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dimossi
Skeptic Friend
USA
141 Posts |
 Posted - 01/10/2002 : 15:08:29
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On the 11/20/01 episode of "Politically Correct", Rabbi Marvin Hier claimed Hitler was an Atheist. Now I have seen most others claim that he was Catholic. Which is it? I have yet to see any evidence of Hitler's beliefs. Is there some verified information that puts this debate to rest. And if the Rabbi was indeed incorrect in making this statement then if someone knows how he could be contacted I would think it would be our duty to inform him of the facts.
I have included the transcript here for your enjoyment. Also it's interesting to note that of the 4 guests of different faiths on the show, the Christian Bishop ends up to be the biggest jerk.
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Transcript for Thursday, December 20,
2001
Earl Jackson
Marvin Hier
Maher Hathout
Bob Fuller
Bill: Good evening, welcome to "Politically Incorrect." We have a special show for you tonight with four men who are of different faiths, I would say. Let's start over here. Dr. Maher Hathout, thank you for being with us again, you were with us a few weeks ago. You are, of course, the leading spokesman for the American Muslim community and a senior adviser of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Welcome back. Bob Fuller, your book, "Spiritual But Not Religious," probably doesn't go over well with this group of men.
[ Laughter ]
But you are a professor of religious studies at Bradley University. Okay, Bishop Earl Jackson, you've been with us many times, you're the pastor and founder of Exodus Faith Ministries, and it says here, a former U.S. Marine. I think they put that in there just to --
Earl: Just in case.
Bill: He might knock the crap out of me. And Rabbi Marvin Hier, you are the Dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Musuem of Tolerance. Also a two-time Academy Award-winner. A rabbi with two Oscars, for your documentary films. Give a hand to this panel.
[ Applause ]
I found it interesting in your book, Mr. Fuller, that you point out that 62% of Americans do belong to a church or synagogue, a mosque, some religion. Which leaves almost 40%, that's what I did not realize, who have no connection to any organized religion. Which, I think, explains a lot about how I've stayed on the air this long.
[ Laughter ]
I always say my personal savior is common sense. Here's why I think there will always be religious wars. In Exodus, it says, the Jewish God, "I will dwell among the Israelites and I will be their God." Jesus says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but through me." And we know the Koran is pretty hard-assed too.
[ Laughter ]
Okay.
Earl: Well, that's not quite how we describe Jesus saying, "I am the way, the truth and the life." He was simply pointing out that --
Bill: It says, "No one comes to the father but through me."
Earl: But, very simply, because Jesus Christ is the only one who offers the antidote for sin. He is the only one who pays the price for our sins. And so, you can't come to God as a sinner, you have to come to God with sins taken care of. That is, you can't have a relationship with him as a sinner, and Jesus Christ is the only one who takes care of that.
[ Light cheers and applause ]
Maher: Why don't they have a relationship with him as a sinner? Why not? I think this where I go for mercy and forgiveness. If I am a sinner, I go to God and ask him to forgive me.
Earl: I'm corrected. Right, you have a relationship with God, but you cannot have a relationship with God based on sin. A relationship with God --he's holy and righteous --has to be based on righteousness. We have no righteousness of our own --
Bill: Oh, please. Like, it was all fear until I quit.
Earl: Well, listen, maybe you need to talk to your parents about that. But I don't have anything to do with that.
Bill: I had a unique situation, it was just me. Anyone else raised Catholic? [ Applause ]
Please, give me a break. It was all fear. That's all I remember was having the [ bleep ] scared out of me.
[ Laughter ]
Earl: Bill, that was wrong. Let me quote, the scripture says, "Perfect love casts out fear, and God's love is perfect," so you can now begin a new relationship with God without the fear, Bill.
Bill: How loving can it be when you're saying to all the people right here on this panel, "You know what? You guys are just in the dark, and I only have the answer."
Earl: It's true, it's true.
Bill: Okay, well there you have it.
Marvin: Let me say that I don't think that there's any exclusivity in terms of who --only Jesus brings forgiveness or can answer one's sin. The prophet Zachariah said, "Let every nation walk with their God, and we shall walk with ours." That does not suggest exclusivity.
