An argument why atheism is wrong and theism is the only rational choice

a reply to: dfnj2015

I think atheism is there to monitor corrupted religions.

Someone need to police religion integrity after all this horrible history.

originally posted by: Assemble

Adolf Hitler - the atheist philosophy of evolution (80 million)

Since Catholic intrigue helped to bring the baptized Roman Catholic, Adolf Hitler, to power in Germany, the Vatican shares in a terrible bloodguilt with regard to whatever number you wanna use there.

Columnist C. L. Sulzberger said in 1976: “It is a dismal truth that probably half or more of the wars now being fought around the world are either openly religious conflicts or involved with religious disputes.”

The world’s religions are also bloodguilty because they have not convincingly taught their followers the truth that God’s true worshippers must imitate Jesus Christ and show love toward others regardless of their national origin. (Micah 4:3, 5; John 13:34, 35; Acts 10:34, 35; 1 John 3:10-12) Because the religions making up Babylon the Great have not taught these things, their adherents have been drawn into the vortex of international warfare. How evident this was in the two world wars of the first half of the 20th century, both of which started in Christendom and resulted in fellow religionists’ slaughtering one another. If all who claimed to be Christians had adhered to Bible principles, those wars could never have taken place. Had the religious leaders, and particularly those in Christendom, taught their people Bible truth, such massive bloodshed would not have occurred.

Guenter Lewy writes in his book The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany: “Had German Catholicism from the start adhered to a policy of resolute opposition to the Nazi regime, world history might well have taken a different course. Even if this struggle had ultimately failed to defeat Hitler and prevent all of his many crimes, it would in this view have raised the moral prestige of the Church immeasurably. The human cost of such resistance would undeniably have been great, but these sacrifices would have been made for the greatest of all causes. With the home front unreliable, Hitler might not have dared going to war and literally millions of lives would have been saved. . . . When thousands of German anti-Nazis were tortured to death in Hitler’s concentration camps, when the Polish intelligentsia was slaughtered, when hundreds of thousands of Russians died as a result of being treated as Slavic Untermenschen [subhumans], and when 6,000,000 human beings were murdered for being ‘non-Aryan,’ Catholic Church officials in Germany bolstered the regime perpetrating these crimes. The Pope in Rome, the spiritual head and supreme moral teacher of the Roman Catholic Church, remained silent.”​—Pages 320, 341.

What Pope Pius XI did talk about however, was discussed in one of my earlier comments:

Examples of this dominance are the concordats, or agreements, that the Vatican signed with Nazi and Fascist rulers in the 20th century. As a consequence, church influence over the flocks led to total subservience to ruthless rulers. In 1929 the Vatican concluded a concordat with Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. What followed in Germany? German cardinal Faulhaber, attributing the following words to Pius XI, gives insight into the pope’s thinking about Hitler: “I am pleased; he is the first statesman to have spoken out against Bolshevism.” Faulhaber later noted: “My journey to Rome confirmed what I might have suspected for a long time. In Rome, National Socialism and Fascism are considered the only deliverance from Communism and Bolshevism.”
...
In addressing the College of Mondragone on May 14, 1929, Pope Pius XI said that he would negotiate with the Devil himself if the good of souls required it. By the end of 1933 (proclaimed a “Holy Year” by Pope Pius XI), Vatican support had become a major factor in Hitler’s push for world domination.

"factor", i.e. "component" (to use Chronaut's terminology that I spoke about in my other commentary)

How did the tyrant Adolf Hitler become chancellor​—and dictator—​of Germany again? It was through the political intrigue of a papal knight whom the previous German chancellor, Kurt von Schleicher, described as “the kind of traitor next to whom Judas Iscariot is a saint.” This was Franz von Papen, who marshaled Catholic Action and leaders in industry to oppose communism and unite Germany under Hitler. As part of a sellout bargain, von Papen was made vice-chancellor. Hitler sent a delegation headed by von Papen to Rome to negotiate a concordat between the Nazi State and the Vatican. Pope Pius XI remarked to the German envoys how pleased he was that “the German Government now had at its head a man uncompromisingly opposed to Communism,” and in 1933, at an elaborate ceremony in the Vatican, Cardinal Pacelli (who was soon to become Pope Pius XII) signed the concordat. For obvious reasons, two clauses of the Concordat were kept secret at the time, these dealing with a common front against the Soviet Union and the duties of Catholic priests conscripted in Hitler’s army. Such conscription was a violation of the Treaty of Versailles (1919) to which Germany was still bound; public knowledge of this clause could have disturbed other Versailles signatories.

