History shows Religion is the only force against totalitarian state domination of your entire being

[rampart]

Truth to power?

If you led an organization that viewed abortion as genocide like the Catholic church does, what would your responsibilities then be speaking truth to power?

For example, did the Catholic church have an obligation during the Holocaust to oppose it and speak truth to power?

Yes? Of course they had an obligation to do so, but they remained silent instead.

Why? Because it was politically expedient for them to do so, because the church feared the Nazi regime more than they feared God.

And today, it is no different. The Pope essentially turns a blind eye to abortion and gives sermons on the evils of building walls and global warming.

Now the last time I checked, the entire book of Nehemiah was predicated on God telling the prophet to build a wall around Jerusalem so it would be a safe place to live, but hey, maybe he was evil like the Pope seems to indicated.

As for being a prophet, the Pope is no prophet. If he is, give us some prophesies.

The Pope is nothing but a Leftist stooge who laments being at the head of an organization that condemns such things as abortion and gay sex as evil. Instead, he targets those, like Trump, who do.

Sick.

francis does not lead an organization that considers abortion to be "genocide." neither does biden.

we do consider liberation theology to be an impportant movement within the "godless" left. francis is certainly aware of that.

otherwise, not one infallible word uttered by fransis since white smoke rose from the chapel contradicts the teachings of christ.

 

[Votto]

With the above post, I did not mean to imply that those in the church favored the Holocaust. What I'm saying is that the church did not have enough moral courage to oppose it, because had they done so, they would have lost all their treasures, and perhaps their very lives.

And what a powerful witness to the world had they stood for truth and suffered those ills for doing the right thing which was to speak about against the Nazi regime and their Holocaust, something that was never to be. The Catholic church remains an entity more dedicated to political power than serving God, which is why they continue to do a subpar job on handling their pedophile problem. They would rather protect the church legally and their priests than protect innocent youth from them.

Again, they fear political harm than God.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/04/29/vatican-pope-pius-records-holocaust/

 

[surada]

Men have murdered for thousands of years.

Governments have engaged in genocidal acts for thousands of years

What is your point exactly?

Have you ever had an unwanted pregnancy?

 

[Votto]

francis does not lead an organization that considers abortion to be "genocide." neither does biden.

we do consider liberation theology to be an impportant movement within the "godless" left. francis is certainly aware of that.

otherwise, not one infallible word uttered by fransis since white smoke rose from the chapel contradicts the teachings of christ.

Interesting.

I will start a whole new thread on this and get feedback from Catholics

But from my studies, this is a flat out lie. Everything I've heard from the official position of the Catholic church is that abortion is infantacide.

Feel free to give any links that support your assertion.

 

[Votto]

Have you ever had an unwanted pregnancy?

Have you ever had unwanted children?

 

[Votto]

francis does not lead an organization that considers abortion to be "genocide." neither does biden.

we do consider liberation theology to be an impportant movement within the "godless" left. francis is certainly aware of that.

otherwise, not one infallible word uttered by fransis since white smoke rose from the chapel contradicts the teachings of christ.

Liberation theology is nothing more than an attempt to force Jesus Christ to bow his knee to Left wing ideology. It is the combining of church and state, something the Left once purported to hate. LOL.

Do you think Jesus would have any moral problems with Left wing ideology?

Any?

Or should the Gospel now include the teachings of Karl Marx, a man who said religion was merely an opiate for the masses?

Is our only salvation a collective salvation via the state?

 

[forkup]

So, several on here objected with objections that the world scholar on this topic has dealt with Michael Burleigh, so to him I turn

Historically, of course, as has been pointed out by such thinkers as Marcel Gauchet and George Weigel Christianity had much to do with the notion of the autonomous, sacrosanct individual, with the preservation of a sphere beyond the state that anticipated civil society, with the notion of elected leadership, and with holding rulers accountable to higher powers.


On the eve of the Bolshevik coup d'état, the Orthodox Church claimed a hundred million adherents, two hundred thousand priests and monks, seventy-five thousand churches and chapels, over eleven hundred monasteries, thirty-seven thousand primary schools, fifty-seven seminaries and four university-level academies, not to speak of thousands of hospitals, old people’s homes and orphanages. Within a few years, the intuitional structures were swept away, the churches were desolated, vandalized or put to secular use. Many of the clergy were imprisoned or shot; appropriately enough the first concentration camp of the gulag was opened in a monastery in Artic regions.

The Austrian Catholic newspaper Volkswohl even parodied life in a future Nazi state in a manner that seems extraordinarily prescient. Every newborn baby’s hereditary history would be checked by a Racial-Hygienic Institute; the unfit or sickly would be sterilised or killed; dedicated ‘Aryan’ Catholics would be persecuted: ‘The demonic cries out from this movement; masses of the tempted go to their doom under the Satan’s sun. If we Catholics want to save ourselves, then I can never be in a pact with these forces.’