Earl: I've never read that in Zachariah.
Marvin: Yes, there is. It's a specific verse, I'll be happy to --
Bill: Obviously, you should to listen to this man. That sounds like a Jewish guy, Zachariah.
Earl: We need to understand what he means, because you know that the prophets made clear that their was only one God and all others were idols. Are you saying that's not what Zachariah believed?
Marvin: I'm not saying that.
Earl: Well, you're quoting it out of context.
Marvin: What I'm saying, Bishop, is that if their's a God --
Earl: If?
Marvin: Yeah, I say if you believe in a God, when you say God has a son, you're saying he only had one child. There are no limitations on God.
Bill: God was a single parent, that's true.
[ Laughter ]
And he struggled to make ends meet.
Marvin: I didn't expect it to be a debate between Christianity and Judaism just to say, simply put, "God does not need any assistance."
Earl: Doesn't Judaism believe in a Messiah? Doesn't Judaism believe in a Messiah?
Marvin: The messiah that we believe in, Bishop, is a God who can fail mathematics. A guy who gets a lousy mark in science, but he's a messiah because he brought peace to world.
Earl: Come one, Jews are not looking for that kind of Messiah, you know it.
[ Talking over each other ]
Marvin: Bishop, that is exactly the Messiah we're looking for.
Earl: A failure. You're looking for a Messiah who failed.
Marvin: Someone that is not infallible. Only one person is infallible, that's God.
Earl: Well, then, you would qualify on that.
Marvin: There's no club, we can't say that God has included, if he includes to his club of infallibility --one, you can ask him, "Why didn't you take two Gods?" What's the matter with six?
Earl: So we can all be Messiahs. We can all be Messiahs.
Marvin: A Messiah is a mortal human being. Logically.
Earl: That's why the --
Bill: Okay. Bishop, you gotta give these other religions --
Bob: You know, Bishop, you're message isn't gonna hit all Americans, anyway. For one, not all educated Americans are being able to take all revelation as literally as you do. After all, there's the Koran, there's the Fatihas, there's the Lotus Sutra, they can't all have a monopoly on religious truth. And not all of us fear the afterlife. And your message mostly plays when, like with Bill, we first give people the problem of fearing an afterlife. What will you do when persons don't fear the afterlife? Who will show up in your church next week?
Earl: Well, you know, it's interesting --
[ Cheers and applause ]
Bob: Play on our fear first, and then offer the solution. You gave us the problem before you gave us the solution.
Earl: But for someone who is a religious scholar who knows that Jesus Christ came healing the sick, raising the dead, dealing with the problems that people were focusing on in that day at that hour, saying, "I've come that you might have life and have it more abundantly," to say then that Christianity represents fear of the afterlife is, frankly, scriptural ignorance.
Bob: Well, I'm also aware that there's more Bibles than yours.
Earl: There's only one Bible. The other religion's books --
Bill: Excuse me Bishop, but what's ignorant in my view, is believing that something written 2,000 years ago that was edited, that was written for different audiences, that was put together for specific reasons to convince people of something is today, something we should take literally.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Earl: Bill, now, wait a minute. My question is, why do you --I've heard you quote Jesus, "Jesus said this, Jesus said that." If you don't believe any of it, why quote it at all?
Bill: To corner conservatives.
Earl: Well, Jesus Christ --
Bill: Because when they --
Earl: No, you asked what would Jesus do?
Bill: Yes, I ask it all the time because people who should and profess to follow Jesus don't seem to. So I say to them, "What would Jesus do, if that's what you're always saying?" Because I think Jesus Christ is a fantastic role model. I don't think there's a better role model in the world.
Earl: I'm sure he's glad to get your approval.
[ Laughter ]
You know, he's the savior of the world, he's more than a fantastic role model.
Bill: I don't think if there's any God worthy of the name God, he'd really cares about my approval.
Earl: He cares about your love, he wants you to care about his approval. That's where you got it backwards.
Bill: I think Jesus is great, I just don't believe the people who say they work for him. Go ahead.