One historian writes: “The Concordat [with the Vatican] was a great victory for Hitler. It gave him the first moral support he had received from the outer world, and this from the most exalted source.” During the celebrations at the Vatican, Pacelli conferred on von Papen the high papal decoration of the Grand Cross of the Order of Pius. Franz von Papen was among the Nazis who were tried as war criminals at Nuremberg, Germany, in the late 1940’s. He was acquitted but later drew a stiff sentence from a German denazification court. Still later, in 1959, he was made a Papal Privy Chamberlain! Always convenient to have friends in high places (see video below at 1:35 - 3:52 for another example). Winston Churchill, in his book The Gathering Storm, published in 1948, tells how von Papen further used “his reputation as a good Catholic” to gain church support for the Nazi takeover of Austria. In 1938, in honor of Hitler’s birthday, Cardinal Innitzer ordered that all Austrian churches fly the swastika flag, ring their bells, and pray for the Nazi dictator.

A terrible bloodguilt therefore rests on the Vatican. As a leading part of Babylon the Great, it helped significantly in putting Hitler into power and in giving him “moral” support. The Vatican went further in tacitly consenting to Hitler’s atrocities. During the long decade of Nazi terror, the Roman pontiff kept quiet while hundreds of thousands of Catholic soldiers were fighting and dying for the glory of the Nazi regime and while millions of other unfortunates were being liquidated in Hitler’s gas chambers.

The German Catholic bishops even gave open support to Hitler. On the same day that Japan, Germany’s wartime partner at the time, made the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, The New York Times carried this report: “The Conference of German Catholic Bishops assembled in Fulda has recommended the introduction of a special ‘war prayer’ which is to be read at the beginning and end of all divine services. The prayer implores Providence to bless German arms with victory and grant protection to the lives and health of all soldiers. The Bishops further instructed Catholic clergy to keep and remember in a special Sunday sermon at least once a month German soldiers ‘on land, on sea and in the air.’”

a reply to: whereislogic

Nazi-ism wasn't fought over religion, it was fought over science. The 'science' of evolution.

a reply to: whereislogic

You accused the Roman Catholic church of collaboration with the Nazi regime. Which is true, also the Lutherans and other Christian denominations are culpable in either collaboration or absence of resistance.

However, the same accusation can also be leveled at the JW's.

None of us have clean hands. No-one.

a reply to: chr0naut
Sure, if you don't have any problem with lying like some people. It would still be a false accusation that is quite easily recognizable by anyone who isn't in denial of real historical facts in favor of anti-JW propaganda that just happens to match Russian state sponsored anti-JW propaganda and is about as blatantly dishonest as this video produced by the Russian state sponsored "Russia Today" (nowadays called "Ruptly"):

Matthew 5:11

11 “Happy are you when people reproach you and persecute you and lyingly say every sort of wicked thing against you for my sake.

Romans 1:18

18 For God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who are suppressing the truth in an unrighteous way,

1 Timothy 4:1,2

4 However, the inspired word* [Lit., “the spirit.”] clearly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to misleading inspired statements* [Lit., “misleading spirits.”] and teachings of demons, 2 by means of the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, whose conscience is seared as with a branding iron.

The Evils of Nazism Exposed: Awake!—1995

IN THE 1920’s, as Germany struggled to recover from its defeat in World War I, Jehovah’s Witnesses were busy distributing tremendous amounts of Bible literature. Not only did this offer comfort and hope to the German people but it alerted them to the rising power of militarism. ... The Golden Age and Consolation magazines often drew attention to the militaristic stirrings in Germany. In 1929, more than three years before Hitler came to power, the German edition of The Golden Age boldly stated: “National Socialism is . . . a movement that is acting . . . directly in the service of man’s enemy, the Devil.”

On the eve of Hitler’s taking power, The Golden Age of January 4, 1933, said: “There looms forth the menacing promontory of the National Socialist movement. It seems incredulous that a political party so insignificant in its origin, so heterodox in its policies, can, in the space of a few years, develop into proportions that overshadow the structure of a national government. Yet Adolf Hitler and his national socialist party (the Nazis) have accomplished this rare feat.”
...
The immovable neutral position of the Witnesses, along with their loyalty to God’s Kingdom, was unacceptable to the Hitler government. The Nazis did not intend to tolerate any refusal to support their ideology.
...
Witnesses Expose Nazi Atrocities

