Faith is the enemy
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I don’t know how often I’ve remarked that the other side of belief is denial. If there could be a third side of a coin it would be arrogance, because belief cannot tolerate doubt and so must deny dissent and call the truth arrogance.
Barack Obama isn’t any more of a Muslim than Pope Frances is or than I am. Whether he’s a believer at all or a Christian as the faithful deniers of doubt so narrowly and arrogantly define it, is something only he knows, but that he’s read history is undeniable and that he’s honest enough not to play games that attempt to disassociate Christian churches and doctrines with violence and oppression seems true as well.
It takes a denier and a liar and perhaps a Jesuitical gymnast to dismiss the connection between persecutions, genocides and wars of conquest in Christian Europe, but that doesn’t stop the dogs of God from yapping every time someone says that you can’t force Muslims in general to accept blame for the evil promoted by some ecclesiastical leaders and conducted by the zealous faithful without putting Christianity to the same test. I would suggest that faith itself is the doorway to hell, or less dramatically, the beginning of certainty, arrogance and the end of moral judgement.
So when the President commented at the National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday on the horrors of the Islamic Nation movement the dogs began to bark.
ISIS is a “vicious death cult.” said the President of the United States.
“And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”
That’s historical fact and a hard thing to deny, except by victims of religious psychosis in all their pathological arrogance and megalomania. So the phony advocates of tolerance had to turn, in their certainty, to slander. If he hollers, “let he without sin cast the first stone,” he must be a Muslim!
What we need to do, suggests the imp of faith, what we need to do in the face of barbarism, unquestioning zealotry and labyrinthine tribalism is make this into a religious war wherein our God is on our side and hates the other side’s equally arbitrary God.
Jesus Christ! Conservative commentators like Jonah Goldberg, senior editor of The National Review suggested that “we” have the moral high ground. After all we all started out as barbarians so we’re all equal which means we’re better.
“I see no problem judging the behavior of the Islamic State and its apologists from the vantage point of the West’s high horse, because we’ve earned the right to sit in that saddle.”
Even if the saddle is on a jackass, perhaps. I don’t know who he includes in that “we” but he can count me out if he includes Christianity in that short word. It’s not that a toad doesn’t occupy higher moral ground than ISIS or Al Qaeda or the Egyptian TV networks that produce anti-Semitic libel — or the rich and powerful Muslims who slip money to terrorists under the table, it’s just that the age old attempt to make all Good vs. Evil battles into religious passion plays is beyond my ability to produce adequate malediction. The question isn’t whether the ugly past is further behind the followers of Jesus than of the Prophet ad Goldberg suggests, the real question is whether being religious makes you more or less likely to be evil and proud of it. It’s not a question either side will allow to be asked.
Obama is right when, perhaps as a Christian, he points out that we are all sinners and that we have no moral grounds for arrogance. By making it a religious war one opens the door to doing whatever hideous things we damned well please in the name of our arrogant and jealous gods and closing the door to doubt. Doubt is the key to morality, to decency, to righteousness, to science, to enlightenment, to justice, and faith is the enemy of us all.
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best is easy rest is empty.
there is no need for faith.
do only what is easy forever and ever.
die too, if it is easy.
faith is also nice but only if it’s easy.
best is easy rest is empty.
Hitler was the perfect example of a pyschopath. His logic was justified perfectly in his own mind by his twisted sense of perfection, religion, and power. ISIS are Muslims who are similar to Christian extremist except that they have taken their beliefs to a violent level in what is virtually a lawless land. This is nothing new in that part of the world. They have been fight over the exact meaning of passages in the Quran hundreds of years. It was our love of oil that got us involved with them to begin with and the Christian religion that drove us to give Israel to the Jewish people after WWII that keeps us involved. We can never totally deal with the problems of the Muslim faithful versus the Christian faithful without an all out war of global proportions, or unless both faiths realize that they are equal and can exist side by side. Even then we must have an all out military effort to kill every Muslim that does not believe this. If you do not believe this then you are only fooling your self. As far as the Bible thumpers go, you are in the same boat with the Muslims. You both believe in the same God strictly on faith. There is no proof that he/she/it actually exists. The Muslims acknowledge that Jesus exists but only as a prophet but most likely you are all deluding yourselves and killing a lot of people without good reason. However, that is probably part of the natural selection process of thinning out the useless members of the herd.