[ Applause ]
Maher: I have no problem with taking Jesus as a great messenger who shows us the truth, who heals the sick, who remedies the ailments. The problem I have is when you consider him the only begotten son of God and can only go through him because it leaves me and the rabbi out of that.
Earl: You don't have a problem with me, though, you have a problem with --
Maher: I have no problem with anybody. I am happy. I'm just telling you that the contradiction we have, or the contention we have is about considering Jesus the only begotten son of God, he washed our sin with his blood, which would make me a freeloader actually.
Earl: It would make you what?
Maher: Freeloader. Somebody else dies for my sins. I carry my responsibility, I ask God for atonement, I ask him for forgiveness, I'm sure that he's all-forgiving, oft-merciful --
Earl: That's the difference between religion and relationship. Religion says, "I'll do my own thing and God will approve that." Relationship says, "God has provided me a way, that way is Jesus Christ, and I don't question that, I simply submit to that, and I let the power --
Bill: I have to submit to my God, if you will, which is mammon, of course. We'll be right back.
[ Applause ]
Bill: All right. As you know, if you've been following us this week, this is the week, every year, where I give fruit baskets to people who I think deserve them. They're not always the choices that other people would make --
Maher: Looks like plastic.
Bill: It is plastic.
[ Laughter ]
Don't point that out, doctor.
Maher: I wanted to make this point.
Bill: Please. I give this to the Reverend Franklin Graham. We talked about him before, he got into hot water, he is Billy Graham's son, and he said, "We're not attacking Islam, but Islam has attacked us, the God of Islam is not the same God, it's a different God." And then he said, which I think goes too far, he said, "I believe it is a very evil and wicked religion." As I say, I don't think that's true, but I give him credit for pointing out and making me not feel so alone in pointing out that I think that no, we're not in a war against Islam, but there is something in this religion that obviously incites millions and millions of people to justify killing people who are not of this religion. And it is no more tolerant --
Bob: But Bill, he takes us no more step from getting away from tribalism and beyond to a new stage of thought than I think we're getting here tonight.
[ Laughter ]
Feel the kind of cultural insularity and kind of a cultural arrogance --
Bill: I see it as just keeping it real, I got to be honest with you.
Marvin: You know, first, I think we ought to take care of some other business here tonight, and that is that while religion has had its problems, that people speaking the name of religion have committed terrible crimes --so have atheists. People who did not believe in religion caused the death, the murder of 100 million people in the second World War --Stalin and Hitler. And besides Stalin and Hitler, you have Pol Pot, and you have many others. So it is not correct to say that religion --the fact that we're sitting here fairly civilized, and we don't have 2.5 or 3.5 billion people committing suicide is a tribute to the religious values that were instilled by many great prophets. Otherwise, we'd all exit this world, if we listen to the atheists.
Bill: What Reverend Graham was saying is that we don't all equally sit civilized with the idea that we don't agree. That's what he's pointing out about the Islamic religion.
Maher: Bill, do you want me to respond to Graham or to you? Because there is a difference. I think Frank Graham is very misguided in his statement. He doesn't have any concept of our God because if there is God, he's one God. He can't tell me who I am worshiping or not, this is very condescending and, actually, very strange. I know who I am worshiping, I am worshiping the creator, the God almighty, the merciful --
Earl: But it's not the same as the Christian God because you just said you didn't agree with --
Maher: I am believing in the one almighty creator, the beginning before all beginnings, the last thing after all ends.
Earl: But he's completely true. And he can't say two different things that contradict one another. You said, "God can't have a son."
Bill: What do you mean? There's total contradictions in the Bible. In one chapter they say, "God, why has thou forsaken me?" And that's nowhere in the other three, so what's that?
Earl: Bill, with all do respect, you are not the person to talk about contradictions in the Bible.
Bill: Well, I can read.
Earl: If you read the Bible carefully, you will resolve all contradictions.
Bill: Really?
Earl: That text that your talking about, "My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?" From the Christian perspective, that's a messianic text, Jesus quoted that text on the cross.
