Hattip to Powerline. Jimmy Carter, incredibly enough one time President of the United States, believes a good portion of the opposition to Obama is racist. Hmmm. With Mr. Carter’s record on race, one could suspect that he might have a passing familiarity with racism. The Obama administration quickly indicated that President Obama does not agree with his predecessor. However, moogrogue at Missourah.com thoughtfully put together the above chart so that we may determine if we are racists according to the view enunciated by President 39. Too bad Billy Carter is deceased and can’t be questioned about his elder brother’s statement. I am sure it would be quotable and colorful as was this observation about his family:
“My mother went into the Peace Corps when she was sixty-eight. My one sister is a motorcycle freak, my other sister is a Holy Roller evangelist and my brother is running for president. I’m the only sane one in the family.”
Are You A Racist?
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Methinks thou doth protest too much.
Ithinks thou hast no comprehension.
Well, if you have to rant that you aren’t a racist, it probably means you are. It’s like not trusting the guy that has to say trust me. If he has to plead to be trusted that says it all doesn’t it??
You probably think Fox news is ‘fair and balanced’ too right??
Joe,
Yeah, there’s nothing like declaring innocence that proves guilt, right? Give me a break.
You never took a logic course did you Joe? I posted this to hold up ex-pres Jimmuh to public ridicule.
As to Fox, it is the network, judging from the ratings, that people are watching if they wish to have to have a clue about what is going on in the nation. Most of the rest of the media is too busy playing defense for Obama to have any interest in reporting on something as mundane as the news.
Well, if you declare your innocence when directly questioned, then yes, you are right. But if you offer a defense to something WITHOUT being accused, that says something.
And yes many times declaring innocence is a way to hide the truth.
“i did not have sexual relations with that women”
“saddam hussein has a stockpile of WMD.”
One million wrong people don’t make it right.
Does that mean islam is the #1 religion because there are more of them than any other religion??
Methinks Joe is entitled to a refund on that “formal education” he was bragging about earlier.
Did he really get “formally educated”?? I’m starting to think he isn’t “formally educated”, or at least with a “formal education” I wouldn’t pay for.
/paraphrase
Joe,
You can add to your list “Abortion will not be covered in the Health Care bill.”
Unbelievable.
Are you guys going to let this troll hijack every discussion?
As for myself, following the chart above, I made it all the way to the very last “RACIST!”
Hoe (the troll, not Hargrave):
When did you stop beating your wife?
The troll amuses me for the moment Joe H. When he ceases to amuse me I will show him the ban door.
It’s scary that they only reason all of you don’t murder and rape people is because of the spaghetti monster in the sky. Enlightened people don’t need to be threatened to know how to behave morally.
It’s also deliciously ironic to get you guys to act very unchristian towards me.
Your jesus must be proud.
Go ahead and ban me. Censorship. That’s how religion deals with differing opinions so I suspect nothing less.
Joe,
We’ve heard all this trope before. It’s old hat. At least be original if you’re going to come onto someone else’s blog and make an ass of yourself.
Well now, there’s an intelligent argument. You must have seen “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” this weekend.
I knew it was only a matter of time before Joe misapplied our own standards against us. Standards, I might add, to which he refuses to hold himself.
LOL!
Only slightly arrogant, I suppose, to think that you get to set such terms of debate for yourself.
Christians, like all humans, only have standards when it suits them.
That’s what ‘sinning’ is. Dropping your standards momentarily for personal gain or survival, and NO ONE on this blog can honestly say they’ve never done that.
“It’s scary that they only reason all of you don’t murder and rape people is because of the spaghetti monster in the sky.”
It’s actually more sad to me, than it is scary to you, that you have absolutely no rational basis for any good thing you do.
I presume that you typically only believe in things that have evidence to support them.
There is no scientific evidence for good or evil. You have belief without scientific evidence. You have faith.
The only difference between us is that we acknowledge it and embrace it within a logically consistent framework, whereas you deny it. You live in a contradiction. One day, if you are honest with yourself, if you are humble enough to admit that you don’t know all there is to know, you will realize that.
Philosophy 101, my fellow Joe – you can’t derive an “ought” from an “is”. In a random universe, rape and murder are just rape and murder. That we find such an idea appalling and unbearable suggests that we are designed/evolved to strive for moral truth, which cannot exist without God. God is the logical conclusion of all of the striving, hopes, and desires of humanity.
