Atheists are NOT NAZIS, Your Holiness

If you haven't heard, Pope Benedict mentioned in a speech to Queen Elizabeth that he felt the Church was threatened by "secular extremists" and thought that atheists are no better than Nazis.

(we'll just get this out of the way now: what was Benedict's summer job, again? Oh right, the Hitler Youth... And what faith were most Nazis, including Hitler? Roman Catholic... And what did the Catholic Church do during Hitler's reign? Oh yeah, pray for its success...)

Now look, I might as well say what's been on my mind for some time: GODWIN'S LAW IS OVERRATED. It's well intended, but the fact is that if you've been out in the real world you know that there are a lot of people out there who think that everyone who isn't the same nationality, skin colour, religion, or sexual orientation as themselves should be wiped out. That's not an exaggeration or "liberal bias", it's the truth -- ever heard of the Aryan Brotherhood (or anything coming out of Ann Coulter's mouth)? Heck, if you've seen my video or blog on the Qu'ran burning campaign started in the United States, you'd know that there's some disturbing parallels to the Third Reich becoming more and more common in American conservatives.

Anyway, to directly address The Pope's point... There are definitely extremists in every belief system -- and for all intents and purposes, that includes Atheism -- but to say that every Atheist is an extremist is utterly untrue and disingenuous (great, another clergyman who can't follow Jesus' teachings to save his life...). In my experience, most Atheists just want organized religion to butt out of the government, and to leave them alone personally.

If anyone in any belief system deserves to be compared the Nazis, it's the fanatics (and possibly the fundamentalists) that appear in nearly EVERY religion (the most obvious evidence of that are groups like Al Qaeda and the Westboro Baptist Church). Then again, acknowledging that would need The Pope to acknowledge that Mother Church is fallible (which goes against ecumenical policy), and it would arguably require saying that The Pope's most devoted followers could be a problem. So yeah, I'm not holding my breath.

Look, is it really too much to ask that the leader of the largest religion in the world, actually try to teach his followers to be PEACEFUL instead of thinking everyone's out to get them? With an attitude like that, it's only going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

More Vatican B.S.

So the latest lines of bullshit to come from The Pope's people, are that his main critics are pro-choice liberals and gays (WTF?) and that the accusations that Pope Benedict repeatedly covered-up pedophile priests are no more than gossip.

Ugh, where's Kanye when you NEED him?

Does the Church honestly think that it's above the law? What's the matter with them?? And why are they playing from the same pathetic gamebook as the neo-cons in North America??

This is just humiliating.

Criticizing the Pope is Anti-Semitism?

What the hell??

It seems like every time I turn around, some jerk is using "Anti-Semitic" to label valid criticism, that has nothing to due with Jews -- either as a whole, or at all. The latest example, is Pope Benedict's personal preacher, comparing criticism of the Catholic Church's sheltering for pedophile priests, to the persecution of Jews by the Nazis.

(by the way, I am aware of the irony here, given not only the Church's total non-involvement during The Holocaust, but Benedict having been in the Hitler Youth -- but that's beside the point)

It's disgusting enough, that the clergy is trying to defend what is basically the harbouring of criminals -- and some of the worst kind there is, I might add. But to deflect their critics in this way is not only appalling, but it's embarrassing -- what the hell does this even REMOTELY have to do with Antisemitism? This attitude is totally inexcusable, and illustrates perfectly that the clergy doesn't care as much about their flock as they claim to.

Incidentally, before anyone accuses me of Catholic bashing, please take a moment to actually read the news, and find out that there are a lot of Catholics who basically agree with me on this -- so much so, that they are no longer comfortable attending church, over it. They recognize, that this farce has nothing to do with Christianity.