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Catholic League president Bill Donohue reacts to the way British atheists are handling Pope Benedict XVI's trip to their homeland:
The pope cited Hitler today, asking everyone to "reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century." Immediately, the British Humanist Association got its back up, accusing the pope of "a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God."
The pope did not go far enough. Radical atheists like the British Humanist Association should apologize for Hitler. But they should not stop there. They also need to issue an apology for the 67 million innocent men, women and children murdered under Stalin, and the 77 million innocent Chinese killed by Mao. Hitler, Stalin and Mao were all driven by a radical atheism, a militant and fundamentally dogmatic brand of secular extremism. It was this anti-religious impulse that allowed them to become mass murderers. By contrast, a grand total of 1,394 were killed during the 250 years of the Inquisition, most all of whom were murdered by secular authorities.
Why should atheists today apologize for the crimes of others? At one level, it makes no sense: apologies should only be given by the guilty. But on the other hand, since the fanatically anti-Catholic secularists in Britain, and elsewhere, demand that the pope—who is entirely innocent of any misconduct—apologize for the sins of others, let the atheists take some of their own medicine and start apologizing for all the crimes committed in their name. It might prove alembic.
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First of all, the catholic church apparently has some selective memory here, not that it really matters to the argument, just that it shows they like to... lie and manipulate events if it suits their purposes, to hell with whomever it hurts. Moving around pedo priests anyone?
Hitler was in fact Catholic. And the catholic church will do well to remember that it did not, at any time during the extermination of the jews, speak out against Hitler. It was only when they knew Hitler was going to be defeated that they got off of the fence and denounced his actions. How very noble! Surely Christ would have advised that the church "ride it out and see who comes on top while innocent people were killed." Maybe the Roman Catholic church forgot that Jesus was a jew.
Mao and Stalin were in fact atheist. History shows this. But it matters little, as I'll explain.
I don't think it's too far of a leap to look at a catholic and understand that he/she is not responsible for the other actions of catholics. Persecuting Mary from Seattle for actions performed by John in Texas would be foolhardy. Likewise, blaming any atheist for the actions of another atheist is silly as well.
However, acts of organizations are different. They are not typically controlled exclusively by one person, but rather, in the case of religion, a series of dogmatic rules. If the organization performs an act that injures someone, the organization is in fact responsible and should be held accountable. An example of this would be an employee suing the organization for sexual harassment.
It's in this regard that the pope should apologize on behalf of the catholic church for sitting on the fence and not doing the right thing by fighting Hitler and the murder of millions of innocent people. He is not accountable for the actions of the church at that time, but he is the leader now. He would in fact be apologizing for the church's cowardly, dishonourable actions.
But where does that leave us on the Stalin and Mao front? Atheism isn't an organization, we don't have a headquarters, we don't have services and we don't have an "atheist pope" who tells us what we should and shouldn't believe. Atheists can be logical, crazy, good, evil, silly, stern, good, evil, cruel or kind.
In fact, you cannot tell anything about someone's morality or personality based on what they don't believe. For example, I have John and Sally. John doesn't believe in a God, neither does Sally. Which one is the mass murderer and which one gives flowers to seniors?
What this article does is try to equate atheism with a system of beliefs because by bringing atheism "down" to that level, they can fight. They can say "hey, you did bad things too" as if that mitigates the bad actions their church as done. Furthermore, if atheism is a belief system, Catholics can simply disregard it. When in fact, it's a logical position. They hate logical positions from my experience.
And to the author of the article, a serious question. Let's say a large meteor hits the earth in the near future, killing 1.5 billion people. Will you ask atheists for an apology? Because, obviously, the meteor didn't believe in a God.
Here is Richard Dawkin's thoughts on the matter. He once again eloquently strips away the nonsense of the pope's statements and treats them with the vitriol they richly deserve.
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