Bill: Well, why isn't it in the other stories?
Earl: We believe that on the cross, Jesus was forsaken, for the sins of the world were placed on him, and the father turned his back on him. You just need to gain some understanding.
Maher: You mean if I want to believe in this fantastic story of God talking to himself while he was on the cross --
Earl: No, we believe that God is the father, son and holy spirit.
Maher: You believe whatever you like. I am telling you that I am worshiping the one almighty God.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Earl: We are not worshiping the same God. That's right, I can believe whatever I want, but we are not worshiping the same God.
Maher: If it makes you happy, you believe that, you'll be up for a great surprise.
Earl: You know, you talk around that, but here's the point. If you believe God is true, and you're saying God is saying two different things, they can't be the same God. It's that simple.
Maher: I don't know. God is saying one thing, and I believe that you people are saying something else. That doesn't make any sense.
[ Applause ]
But anyway, I don't want to talk bad about any religion. He's one God, we all talk, think different ways. You think your way, don't consider it the only way, and if I don't think the same way, I'm wrong. If you want to believe that I'm wrong, enjoy it, have fun.
[ Cheers and applause ]
That's up to you.
Bill: But the difference, excuse me, is that our nuts aren't attacking buildings. That's the difference.
Maher: Well, you have lots of nuts attack so many things. Come on, Bill. We have abortion clinics, we have, as the rabbi said, people died in wars, you have things done terrible during the Crusades.
Bill: I'm talking about now. That's what I'm worried about.
Bob: Now we have that extension of religion, let me say --
Maher: This has nothing to do with religion. People do very ugly things.
Bill: Oh, come on.
[ Talking over each other ]
To say that terrorism has nothing to do with religion is like saying AIDS had nothing to do with homosexuality.
Marvin: Let me add by saying that it is not correct to say that religion does not have it's fanatics. We have fanatics, for example these suicide bombers and other people like that --Osama Bin Laden or whoever they come or from whatever religion, when they say that they're going to be received by God, none of us have been to the afterlife, we don't know what it looks like. If their is a hell with fire and brimstone, one thing I would venture an opinion, they're getting special, V.I.P. treatment there.
[ Laughter ]
That is clear.
[ Applause ]
Bill: All right, I have to take another commercial, I'm sorry. We'll be right back.
[ Applause ]
Bill: All right, we're back with our religious panel. Let's talk a little bit about conversion, because not only do people of different faiths insist that they have the one true answer, but that the people who don't really need to get it. And the Southern Baptists, I know, the last couple of years have tried to convert the Jews. Which was seen as insulting by the Jews. Now, they have turned their attention, I believe, to the Muslim faith. What do you guys say to that?
Earl: All Christians have an obligation to do that.
Bill: Wait, wait let's hear from the convertees.
Maher: We see people going out, recruiting customers for him. This is condescending. This is religious tribalism.
Bill: But doesn't Islam do that too?
Maher: No, that's not what it's supposed to do. Islam, I'm telling you as a Muslim, I am supposed to spare no opportunity in telling people what Islam is. But I am supposed to go to people and tell them, "Take this food because Jesus loves you," or, "Take this position because it is coming from heaven," or go to poor people and tell them, "If you convert to Islam you'll be rich." That is --I think it is immoral.
Marvin: Well, let me, as the other part of the victim, let me add something here. First of all, in Judaism, we don't seek converts in the sense of having a campaign. If somebody wants to convert, fine. The reason we don't do that is we don't think we have an exclusivity on who gets to "Heaven." People can get to heaven no matter what train they're on, providing they have a life of good deeds.
[ Applause ]
Albert Schweitzer will not be denied a place in heaven because somebody's going to stand there in the door and say, "Dr. Schweitzer, you spent a whole life caring for the poor, but you can't get in here because you didn't say the right thing verbally." We don't believe that. And what we object to people when they come to try to convert us, that thing on Rosh Hashanah, this campaign that was led by some Christian, what they did is they were wearing a talit, which is the Jewish prayer shah, knocking on the door. And people of the Jewish faith, they see somebody with a talit, they thought the rabbi came, a visit from the fuller brush man right at the door. And all of a sudden, they're selling a different religion. Now, we think that that's dishonest, it's not courteous and should be stopped.