Justifying one’s own logic happens regularly. You and I do it in conversations as do millions of others. Because Hitler did it on a grander scale doesn’t make him a psychopath. He made the choice between good and evil but the latter, in his mind, was perfectly justified, as his ends more than justified his means.
[…] Mad Mike’s America has something to say about Faith following last weekends Prayer Breakfast. […]
Your title is wrong and it should be FAITH IS YOUR FRIEND.
Only in as much as baseless assertion is the foundation of truth. Let me show you that faith is self contradictory as a way to know or understand or earn the right to proclaim anything at all.
In faith all things are possible, as faith, by definition, is independent of verification and always no more than the product of proclamation. Faith cannot discriminate, else it would be choosing one thing over another using a process that is inimical to faith itself. If you’re basing any assertion of belief on something factually and logically derived it isn’t, again by definition, faith.
With pure faith alone and independent of the ability to weigh and test observable reality, there would be an infinite number of gods, devils and universes to house them. Think about it, how is Jesus more credible than Krishna? In faith there is no way to answer and if you do answer you’ve denied that faith can answer questions it doesn’t in faith assume. Are you following me here? the conclusion is that by saying that faith is my friend instead of saying faith in X is my friend your saying that something that’s truly the absence of intelligence and sanity itself is my friend. Get it? So really, if I ask “faith in what?” you can’t answer from a position of faith alone. You have to pretend to have a reason that in itself argues against faith.
If you choose one article of faith, one unwarranted assumption over another you’ve based the choice, not on verifiable information, but on more faith-based faith and created an endless sequence of statements based on independent statements of faith. You’re attempting to stand on nothing and move the Earth.
You’d be able to see that obvious self-negating statement of yours for what it is if your “friend” had not disabled any native intelligence you, most improbably, might once have had.
To the faithful, then truth is likely to be the enemy — as anything whatever can be proclaimed independently of truth. Indeed you can have no argument for one article of faith, one god, one anything over another, now can you? so what you’re saying is that faith itself is your friend whether it’s in the Devil or Dummuzi or Dumbo the elephant.
What you’re really calling my friend is faith in some particular thing only you can define. God, divine morality, received wisdom. Here’s where the limitless arrogance enters the picture. When advocate faith in principle you advocate the opposite as well, since faith means universal acceptance and the abdication of all cognitive function. Any argument for the possibility of God is not only an argument for all possible gods, but all impossible gods and as I can assert 1 I must also credit the assertion of minus 1, which leaves us with zero. Get it?
Once again, as faith is not only immune to critical thinking or scientific observation, to have faith in one god necessitates choosing one out of an infinite number of them. You can’t without abandoning faith. That suggests that faith itself is the process of lies, deceptions and illusions.
As is typical of the religious, what you really mean is faith in the god that’s evolved into the current form of some religion you belong to. You have nothing to stand on here, unless of course you’re God and can demonstrate that to me. So unless you are God, your original assertion is void as has been demonstrated.
Never met her myself. Long as she buys her share of beer she can be my friend any time….
When there is no faith there is no morality and that’s the way it is. Obummer isnt a Christian man at all, but a Muslim who has been hiding for all these years. One day the devil will come for him and his bastard family.
What defines a “Christian man?” What defines morality? Oh don’t bother, arguing with an idiot is hard enough but arguing with a religious idiot is futile. If you ever had a brain, it’s been eaten away by faith.
And by faith I mean the overweening arrogance of pretending you know more than an earthworm, or that you are any more important than a rock.
I have no ‘faith’ religiously speaking yet I am ‘moral’ I would never hurt, physically or mentally, a fellow human being (unless they really piss me off in which case I tend to growl at them which is, possibly, a worry).
I treat men, women and children with courtesy and respect. I treat animals with the same respect (all right, I eat them too but I’m never rude to them before they are slaughtered)…
Faith is not a requirement of morality.
So there.
Religion is the great forgiver. The deity in charge gives those who kill, maim, and torture in his name a pass straight to whatever paradise the believer has “faith” exists. Barack Obama was right to say what he said. He told the truth, without fear. A smart man, and I don’t for one minute think he believes in religion. It’s all a prop. Schtick if you will to further the political process. Very good article. Thought provoking.
The fact is we all of us believe in something, but taking the “moral” high ground because some believe in a mythical being while others do not makes no sense at all. It’s like that old meme about Atheists being somehow immoral. What nonsense.
