Atheists File Suit Against UHP Memorial Crosses

ABC 4 in Utah ^ | 12/1/2005 | ABC 4

[Andyman]

A lawsuit against memorial crosses is set to be filed Thursday by a group that feels they violate the separation of church and state.

Three Utah atheists, backed by a national organization based in Texas, are filing suit against the state for allowing crosses to be erected in honor of highway patrol troopers, who have died in the line of duty.

Richard Andrews said, "I feel the same way a Jew might feel if you put a state symbol on a swastika"

According to the UHP Association, a support group for troopers and their families, many fallen troopers' relatives consider the memorial crosses just as important as the tombstones that mark their graves.

Sgt. Todd Royce of the UHP Association told ABC 4 News, "It's a sense of pride, I think. It's a... kind of a sacred feeling."

The atheists suggest the association could honor the troopers with a non-denominational symbol.

[Edgerunner]

The individuals who perpetrated the German atrocities were NOT church goers at best and thought they were gods...Don't cloud the issue with weak attempts to cover the crimes that godless people have perpetrated throughout man's history.

[VOA]

Atheist Germans slaughter 20 million Christans and 10 million Jews

That's a point for hearty discussion.
The inner circle of the Nazi Party surely had atheist and nominal Christians
that used Christian symbology and some pretty looped reasoning to
get the herds of Germans to go along with them.
And way too many theologians and "church people" either assisted or
stood aside and let Hitler and Co. do as they pleased.

IIRC, the Christian element that did go along happily with Hitler
followed something called "Positive Christianity". All you need to
do is look at a fair number of Nazi posters that use Christian symbolism
that apparently motivated a lot of the German foot soldiers of WWII.

At the same time, the committed Christians that risked life and limb
to oppose the Nazis does get relatively poor coverage, e.g., Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

And, IIRC, the largest single grave of Catholic priests in the world
is at one of the concentration camps. They paid the price for
not giving in to Hitler's vision.

[VOA]

...there was a time when atheists fed Christians to the lions...

By and large, the Romans feeding Christians to lions (and other creatures)
were polytheistic.

I've heard some church historians say that the average Roman might
accept that the Christians were leading exemplary lives...but why
couldn't these weirdos accept that there were a multiplicity of
gods and Caesar was also a god?

To those Romans, the Christians just didn't have enough religion (or gods).

[Edgerunner]

The point is Morris, the US has been careful about the markers of her war dead LONG before your suggestion and long before you were born. You are intimating that they haven't been in the past and they should follow your advice. Turn your ego down a bit...

[abigailsmybaby]

If God doesn't exist, then do atheists have God-given rights?

[Edgerunner]

I don't believe the people in Utah are any less sensitive to the different religions than anywhere else in the USA. I didn't get that impression, but if you did, I agree with you.

[Right Wing Professor]

The individuals who perpetrated the German atrocities were NOT church goers at best and thought they were gods...Don't cloud the issue with weak attempts to cover the crimes that godless people have perpetrated throughout man's history.

Don't try to pretend that the crimes committed by religious people throughout history were committed by atheists. Hitler in fact boasted he had eradicated atheism in Germany. His motto for women was 'Kinder Kirche Küche" = Children, Church, Kitchen.

[Right Wing Professor]

You are advocating the cold-blooded murder of people simple because they don't share your religion???

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, VOLUMES 1 2 AND 3.

[Right Wing Professor]

Rather than get into the time honored game of duelling selective quotations, which I can certainly play, but which I find tiresome, this is a pretty balanced account.

[Jacob Kell]

When the end of the war neared, the Nazis worked frantically to eliminate as much of the evidence of their crimes as they could. They knew full well that what they did was wrong...does that sound like the act of Christians?

[Right Wing Professor]

When the end of the war neared, the Nazis worked frantically to eliminate as much of the evidence of their crimes as they could. They knew full well that what they did was wrong...does that sound like the act of Christians?

Does this?

[dangus]

>> I think there are certain strains of nihilism which do conform to your description, but simply because one is an atheist does not make on a nihilist. The atheist can easily find value and meaning in life, even without the belief in God or an afterlife. <<

Oh, absolutely! Atheists certainly can have value and meaning in life, in ways nihilist specifically reject. I meant to make the point that nihilism may be a subset of atheism, but atheism is certainly not merely nihilism. By providing but one example where nihilists might reject the label "atheist," I certainly did not mean that there weren't many examples of why various atheists might reject the label "nihilist."