... In 1935, The Golden Age exposed the Inquisitionlike torture methods of the Nazi regime and its spy system. It also revealed that it was the aim of the Hitler Youth organization to purge Germany’s youths of their belief in God. The following year a nationwide Gestapo campaign resulted in the arrests of thousands of Witnesses.
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Love of neighbor is what compelled the Witnesses to warn the people of Germany not to be fooled by the grandiose vision of a glorious thousand-​year rule by the Third Reich. “We must tell the truth and give the warning,” said the booklet Face the Facts, published in 1938. “We recognize the totalitarian government . . . as the product of Satan brought forth as the substitute for God’s kingdom.” Jehovah’s Witnesses were among the first targets of Nazi abuse, but they also loudly decried atrocities against Jews, Poles, the handicapped, and others.

The resolution “Warning!,” adopted at a 1938 convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., said: “The Fascists and Nazis, radical political organizations, have wrongfully seized control of many countries of Europe . . . All the people will be regimented, all their liberties taken away, and all will be compelled to yield to the rule of an arbitrary dictator and then the ancient Inquisition will be fully revived.”

Rutherford regularly took to the airwaves, delivering powerful lectures on the satanic nature of Nazism. ... On October 2, 1938, he delivered the address “Fascism or Freedom,” in which he denounced Hitler in no uncertain terms.

“In Germany the common people are peace-​loving,” Rutherford proclaimed. “The Devil has put his representative Hitler in control, a man who is of unsound mind, cruel, malicious and ruthless . . . He cruelly persecutes the Jews because they were once Jehovah’s covenant people and bore the name of Jehovah, and because Christ Jesus was a Jew.”

As the Nazi rage against Jehovah’s Witnesses reached new heights, the Witnesses’ denunciations became ever more scathing. The May 15, 1940, issue of Consolation stated: “Hitler is such a perfect child of the Devil that these speeches and decisions flow through him like water through a well-​built sewer.”
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Triumph Over Barbarism

The Nazis, who were considered masters at breaking the human will, tried desperately to get Jehovah’s Witnesses to violate their Christian neutrality, but they failed miserably. The book The Theory and Practice of Hell said: “One cannot escape the impression that, psychologically speaking, the SS was never quite equal to the challenge offered them by Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

Indeed, the Witnesses, backed up by God’s spirit, won the battle. Historian Christine King, chancellor of Staffordshire University in England, described the opponents in the conflict: “One [the Nazis] enormous, powerful, seemingly invincible. One [the Witnesses] very, very tiny . . . with only their faith, no other weapon . . . Jehovah’s Witnesses brought morally to their knees the might of that Gestapo power.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses were a small, peaceable enclave within the Nazi realm. Yet, they waged and won a battle in their own way​—a battle for the right to worship their God, a battle to love their neighbor, and a battle to tell the truth.
...
IN ITS September 26, 1945, issue, Consolation noted that future attempts might be made to revise history and deny what had happened. The article “Has Nazism Been Destroyed?” said:

“Propagandists think the people have short memories. It is their intention to erase past history, presenting themselves in the modern disguise of benefactors, their incriminating record being covered up.”

Discussing the Nazi Holocaust, a high-school teacher lamented that “no group or organization of regular citizens spoke out against the mass of lies, cruelty, and eventual atrocities.” After consulting with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, he wrote: “I now had my answer.” He learned that Jehovah’s Witnesses stood firm in their beliefs in spite of the harsh treatment they received.

Why the Churches Kept Silent: Awake!—1995

...Dr. Franklin Littell of Baylor University spoke at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum about a troublesome “concrete truth.” What was that?

The truth, Littell said, was that “six million Jews were targeted and systematically murdered in the heart of Christendom, by baptized Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox who were never rebuked, let alone excommunicated.” One voice, however, did consistently speak out about clergy involvement with Hitler’s regime. And the voice, as we have seen, was that of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Hitler was a baptized Roman Catholic, as were many of the leaders in his government. Why weren’t they excommunicated? Why didn’t the Catholic Church condemn the horrors that these men were committing? Why did Protestant churches also keep silent?

originally posted by: whereislogic
a reply to: chr0naut
Sure, if you don't have any problem with lying like some people. It would still be a false accusation that is quite easily recognizable by anyone who isn't in denial of real historical facts in favor of anti-JW propaganda that just happens to match Russian state sponsored anti-JW propaganda and is about as blatantly dishonest as this video produced by the Russian state sponsored "Russia Today" (nowadays called "Ruptly"):

Matthew 5:11

11 “Happy are you when people reproach you and persecute you and lyingly say every sort of wicked thing against you for my sake.