Religion is, in my opinion, and the opinion of millions of sane people, the absolute origin of all things bad in our world. I don’t care who or what you are or which “god” you claim to love it’s all bullshit as is the insane blind faith which is part of the package.
And as always, in the rush to prove Christians as guilty of genocide as the Muslims, I just this morning – again – had to de-bunk the old “Hitler was a Christian” trope.
Hitler proves your article, perhaps as well as any Historical milestone. And he does so, by specifically not being Christian. If he can be used to prove any argument, it is that zealotry is its own petard.
What you believe is not the problem. When that belief becomes the justification for homicide, torture and even genocide – that’s where your belief system becomes criminal and tragic.
It wasn’t a religion that blew up the World Trade Center. It was a handful of Saudi Nationals who held a zealous faith, and saw that faith as justification for murdering 3000 Human beings.
I find myself in complete agreement with you.
As you know David we share our enthusiasm for the era of the Third Reich, but I don’t know that I ever read Hitler wasn’t a Christian. I was under the impression he was born into Christianity, and may have eschewed it later in life, but I’ve never read he was an Atheist, except from the Christians of course. As to Glenn’s article I couldn’t agree more.
Here’s a portion of the tête-à-tête I had with the guy in question – where else, but on Face… uh… Book. Yeah, FaceBook.
“Religiously speaking, Hitler was raised Catholic, but disavowed the religion – officially and publicly – after his mother died of Cancer. This among other factors led to his estrangement from his father, who was a non-practicing Catholic. His mother was a devout Catholic. Hitler blamed her death on the Jewish doctor who treated her. He dabbled in numerous belief systems, including the occult and mysticism during WWI, but his experiences in the Trenches, left him spiritually disillusioned.
In speeches, he would occasionally invoke God, but this was more for the political opportunity it offered, than any deep seated belief in a God figure. His “Christianity” can instantly be voided by his belief in evolution and Darwinism. All the party leaders were Darwinists. It’s an integral part of the Ubermensch concept. The Nazis were working to restore the supremacy of the Aryan people – a people whom, if they existed at all, did so in the Middle East, primarily Persia. Both Hitler and Himmler spent vast fortunes on archeological research, to prove they did exist. That maniacal spending contributed to their losses on the Eastern front.
The Reichskonkordat was signed in 1933, in an attempt to prevent the Catholic church from blocking his plans, the primary one at the time, being Aktion T-4, the policy for mercy killing the elderly and the infirm. The law was allegedly stricken in 1936, but was actually still in practice right up to the end of the War. Many of the Sonderbehanlung victims were in fact T-4 killings. Just as Hitler had done with Stalin and the Non-aggression Pact, he turned his back on the Konkordat, as well. But Germany never had Catholicism as a state religion during the Reich period. Hitler merely realized that it would be difficult to win over Catholics, if he didn’t pay lip service to the Church.
The Wiemar government had created the Deutsche Evangelische Kirche – Unified Evangelical Protestant Church, in the 1920s. Hitler used the church as a propaganda organ, and a place where religious leaders could be vetted for loyalty. Preachers were employed who could use the religious doctrine to espouse Nazi philosophy. Active Protestants who disagreed with Nazi policy responded with the creation of the German Protestant Church – also known as the “Confessing Church,” a powerless, semi-underground organization within the 3rd Reich.
Hitler was a student of Napoleon, and for a time believed himself to be his reincarnation. He knew that Naziism would never truly take control of German citizenry, if he tried to abolish religious activity, so he decided to control and monitor that activity, rather than attempt to abolish it.
Lastly, we get to the good old “Gott mit uns,” belt buckles. Stalin was a confirmed Atheist. He did what neither Hitler or Napoleon were willing to try. He outlawed all religious activity in the Soviet Union. In order to show the German people as the opposite of Communists, Hitler made some concessions to a God creature – the belt buckles being one. Keep in mind too, that the belt buckles were worn by the Wermacht. Traditional army. Not by the SS. The SS were deeply entrenched in Gothic Paganism. And it was the SS who carried out the 14M mass murders they called “Operation Reinhard,” and we call the Holocaust. Even the infamous SS “lightning bolt” symbol was a Gothic Rune.
The swastika itself was a Rune, and many Historians point to it as a broken cross, supporting their view that Hitler was anything but Christian.
