Papal Encyclical Attacks Atheism, Lauds Hope (Reuters Take)

Yahoo! News (Reuters) ^ | 11/30/2007 | Philip Pullella

[Pyro7480]

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, in an encyclical released on Friday, said atheism was responsible for some of the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" in history.

The 75-page "Spe Salvi," which takes its Latin title from a quote by St Paul (in hope we were saved), is an appeal to a pessimistic world to find strength in Christian hope.

In the second encyclical of his papacy, Benedict urges Christians to put their hope for the future in God and not in technology, wealth or political ideologies.

Atheism could be regarded by some as a "type of moralism," particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries, to protest against the injustices of the world and world history, he said.

Reciting arguments made by atheists, he said: "A world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God. A God with responsibility for such a world would not be a just God, much less a good God."

History has proven wrong ideologies such as Marxism which say humans had to establish social justice because God did not exist, the Pope wrote.

"It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice," the Pope said. Such a concept was grounded in "intrinsic falsity."

Marxism, the Pope wrote, had left behind "a trail of appalling destruction" because it failed to realize that man could not be "merely the product of economic conditions."

ATHEISTS REACT

The encyclical is the highest form of papal writing and addresses all members of the Church. This document is written in a highly academic, professorial style in which the Pope quotes saints, philosophers and writers to make his point.

Atheism has been a hot topic recently thanks to best-selling books questioning the value of religion such as "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and "God is Not Great" by Christopher Hitchens.

The Pope seemed to be addressing the fresh interest in atheism in the developed world with phrases such as: "Let us put it very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope."

Italy's Union of Atheists, Agnostics and Rationalists (UAAR) said by taking such stands the Pope would push more people away from the Church.

"The existence of a billion non-believers in the world should be enough to make the Pope understand that man can live very well without God, but with reason," a statement said.

The Pope urged Christians to put their hope for a better future in God.

"We have all witnessed the way in which progress, in the wrong hands, can become and has indeed become a terrifying progress in evil. If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man's ethical formation, in man's inner growth, then it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and for the world," he said.

Christian hope also meant protecting the planet, even if people felt powerless to make changes in their lifetimes, he said.

"We can free our life and the world from the poisons and contaminations that could destroy the present and the future. We can uncover the sources of creation and keep them unsullied, and in this way we can make a right use of creation, which comes to us as a gift..." he said.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

[Claud]

I'm asking a more subtle question: where in Christianity were such episodes in the Bible used as a pretext for rape/murder/genocide in the Christian era?

Your claim was that the Church approved of and practiced those Old Testament actions that were commanded by God. I want you to back that statement up. Point me to an encyclical. A canon from an Ecumenical Council. A catechism. Something.

[tyke]

Or, we could just both admit that social change in bygone years was accompanied by far more violence than Western civilization will tolerate today.

I would agree that would be prudent.

In reality, atheists as a group are probably the most politically diverse and unorganized (not disorganized) group of people you can find. Not even the largest atheist organization can hold a candle to the smallest national organizations of the Christian faith. After all, disbelief in a God is not much of a unifying concept (and nor should it be, unless forced into it by external oppression).

While liberal atheists may be in the majority in the US, you will find conservative atheists are well represented in countries where the fortunes of the nation's right-wing party is less bound up with the religious right.

[PonyTailGuy]

but nevertheless—you also have to consider the respective population sizes and advances in technology and statecraft that have allowed repressive regimes to be far more viciously effective in the past 100 years than in the 1,900 years of Christian history before that.

Wait a minute. Both Christians and Atheists were alive and thriving in the 20th Century. Both had the opportunity to murder millions in the 20th century, yet only the Atheists chose to do so.

Explain why Atheists took full advantage of the technology of mass murder while Christians did not.

[tyke]

Well, it depends on whether you believe the Bible as a whole is the inerrant word of God. Most Christians on this board believe that is true. I guess since you appear to be a Catholic then maybe that does not apply to you.

I don’t know, do you believe that God commanded Joshua to do all the things the Bible says he did? If so, then since, by definition, everything that God commands is good and righteous then that means there is a written example of how sometimes genocide, rape, and slavery are justifiable.

I must admit to be ignorant of what Catholics believe about these events, and I would be happy to be enlightened.

[sasportas]

While I agree with the Pope’s statements here against atheism/19th and 20th century socialist movements, I, as a Protestant, disagree with the assumption of Roman Catholicism as the religion founded by Christ.

The atheists love to point out Catholicism’s medaieval persecutions, etc., as proof that Christianity is equally bad as Communism. Truth is, Catholicism does not represent true Christianity. Were they to recognize this, their argument falls flat.

The Christianity of the New Testament (and the Christianity of the Fathers), is a very different Christianity from what arose centuries later, called Roman Catholicism. It is as incorrect to equate Roman Catholicism with true Christianity as it is to equate Mormonism with true Christianity. Roman Catholicsm is as much a cult as Mormonism is...of a much larger scale.