>> But, more to the point, the authoritarianism, warped optimism and value placed on das Deutchevolk in Nazi philosophy does not evidence a belief that there is no purpose, meaning or value to life. On the contrary, that philosophy saw the propagation of and success of the Aryan race to be the highest purpose of existence and its ultimate goal. Warped and twisted as the Nazi values were, they were not existential pessimism. <<

I don't think all nihilists need to be said to be existential pessimists; Nietzsche is the philosopher (anti-philosopher?) most readily associated with nihilism. While it may be unfair to assign Nietzsche blame for fore-running Nazism, Nietzsche and Nazism definitely have much in common. Most of the values and purposed you ascribe to Nazism are perfectly consistent with Nietzsche's "will to power," and, as such, quite dependent on the absence of a god.

>> Reading the rest of your post, I think that you may be missing my point. I am not saying that the Nazis were a religious group. I am saying that they were not an atheistic one. If the Nazi state was atheistic, one would expect that the it would have been as actively hostile to all religions as it was to, say, Jehovah's Witnesses. <<

What religion was Nazism not hostile to? Islam? It was plainly hostile to Christianity, Judaism, and Romanism ("Gypsies"). (The Islam reference isn't a smart-ass comment; the Basque Party of Iraq and Syria was established by Hitler.) Luther and Mohammed were admired by Hitler only to the extent that they were opposed to Judaism and pre-Lutheran Christianity (i.e., Catholicism).

It is true that Hitler made overtures to certain Christian elements, but that can even be seen in the Communist Party's support of their own corruption of the Russian Orthodox Church. Does that make Marx or Lenin any less atheist? The desire to corrupt an institution is firm evidence of hatred of that institution, if the corruptor is fully aware that what he is doing is corruption and not reform.

[dangus]

I agree dueling quotations are tiresome, but let me ask this:

Would you be able to play such "dueling quotations" with a Christian? Is not the fact that we can play such games evidence the extent to which Hitler appeared to some as "Christian" is extent to which he was deceptive? I mean, some leaders, such as Thomas Jefferson, invite dueling quotations because they were somewhat ambiguous; With Jefferson, we can discuss differences in what we are defining as Christian, the distinction between private and public life, varying interpretations, the disctinction between being Christian and believing Christianity is good, the various stages of Jefferson's life, philosophy vs. theology, etc. With Hitler, there's no reconciling plainly contradictory statements. Plus, he flat-out praised the benefits of deceit.

[Killborn]

"'Vengeance is mine', sayeth the Lord. 'I shall repay.'"

[dangus]

To address the account you provide. It presents strong cases on both sides. But I'd not two distinctions: The case that Hitler was anti-Christian is based on private statements, and later statements. The case that Hitler was Christian is almost exclusively based on public statements made by Hitler during his rise to power. I have to agree with what is sort of a conclusion to that account:

"It seems Hitler, like many modern-day politicians, spoke out of both sides of his mouth... Also, it seems probable that Hitler, being the great manipulator, knew that he couldn't fight the Christian churches and their members right off the bat. So he made statements to put the church at ease and may have patronized religion as a way to prevent having to fight the Christian-based church. "

To state what the author seems hesitant to: Hitler played the Christian a little early on, while rising to power. Once firmly entrenched, he played the anti-Christian.

And I will disagree with your source on some points: He states that many of the leaders of Germany were devout Christians. I would challenge him, if I could, to name one regular communicant. Likewise, he claims that Hitler never left the Catholic Church. He did not receive communion as an adult, and unlike many lapsed American Catholics, he knew very well that by failing to receive communion, he was rupturing his ties to the Catholic church. How else do you expect him to leave? Do you want him to APPLY for a formal excommunication? Burn his baptismal certificate?

I would contemplate one distinction where Hitler's nihilism may not be consistent with atheism: He does seem to subscribe, in some speeches, and in some ways which may not be mere deceit, to some notion of a god. Perhaps he has elevanted Nietzsche's will to power to a deity; perhaps he is that god. But while such references may be no evidence of "religion" per se, they may be refutation to the disbelief in any entity called a god. It's hard to separate belief from propaganda with Hitler, but he may even have had some Caesar-like notion of divinity.

Ideologically, however, where Christianity has many specific and universally accepted notions which are emnity between Christianity and Nazism, there is plainly nothing in atheism to oppose Nazism. That's not saying that there aren't personal ethics held by atheists that don't hold Hitler's actions abhorrent.

[Right Wing Professor]

It was plainly hostile to Christianity, Judaism, and Romanism ("Gypsies").

It established the German Christian Church, for heaven's sake! It was racial, not religious.

[Right Wing Professor]

Ideologically, however, where Christianity has many specific and universally accepted notions which are emnity between Christianity and Nazism, there is plainly nothing in atheism to oppose Nazism.

There is nothing in the theory of universal gravitation to oppose Nazism either. I don't believe in a god. Why should that bear on any political movement? Some Christians undoubtedly supported Hitler. The Serbs loved him; he let them impose orthodox Christianity on their neighbors. Others opposed him. It appears they're in the same boat I am.