“It’s quite simple, Greg Laden referred to a photo and claimed it showed Ratzinger giving the Nazi salute”

!=

“something that looks exactly like the Nazi salute but is actually a Christian blessing thingie ”

“in fact its been shown the man in the photo could not be Ratzinger. ”

I don’t think it has been shown that it is not Ratzinger, but I’m perfectly willing to believe that it isn’t him. As I’ve said a dozen times, I appreciate any information clarifying the nature of this photo as well as the photos that I did not post even though it seems that some people see them up there in the OP anyway, and having all that information in the comments is sufficient. If you really want me to re-write the post to your specifications, Jimmy boy, buy out Scienceblogs.com, change the editorial policy, give me a HUGE raise so I don’t quit with the new policies, edit the post the way you want it, and run it buy me but ignore my comments.

“Mr Laden still won’t admit that is the case and simply retract his earlier statement, instead he keeps dodging around it”

Nope, not dodging around it. Just not accepting the dogmatic screaming that a) this is not a particular person or b) that The Rat was or was not of a particular philosophy as a youth or that c) I must follow the Jimmy Rules of blog editorial polizeez!!!

“we’re supposed to be the intellectually honest and evidence minded ones.”

We? I think you can guess where I think you should put your “we.” Look at yourself, what you are saying. You are being as dogmatic as anyone else on this thread, and doing it in a way that covers for the Pope’s ‘sin’ of obviating the responsibilities that his church has … in FACT … in the holocaust. That places YOU, Jimmy, in a very special position. Not a comfortable position at that.

“Just say you were wrong about both of the pictures and move on.”

You mean by deleting the part where I was wrong (because I more or less copied what someone else had written with the photos) and changing it to something that as far as I can tell is correct? (Which is what I did) Or by deleting what as far as I can tell is correct and replacing it with what you, Jimmy The Roolz, demand that I am to believe in order to pass your personal litmus test? You are not a skeptic, Jimmy, you are a dick. Your intentions are good, but your approach is totally fucked. You spend three or four paragraphs dressing down an ally for saying something ambiguous instead of dogmatic, and then finally mention that yes, the pope is all wrong about what he has said. I am not impressed. Anyone who reads the first half of your post and stops there would see an argument for accommodationism. I’m not into that. You blew it. You should rewrite your comment so it does not help the other side in this manner.

I mentioned earlier the people I’ve known who were in the HJ. (I was senselessly berated for that as a “there’s a Nazi in my bathroom” comment, which was an utterly stupid thing to say for whomever said that.) Those individuals, whom I’ve known in recent decades, are not Nazis today yet they were part of a major Nazi organization as kids. It is hard to say that they were not Nazis, but they certainly are not today. Yes, we can define a “Nazi” as a card carrying member of the party and do so very narrowly. If so, the I was never a communist either, even though as a 14 year old I joined the closest thing to a communist organization that existed in the US and read all the commie literature and went to all the meetings and knew all the words to “the tree that stands beside the water” and everything. I was a Communist but by the Jimmy Definition for membership in a party, I was not.

The people I know who were HJ have renounced their links to the Nazis. The Pope has stood in on behalf of Catholics of the time and blamed the holocaust on atheists. This places him in a very ambiguous position. Since we KNOW that Hitler was a Catholic as were many other prominent Nazis, and that many top Catholic church leaders supported the Nazi’s, does this mean that the Pope is a step or two away from denying the Holocaust itself, or Nazi involvement? Or perhaps, and this is more plausible, blaming Satin mixed with a lack of faith (atheism) and thus washing the hands of both any particular political party (read “Nazis) AND the Catholics of the time?

I’m not going along with the strong assertion that the Pope was not a Nazi (in the same way I was a Communist, not going by some stupid-ass thoughtless narrow definition) for the simple reasons of his known history at the time TOGETHER WITH his current apologism for key aspects of the holocaust.

The world is not the simple place you wish it was, Jimmy, and you are not the guy on top of it able and authorized to tell the rest of us what to think, write, or edit.

Don’t be an idiot. He was a Nazi. Whether or not we have a picture of him giving the salute is utterly irrelevant.

Well allow this idiot to ask, where’s your proof that Ratzinger was actually a member of the Nazi party?

Giving the salute does not make him a Nazi. Being conscripted into the Hitler Youth does not make him a Nazi (unless you think that Hans Scholl was also a Nazi simply becauase of his Hitler Youth membership). Serving in the Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe does not make him a Nazi. Unless of course you’re one of those people who misuses the term Nazi.

So, if you have something other than supposition, assumption or personal bias do please go ahead and show it. Failing that you could just throw out an insult, pretend I’m missing the point and ignore what I was actually saying. Oh look… All that is left now is for someone to accuse me of being an apologist for him or the Nazis.

It’s quite simple, Greg Laden referred to a photo and claimed it showed Ratzinger giving the Nazi salute, with no good reason to do so other than some nutter had photoshopped the photo with Ratzingers name and an arrow pointing to someone, as far as I can tell. Despite protestations to the contrary it has been shown the man in the photo is clearly not Ratzinger, in fact its been shown the man in the photo could not be Ratzinger. Mr Laden still won’t admit that is the case and simply retract his earlier statement, instead he keeps dodging around it and half heartedly implying that the person in the picture could indeed still be Ratzinger, yet we’re supposed to be the intellectually honest and evidence minded ones.