Christianity regarded all earthly existence as transient, while the Nazi thought in terms of rendering life eternal through a sort of biological Great Chain of Being. The individual was nothing, but the racial collective would endure through the aeons

The Enabling Law permitted the government to pass budgets and promulgate laws, including those altering the constitution, for four years without parliamentary approval. In democracies, constitutional amendments are especially solemn moments; here they were easier than changing the traffic regulations. None of the guarantees Hitler extended to the Churches or the judiciary in his address to the Reichstag amounted to a hill of beans.

History shows what now?????

The history I remember is absolutely full with totalitarian regimes who drew their legitimacy from religion.

In fact, I'd argue it's the MOST common historical form of government.

 

[Votto]

History shows what now?????

The history I remember is absolutely full with totalitarian regimes who drew their legitimacy from religion.

In fact, I'd argue it's the MOST common historical form of government.

If government cannot get religion to endorse them, they will seek to crush it.

That is human history in a nut shell.

 

[forkup]

If government cannot get religion to endorse them, they will seek to crush it.

That is human history in a nut shell.

Most of the time it's a symbiotic relationship. It's when religion got detached from government that we start having governments were "freedom" was actually even so much as a talking point.

 

[Votto]

Most of the time it's a symbiotic relationship. It's when religion got detached from government that we start having governments were "freedom" was actually even so much as a talking point.

The politics of man and the righteousness of God do not mix.

Period.

Politics is merely the pursuit of power over your fellow man, then when you achieve it, seek even more power.

This is why the US Federal government over the years has become more and more centralized and despotic. It is a complete subversion of the orgininal intent.

In fact, the Left has used the General Welfare clause in the Constitution to justify it. The problem is, Madison, the man who wrote the Constitution, also wrote about the General Welfare clause he came up with as to it's intent.

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare,
and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare,
they may take the care of religion into their own hands;
they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish
and pay them out of their public treasury;
they may take into their own hands the education of children,
establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union;
they may assume the provision of the poor;
they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads;
in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation
down to the most minute object of police,
would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power
of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for,
it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature
of the limited Government established by the people of America."

James Madison

 

[forkup]

The politics of man and the righteousness of God do not mix.

Period.

Oh really? During the middle ages the clergy was exempt from taxes. They were the ones that crowned kings. They excommunicated, browbeat and called kings to war.

Pharao was a God King. So was Hirohito. Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity as a way to try to stabilize the realm. Spain looted, raped and pillaged South America in the name of Christ.


It seems to me that politics of man and religion have mixed throughout history. Often with the clergy leading the way to some positively gastly acts.

 

[Votto]

Oh really? During the middle ages the clergy was exempt from taxes. They were the ones that crowned kings. They excommunicated, browbeat and called kings to war.

Pharao was a God King. So was Hirohito. Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity as a way to try to stabilize the realm. Spain looted, raped and pillaged South America in the name of Christ.


It seems to me that politics of man and religion have mixed throughout history. Often with the clergy leading the way to some positively gastly acts.

So, you are telling me that all those things came from God?

Nobody believes that, so why do you pretend it does?

These things came from man as they lied saying it came from God.

That is my point Spanky.

 

[Votto]

Hebrew 4:12

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

If the word of God does not convict you of sin and demand you to change, you are reading it wrong.

This message is for those on the right AND left. It bows its knee to no one.

Thanks for playing.

In fact, Hitler's favorite Biblical passage is about Jesus whipping Jews in the Temple.

He then promptly tossed the rest of God's word in the trash

 

[forkup]

So, you are telling me that all those things came from God?

Nobody believes that, so why do you pretend it does?

These things came from man as they lied saying it came from God.

That is my point Spanky.

Since I don't believe in God it would be a silly claim of me to make.

I'm claiming it came from religion, (meaning organized religion.)

It's a direct response to the premise of the OP claiming religion historically counteracts totalitarianism, and promotes personal freedom.

In my view a demonstrably false proposition. Hence me showing it to be false by giving historical examples.

 

[Votto]

Since I don't believe in God it would be a silly claim of me to make.

I'm claiming it came from religion, (meaning organized religion.)

It's a direct response to the premise of the OP claiming religion historically counteracts totalitarianism, and promotes personal freedom.

In my view a demonstrably false proposition. Hence me showing it to be false by giving historical examples.

Fair enough, you have no interest in theology and therefore have no understanding of it. You just come here to comment on things you don't know much about.

But for those who do, consider this, in 1 Samuel 8 we see God warn the people of demanding a human king. He warns them of the abuses sinful man will have over them. But the people resist and demand a king anyway, so God gives them Saul and later David.

Saul had to be removed because all that power went to his head, so God chose David to replace him, someone after God's own heart.

Yet David, after all those years of power, later took another man's wife and had him murdered to get him out of the way and then hid it all.

That is what political power does to your psyche, a message the movie "Lord of the Rings" tried to communicate.

Put on that ring of power, and it changes you.