Folks,
Look, I agree our visiting atheist here is just spouting off, but either ignore it or take the time to be substantive on it. Responding at the low level that he’s taking just takes up space and does little to actually answer the objections of unbelievers. (I don’t think you’re required to take up lots of time answering him, because I doubt he’s really inquiring at the moment, but there’s not much point in just sniping back.)
JoeFromQC,
Enlightened people don’t need to be threatened to know how to behave morally.
No one needs to be threatened in order to behave morally, and I think any serious reading of the moral theology of Christianity will show you that this is not what Christian moral thinking consists of. However, it is actually rather difficult to come up with any clear understanding of what is “moral” without admitting the existence of any sort of absolute. Behavioralists come up with various “we instinctually see certain actions as good because they’re good for the species” but these don’t actually provide us with morality in the sense that humans naturally desire it in that they don’t provide absolute guidance. It’s easy to explain biologically why we can’t have people consistently killing and raping their neighbors, but it’s actually advantageous to do so occasionally and in certain circumstances from a biological point of view. However, as humans we have a fairly innate sense that moral laws ought to be absolute — that rape is actually _wrong_, not just a bad idea most of the time.
And that’s before you even get into where it’s even possible to assert free will from a materialist point of view. If you hold that we are no more than our physical selves, then it’s hard to say whether people actually have any more responsibility for their actions then other animals do. In which case talking about doing “wrong” is rather fuzzy.
So before lashing out at religious people as if they are fools when it comes to addressing moral questions, it might be a good idea to sit down and consider the internal tensions of your own professed position. They’re certainly not less.
>>>It’s actually more sad to me, than it is scary to you, that you have absolutely no rational basis for any good thing you do.
No, you have it wrong. I do good things FOR rational reasons. I like the people I’m helping, I want my neighborhood to be nice, etc.. Those are RATIONAL reasons to do good.
Believing you’re going to be eternally punished by an unconditionally loving god for not being good is IRRATIONAL.
>>>I presume that you typically only believe in things that have evidence to support them.
Presuming is like ASSuming buddy. That’s the problem. Belief and evidence are contradictory statements. To have faith or believe in something means you hold truth to be counter to the evidence provided.
>>>There is no scientific evidence for good or evil. You have belief without scientific evidence. You have faith.
That is just not true. There is no FAITH that convinces me Mr.Garrido is evil. If you need ‘faith’ to tell you that kidnapping an 11 year old and fathering 2 children with her is evil, you have serious problems you should go seek help for.
>>>One day, if you are honest with yourself, if you are humble enough to admit that you don’t know all there is to know, you will realize that.
HA!!! Well once you quit playing high and mighty maybe YOU will see the truth. I’ve never stated that I know all there is to know. That’s your team that does that.
>>>Philosophy 101, my fellow Joe – you can’t derive an “ought” from an “is”. In a random universe, rape and murder are just rape and murder. That we find such an idea appalling and unbearable suggests that we are designed/evolved to strive for moral truth, which cannot exist without God. God is the logical conclusion of all of the striving, hopes, and desires of humanity.
No, what makes us feel those emotions is OUR EVOLVED BRAIN. There are still tribes of people who have NEVER heard a word of the bible and have all those human qualities. Get over yourselves.
This post reminds me of last year’s round of remarkable logic (or, rather, reprehensible fallacy):
“If you don’t vote Obama, you’re racist!“
Where to begin. Let’s start with faith. Faith is believing in what is revealed to us by another but not seen by myself directly. The Church would certainly agree with you that if there is empirical evidence then faith cannot contradict that.
What you would seem to be referring to would be faith in God as you yourself have faith in may things – science for one. But belief in God is something that is apparent from reason alone and does not need faith. For example Aristotle held that there was the unmoved mover (God) apart from any religious claims. See his argument here:
http://uk.geocities.com/frege@btinternet.com/ontological/aristotleontological.htm
Now this argument again is from pure reason. Thus for Aristotle the existence of God was given from reason.
Now as for the personal God of faith and of Jesus, that becomes an argument from Revelation and the reliability of witnesses to Jesus’ life and resurrection. This does require a level of belief as I did not see him rise personally from the dead. Much as you take as articles of faith a number of scientific propositions as you did not prove them yourself.
Not voting for Obama doesn’t make you racist.
But needing to repeat your non racism ad nauseum makes people wonder.