[Kellis91789]

The Encyclical wasn’t posted. A Reuters article was. Plus quotes from the Pope:

[The Pope seemed to be addressing the fresh interest in atheism in the developed world with phrases such as: “Let us put it very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope.”]

As everyone knows, atheists maintain that they do NOT need any Gods. So statements like the above are direct attacks against atheism. If he had said “Catholics need God, otherwise they remain without hope”, I wouldn’t comment, since he probably knows better than I what Catholics need. However, when he says “man”, then he is including me, and I object to that. If some drug addict or pathological liar wrote that all Americans are drug addicts or pathological liars, would you let that go without comment or would you consider it a personal attack to be lumped into such a group ?

[Claud]

Well, Catholics most certainly do believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. So we don’t differ one iota from the Evangelicals on that score.

I’m not gonna lie to you tyke, those passages you cite—yeah, they are bang-your-head-against-the-wall difficult to understand. Why would God command the slaughter of the men and women of Ai? I’m happy to be a devout Catholic for 10 years now, and it doesn’t make a lick of sense to me either.

But no Christian is allowed to interpret these passages however he wants. So if I see what Joshua did and say “well God did this, so I can too!”—I am WAAY off base with 2000 years of Christian teaching.

This is why I’m asking you to consider what has the official Church taught about these passages...has it taught the morality of rape/murder/genocide or not?

And there you will find that no major Christian body—Catholic or Protestant—has ever used those passages to justify the morality of those actions in the present. They may be in the Bible, but they are there as history, not as example....and I have no qualms in saying that if any Christian does these things, they are headed straight to hell.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"I thought most Americans regarded that [French Revolution] as a "good thing", overthrowing monarchy in favor of republican forms of government has been very messy, but it has been part of the path of progress."

I don't know what "most Americans" would think; rather cynically, I doubt that "most Americans" could name one figure of the French Revolution, nor specify the decade in which it occurred. However the French Republicans did carry out the genocide of the Vendee, and the general idea (omelet...eggs) was both admired and emulated by Lenin 125 years later.

"If you want to judge atheists by the worst among us, then allow us to judge Christianity by its most infamous practitioners as well."

I understand and appreciate this point.

If one wanted a positive and summary way of expressing the overall cultural achievement of Christianity, one could simply say "Western Civilization."

An analogous summary way of expressing the overall cultural achievement of atheism (excluding, if you wish, the achievements of international Communism) would be ....?

[hunter112]

Well, it’s not quite from “atheism” per se, but the idea of religious tolerance from the Founding Fathers (who had various degrees of religious belief) might be such an idea. The Muslimes are centuries late to that idea.

[marshmallow]

As everyone knows, atheists maintain that they do NOT need any Gods.

No. An atheist believes there is no God. The question of "need" does not arise. It's quite possible, for instance, for someone who believes in the existence of God to claim, at the same time, that although God exists, he or she has no need of Him. Conversely, it's quite possible for someone who does not believe in God, i.e. an atheist, to claim that it would be rather nice if God really did exist.

It sounds like you're telling us that your belief in the non-existence of God arises from the fact that you don't feel the need for a God. That's crazy, if you don't mind me saying so. Just because you don't fell the "need", doesn't mean there isn't one.

So statements like the above are direct attacks against atheism. If he had said “Catholics need God, otherwise they remain without hope”, I wouldn’t comment, since he probably knows better than I what Catholics need. However, when he says “man”, then he is including me, and I object to that.

Yes, he said "man needs God". What a horrific, inflammatory statement. What do you want to do? Silence him?

If some drug addict or pathological liar wrote that all Americans are drug addicts or pathological liars, would you let that go without comment or would you consider it a personal attack to be lumped into such a group ?

That would depend on whether the statement was true. You're trying to draw a parallel between a statement which is demonstrably false and one which you believe to be false.

And why is everything "a personal attack" these days? You sound like the Muslims or the guy in the bar who gets ticked and picks a fight just coz you're staring at him. It is not "personal", OK?

You are are not bound by the encyclical in any way, it was not addressed to you, you don't even have to read it or think about it.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Tyke, you're talking about something that happened circa 1200 BC (Joshua's campaign in Canaan), and making that into some kind of a template of Judeo-Christian ethics. Such historic and theological unsophistication is simply breathtaking.

The Bible itself is rich with commentaries upon itself, later writings reflecting on earlier events. You must be aware of the very insistent, repeated teaching in the millennium of Hebrew writings after Joshua, that God abhors the shedding of innocent blood:

Deuteronomy 19:10
Do this [obey God's law] so that innocent blood will not be shed in your land, which the LORD your God is giving you as your inheritance, and so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed.

Deuteronomy 19:13
You must purge from Israel the guilt of shedding innocent blood, so that it may go well with you.