After David, the kingdom splits and begins to dissolve, and the next thing the Jewish people knew they were in ovens in Germany.

 

[Libby von H]

Paradise may be a myth, but how did it compare to Catholic Spain?

• Jews welcomed the invasion of the Muslims because they were ill-treated under Christian rulers.
• Non-Catholic Christians also welcomed the Muslims and often chose to live in Andalus
• When the Muslims were expelled from Spain, the Jews and Muslims that remained were promised they could freely practice their religions, as I recall that promise was kept for only a few months
• Jews and Muslims were given the choice of conversion or exile and those that converted were persecuted by the Inquisition on the fear they were practicing their old religion in secret.
• Spain, rich from New World conquests, squandered those riches in wars against Protestants.

See, readers, I give citations and refer to authorities , this mindless idiot does nothing but wheeze like he's trying to impress his fat girlfiend

Since I am a fan of St Theresa , one of those Conversos, let's show the stupidity of this poster.

Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain Norman Roth Norman Roth argues here with detailed documentation that, contrary to popular myth, the conversos were sincere converts who hated (and were hated by) the remaining Jewish community. Roth examines in depth the reasons for the Inquisition against the conversos, and the eventual expulsion of all Jews from Spain. ANd wrong on at least 4 counts about the INquisition HEre is the BBC documentary Inquisitors were not fanatical priests as they are often portrayed. In fact, many of them were not priests at all but legal experts trained in Spanish schools. Contrary to popular belief, torture was rarely used. It was used less by the Inquisition than it was in the tribunals of other countries throughout Europe at the time. Stories about cruel torture methods used by the Inquisitors and the terrible conditions in which prisoners were kept were completely falsified. The Inquisition actually had the best jails in Spain. Prisoners of secular courts would actually blaspheme so that they could be transferred to Inquisition prisons and escape the maltreatment of the secular prisons. Persecuting witchcraft was a craze in Europe at the time, and secular courts were not tolerant of these kinds of offenses. The accused were often burned at the stake. The Inquisition, on the other hand, declared witchcraft a delusion. No one could be tried for it or burned at the stake. The Inquisition was virtually powerless in rural areas. In the entire sixteenth century, the Inquisition in Spain executed only about 50 people, which is contrary to the “Black Legend,” which numbers the executions in the hundreds of thousands. Of all the Inquisitions together throughout Europe, scholars estimate that the number of people executed ranged somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000. That averages, at most, about fourteen people per year throughout the entire continent over a period of 350 years.

 

[forkup]

Fair enough, you have no interest in theology and therefore have no understanding of it. You just come here to comment on things you don't know much about.

But for those who do, consider this, in 1 Samuel 8 we see God warn the people of demanding a human king. He warns them of the abuses sinful man will have over them. But the people resist and demand a king, so God gives them Saul and later David.

Saul had to be removed because all that power went to his head, so God chose David to replace him, someone after God's own heart.

Yet David, after all those years of power, later took another man's wife and had him murdered to get him out of the way and then hid it all.

That is what political power does to your psyche, a message the movie "Lord of the Rings" tried to communicate.

Put on that ring of power, and it changes you.

I have interest in theology. Just like I'm interested in a lot of things. Including history.

You can quote the Bible however much you please. What you're doing is selectively quoting a translation of a translation of a translation of a collection of texts assembled by a group of people about 400ad. This to support an assertion that is demonstrably false.

I can do so to. For everything from promoting slavery, stoning people to death over minor things, rape, incest and a whole host of other things. All things you will undoubtedly claim come from my lack of "understanding" of theology.

The problem of course is, that that understanding is the same understanding THEOLOGIANS at one time or another supported.

 

[Votto]

I have interest in theology. Just like I'm interested in a lot of things. Including history.

You can quote the Bible however much you please. What you're doing is selectively quoting a translation of a translation of a translation of a collection of texts assembled by a group of people about 400ad. This to support an assertion that is demonstrably false.

I can do so to. For everything from promoting slavery, stoning people to death over minor things, rape, incest and a whole host of other things. All things you will undoubtedly claim come from my lack of "understanding" of theology.

The problem of course is, that that understanding is the same understanding THEOLOGIANS at one time or another supported.

You may have an interest in something, but largely have no respect for it and thus no real knowledge about it.

That is why we have scientists like Dawkins writing books like the God Delusion that theologians laugh at, because he has no expertise on what he is talking about, and why you have theologians creating such things as the Creation museum that says the earth was made in 7 literal days, as scientists like Dawkins laugh at them. Both are commenting on things they have no expertise in and have no real respect for.

Just understand that much. The only interest Dawkins had in religion or the theologian had in science was to tear the other down.

I will assume here for a second your only interest is not to tear down theology.

So, tell us what you know of Biblical slavery.

Was it the same as the slavery in America, for example?

 

[surada]

Have you ever had unwanted children?

Nope.

 

[Votto]

Nope.

If you did, should you be able to kill them?