Doomie

Interesting topic. I am one of the few here to have voted yes, so let me explain my reasoning here. To be a Christian means to follow the teachings of Christ. Some of you say that it is also necessary to believe he is the son of God, but that is a bit difficult if you don't believe in God. And I don't think that's necessary at all. I think the most important part of Jesus's teachings wasn't "believe in God," it was "be a good person," and you can do that without believing in God. And if I remember correctly, in some of the early, non-canon gospels, Jesus was, in fact, not considered to be the son of God, but I don't have a source on that. There have been various schisms within Christianity, and there are many different variations of it based on different interpretations of the Bible. Many supernatural events are often taken to be allegorical, for example, the creation of Earth. Taking God as an allegory for an ideal is just one step further. I do not consider myself a Christian, by the way.

I'd just like to point out that the opposite of anarchy isn't communism, it would probably be totalitarianism, and those aren't the same thing. In fact, it is my understanding that the ultimate goal of communism is something not too dissimilar to anarchy, with the elimination of the ruling class and the communal ownership of resources and all that.

Well, I stand (somewhat) corrected. Macroevolution and microevolution are legitimate scientific terms, but at least I was right about micro-evolution and macroevolution essentially being the same process.

I'll let you in on a little secret here; they're the same thing! biologists make no distinction between micro- and macro-evolution, it's an arbitrary distinction made by creation 'scientists'. Little changes over time build up to a big change in a long time. So the proving of 'micro-evolution' also proves 'macro-evolution'. Yes, it is simply a theory, but that's just the way modern science works. No matter how much proof there is in favour, scientists will always account for the possiblity that one day a better theory comes along, so they will keep referring to it as a theory. But that doesn't imply a lack of proof or that it cannot be used to explain things. I prefer the theory of evolution to the theory of creation as a means of explaining how we got here. As for how it all started, I guess things could have been created, but I prefer to say I just don't know, and I don't think anyone does (yet).

A blank wall cannot express an idea, but a wall with writing on it can, so your example and mine aren't really equal. The word 'God' in the right context could actually be part of propaganda, so it's not necissarily just 'a word on the wall'. I would say that the words 'in God we trust' on the wall of a government building is a quite different context than just a wall with the word 'God' on it, but a blank wall is a blank wall wether it is part of a government building or not. EDIT: I'd like to add that the atheist group in question might be missing the point as well. The problem here is not really the engraving of the national motto and the Pledge of Allegiance in a government building. It is probably meant to inspire nationalistic feelings rather than propagate theistic views. I think the actual problem is that the motto and the Pledge *do* propagate theistic views. (Not that that would be an easy problem to solve.)

I don't think the point of this lawsuit is clear to all people reading this thread. This isn't about a bunch of atheists who are mad at seeing the word 'God'; the problem is that the word 'God' would be on a government building. No one would sue a church even if it had the words 'In God we trust' written all over it a thousand times. But by putting it on a government building the government endorses one belief system over all others. So it's not about offended sensibilities. The fact that it is the national motto also does not make the phrase immune to criticism. In fact it makes it worse because that in itself is an endorsement of one religion by the government, and it does actually imply that anyone who does not 'trust in God' is un-American, or less American than those who do. Phrases like 'Freedom of religion, not from religion' also imply that atheists shouldn't be treated the same as religious people. And finally, concerning 'atheist propaganda': is the absence of the word 'God' really atheist propaganda? Or is it just a blank wall?

It would be 'fair' if the opinions of the bigoted majority were simply disregarded. Sometimes the rights of the minority have to be protected. That's fair. A compromise will just make both sides unhappy and accomplish nothing. If a fat kid (anti-gay marriage) and a skinny kid (pro-gay marriage) are fighting over a cake (marriage), and the fat kid wants the entire cake while the skinny kid wants an equal share, would you say it is a fair compromise to give the skinny kid a few crumbs and let the fat kid have the rest? Would it be fair to give the fat kid the opportunity to bully the skinny kid into giving up his share? No, the fat kid is being greedy and irrational, this is where the parents step in and give each kid their equal share. Then the fat kid starts whining about 'activist parents' who don't respect the majority's will... (It's not even that accurate of an analogy come to think of it, because if gay marriage becomes legal, there is now an extra cake just for the skinny kid and the fat kid can have the entire original cake, just like he wanted. He just seems so opposed to the idea of the skinny kid having a cake as well...)

I am not pretending Hitler was a Christian, I simply think that the proof is inconclusive either way. However nazism did have a Christian following, and Hitler's ideas did not originate from an explicitly atheistic line of thought. On the persecution of Christian churches: We had already established that Hitler wasn't fond of organised religion, and you don't have to be an atheist to persecute certain Christians. Perhaps the churches were persecuted for preaching the 'wrong kind' of Christianity (that clashed with the nazis' view of what Christianity should be), but this is speculation on my part. I just want to make it clear that their persecution of churches is no evidence of them being atheists and does not preclude them from having been Christians. From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism#Religion Regardless of Hitler's personal beliefs, this was the nazi party's stance on religion. It is not at all inconcievable for a Christian church that went against the nazi's to be branded "slaves" and "false". So the persecution of churches is not out of line with the public image that the nazi's portrayed.

Which may just be because they disliked organised religion rather than Christianity as a whole. Also, yes, I do find it unlikely for a political party that markets itself to the public as Christian to gain much support from atheists. It is possible that those who were in the party from the beginning were atheists but I haven't really seen any proof on that either way. Actually I thought the Christian opposition to the theory of evolution came primarily from the Christian fundamentalist movement, which is even today a largely American and protestant movement. Germany is historically catholic, if I'm not mistaken (Someone correct me if I'm wrong on any of these). If someone has any sources though on what the common German man of the 1930s and '40s thought of evolution (or if they knew about it at all) we could probably settle this matter. But as far as I can tell from the sources provided in the first post Hitler did not base his ideas on the theory of evolution. Even if he had, he had some really warped view on the theory of evolution. He could have also had an extremely warped view on Christianity that inspired him to do what he did, or maybe just a warped view on humanity. Whatever he thought, it was wrong, but that doesn't say anything about where and what he got it from. And as I said they're not even mutually exclusive; It is possible to be a Christian and believe in eugenics. Does one 'side' have to be more evil than the other? In the end they were all nazis.

And if people were tricked by this, and were under the impression that the nazis were a Christian party, do you think the atheists among the people would have joined? No, by defining their party as a Christian party the nazis ensured mainly Christian followers, regardless of wether or not they were Christians themselves. I did not claim to be perfect, I merely claimed that others aren't perfect either. 'Only the strong survive' is a misrepresentation of 'survival of the fittest' and if you're trying to link nazism and atheism through this, you should know that Darwinism and atheism aren't synonymous at all. Furthermore it was clear from the first post in this thread that Hitler's idea of a master race was not influenced by Darwinism.

Not at all (as I explained earlier). I have no qualms admitting that there were atheistic nazis (although it seems unlikely, because as we can see nazi Germany was drenched in Christian symbolism). It's just that some people cannot admit that there were Christians amongst a group of people generally considered to have been the most evil people on Earth. Which, I repeat, says nothing about Christianity as a whole, except perhaps that being a Christian does not automatically make you perfect.