Yes, I am well aware that this isn’t even the main point of the post, whether or not Ratzinger was a Nazi is irrelevant to his odious attempts to blame the Holocaust on atheists when his own religion and its adherents were knee deep in it – he’s attempting breathtakingly repugnant historical revisionism and needs to be vilified and ridiculed for it – but doing so by lying or getting caught by obvious fakes allows Ratzinger and his followers to wriggle off the hook. His defenders can say “Look, they lied about this / got it wrong” and people won’t remember that we showed the Pope was a cock, they’ll remember we got a picture wrong and attach that to everything else we say.

Just say you were wrong about both of the pictures and move on.

And stop maintaining links to silly photos, especially given the nature of the website in question. You only give ammunition to the fatuous faithists and creationists.

You wrote “But then, it turns out that he WAS giving a real lie Nazi salute in a different picture. Here” “Here” is: http://www.remnantofgod.org/ratzingersalute.htm

This is a fundy xtian site, which on its home page claims, among other things, “”Since September 4 Christchurch in New Zealand is being pounded by earthquakes, one after the other they are coming and some are fairly medium sized earthquakes. Those tremors, aftershocks or earthquakes are now approaching almost 700 earthquakes in just 13 days. That is either the biggest earthquake swarm we have heard off or something else is brewing beneath New Zealand.” -Prophetically speaking, earthquakes always mean God is near in coming or near in speaking. Did not the mountain shake when the Lord spoke His Law from Mt Sinai? And did not Christ declare earthquakes would increase right before He returns? This “new fault line” in New Zealand is obviously moving into a strategic position for when God’s wrath is released on those that deny His Son. How long will it be? No clue.. we cannot know the day or the hour. But we can know the season”. This is your source?

Further down the home page, you will discover that “President Obama removed the reference to the “Creator” from the Declaration of Independence when he quoted a portion at a meeting of the Congressional Hispanic Congress. Obama said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But the the actual quotation is: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” -You can deny Him all you like Mr Obama. That won’t stop His return. I only pray that you are ready to meet the God that created even you. By the way, this is one more bit of evidence that Obama is a Muslim that denies the Creator God of the Christian. Prophecy did say the USA would start off Christian and end up anti-Christian. So be it! Maranatha! Sep 19 10, 02:09:55″. This also proves that your President is a Muslim, apparently. You want to be quoted as using this as a source?

Just cut the link, and stop pretending the papal pedophile protector was a senior Nazi when he was less than ten years old. It does not reflect well.

There is a very fine line between saying that others can speak for you and not speaking at all. Arm wave all you like about child abuse by priests, you are letting the Atheist accusation stand.

Thank you for the additional potentially valid information about the photographs. You are mistaken if you think that I am ‘continuously maintaining’ anything.

I am not an apologist for that stinking institution, but the truth is important, and you are in danger of using the same deception tactics that you rightly condemn when they are used by fundamental god botherers and Creationist loons.

First, the picture at the top of this post is crudely cropped to give the impression that the man Joseph Alois Ratzinger was giving a Nazi salute. Posters aineolach(no 1), «bønez_brigade»(no 7) and rpsms(no 8) have all noted this. At the very least you should have put up the complete photograph, and the date it was taken, which is either at the Ratzinger brothers’ ordination(29th June 1951) or their first mass(8th July 1951). The Nazi Party(NSDAP) was nearly six years extinct by that time, which obviously ruins the association you wanted with the headline. This is the sort of crude deception you love to call out.

The second picture, featuring Joseph Goebbels(Reich Minister of Propaganda)on the far right, Wilhelm Frick (then Reich Minister of the Interior), Franz Rudolf Bornewasser((Bishop of Trier) and Lugwig Sebastian(Bishop of Speyer). The man in the SA uniform in the centre remains unidentified, but is probably Josef Bürckel, the Saarland Gauleiter. The photograph can be found here: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=paul_23_4

It was taken in the Saarbrucken town hall between January 13th, 1935(Plebicite) and March 7, 1936(Remilitarisation of the Rhineland), at a ceremony to celebrate the return of the Saar region to Germany from French control.

So will you continue to maintain that an 8 or 9-year old boy is giving the Hitler salute, next to two of the most powerful members of the Nazi Party?

Curious, I am.

I was trying to say that I wasn’t particularly ill behaved as a child, I just believed really horrible things. Though admittedly, I did go downhill as a teen.

Actually, I was pretty much an uptight little prig who toed the line back then, so, yeah, I’d probably be better off if people did judge me for what I was as a child or a teen. On the other hand, my life has gotten *much* more interesting since I lost most of my virtue. There’s always a tradeoff, ya know. 🙂

re MacTurk @34:

I think I see your point. As far as I can tell, though, not even the most scrupulous regard for the truth will stop the Catholic apologists from screaming “lies!”