If I went to the corner with a sign that said ‘I am not a sexual offender’ every day, pretty soon SOMEONE would rightfully get worried and check my background.
The more you rail against something the more you are trying to hide something about yourself.
“No, what makes us feel those emotions is OUR EVOLVED BRAIN. There are still tribes of people who have NEVER heard a word of the bible and have all those human qualities. Get over yourselves.”
Actually Joe we had a lab experiment running in the last century in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and Mao’s China as to what would happen when people forsook morality based upon God and embraced morality based upon human precepts. The results were not pretty to say the least. Without God morality is merely a matter of opinon and superior force to impose those opinions.
How is helping people you like, wanting your neighborhood to be “nice”, etc., all “rational” reasons to do good?
Sorry, but your rather conspicuous petitio principii leaves all wanting.
Eternally punished by an unconditionally loving god for not being good is irrational?
If you’re going to use our religion against us, you might as well get it right: it is not our “GOD” who punishes us; it is we who deliberately choose against Him and, thus, by choice we opt for an eternal life absent of Him.
I’m certain that its complex neuronal architecture is surely evidence that no such God exists and that everything man does is merely the result of haphazard neuronal firing having no actual teleological end whatsoever.
Phillip – Do you see how you have to bend over backwards to defend your position? Science is NOT an absolute belief. Science is adaptable. What is scientific truth today, may turn out to be something more or less depending on what we uncover in the future. Religion is the opposite. You HAVE to believe things AS THEY ARE. No matter how much is discovered you must still believe. Lemmings I tell you. Lemmings.
“But needing to repeat your non racism ad nauseum makes people wonder.”
Joe you completely overlook the fact that this is post is a response to the trope on the left mouthed by the peanut farmer from Plains and others that opposition to Obama is largely based on racism. It is a ridiculous assertion and the chart accompanying this post demonstrates how ridiculous it is.
Repeating non racism?
It’s “repeating non racism” to simply point out the logical flaw in the liberal’s libel: “If you don’t vote Obama, you’re racist”?
Clearly, you are the epitome of illogic; I’ll grant you that.
Are you actually saying that Science does not require the same “belief” and “faith” as does religion?
Kindly produce for me a quanta so that I need not have simply “belief” or even “faith” in its existence; then, I shall have proof that what you say here is true!
My, oh my, you are worse than a lemming, as your lurid imbecility in these series of comments demonstrates.
>>>Actually Joe we had a lab experiment running in the last century in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and Mao’s China as to what would happen when people forsook morality based upon God and embraced morality based upon human precepts. The results were not pretty to say the least. Without God morality is merely a matter of opinon and superior force to impose those opinions.
Well, if things like burning heretics at the stake, and the spanish inquisition, and the church allowing the holocaust to happen weren’t in the church’s past, you’d have a point. But…….
Not to mention you’re wrong about hitler. He fought against the ‘godless communism’ and considered himself religious, and believed ‘god’ was an active deity that supported the Aryan race.
Joe,
No. Again, it is rational to know that God exists. You can read Aristotle’s argument if you wish.
Aww, isn’t that precious. E thinks he’s smart… LOL
No one has said all of it is based on racism. But things like a poster that says Obama 08 with a picture of curious george on it. That is racist. You are fools if you think none of this is based on race.
It is never rational to believe in something that there is zero evidence for.
Oh Joe.
“Belief and evidence are contradictory statements. To have faith or believe in something means you hold truth to be counter to the evidence provided.”
Belief is just another way of saying “hold to be true”. You are splitting hairs.
Also, why can’t faith or belief be held in the absence of empirical evidence? When you say “contrary to the evidence”, you are asserting that we’ve looked at evidence and rejected it. But the Christian faith has done no such thing; there is no material process or phenomenon that is not fully incorporated into a Christian worldview.
Rather, it is those aspects of life that materialism and the scientific method alone cannot explain – starting with the conditions for the existence of good and evil as objective categories independent of the human mind – that are completely rejected by the militant atheist.
But let us get to the very important thing.
I said:
“There is no scientific evidence for good or evil. You have belief without scientific evidence. You have faith.”
You replied:
“That is just not true. There is no FAITH that convinces me Mr.Garrido is evil.”
Then, what, I ask, does convince you? Personal feelings? Subjective experience? Why, these sound like the sort of things that believers have used to justify their belief in God for centuries. Not a very rigorous application of the scientific method there, is it? And yet there is a truth there all the same.