Proverbs 6:16-17
These things the Lord despises: ...haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood.

Jeremiah 19:4
For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned incense in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.

Jeremiah 22:3
This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hands of their oppressors those who have been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.

Joel 3:21
Shall I leave the shedding of innocent blood unpunished? No, I will not."

---

"Well, isn't this just a mass of contradictions?" you might ask. Here's what you need to understand: Biblical law is a gradual, incremental, and progressive revelation. You start with a barbaric people and say "Do not fight for slaves and plunder," (the situation in Joshua's time) and years later the Prophets reflect on this and say, "Do no wrong to the foreigner, the widow, the orphan, and do not shed innocent blood."

You start off with "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" (a rebuke to the barbaric system of taking a life to avenge an injury, or killing a family to avenge a murder) and then you go on to "You have heard 'an eye for an eyenad a tooth for a tooth', but I say unto you, do not take revenge".

You start off with "If you divorce your wife, give her a written bill of divorce" (specific objective reasons) and you progress on to Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament: "The Lord says: I hate divorce.....You ask, Why? Because the LORD is the witness between you and the wife of your youth, and you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant" and you go on to Jesus saying, "Anyone who divorces his wife and married another, is committing adultery."

The point: the "no rewarding yourself for war by plunder and slave-capturing" law of 1200 BC was LONG expanded and superseded by laws upon laws forbidding massacre, protecting civilians and all the rest.

---

But I'm often intrigued that so many atheists also insist upon being fundamentalists. Like, "But this is what it says in the Book of Judges! This is it, fer cryin' out loud!"

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Well, it’s not quite from “atheism” per se, but the idea of religious tolerance from the Founding Fathers (who had various degrees of religious belief) might be such an idea."

Not quite from atheism. :oP

I daresay even the tiny-minority Colonial-era Quakers (not to mention the Baptists/Anabaptists, etc.) decisively eclipsed the Colonial-era Atheists both in numbers and in influence on that point.

[Pyro7480]

The Christianity of the New Testament (and the Christianity of the Fathers), is a very different Christianity from what arose centuries later, called Roman Catholicism. It is as incorrect to equate Roman Catholicism with true Christianity as it is to equate Mormonism with true Christianity. Roman Catholicsm is as much a cult as Mormonism is...of a much larger scale.

It's sad that you actually believe this, and that you wrote this to me, since I AM a Catholic.

[Arthur McGowan]

True, they haven’t set up any concentration camps, yet. But you don’t think it’s dictatorial or atheist?

[hunter112]

Ok, but some time to think has produced a few other examples:

Evolution, whereby we scientifically understand how things came to be, and continue to evolve. Even people who steadfastly cling to some sort of biblical creation myth benefit from doctors and scientists using the truths uncovered by evolutionary science to cure their ills.

Birth control, whereby people can decide to space out their families, or have no offspring at all, if that's what suits them.

Astronomy, whereby we come to know the origins of our own planet by exploring the other bodies in the universe, either directly, or by observation. We're no longer mired in the idea that our planet is the center of creation, and can go forth both triumphantly, and humbly.

Of course, there are those who see these things as part of the cultural war, and cling to the old ideas because they don't jibe with ancient books. Many of them are here at FR, but I respect their rights to their opinions.

[frogjerk]

The Christianity of the New Testament (and the Christianity of the Fathers), is a very different Christianity from what arose centuries later, called Roman Catholicism

I assume you have "facts" to back this up?

[wideawake]

1,000 year of killing from the Crusades to Hitler.

Yawn. The Crusades were just wars that were too small in scope and long overdue.

Adolf Hitler wasn't a Catholic from at least 1909 until his death, perhaps even earlier.

And like almost all ex-Catholics, he had an irrational and bitter hatred for the Roman Catholic Church.

But please, make up some more entertaining fiction.

[Gumdrop]

“If the current Pope doesn’t want to embrace Hitler’s legacy as a Catholic one (as Pope Pius XII did in 1939), then it seems unfair of him to attempt to link Communism with Atheism.”

This is a calumny and is entirely false!!!! So quit repeating such nonsence on this forum, PLEASE. Neither P Benedict XVI or P Pius XII were ever part of the Nazi movement. P Pius saved many Jewish people during WWII. Also, the Catholic population os Germany was the most vocal against the Third Reich. Monasteries were pillaged and monks imprisoned for merely resisting the Nazi movement. Before you write such silly things, you ought to study Nazi Germany better!

[frogjerk]

Birth control, whereby people can decide to space out their families, or have no offspring at all, if that's what suits them.

This is a cultural achievement?

[ichabod1]

As Stalin rightly opined, "How many divisions does the Pope have?" The answer is "none". So much for the military might of the Vatican.

Yet in the end the Pope's zero divisions brought communism to its knees. Much like Jesus' zero divisions in time conquered the Roman Empire, the greatest empire the world has ever seen.