The Pope writes an encyclical attacking atheists, the atheists respond, and yet it is somehow the atheists to blame ?
That’s a twisted viewpoint.
Let the Pope say what he likes about atheists, even to smearing them with the Communist and Socialist atrocities in history. As though Communists and Socialists somehow represent all atheists.
But don’t complain if they respond with the atrocities of Catholicism — 1,000 year of killing from the Crusades to Hitler.
It’s a bit ironic that you defend communism and socialism as not representing atheism (when modern history has dealt with the consequences of these two greatest atheist governing experiments) - and then go on to equate “the Crusades” and Hitler with Catholicism
Please explain how Hitler’s plan to kidnap and hang Pius XII in Saint Peter’s Square was inspired by “Catholicism.” I will be watching for an answer.
If you’re not reading this post in Arabic, thank a Crusader.
Hitler renounced Catholicism. Hitler and his minions were adherents of Norse Mythology, which was a lovely precursor to... wait for it... the New Age movement.
So far as "1,000 years of killing" it's a lot better than, "1000 years of being killed", or, "1000 years of being Muslim", wouldn't you say?
As Stalin rightly opined, "How many divisions does the Pope have?" The answer is "none". So much for the military might of the Vatican.
You have credulously allowed a tendentious media report to stir up conflict.
Atheism is tangential to the Pope's encyclical, perhaps a few paragraphs out of dozens.
The atheism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is—in its origins and aims—a type of moralism: a protest against the injustices of the world and of world history. 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. It is for the sake of morality that this God has to be contested. Since there is no God to create justice, it seems man himself is now called to establish justice. If in the face of this world's suffering, protest against God is understandable, the claim that humanity can and must do what no God actually does or is able to do is both presumptuous and intrinsically false. It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice; rather, it is grounded in the intrinsic falsity of the claim. A world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope. No one and nothing can answer for centuries of suffering. No one and nothing can guarantee that the cynicism of power—whatever beguiling ideological mask it adopts—will cease to dominate the world.The political manifestations of atheism are the primary target in this passage.
As a whole, however, the encyclical is a reflective meditation on hope from which all men can benefit. I hope the angry Italian atheist reads the full text.
The the Crusades in 1095 were as aggressive as the Allies' invasion of Normandy in 1944. The Muslims had engulfed 2/3 of all the historically Christians lands from Chaldea to Castile, and the Christian people in Constantinople were about eyeball-to-eyeball with Muslims as close as Nicaea. No to go through the whole bloody 200-year history with you (or 700 years, as regards Spain) but the "cause" of the Crusades was not to invade Islamic strongholds in Saudi Arabia and convert Muslims, but to regain the Christian homelands of the Levant.
They achieved only few and brief victories, and there were atrocities abounding on both sides, but the casus belli was longstanding aggression on the part of the Muslims.
As for Hitler--- hoo. You are so wrong on this, it's a classic howler. I'll get back to you if nobody else beats me to it.
The Pope attacked atheists?
How many died?
Here's a suggestion. Read the encyclical. In no sense can it be said to be an attack against atheists unless you hold to the view that any proclamation of the Christian faith "attacks" atheists. The Pope is defending the Catholic faith and is addressing the encyclical first and foremost to Catholics. That's because it's his job. The Pope is Catholic.
Only someone with a chip on their shoulder could see this as an "attack". It is about the Christian virtue of hope and in the course of examining the issue thoroughly, it is necessary to treat of the situation of those who lack "hope", or unbelievers but that is not its main purpose or primary focus.
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.