I'm on board with the idea that religious people aren't inherently doing wrong (whether the religion itself espouses it depends on the text in question), it is a systemic problem (or at least systemic, you must admit). Like crime and taxes, this cannot be a 'leave me alone, it makes me happy' situation. You are as equally a part of it as everyone else, and inviduals constitute the whole matter.

 

>Okay, so thousands of people died in the Bible. Thousands of people died in your history text book

 

Except that the vast majority of the deaths in the Bible were righteous actions of God. The vast deaths of history are rarely seen as righteous outside of martydom or heroism, and some are seen as downright evil. And certainly the most rare of all historical deaths are ones where one says "And he fully deserved it and more besides!" as we are encouraged to say about those smote, flooded, bear-ed or otherwised to death by God.

 

>Also, human nature is TOTALLY a thing. It comes a lot from evolution, how we behave, what we want, what we desire.

 

To a certain extent. I think he's more getting at the "Humans aren't all saints and we're not all sinners, we're not all pacifists and we're not all murderers, we're not all greedy and we're not all voluntary beggars, we're not all leaders and we're not all followers" thing.

 

>The people who kill in religion's name will also kill without religion. They'll find some excuse to murder people.

 

Only if they're truly psychotic. As the saying goes, "With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

 

>As for religion dying out, thaaaat's not going to happen. Oh no.

 

Don't be so sure. Religions have come and gone nonstop throughout history, each one being replaced by the new 'truth.' Animalists replaced by polytheists replaced by monotheists, and the thousands of religions come and gone under that.

 

The thing that's different this time around (thanks to several scientific revolutions in only the last 300 years or so, a very short time compared to past religions' lifespans) is that science offers as much an answer to what the 'truth' is and in a compelling enough way to be a serious competitor. And unlike past religions, science has too much practical use to be discarded and forgotten. It will remain a constant challenger. Sure there may be some that call themselves Christians in the far future, but if the modern American liberal Christian is anything to go by, they'll be close enough to a reaosned individual that the label is irrelevant.

[Jeb_CC]

1. I'm religious so I deserve what everyone else gets, that's fair. X3 There's no difference to me and somebody else, other than beliefs.

 

2. That confuses me though. We had "Thou shalt not murder" command carved in stone tablet, ordered by God himself. But then... death all around, so what the fuck? XD I haven't read 100% of the Bible, so I can't exactly stand up for it 100%. XP

 

4. Surely you'd have to be corrupt in SOME sort of way to actually murder someone though.

 

5. Religion has been around for soooo long though. There was all those Greek Gods, then Egyptian Gods, then this Bible God, then Buddha and all this other stuff. Religion isn't 'right', it's not about trying to be 'right'. It's about having faith in something. Thus, science is not a competitor to religion. I can believe in evolution and God... it's not hard. If you meet some religious person who refuses to learn science because they have religion, well, flick their nose or something. XD You can have both.

[rliant1864]

1. But what you said is that you wanted an exception made for yourself. As part of a systemic thing, you can't say "don't rain on my parade" or "leave me in particular alone, it makes me happy." It cannot be like that. It's like trying to eradicate a nest of ants without murdering any one ant.

 

2. The fact that it's confusing is a popular point of criticism. It would point to the God of the Bible being fairly hypocritical, no? And of course I'm talking about the major ones a lot of people know about: The Flood, the bears and the bald man, etc.

 

4. Self-defense, killing an enemy in times of war, hanging a criminal. Few people would have many qualms about shooting a thief or bank robber, or a member of the Waffen SS on the battlefield. If you have justification, good people will readily kill, and feel damn good about it. And frankly, if they're right in their justifications, they should be. But the problem is that religion provides as much justification as anything else, as well as twisting the rules. Suddenly things that were fine before are seen as personal wrongs to you or your god, and that's as much justification the good man needs, just as much as the robber's actions are.

 

5. The idea of religion just being 'faith in something, anything' is a very very recent idea. A direct counter to the rise of science in the past few centuries, actually. Prior to that (and still true for the vast majority today) religion was what provided you with truth in your life. Explanations, justifications, values and morals. All provided in one neat package.

 

The problem is that science is providing its own explanations now, and quite well. Who are we, what are we meant for, where did we come from, where did life come from, where is our universe from, what existed before us? It's answering those questions that are the foundation of every religion that has ever existed. That's what makes it a threat. Combine that with the (very common but not necessarily obligatory) ethical systems of humanism and its brethren, and now we have our values, justifications, and morals. Starting to look like the religious package of yore, no?

 

Of course, we have people who scamper around these answers, the God of Gappers. The real question is, when those gaps are gone, what then? When we find what has happened before our universe came to be and what happened when it did (yes, when, not if. If we do not blow ourselves to oblivion, we will have our answers eventually.), if isn't God, what then?

 

The biggest, nicest benefit you have right is that there are still holes where you can put God. But those holes are shrinking all the time, and it would be foolish to think that they'll always be there. Then we will have our answer one way or the other.

 

EDIT: Wow, this changed tacks a whole lot in just two pages.

[Jeb_CC]

I just want to make it sure that people who are religious aren't immediately hated because... they're religious. X3

And with the "don't rain on my parade thing", oh, I just meant that as in one-on-one conversation with someone. Don't try to convert me, I won't try to convert you. XP Fair deal! Yes?

But aaalrighty! :3 I don't like to quarrel too much. XP So I'll stop fiddling with words. I get your points though... interesting and challenging!

 

However, this is a bit off-topic yes.

And also, dammit Rliant, don't double post. XD There's an 'edit' button for a reason!!

[rliant1864]

What's wrong with double posting? That's the first time I've ever had that be a moderator complaint before.

[Binky The Rabbit]

It's a general rule of thumb. It's mentioned in the rules, not just in this forum. I try to respond after at least two posts after my last one.

 

Annnnnyway, this is a thread about Refugees entering Europe, not antitheism.

 

Britain got its first load of refugees today, landing in Glasgow. Here's hoping they don't face too much trouble in the coming months.

[rliant1864]

Hm. Never encountered it before. Though, granted, all the forums I'm on directly message replies to the original poster and allow them to respond from that menu, so editing your comment is seen as pulling the rug out from under someone.

[Seattleite]

Can we all get back on-topic, please?

[Vapymid]

There actually is a "discuss religion and it's impact" thread, here:

viewtopic.php?f=55&t=1365&start=60

We can move over there to talk about that...

 

On topic, though - I've been following on the events on the Continent after the Paris attack and I have to say that so far, it seems to be inline with my suspicions. The perps, in their majority, look to be from the second generation of migrants, rather than from the new wave of recent refugees...

 

And I still don't for a second think that these attacks will mean the end of Europe. Germany lost over 10 million in the last war alone and it's back on top. So, no matter how heartless I may sound, it will take more than killing a few hundred people to put Europe down on its knees.

 

Regards