Ales

If holocaust denial is a crime, why Church atrocities denial isn't?

Toto

Holocaust denial is not a crime in the US. It is a crime in Europe for political reasons, because the Holocaust deniers are presumably recruiting neo-Nazis. Those who deny church atrocities are just in error about history.

-RRH-

So would denying church atrocities be more unfavourable if people were trying to stop church recruiting?

Oddly enough, the people most adamant about exposing what the catholic church has done are recruiting for the fundies.

Orpheous99

The main difference is that those in the Church don't see their crimes as being evil and wrong. It's all good when you do it in god's name.

Ales

Holocaust denial is a crime in several states, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Israel. It is interesting that in catholic Poland (abortion prohibited) the law additionally bans "denial" of Communist crimes. I found also: Ernst Zundel is the prime practitioner of Holocaust denial in Canada In the early 1980's he gave Canada the dubious distinction of being the principal source for Holocaust denial In 1985, in Toronto, Zundel was charged under Section 181 of the Criminal Code which makes it a crime to disseminate false information, known to be false by the disseminator, and likely to cause injury or mischief to the public interest.

If in these countries laws against holocaust denial are based on a general moral principle like “the attempt to justify an evil deed has perhaps more pernicious consequences than the evil deed itself. The justification of a past crime is the planting and cultivation of future crimes. Indeed, the repetition of a crime is sometimes part of a device of justification; we do it again and again to convince ourselves and others that it is a common thing and not an enormity“(Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), I don’t see why not to use this moral principle in the case of church atrocities denial in these countries. Actually I see many similarities in witch-hunting and Jews- hunting. There are also cases of publishers, who were prosecuted because they published Mein Kampf without a critical commentary, but I don’t know about any such prosecution of a publisher who published Malleus Maleficarum without a critical commentary (and there are such editions).
Although this post is not about whether laws against holocaust denial are moral, I found it strange that US laws which are so anxious about not to expose a child to a (soft) pornography, the negative effect of which has never been proved, condone the possibility of him being exposed to a book promoting fascism.

Ales

It is interesting that in Europe the contemporary Protestantism is by many considered to be more tolerable than Catholicism. It is really surprising that American Protestantism appears to be even more pernicious than Catholicism in some respects. I hope you will not offend, but I am really afraid of a country which has nuclear arms and in which apparently over 100 000 000 people believe that the Earth is younger than 10 000 years, I don’t know what would happen if there were majority of such people in the USA and they decided to exstirpate nonbelievers.

Ales

Adolf Eichmann didn't see his crimes as being evil and wrong either. I heared that the famous documents of John Paul II. about the excuse of few of Church atrocities are not called "The mistakes of the Church in the past" but "The mistakes of the past and the Church" so that it is not an excuse anyway.

sullster

Dear Ales,
Your vision of the USA being run by apocalyptic fundies with nuclear weapons is a nightmare I have had and I live here. Yet, I assure you that it is a nightmare and has little chance of coming about.

The fundies are not representative of all American Protestantism. They are the best known because of their mania for proselytizing and that they have become very political in recent decades. There are many Protestant denominations which do not like the fundies and are quite rooted in being peaceful and sometimes even politically liberal. Most of the traditional Protestant dnominations do not encourage the anti-science attitudes of the fundies, and are in fact representative of the more intellectual classes. These denominations are not thriving but they are still there and most of their members would not want to incinerate anyone in other parts of the world.

Ales, please do not worry that any nuclear weapons with christian crosses on them are coming your way. If the USA ever became a fundamentalist theocracy, I would gladly join any military groups fighting to the death against such a regime, and I know I am not alone feeling this way.

Amos

Let's hope you are right but is it not true that "Desert Storm" was armed with nuclear weapons to be used if needed?

Is it also not true that that war was declared minutes after Billy Graham and Bush had prayed about it?

If, terrorism is an act of retalliation, are not two fundamentailist groups at war now?

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

sullster

Amos! Amos! Calm down. You are suffering from an extreme attack of theological paranoia and should take a cold shower. If you think for a second that the reason the USA fought Desert Storm was because it was doing the will of the fundamentalists, you should really get out more.

There was not one atom of fundamentalism as a motivation for attacking during Desert Storm. It was OIL, petroleum, black gold, texas tea, or maybe fossil fuel. It was all about protecting the Saudi Oil fields.

Come on, Amos, I expect more from you than a simplistic analysis of a world event that includes drivel about Bush and Billy Graham praying. Bush is a old Yankee Episcopalian who, if it wasn't for politics, wouldn't come within 20 miles of a low-class fundy like Graham.

You say I don't understand catholocism, and you are right, but you don't understand America at all. The god of America is the Dollar Bill and the religion is money. I have no problem with this. The USA spouts religion all the time but it is all on the surface, deep down we are all stashing cash. That oil supply over in Arabia is ours! It is our oil and we are going to defend it, because we need that oil. Simple and straight forward.