Well done Pope Benedict

Looks like Pope Benedict has called BS what it is.  One of the lamest modern narratives, vigorously endorsed by so many modern atheists, is that religion is the primary cause of evil in history, that most evil can be traced to religion, and that atheists never, ever do bad things in the name of atheism (which some insist doesn't even really exist as a thing - but we'll laugh at that some other time).  That Bill Maher can use this in his regular bilge is one thing.  I expect someone like Maher to say that if atheists did something bad in the name of secularism, it must be because they treated their secularism like religion.  That's Bill Maher.  It's also the bedrock of any bigotry.  Since Black men are obviously always violent, so the rationale went, the absence of evidence had no bearing on his obvious guilt.  It is a time honored way of maintaining prejudice in the face of ugly realities; realities such as the deplorable track record of post-Christian and secular philosophies over the last hundred years or so.

So it's nice to see the Pope step up to the plate and call it what it is.  I would have liked him to comment on the fact that the acceptance of this in our esteemed institutions of higher learning teaches us 1) that bigotry is alive and well and endorsed by the best and brilliant in our society today, and 2) it may just go to show that all that racism, sexism, bigotry and discrimination of old wasn't always at the hands of ignorant religious yokels, but may well have been advocated in the halls of academia then, just as it is today.