You’re trying to take the hard things in life – evils such as rape and murder, and our response to them as humans – and place them in a box that is “off limits” to rational inquiry and objective analysis. You declare that anyone who wants to explore them is sick and warped.
That’s not very scientific. It sounds like a nervous evasion.
“If you need ‘faith’ to tell you that kidnapping an 11 year old and fathering 2 children with her is evil, you have serious problems you should go seek help for.”
This is the ad homoniem that many atheists resort to when they cannot come up with a rational explanation for their beliefs.
You believe our default mode of existence is to accept and believe things without any scientific evidence to support them. I would say that that is exactly what religious people have always believed about man. Your faith stops with your morality; ours stops with the only possible condition for the existence of good and evil outside of our minds.
You declare this act to evil on the basis of no evidence. You have faith that it is evil.
The belief in the empirical is an act of faith. That’s part of your Scientism.
That should read “the belief in the empirical only…”
Apparently, a guy who thinks “If you vote Obama, you’re racist” is logical and possess such eloquence as to employ “LOL” is clearly clever.
Too bad it speaks more as concerning his incorrigible stupidity than anything else.
>>>Then, what, I ask, does convince you? Personal feelings? Subjective experience? Why, these sound like the sort of things that believers have used to justify their belief in God for centuries. Not a very rigorous application of the scientific method there, is it? And yet there is a truth there all the same.
No there isn’t. You saying something is true does not make it so. What convinces me that it is wrong?
Morality. You do not need faith to have morality.
If you need faith to tell you a middle age man kidnapping and fathering children with an underage girl is wrong, you need serious help. Like right now. Call a doctor.. Oh wait, just ask ‘god’ to heal you.. LOL
>>>Apparently, a guy who thinks “If you vote Obama, you’re racist” is logical and possess such eloquence as to employ “LOL” is clearly clever.
I never said those things. Typical. I can’t debate what he’s talking about so I’ll make stuff up.
>>>Too bad it speaks more as concerning his incorrigible stupidity than anything else.
Aww, how christian of you. Not really loving your enemy are you??
Really, Joe?
Then, there goes most of the scientific theories that we simply take for granted.
“Morality. You do not need faith to have morality.”
Please provide proof that ‘morality’ is necessary or that it is even ‘rational’.
(Not that I deem you capable of even performing such a feat or that you are sufficiently intelligent to detect exactly the point of the inquiry.)
No, that’s not true. There is no scientific theory that hasn’t been tested. Newton didn’t just write “there is a law of gravity” He studied it, and found out the rate, and realized it was CONSTANT.
Religion says take this as truth but don’t question or test it.
>>(Not that I deem you capable of even performing such a feat or that you are sufficiently intelligent to detect exactly the point of the inquiry.)
Spoken like a true christian. Kudos to you sir.
JoeQC said: “Well, if things like burning heretics at the stake, and the spanish inquisition, and the church allowing the holocaust to happen weren’t in the church’s past, you’d have a point. But…….”
This is really, really digging back into the past though, if one is talking about the Inquisition or Salem Witch Trials. To stand back, talking of things 500 years ago really seems to dilute the point.
JoeQC sadly, must have been let down with his concept of the divine or religion. That is what I think.
“I never said those things. Typical. I can’t debate what he’s talking about so I’ll make stuff up.”
And we never posted up any such Obama poster with Curious George on it. So, perhaps it is you who should quit “making stuff up”.
“Awww, how Christian of you.”
I can’t help it if you’re yet another stupid modern-day Galatian incapable of grasping logic.
In regard to Hitler here are some of his diatribes against the Church contained in his “Table Talk” compiled following the war from notes taken at the time he spoke:
‘The war will be over one day. I shall then consider that my life’s final task will be to solve the religious problem. Only then Will the life of the German native be guaranteed once and for all.”
“The evil that’s gnawing our vitals is our priests, of both creeds. I can’t at present give them the answer they’ve been asking for, but it will cost them nothing to wait. It’s all written down in my big book. The time will come when I’ll settle my account with them, and I’ll go straight to the point.”
