Now THAT'S Interesting...

[patentdragon]

Whenever the question of the relationship between religion and evil comes up, the Hallelujah Chorus are always quick to write off atheism by referring to the same "Frightful Four" - Hitler, Stalin, Mao-Tze Tung (excuse the spelling) and Pol Pot - four of the most evil individuals of the 20th Century, who "just happen to be atheists too".

According to one of these Sunday Morning religious shows, whilst discussing Tony Blair's feeble excuse that he can defuse any criticism concerning Iraq by invoking the name of the christian deity, there is a passage in Hitler's "Mein Kampf" that states that he believed he was doing the work of God...

So he wasn't an atheist after all, and we can therefore remove his name from the atheist "Frightful Four" - which leaves Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. They may have been atheists, but they were also - I'm led to believe - fundamentalist Marxists. Which facet of their "spiritual life" was most likely to influence their genocidal policies, I wonder...?

And if Blair is working according to God's wishes, then maybe Phillip Pullman is right, and God is senile.

And to anyone offended by the last sentence, all I can say is go and actually read the "His Dark Materials" trilogy - you may learn something, such as what the books are actually about.

Comments

Blair & God

[(Anonymous)]

Patentdragon's right. As for the "Frightful Four" and their adherents, they shared precisely the same problem as the world's great monotheism's - Christianity, Islam and Judaism - They all treated A BOOK , as inviolable truth to be followed to the letter. It doesn't matter whether it's The Bible, The Koran, The Torah, Mein Kampf or Das Kapital. They're all just books, written by men, and NOT the word of any God.

Re: Blair & God

[patentdragon.livejournal.com]

As always, fundamentalism is the problem, not the farmer and his wife in a shack, huddled round their holy book praying for rain or a good harvest, or the mother in hospital praying for her baby to be delivered from potentially terminal illness.

Thanks for the comment!

a list of the worst 10 rehimes of the 20thC

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.lonympics.co.uk/Worstregimesofthe20thcentury.htm above is a list of the worst 10 regimes of the 20thC

Re: a list of the worst 10 rehimes of the 20thC

[patentdragon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. Not being a student of history, there was quite a lot of information there that I didn't know before, and it certain seems to be a tendancy for monarchies to be responsible for the deaths of millions.

In the context of religious connections, it might be worth remembering that monarchies often have a pretty major religious basis, and that the ruler is thought of as gaining their position through "the grace of god". This, in turn, pretty much allows the monarch to do whatever he/she wants in the name of their god...