Athiest Dr. Richard Dawkins (left) and the Pope in feud over ironic Nazi comments.
Why Athiests Fight
Faith & Reason (USA Today)
Britain's best known atheist, scientist, and author Richard Dawkins, is enraged at [former Hitler Youth] Pope Benedict XVI's attacks on godlessness. He is sputtering mad over Pope Benedict's equating the godless to potential Nazis. More>>
- Pope attacks secular Britain as being like Nazi Germany
- Gay child molestation scandals drive down Pope Benedict's U.S. approval ratings
- Pope again apologizes for sex abuse failures
- Pope officially attacks atheism (Reuters)
Dawkins writes:
"Even if Hitler had been an atheist, his political philosophy was not based upon atheism and had no connection with atheism. Hitler was arguably (and by his own account) a Roman Catholic. In any case he enjoyed the open support of many of the most senior catholic clergy in Germany and the less demonstrative support of Pope Pius XII. Even if Hitler had been an atheist (he certainly was not), the rank and file Germans who carried out the attempted extermination of the Jews were Christians, almost to a man: either Catholic or Lutheran, primed to their anti-Semitism by centuries of Catholic propaganda about 'Christ-killers' and by Martin Luther's own seething hatred of the Jews. To mention Ratzinger's membership of the Hitler Youth might be thought to be fighting dirty, but my feeling is that the gloves are off after this disgraceful paragraph by the pope."
Young Pope Benedict XVI's NAZI salute (sanfranciscosentinel.com)*
*By his own admission (Salt of the Earth), in spite of denials by the Vatican, the head of the Catholic Church was automatically enrolled as a young Nazi in the "Hitler Youth." Israelis are angry at the Pope's failure to denounce the Holocaust, which the Church originally supported.
Was this Pope Really a Nazi?
"Ratzinger [now Pope Benedict XVI] has several times gone on record on his supposedly 'problematic' past. In the 1997 book Salt of the Earth, Ratzinger is asked whether he was ever in the Hitler Youth.
" 'At first we weren't,' he said, speaking of himself and his older brother, 'but when the compulsory Hitler Youth was introduced in 1941, my brother was obliged to join. I was still too young, but later as a seminarian, I was registered in the Hitler Youth' " (Source).
WISDOM QUARTERLY OPINION
It is ironic that the pope was a member of the Hitler Youth. And we sympathize with and understand Dr. Dawkins' position and that of any atheists who feel offended. But there is no use in mudslinging at mudslingers. In fact, it is said, "The one who slings back is worse than the original slinger." (See The Dhammapada). It might just be that the pope is trying to divert attention from so many gay child molestation scandals by the clergy by striking at an easy target, the "godless atheists."
- Laying Down the Rod (Bhikkhu Bodhi)