“I don’t know which should be considered the more dangerous: the minister of religion who play-acts at patriotism, or the man who openly opposes the State. The fact remains that it’s their maneuvers that have led me to my decision. They’ve only got to keep at it, they’ll hear from me, all right. I shan’t let myself be hampered by juridical scruples. Only necessity has legal force. In less than ten years from now, things will have quite another look, I can promise them.”
“We shan’t be able to go on evading the religious problem much longer. If anyone thinks it’s really essential to build the life of human society on a foundation of lies, well, in my estimation, such a society is not worth preserving. If’ on the other hand, one believes that truth is the indispensable foundation, then conscience bids one intervene in the name of truth, and exterminate the lie.”
“Once the war is over we will put a swift end to the Concordat. It will give me the greatest personal pleasure to point out to the Church all those occasions on which it has broken the terms of it. One need only recall the close cooperation between the Church and the murderers of Heydrich. Catholic priests not only allowed them to hide in a church on the outskirts of Prague, but even allowed them to entrench themselves in the sanctuary of the altar.”
“The fact that I remain silent in public over Church affairs is not in the least misunderstood by the sly foxes of the Catholic Church, and I am quite sure that a man like the Bishop von Galen knows full well that after the war I shall extract retribution to the last farthing. And, if he does not succeed in getting himself transferred in the meanwhile to the Collegium Germanium in Rome, he may rest assured that in the balancing of our accounts, no “T” will remain uncrossed, no “I” undotted!”
At Nuremburg after the war the Prosecution noted the Nazi hostitility to Christianity:
“We come now to deal with the responsibility of the defendant Bormann with respect to the persecution of the Church. The defendant Bormann authorised, directed and participated in measures involving the persecution of the Christian Church. The Tribunal, of course, has heard much in this proceeding concerning the acts of the conspiracy involving the persecution of the Church. We have no desire now to rehash that evidence. We are interested in one thing alone, and that is nailing on the defendant Bormann his responsibility, his personal, individual responsibility, for that persecution.
I shall now present the proofs showing the responsibility of Bormann with respect to such persecution of the Christian Churches.
Bormann was among the most relentless enemies of the Christian Church and Christian Clergy in Germany and in German-occupied Europe. I refer the Tribunal, without quoting therefrom, to Document D-75, previously introduced in evidence as Exhibit USA 348, which contains a copy of the secret Bormann decree of 6th June, 1941, entitled “The Relationship of National Socialism to Christianity.” In this decree, as the Tribunal will well recall, Bormann bluntly declared that National Socialism and Christianity were incompatible, and he indicated that the ultimate aim of the conspirators was to assure the elimination of Christianity itself.
I next refer the Tribunal, without quotation, to Document 098-PS, previously put in as Exhibit USA 350. This is a letter from the defendant Bormann to the defendant Rosenberg, dated 22nd February, 1940, in which Bormann reaffirms the incompatibility of Christianity and National Socialism.
Now, in furtherance of the conspirators’ aim to undermine the Christian Churches, Bormann took measures to eliminate the influence of the Christian Church from within the Nazi Party and its formations. I now offer in evidence Document 113-PS, as Exhibit USA 683. This is an order of the defendant Bormann, dated 27th July, 1938, issued as Chief of Staff to the Deputy of the
[Page 300]
Fuehrer, Hess, which prohibits clergymen, from holding Party offices. I shall not take the time of the Tribunal to put this quotation upon the, record. The point of it is, as indicated, that Bormann issued an order-forbidding the appointment of clergymen to Party positions.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps this would be a good time to break off for ten minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
LIEUTENANT LAMBERT: May it please the Tribunal, we are dealing with the efforts of the defendant Bormann to expel and eliminate from the Party all Church and religious influence.
I offer in evidence Document 838-PS, as Exhibit USA 684. I shall not burden the record with extensive quotation from this exhibit, but merely point out that this is a copy of a Bormann decree dated 3rd June, 1939, which laid it down that followers of Christian Science should be excluded from the Party.
The attention of the Tribunal is next invited to Document 840-PS, previously introduced in evidence as Exhibit USA 355. The Tribunal will recall that this, was a Bormann decree of 14th July, 1939, referring with approval to an earlier Bormann decree of 9th February, 1937, in which he had ruled, that in the future all Party members who entered the clergy or who undertook the study of theology were to be expelled from the Party.
