Vienna from our kitchen window today.
It’s a glorious day in Vienna today. I went for a ride along the Donaukanal and on the Donauinsel and it was just fabulous.
It is getting cold and I saw some Schanigarten being packed up. Winter is almost upon us.
I have lot’s to tell you about including my new software and our trip to Lapland.
I Imagine you just can’t wait.
And incidentally - while he was poncing about in Britain while the faithful bowed and scraped before him the Pope trotted out the old chestnut about Hitler being an atheist.
It takes a grand amount of Chutzpah to sling off at Atheists when you are presiding over one of the most grotesquely corrupt organizations on the planet - but you could never accuse any Pope of being of the real world.
Anyone who runs a vast organization built on the premise that we are all watched over by an invisible man who lives in the sky is not interested in either facts or history.
As has been catalogued by many historians on many occasions Hitler was in fact a Catholic and avowed this on a number of separate occasions during his rather unfortunate and messy time at the helm of the third Reich. Indeed the country was Catholic.
Hitler did not kill anybody because he was an atheist. He killed a large number of people because he was completely unhinged and had a number of serious personal issues.
To respond I can do no better than append an e-mail I received today from the Australian Foundation of Association - which as you can imagine is one of my very favorite organizations.
‘Atheists are both amused and astounded by recent attempts to confuse and scare society about the prevalence of atheism. The Pope’s pathetic attempt last week to align Nazism and Atheism is devoid of sense or accuracy, and is possibly the lowest example of public fear-mongering on the issue in recent times. Coming from the head of the Catholic Church, it truly exposes the unfortunate situation of an institution confronted by science, social progress and increasing human intelligence.
David Nicholls, president of the Atheist Foundation of Australia said, “Really, we wouldn’t expect anything less from a religion based on untruth and myth. Our ability to think critically and rationally about the world affords us great confidence and strength in our convictions.”
If all the commonly accepted history books are accurate then Nazism was closely associated with the acceptance of a higher god. Hitler wrote * “I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord…”
In fact, the anti-Semitism of the pre-war church fostered the conditions in which the great inhumanity that was to follow could flourish. It is very important to note the serious and tangible effect that extreme religious ideals can have on humans. We have seen this destructiveness in numerous historical events over history including the Crusades.
“Of course religions are going to attempt to cause fear and hysteria about atheists. We celebrate reason and rationality – concepts that are far removed from religion. Modern science has the capacity to explain away the fabrications of the mainstream religions and the conflicting evidence within the pages of their sacred texts, while history outlines the hypocrisy and atrocities nurtured by these dated sets of ideals” David Nicholls said.
ABS statistics show a marked decline in the percentage of citizens who are Christian and the rise of those who identify as having ‘no religion’ in the past few decades.
*[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3]
