Pope-a-dope alert. The discriminating reader will skip this post.
Ratzo is a brilliant, cultivated man, who in later life, like some kind of hippie, has changed his name from the harsh "Ratzinger" to the more mellifluous "Benedict," a reminder of catholic culture and fine liqueur.
I was ready to lay this down, but there’s an echo of "So, he was a Nazi… heck, everybody was in those days" floating around the room like a dog-fart that won’t go away. Somebody let the divine rottweiler our for some air please. Actually, not everybody was a Nazi in Bavaria. For sure the Jews and gypsies had a hard time joining the party, and homosexuals and communists were socially disadvantaged. But even regular old lederhosen and hassenpfeffer dudes could stand aside if they chose to follow their conscience:
There were boys in Traunstein and in the surrounding area who managed
to avoid being in the Hitler Youth. Rupert Berger is the same age as
Ratzinger and was ordained as a priest in the same class and seminary
as Ratzinger in 1951. Berger’s father was sent to a concentration camp
for a month because of his anti-Nazi activities; his son refused to
join the youth organization.
[Berger said] "There were teachers who exerted pressure and also other teachers
who were against the Hitler Youth. My father said, ‘I give you the
freedom to choose.’ …The majority went. That does not make all of them Nazis … I wouldn’t
say that Ratzinger made a choice. He rather slipped into the Hitler
Youth thing."
My argument isn’t with Ratzo, nor even especially with catholicism. Rather, the whole cultural morass of deism is what gives me trouble. I was ferreting around for references to "epistemology" and I came across this thread o’ links…
Epistemology
Certitude - reminding me of Doc’s none too flattering classification of yours truly as a "certidude" a few years ago when the Iraq war had just begun.
Truth - this link is where things got thorny for me, because for some people "truth" seems to be founded in something called "god."
Every existing thing is true, in that it is the expression of an idea which exists in the mind of God, and is, as it were, the exemplar according to which the thing has been created or fashioned.
Rather than starting with Thomas Aquinas, a man who lacked the experience of the 17th century and times since, these people ought to seriously consider starting with Bertrand Russell. And perhaps if Ratzinger had been willing to subordinate his own reason to ethical considerations in the thirties and forties, he would have been a better man for it.
yes, yes, I’m making leaps here… this is a blog posting during break time for goodness sakes…