I next offer in evidence Document 107-PS, Exhibit USA 3M. This is a circular directive of the defendant Bormann dated 17th June, 1938, addressed to all Reichsleiters and Gauleiters, top leaders of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, transmitting a copy of directions relating. to the non-participation of the Reich Labour Service in religious celebrations. The Reich Labour Service, the Tribunal will recall, compulsorily incorporated all Germans within its organisation.
DR. BERGOLD (Counsel for defendant Bormann): The member of the prosecution has just submitted a number of documents, in which he proves that, on the suggestion of Bormann, members of the Christian religion were to be excluded from the Party, or from certain organisations. I beg the High Tribunal to allow the member of the prosecution to explain to me how and why Bormann’s activity, that is, the exclusion of Christians from the Party, can be a War Crime. I cannot gather this evidence from the trial brief. The Party is described as a criminal conspiracy. Is it a crime to exclude certain people from membership in a criminal conspiracy? Is that considered a crime? How and why is the exclusion of certain members from the Party a crime?
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel will answer you.
LIEUTENANT LAMBERT: If the Tribunal will willingly accommodate argument at this stage, we find that the question –
THE PRESIDENT: Only short argument.
LIEUTENANT LAMBERT: Yes, Sir – admits of a short, and, as it seems to us, easy answer.
The point we are now trying to prove – and evidence is abounding on it – is that Bormann had a hatred and an enmity and took oppositional measures towards the Christian Church. The Party was the repository of political power in Germany. To have power one had to be in the Party or subject to its favour. By his efforts, concerted, continuing and consistent, to exclude clergymen, theological students or any persons sympathetic to the Christian, religion, Bormann could not have chosen a clearer method of showing and demonstrating his, hatred and his distrust of the Christian religion and those who supported it.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel for Bormann can present his argument upon this subject at a later stage. The documents appear to the Tribunal to be relevant.
LIEUTENANT LAMBERT: With the Tribunal’s permission, I had just put in Document 107-PS and pointed out that it transmitted directions relating to the
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non-participation of the Reich Labour Service in religious celebrations. I quote merely the fourth and fifth paragraphs of Page 1 of the English translation of Document 107-PS, which reads as follows:
“Every religious discussion is forbidden in the Reich Labour Service because it disturbs the comrade-like harmony of all working men and women.
For this reason also, every participation of the Reich Labour Service in Church, i.e., religious, arrangements and celebrations is not possible.”
The attention of the Tribunal is next invited to Document 070-PS, previously put in as Exhibit USA 349. The Tribunal will recall that this was a letter from Bormann’s office to the defendant Rosenberg, dated 25th April, 1941, in which Bormann declared that he had achieved progressive success in reducing and abolishing religious services in schools, and in replacing Christian prayers with National Socialist mottoes and rituals. In this letter, Bormann also proposed a Nazified morning service in the schools, in place of the existing confession and morning service.
In his concerted efforts to undermine and subvert the Christian churches, Bormann authorised, directed and participated in measures leading to the closing, reduction and suppression of theological schools, faculties and institutions. The attention of the Tribunal is invited to Document 116-PS, Exhibit USA 685, which I offer in evidence. This is a letter from the defendant Bormann to the defendant Rosenberg, dated 24th January, 1939, enclosing, for Rosenberg’s cognisance, a copy of Bormann’s letter to the Reich Minister for Science, Training and Public Education. In the enclosed letter, Bormann informs the Minister as to the Party’s position in favour of restricting and suppressing theological faculties. Bormann states that, owing to war conditions, it had become necessary to reorganise the German high schools, and in view of this situation, he requested the Minister to restrict and suppress certain theological faculties.
I now quote from the first paragraph on Page 3 of the English translation of Document 116-PS, which reads as follows:
“I, therefore, would like to see you put the theological faculties under appreciable limitations in so far as, according to the above statements, they cannot be entirely eliminated. This will concern not only the theological faculties at universities, but also the various State institutions which, as seminaries having no affiliation with any university, still exist in many places. I request you not to give any express explanations to churches or other institutions and to avoid public announcement of these measures. Complaints and the like, if they are to be answered at all, must be countered with this explanation, that these measures are carried out in the course of planned economy, and that the same is being done to other, faculties. I would be glad, if the professorial chairs thus made vacant could then be turned over to the fields of research newly created in recent years, such as racial research and archaeology.
“Martin Bormann.”