Bob: Good marketing.
Bill: Yeah, it is marketing.
Bob: And the one's that succeed have the simplest message, they want you to submit, accept an absolute truth, raise your right hand, and then probably live the life you were going to lead anyway, even without that kind of sacrificial right hand. But maybe you can make $1 million for Jesus or have tupperware parties.
Bill: Even Christianity was marketed at its inception. I mean, they took a lot of the pagan myths that were popular in order to sell to the people this new religion. Christ was hardly the first person to be born around December 25th of a virgin birth, a shepherd. You know, that story was around.
Earl: I can resolve all of this problem, and all of this debate right now. I would like to formally, as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, invite each and every one of you to accept him as your Lord and savior, and be saved and walk with him --
Bill: As they say in comedy, "Tough room." [ Laughter ]
Earl: I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. The request has been made. I stand on it, because one day, we're are going to face him, and without Jesus Christ, we will not gain entrance --
Marvin: I have news for you. I received your invitation, and with the greatest of respect, I turn it down.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Bill: We gotta take a break. We'll be right back.
[ Applause ]
Bill: Okay, we don't have time to discuss it, but I would like to point out that, Bishop, if you were born in Cairo, you would probably be arguing his cause. If you were born where he was, same thing. If you were born where he was --religion is an accident of birth. It can't just be coincidence that all the Muslims end up in Muslim countries and the Christians in Christian countries. Good night, folks. We'll see you soon.
[ Applause ]
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"Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy." [Carl Sagan]
Edited by - dimossi on 01/10/2002 17:16:09
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
 Posted - 01/10/2002 : 15:36:04 [Permalink]
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From the horse's mouth
quote:
My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth, was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.
In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.
Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.
As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.
And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have for their wages only wretchedness and misery.
When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited.
-- Adolf Hitler, in a speech delivered April 12, 1922, and published in My New Order
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it.
Edited by - slater on 01/10/2002 15:37:00 |
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Xev
Skeptic Friend
USA
329 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2002 : 15:58:02 [Permalink]
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Sorry, I can't link to it dirctly, but go to http://www.snopes.com/rumors/ali.htm and scroll down to the bottom, where it says "This sounds to us like a typical case of someone's attributing an anonymous quote to the mouth deemed most likely to have uttered it.
As a footnote, we should point out that the issue of whether or not Hitler was a believing Christian has been long debated. "
And click on the Hitler link, you'll go to a page that should help.
quote:
“I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lords work.”
quote:
“While we destroyed the Centre Party, we have not only brought thousands of priests back into the Church, but to millions of respectable people we have restored their faith in their religion and in their priests. The union of the Evangelical Church in a single Church for the whole Reich, the Concordat with the Catholic Church, these are but milestones on the road which leads to the establishment of a useful relation and a useful co operation between the Reich and the two Confessions.”
( Adolf Hitler, in his New Year Message, January 1, 1934. )
quote:
“This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief.”
( Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York: Mariner Books, 1999, p. 152. )
Hope it helps!
(Pretend this is a witty Latin phrase, okay?) |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2002 : 17:51:41 [Permalink]
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I have to say that this was a very interesting PI. Did anyone else see it? The minority religious representatives sounded so accepting of each others beliefs even the Muslim. But I had to wonder what they would have said if the show was hosted from a country where their religion was the majority.
I was pretty irritated when the Rabbi claimed that atheists were behind most of the killing that's gone on throughout history. The show was missing an atheist representative.
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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Donnie B.
Skeptic Friend
417 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2002 : 18:22:52 [Permalink]
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My favorite exchange:
quote:
Earl: Bill, now, wait a minute. My question is, why do you --I've heard you quote Jesus, "Jesus said this, Jesus said that." If you don't believe any of it, why quote it at all?
Bill: To corner conservatives.
-- Donnie B.
Brian: "No, no! You have to think for yourselves!" Crowd: "Yes! We have to think for ourselves!" |
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