...or spent a lifetime whitewashing its horrific history. Yet, the future doesn't look any brighter.

So what do you expect them to do? The past is the past like it or not. There is nothing I or anyone else can do can do to change that. How about you?

Well, we can change the future which is more important.
I would expect the same thing I expect from any religion.Talk about, educate people about it, inform of all aspects in the religion, don't turn a blind eye to it no matter what. Same thing as child pedophilia in church. Don't pretend like it never happened. That is not gonna erase it.Cross was used long before Christ too by Persians, Carthaginians, and Macedonians. And I think the same thing about it as I think about swastika. It is not the sign that is bad, it's the people that represent it. It is the people that use it for their personal gain, or for that matter even for their country gain. They make it bloody and dirty and not even close to sacred and holly.Same thing as using David's star and justifying killing of children, or saying Allahu Akbar and slaughtering everyone else who is not muslim the way you are.The same way to talk about slaughter of Natives. Maybe that is one of the topic for Thanksgiving.

The worst thing is to ignore it and trying to hide it , like it never happened . But, we do it anyway. Put it in schools and teach the kids, let them know about our dark past, and about sighs we swear by. That way it will happen again.

Still worth considering the original idea of Jesus' love behind the cross, and not ONLY how millions of humans have perverted the original idea into cruel attitudes and actions throughout the centuries.
BTW, the Nazis were atheists. It didn't prevent them from committing apocalyptic cruelty in a blink of an eye (12 years).

Rosetree, not ALL Nazis were atheists. And no one was killed in the name of atheism. Can't say the same of Christianity. One only has to look in the bible to see how many were killed on orders of "God" and in the name of "God".

The Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot excuse doesn't make the grade for none of them killed in the name of atheism.

Anyway, we can't just ignore the history prior to the rise of Nazism: Crusades, Inquisitions, Colonization, Genocide, etc.

The leading ill-minded figures of the Nazi regime were atheists. Their ideology was based on a perverted interpretation of Darwinism. I know from my own parents (born 1928) how people were hindered from going to church. Of course lots of so-called Christians followed the regime and the majority and didn't have any courage to resist. But the Nazis and other examples, you mentioned some, show that atheism doesn't prevent the most cruel developments in any way. I think it's a wrong idea that eliminating religion would make humans more peaceful. I'm with you if it's about fundamentalism, but that's something different.

EDIT: Of course the Nazis or Stalin didn't kill "in the name of atheism". A very weak argument. Why would they use the term "atheism" to "justify" their slaughter. They used their own ideological terms, and their ideologies were atheistic ones.

Can't say I agree with THAT statement. What Nazi ideology do you equate with atheism?

chas

Unfortunately I have to say it like this, since we are on the subject.

All Nazis had to do is to read The Genesis to get their ideology. About the master race, chosen by god, everyone else is "less" than the chosen ones. Unfortunately a lot of people died in WW2 because of that ideology. Even worse is that the same thing is going on right now. They just changed their flags. It's still the same ideology.

Even before The Christ people were killing each other in the name of their gods. Even killing of Jesus was in the name of the religion, assuming we take religious books as a historical fact. From original crusades to today's once they are all religious wars.

And as usually it is always the innocence that pays the ultimate prize.

Their ill-minded ideology of a "master race" which is derived from the Darwinistic "survival of the fittest".
Quote from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_Nazi_Germany
"By 1925, Nazism had embarked on a different path following its reconstitution in 1920 taking a decidedly anti-Catholic-anti-Christian identity."

As I said, my parents report that they and their class mates were stopped from entering churches by officials of the regime; influence of the Christian churches was suppressed.