In our submission, what this document comes to is a request from Bormann to this effect: “Please close down the religious faculties and substitute in their place Nazi faculties and university chairs, with the mission of investigating racialism, cultism, Nazi archaeology.” This sort of thing was done in the Hohe Schule, as was so clearly demonstrated in the prosecution’s case against the plundering activities of the Einsatzstab Rosenberg.
The attention of the Tribunal is next invited to Document 122-PS, previously put in as Exhibit USA 362. The Tribunal will recall that 122-PS is a letter from the defendant Bormann to the defendant Rosenberg, dated 17th April, 1939, transmitting to Rosenberg a photostatic copy of the plan of the Reich
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Minister of Science, Training and Public Education for the combining and dissolving of certain specified theological faculties. In his letter of transmittal, Bormann requested Rosenberg “to take cognizance and prompt action” with respect to the proposed suppression of religious institutions.
I next offer in evidence Document 123-PS, Exhibit USA 686. This is a confidential letter from the defendant Bormann to the Minister of Education, dated 23rd June, 1939, in which Bormann sets forth the Party’s decision to order the suppression of numerous theological faculties and religious institutions. The Tribunal will note that the letter lists 19 separate religious institutions with respect to which Bormann ordered dissolution or restriction.
After directing the action to be taken by the Minister in connection with the various theological faculties, Bormann stated as follows, and I quote from the next to last paragraph of Page 3 of the English translation of Document 123-PS:
“In the above I have informed you of the Party’s wishes, after thorough, investigation of the matter with all Party offices. I would be grateful if you would initiate the necessary measures as quickly as possible. With regard to the great political significance which every single case of such a combination will have for the Gau concerned, I ask you to take these measures, and particularly to fix dates for them always in agreement with me.”
I next offer in evidence, without quotation, Document 131- PS, as Exhibit USA 687. In summary, without quotation therefrom, this is a letter from the defendant Bormann to the defendant Rosenberg, dated 12th December, 1939, relating to the suppression of seven professorships in the near-by University of Munich.
Now, I deal briefly with the responsibility of Bormann for the confiscation of religious property and cultural property. Bormann used his paramount power and position to cause the confiscation of religious property and to subject the Christian churches and clergy to a discriminatory legal regime.
I offer in evidence Document 099-PS, Exhibit USA 688. This is a copy of a letter from Bormann to the Reich Minister for Finance, dated 19th January, 1940, in which Bormann demanded a great increase in the special war tax imposed on the churches. I quote from the first two paragraphs of Page 2 of the English translation of this document, which reads as follows:
“As it has been reported to me, the war contribution of the churches has been specified from 1st November, 1939 on, at first, for a period of three months, at R.M. 1,800,000 per month, of which R.M. 1,000,000 are to be paid by the Protestant church, and R.M. 800,000 by the Catholic church per month. The establishment of such a low amount has surprised me. I see from numerous reports that the political communities have to raise such a large war contribution, that the execution of their tasks, partially very important – for example, in the field of public welfare – is, endangered. In consideration of that, a larger quota from the churches appears to be absolutely appropriate.”
The question may arise: Of what criminal effect is it to demand larger taxes from church institutions? As to this demand of Bormann’s taken by itself, the prosecution would not suggest that it had a criminal effect, but when viewed within the larger frame of Bormann’s demonstrated hostility to the Christian Church, and his efforts, not merely to circumscribe but to eliminate it, we suggest that this document has probative value in showing Bormann’s hostility and his concrete measures to effectuate that hostility against the Christian churches and clergy.”
>>>I can’t help it if you’re yet another stupid modern-day Galatian incapable of grasping logic.
You serve your master well.
“You serve your master well.”
Thank you — so did St. Paul who said something similar!
>>This is really, really digging back into the past though, if one is talking about the Inquisition or Salem Witch Trials. To stand back, talking of things 500 years ago really seems to dilute the point.
So let me get this straight. The horrors of the past that secularism caused is list able, but the 1000’s of years of church oppression aren’t. Check.
>>>JoeQC sadly, must have been let down with his concept of the divine or religion. That is what I think.
You hit it on the head.. When I developed rational thought I said ‘You mean the people I trust have been feeding me LIES all these years??? It’s pretty disheartening until you realize they’ve been brainwashed and don’t realize they’re lying to you.
Oh, and I’m still waiting for you to provide demonstrative proof that ‘Morality’ is indeed *rational”… again, not that you’re actually capable of doing thus but, hey, here’s some charity on my part!