Thank God for Catholic hate preachers

And thank the Lord for making it so that atheists are more likely to be psychopaths. Oh, and for making believers less clever.

In the blogster's opinion, only a psychopath would set up the world in this manner. But more on that later, let's talk Catholic hate preachers first.

The honorable Bishop of Fulda, Germany, gave an Easter speech in which he claimed that people without Christian faith are a great security risk to the world around them. German atheists, hiding under the banner of humanism, took offense, only quoting the actual speech after voicing "sharp criticism" of it.

The Bishop's speech says "people without Easter live under this brutal maxim: Whatever you have not achieved before you die is lost forever; whatever you have chased but not reached by the hour of your demise will remain forever out of reach".

The German Humanist Society (the atheists) calls this hate speech towards atheists and ignores the  inclusionary effect of "people without Easter". 

Are atheists the only people without Easter? Of course not, but what about non-Christians who might be "with Easter". Where might one find such people? The blogster performed a field experiment and visited bars over the Easter weekend, minus Good Friday, because many bars don't bother to open since it is illegal to play music on that day, and few people will show up at a place that does not drown out the most intimate and the most inane conversations with loud music.

The experiment was inconclusive. The blogster did not hear a single whispered "he is with Easter, you know" or a thigh slapping roaring "ha, she's with Easter".

External signs, such as Easter egg decorations on people's front door, need to be met with distrust, too. Just as many friends of the blogster adhere to other faiths and, at the same time, "are with Christmas", you can never be sure what the decoration says about the decorators faith.

But a security risk, that's risible. The security risk supposedly posed by those "without Easter" pales in comparison to the Christian Easter tradition: aren't almost all hand grenades shaped like Easter eggs?

The only way the blogster managed to wrap its* tiny atheist mind around the Bishop's speech was by accepting the study mentioned at the beginning.

Believers are not that bright, Bishop or no bishop. It is good to have Catholic hate preachers around to keep atheists on their toes.

The blogster feels sad that it had to make such an awful statement.

Don't credit the blogster with empathy or any moral feelings over this, it is merely one of those callous, calculated things us anti-social security threats will say while we are busy chasing something that will remain forever out of reach when we die.

[Update 4/8/2016] German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, a descendant of refugees, added another bit to the Christian discussion when he said: A firmly anchored Christian, for example, will be less afraid of "too many foreigners", Muslim migrants, than someone who hat no firm ethical footing.
[Our translation of Ein fest verankerter Christ beispielsweise werde weniger Angst vor "Überfremdung" durch Muslime haben, "als jemand der keine ethische Verankerung hat".]
We couldn't ask the minister, but he can not have meant non-Christians and/or atheists. Surely, no experienced politician and public servant would cast aside the German value of tolerance of other world views.

[Update 4/10/2016] So, German Zeit Online runs a Sunday article originally published in Christ & Welt (Christ and the World) on the honorable Bishop's Easter speech. On the Zeit main page (aka index page), the article is presented "Bishop Algermissen - A Catholic Hate Preacher", once you click the link, though, it becomes more as you would expect from the name of the original publication. As a "he said, she said" piece, the article is largely forgettable, except for two parts. The first one of these clarifies that the spoken word as delivered to the congregation was even harsher than the draft, with a nice reference to the Brussels terror attacks.
The second one reminds us that even many Catholics don't really believe in the resurrection. God will eventually decide.

Should the bishop apologize to the non-Christians? The blogster thinks "better not, although he could go to confession right afterwards". So, maybe a quote from a Snap Judgement podcast out of Oakland, California, by Zahra of #goodmuslimsbadmuslims captures the dilemma best: "Religion is like a fart - it smells slightly different to everybody".

* Gender neutral!