Good thing, too.
+1. Still laughing.
Or they physically attack you. Or you have to step between a Catholic friend and a guy with a knife because knife-boy’s psycho preacher has been spreading blood libel about Catholics. (It’s not just atheists who aren’t “Christian” enough in some places.)
Does that happen everywhere, all the time? No, of course not. But letting them make nasty claims about you without rebuttal plants the seeds of belief, and keeping quiet–“going along to get along”–gives them room to grow. It’s easier to believe something nasty about some faceless “other” than someone you’ve seen and heard, and once you believe it, it’s harder to get it out. There are plenty of people ready to use that kind of belief to justify their bullying, or to manipulate others for their own gain.
Oh, and Otto? 
Bah! I’m having none of that. If they ever want me to convert to Catholicism, they’ll have to fork over on the miracle front.
Depends on what you mena by ‘advocate’. If that means marching in the streets and burning the Pope in effigy, you are probably right. But if asked, I would think a very large percentage of atheists would say they want religion removed from public life.
From one of tagos’s links:
“In this hour I would ask of the Lord God only this: that, as in the past, so in the years to come He would give His blessing to our work and our action, to our judgement and our resolution, that He will safeguard us from all false pride and from all cowardly servility, that He may grant us to find the straight path which His Providence has ordained for the German people, and that He may ever give us the courage to do the right, never to falter, never to yield before any violence, before any danger… I am convinced that men who are created by God should live in accordance with the will of the Almighty… If Providence had not guided us I could often never have found these dizzy paths… Thus it is that we National Socialists, too, have in the depths of our hearts our faith. We cannot do otherwise: no man can fashion world-history or the history of peoples unless upon his purpose and his powers there rests the blessings of this Providence.”
(Hitler in a 1937 speech).
Even though it’s pretty obvious that Hitler wanted to be the #1 deity in Germany, there’s still a ton of religious blather in his speeches and in Mein Kampf - he wanted to be seen as an instrument of God doing the Lord’s bidding, and to be worshipped even more for that role. Not extremely different than a lot of other politicians, and certainly not the behavior of an atheist.
The Pope’s Godwin remarks are inane and betray historical ignorance.
I’m sure it was a volutanry service, however. It’s usually an ecumenical one, and usually only a part of the student body attends - either those who are still religious, or who want to score points with the teachers (though I doubt the later will work).
As the British dopers already said, while due to the Konkordat between the Vatican and the German state, the RCC and also the official Protestant Church (Lutheran and Reformed) have some special laws - Catholic charity orgs, can forbid to employ divorced women, which would be discrimination in a normal business; the state collects the 8% church tax from your payroll along with income tax; the churches have a say in the appointment of professors to the theology dept.s of Universities - in practical life Germany is much more secular than the US. Our politicans don’t pray in public, or talk about what church they belong to, being divorced and re-married is no hindrance to a political career, nobody knows or cares at work what religion you are etc.
And freedom of and from religion is in our constitution, too. Years ago an atheist father went to court to demand that the crucifixes hanging on the classroom walls in his daughers school in Bavaria (which is strongly and traditional catholic) were disturbing images of torture and be removed. It went all the way to High court and then the court said “Public schools are secular, so if anybody complains the crucifixes / crosses have to go.”. (It’s still not easy being the only one demanding the cross to be removed).
Well, the konkordat was made between the Nazi state and the Vatican, and kept on afterwards. I don’t know specifically about school services, but until the 80s, it was customary, that is, traditional, to start at least primary school with a general prayer or a church song. This goes back to the last century, when the “Volksschulen” (People’s schools, that is, for the normal mass of people, as opposed to the elite paying for private and better schools) had a very strong emphasis on religion class along reading, writing, arithmetic, because of the belief that if you pressured young kids with hellfire for disobeying their elders, parents and the god-given regime, then they would grow up to be nice, well-behaved citizens and not social democratic revolutionaries demanding rights or so.
A little popery goes a long way.
I’m gonna need to see a cite for that.
Maybe constanze is confusing it with de Valera’s condolences to Germany after Hitler died? (constanze – Ireland’s neutrallity had less to do with sympathy for Nazism and more to protect their own sovereignty and independence from Britain. They had only achieved independence in what, 1921?)
Maybe some IRA extremists, but that’s about it.
Would you lie and say you WEREN’T a Christian, for the “greater good?”
As for how often you’re “accosted”, it depends on where you live, I guess. To give a non-Christian example, if you live in Clearwater, Florida, I’ll bet you have to put up with a lot of shit from the Scientologists.
Fortunately, I haven’t been bothered much (other than finding pamphlets on our porch back when there used to be a Jehovah Witnesses center up the street), but some of my friends live in areas that are fundy-central.
Besides, what if you’re not the “right” type of Christian? Most of the time, the ones who go around trying to convert people usually ask, “Are you saved?” “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?” Telling them I’m Catholic* probably wouldn’t deter them. “Yes, but are you SAVED???”
(You should have been here before Wildest Bill was banned)
*Although nowadays I’m more of just a vague theist, with some traces of Catholicism. 
It needs citing? I thought it was well known. Admiral Canaris’ biography mentions it several times. Now, not the whole country, but certainly several elements of it were interested.
Constanze said Ireland, which I take to mean the Irish state at the time. Certain elements indeed did want to, but that’s not quite the same thing. I have a recording of a song from 1940 called “Hitler Will Be King Of Europe In The Morning” that was written by/for Irish Republicans in Northern Ireland.
Ah. I’d have to go find my copy for more details, and the last time I read it… Four years ago. It’d take some finding. Anyone got it around?
I don’t doubt they had contact with elements within Ireland who supported the Nazis against the UK. “England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity” was an Irish Republican slogan from the time of the Great War and many within the IRA wanted to use WWII in a similar way, and prior to WWII there was also of course the Blue Shirts. The clearest analogy I can think of is that although elements such as Mosley’s British Union of Fascists supported the Nazis, it would be inaccurate to say that Britain or the UK as a whole supported the Nazis.
Here’s one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGBHfXPqbgI 
Here’s another thing. BBC TV just showed some guy formally welcoming or thanking the Pope, something along those lines. At the end of his little speech, he told the Pope: “May God bless you.” Now, isn’t that a given? Wouldn’t God always bless the Pope anyway? Is there some danger that God would cast the Pope into Hell if no one expressed a desire to see him blessed? And if so, wouldn’t he know about that ahead of time anyway and so avoid having him named as Pope, appointing a more desirable character instead?
“Bystander curses Pope, Pope vanishes in a mysterious sheet of flame. In response the Council of Cardinals blames insufficient blessings, and liberals. Full story coming up after this.”
Would this guy be classed as an antipope?