Hitler didn’t need religious doctrine to motivate the horrors that he would orchestrate. He was a Bipolar Schizophrenic with a Messianic Complex. In other words, he was insane. His own madness provided all the impetus he needed.
As I’ve said, I’ve made a lifelong study of this subject. I’ve read numerous books on the War, and on Hitler himself. I’ve also studied the European History that led up to his rise to power, going all the way back to the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire – a critical period in Hitler’s own mind, because it represented a time when Germany ruled the World.
In fact, if Hitler could be said to have any religious fervor at all, it was the that of Pan-Germanism – the belief that German people came from a clan of God-like creatures that lived during the Ice Age, and the misguided idea that they could be returned (through evolution) to that pristine state.”
He went on to present his argument further, and I too responded in kind. But, I don’t want to bog you all down with page after page of stuff you already know.
My feeling is that Germany was ready for a Holocaust. And Christian antisemitism certainly played into that. A great deal of it existed in Germany for centuries before the Unification. WWI and the Weimar government didn’t help matters. But it’s also important to remember that although Jews were the lions share victims, they were far from the only victims. Many Christian and Atheist groups were also targeted, including Gays and of course, Communists.
I think he was born a Christian – as were most Europeans in the 19th Century, but everything I’ve read about the man, and Nazi philosophy and so-called Nazi Science tells me that Hitler was far more Pagan than Christian in his personal beliefs.
What bothers me most about this argument, is that it is framed as Hitler was a killer-for-Christ – as opposed to Muslims, who are killers-for-Allah.
I think that tends to minimize the horror of the 3rd Reich, making it another in a long line of atrocities such as the 4th Crusade and the Spanish Inquisition. With 14M dead – all across the globe – torture, medical experiments, use of body parts in manufactured goods, theft, rape, forced labor and prostitution – and the fact that those numbers count not just Jews, but Catholics, Protestants, Blacks, Hispanics, Middle Easterners, Africans and Asians – Hitler has always stood, in my mind, as a far greater evil.
Also, I find that he has become everybody’s favorite whipping boy. The Christians call him an Atheist, the Atheists call him a Christian. The Gays call him a Homophobe, and the Homophobes call him Gay. The Left call him a Fascist and the Right call him a Socialist. Pretty much everybody who has an axe to grind, points to Hitler as their unique polar opposite.
See? Just like this idiot, below.
LOL! It takes all kinds.
“Also, I find that he has become everybody’s favorite whipping boy.”
Interesting point. Maybe in some sense Hitler represents something universal in mankind.
I think that’s an accurate assessment. I also think it’s important to remember that Hitler was insane. So, it doesn’t really matter what religious or political values we attach to him. He was a broken toaster, and attempting to rationalize the machinations of a mad man is an exercise in futility.
I don’t believe Hitler was insane at all. That less than fond appellation is applied too freely to those who act out of the norm, such as serial killers, mass murderers, and etc. These are people who make a choice to do what they do based on their own personal motivations. Were Hitler insane he would not have been able to persuade an entire nation to follow him, nor would he have come as close to winning the war as he did. He was driven by an ideology that was fanatic in nature but fanaticism is not always insanity. He was a deeply troubled man during the last year of this life but that was because the war was going badly, and way down inside he knew it. Losing the war was losing everything he had wished and hoped for; a nation like no other, rich in culture, and feared by all the world. A world without Jews and other “sub-humans.” A utopian society in his view. This does not make him insane, only a man driven by his own personal demons.
Yes.
I know a lot of Christians who are far more pagan in their beliefs than they initially let on. Good stuff David.
HITLER WAS AN ATHEIST. LIBERALS HATE JESUS BUT LOVE HITLER BECAUSE THEY ARE SOCIALISTS>
What? Yeah that makes a lot of sense now. Liberals hate Jesus but love Hitler. Uh huh.
Hitler was deeply into a mythology of his own, but his quest to find Biblical relics to give him occult powers sort of indicates that he had some belief in a version of the Jewish God. He was baptized a Catholic and was never excommunicated, but really, that has no bearing on the notion that strong faith, if not the root of all evil, is the root of plenty of it.
The attempt to disassociate Hitler from Christianity is a defensive move to distract from the 18 or so centuries of hatred spewed by European Christianity, just as some attempt to tell you Timothy McVeigh wasn’t a Christian and the 9/11 terrorists weren’t Muslims.
I say they’ve let her out again….. 😉