Romans 1:18

18 For God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who are suppressing the truth in an unrighteous way,

1 Timothy 4:1,2

4 However, the inspired word* [Lit., “the spirit.”] clearly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to misleading inspired statements* [Lit., “misleading spirits.”] and teachings of demons, 2 by means of the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, whose conscience is seared as with a branding iron.

Are you suggesting that Rutherford's letter didn't happen?

In regard to Matthew 5:11 JW's aren't denying anything "for Jesus' sake". They are denying their sin only for their own sake. The Watchtower Organization even denies the divinity of Jesus. How could you think that they actually do anything for Jesus sake?

Denial of the truth is a lie, and a rather blatant and obvious one. Consider who might be the subject of 1 Timothy 4:1-2 in the light of that.

a reply to: chr0naut
Among the things I've said about it was the following:

The parts they quote and bold from the letter they are going on and on about, also do not support their twisted commentary about what this letter is supposedly doing. The whole thing reminds me of those religious leaders in Jesus' day who were looking to entrap him in his words and were eyeballing him closely for that purpose, grasping at every straw they could bend and twist for that purpose as well. Conveniently skipping past and distracting from any actual facts that do not support whatever they were selling.

But instead of acknowledging what I really said I see you seem to prefer the 'putting words in someone's mouth' or 'reading something else into what someone is saying'-routine demonstrated by the use of the phrase 'are you saying' ("are you suggesting" in your case) that fans of evolutionary philosophies are also so fond of doing on the Origins and Creationism subforum (from my experience there).

I probably shouldn't waste too much time on responding to someone who refuses to register what I'm really saying, let alone acknowledge that it's true, just so they can re-use the same arguments and false claims over and over. And distract from the more obviously false claims about Russell being a Zionist (exposing the whole article and website you used for the liars that they are even more obviously than the other stuff they're lying about, especially more obvious to those who desperately want to read "collaboration" into Rutherford's letter no matter what it actually says or what the historical facts actually show concerning JW resistance against Nazi propaganda).

Romans 1:25

They exchanged the truth of God for the lie and venerated* [Or “worshipped.”] and rendered sacred service to the creation rather than the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.

Jesus is the "beginning of the creation by God" (Rev.3:14), "the firstborn of all creation" (Col 1:15). Regarding Jesus' prehuman existence, Proberbs 8:22 says (in honest translations):

22 Jehovah produced me* as the beginning of his way,

The earliest of his achievements of long ago.

*: NIV: "brought me forth"; NLT: "formed me"; GNT/TEV, NET, NHEB, ABPE: "created me"; HCSB, ISV, JPS Tanakh 1917, Brenton Septuagint Translation, : "made me".

originally posted by: Assemble
a reply to: whereislogic

Nazi-ism wasn't fought over religion, it was fought over science. The 'science' of evolution.

I could ask you the same question I asked Chronaut:

Are you ready to admit yet that there was a "religious component" to WW II in spite of the reasons for fighting being (arguably*) non-religious?

*: regardless of whether or not that's the case

Using your terminology earlier when you were talking about "those wars & etc without a religious component".

But somehow I feel I'd get the same routine of avoiding the issue and avoiding acknowledging inconvenient truths that would contradict the implication chr0naut made about WW II being one of those "wars & etc without a religious component" (which one can gather from the way he counts in related statements he made in that comment). Just noticed his name was different than what I've been saying so far (Chronaut), whatever...

And it would undermine his whole argumentation in that comment that misrepresents history and the bloodguilt resting on Babylon the Great, as described at Revelation.

Revelation 18:24

Yes, in her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth.”

Make no mistake, God will hold false religion (including Christendom) fully accountable for her bloodguilt. Whether people are twisting history and trying to downplay its involvement (usually by pointing the finger at others or using Adolf Hitler and some top Nazis as scapegoats, such as at the Nuremberg trials, where they acquitted someone like Franz von Papen because of his connections and killed the ones who do not have similar connections) or not.

“Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues.”​—Rev. 18:4.

“Get Out of Her, My People” (1980)

Why was von Papen at the Nuremberg trials and not Pope Pius XII (formerly Cardinal Pacelli, pope from 1939 - 1958)? Consider the details concerning the concordat with Nazi Germany that I mentioned before. Might it have something to do with him still being pope at the end of the war? Why did the US army intelligence "purposely avoided capturing" Ante Pavelić or why was Roman Catholic Archbishop Stepinac (term ended: 10 February 1960) not at the Nuremberg trials? Or at least removed from his office as Archbishop by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy? See video about "20th CENTURY ATROCITIES OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH" for details or part of the answer (starting at 1:35). Why does no WWII documentary as constantly repeated on the Discovery Channel over here in Europe ever talk about these people and their involvement in WWII in the manner as I just did in this thread (or inform people of the same historical facts and moral implications regarding the religions they are a member of or influential figure therein)?

a reply to: whereislogic

The point I am making is that in it's short space of time, Nazi-ism, communism has killed far more people than what is claimed that religion has killed. I'm not even supporting Islam, but most of the wars in the middle east have been done over the godless quest of money/oil by greedy Western governments. It's a silly argument to make that religion is somehow the cause of the problems in the world, and by eliminating religion, the world will somehow be a utopia. The reality is that when religion is completely removed, the world is even worse.

originally posted by: Assemble
a reply to: whereislogic

The point I am making is that in it's short space of time, Nazi-ism, communism has killed far more people than what is claimed that religion has killed.

And yet the majority of the ones who did the killing in the name of fascism or communism profess(ed) to be Christians. Not counting China.

I'm not even supporting Islam, but most of the wars in the middle east have been done over the godless quest of money/oil by greedy Western governments.

And again, the majority of those doing the fighting profess to be either Christians or Muslims (or some other religion). The number of atheists in the armies of those doing the fighting is still relatively small. And make no mistake, in no way am I arguing that atheism (or agnosticism for that matter) is any better at resisting nationalistic and patriotic propaganda. Or the evolutionary propaganda that paints certain races of humans as being less evolved than others and teaches "survival of the fittest", a teaching conveniently used by both the Roman Catholic Hierarchy as well as Adolf Hitler to justify their actions towards these people that are supposedly less evolved. And that's not even mentioning those religiously influential people within Christendom that teach "theistic evolution" (God creating by means of evolution, God setting up life to evolve into different kinds, including eventually humans, rather than creating humans directly as the Bible teaches), such as certain Lutherans, Methodists, Roman Catholics (like Kenneth Miller with his chromosome #2 fusion storyline), etc.

It's a silly argument to make that religion is somehow the cause of the problems in the world,

Well, I didn't do so, I did however quote the bible on the subject of what bloodguilt is attributed to false religion, i.e. Babylon the Great:

"Yes, in her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth.” (Rev. 18:24)

And history testifies to it.

and by eliminating religion, the world will somehow be a utopia.

God has promised a utopia or "paradise" after the elimination of false religion followed by the elimination of Satan's political systems at Armageddon (one of the beasts mentioned in Revelation that the prostitute, Babylon the Great, is riding).

The reality is that when religion is completely removed, the world is even worse.

You can't know that for sure, cause the world has never been free of false religion and its spiritual father, Satan. Cause what will be left (according to the prophecies in Revelation that I just hinted at regarding the elimination of false religion) is not just atheism and agnosticism, but true religion or true Christianity as well. I see you make no distinction between false and true religion. And atheism and agnosticism will end soon thereafter because as the Bible puts it "the nations will have to know that I am Jehovah", "And I will certainly magnify myself and sanctify myself and make myself known before the eyes of many nations; and they will have to know that I am Jehovah.’", “‘And they will no longer teach each one his fellow citizen and each one his brother, saying: “Know Jehovah!”* For they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them." (Ezekiel 39:7, 38:23, Hebrews 8:11).

John 8:42-47

42 Jesus said to them: “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I have not come of my own initiative, but that One sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I am saying? Because you cannot listen to* [Or “accept.”] my word. 44 You are from your father the Devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father. That one was a murderer when he began, and he did not stand fast in the truth, because truth is not in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks according to his own disposition, because he is a liar and the father of the lie. 45 Because I, on the other hand, tell you the truth, you do not believe me. 46 Who of you convicts me of sin? If I speak truth, why is it that you do not believe me? 47 The one who is from God listens to the sayings of God. This is why you do not listen, because you are not from God.”

originally posted by: longy9999

I've seen a couple of people on this thread state that some atheists they know tend to ''misuse science'', could someone clarify what they mean by that?

They are probably referring to examples such as these:

Bait-and-Switch Atheist Propaganda (in contextual playlist)

Psychology: Dawkins&Krauss selling the philosophy and contradiction that nothing is something (playlist; slightly different version as above)

Evolutionary philosophies regarding the capabilities of mutations acted upon by natural selection in comparison with the established facts