1.26.7
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Hitler Was A Christian, Part 5 Of 6
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/209954.htm
Adolf Hitler's Positive Christianity
Most people view Hitler as the epitome of evil; he himself, however, certainly didn't view his actions as evil or as being motivated by evil. No one does - most people think that they are doing what is right and/or necessary. Hitler, for example, thought that his actions were consistent with the needs of the German people and the dictates of Christianity.
Doug Krieger writes:
Hitler, like today’s champions of Americana, knew that the “believing masses” had been beaten down; had suffered their World War (Viet Nam), had their beloved Germany (America) battered about with moral decline and “radical secularism” that caused the “moral fiber” of the nation to collapse—something had (has) to be done—someone with guts and glory had (has) to arise to capture the imagination of the nation to arise from its depravity and crimes, from its vulnerability (be it from “them socialists” or “terrorists”), from its self-inflicted and debilitating social ills . . . someone is needed to alter our self-perceptions! The problem was created by the Devil himself—The Cabaret Society of the Weimar Republic (They never represented true Germany!). “We’d been maligned by every creeping thing imaginable upon our streets: Socialists, Communists, radical Unionists, Jews, Secularists, Liberal Theologians, Homosexuals, Raunchy Entertainment, ad nausea—and this upon our wretched economic woes and that ‘Paper from Hell’ (i.e., the Versailles Treaty).”
And:
Hitler’s speeches and proclamations, even more clearly, reveal his faith and feelings toward a Christianized Germany. Nazism presents an embarrassment to Christianity and demonstrates the danger of blending “faith with politics.” Do you find it “spiritually disconcerting” to discover the depth of Hitler’s hermeneutic? How about his exegesis of Matthew 3:7, 12:34 and John 2:15? Hitler’s depiction of Jesus as the FIGHTER, not as the sufferer, is a distortion of the Scriptural intent of this reading; however, without knowing the full contextual nature of the Word, one could (as Hitler did) surmise a MILITANT JESUS is in view, and not a suffering Jesus.
Many Christians today rail against the "feminization" of Christianity and argue for a more masculine, muscular Christianity that can help America maintain it's place of dominance in the world. Conservative Christians in America are no Nazis, but neither were most conservative Christians in 1920s and 1930s Germany. They did, however, come out to support the Nazis because this political party promoted a religious, political, and national vision which people found appealing.
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http://atheism.about.com/od/adolfhitlernazigermany/p/NaziChristian.htm
Adolf Hitler & Christian Nationalism: Nazis Program of Positive Christianity
From Austin Cline,Your Guide to Agnosticism / Atheism.FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!
Adolf Hitler & Christian Nationalism: A popular image of the Nazis is that they were fundamentally anti-Christian while devout Christians were anti-Nazi. The truth is that German Christians supported the Nazis because they believed that Adolf Hitler was a gift to the German people from God. German Christianity was a divinely sanctioned religious movement which combined Christian doctrine and German character in a unique and desirable manner: True Christianity was German and True German-ness was Christian.
What was Positive Christianity?: The NSDAP Party Program stated in part: “We demand freedom for all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or conflict with the customs and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the standpoint of a positive Christianity, without owing itself to a particular confession....” Positive Christianity adhered to basic orthodox doctrines and asserted that Christianity must make a practical, positive difference in people’s lives.
Christian anti-Semitism: Anti-Semitism was an important aspect of the Nazi state, but the Nazis didn’t invent it; instead, they drew upon centuries of Christian anti-Semitism and extensive anti-Semitic theology in Germany’s Christian community. The Nazis believed that Jewishness was more than just a religion, a position which was supported by religious leaders who supplied the Nazis with baptismal and marriage records to help identify converted Jews.
zSB(3,3)
Christian anti-Communism: Anti-communism was probably more fundamental to the Nazi ideology than anti-Semitism. Many Germans were frightened of communism and saw Hitler as their Christian salvation. The communist threat appeared very real because communists had taken over Russia at the end of World War I and briefly took control in Bavaria. The Nazi party was also intensely anti-socialist, in the sense that traditional socialism was derided as atheistic and Jewish.
Christian anti-Modernism: Key to understanding Nazism’s popularity with Christians is the Nazi condemnation of everything modern. Germany after World War I was regarded as a godless, secular, materialistic republic which betrayed all of Germany’s traditional values and religious beliefs. Christians saw the social fabric of their community unravelling and the Nazis promised to restore order by attacking godlessness, homosexuality, abortion, liberalism, prostitution, pornography, obscenity, and so forth.
Protestant Christianity & Nazism: It is widely recognized that Protestants were more attracted to Nazism than Catholics. This wasn’t true everywhere in Germany, but we can’t ignore the fact that Protestants, not Catholics, produced a movement (German Christians) dedicated to blending Nazi ideology and Christian doctrine. Protestant women were especially attracted to Nazism because of its cultural conservatism and promotion of traditional female social roles. Nazism was non-denominational, but Protestants favored it.
Catholic Christianity & Nazism: Early on, many Catholic leaders criticized Nazism; after 1933, criticism turned to support and praise. Commonalities between Nazism and Catholics were anti-communism, anti-atheism, and anti-secularism. Catholic churches helped identify Jews for extermination. After the war, Catholic leaders helped former Nazis back into power (Nazis were better than socialists). The legacy of Catholicism from Nazi Germany is cooperation, not resistance; not a defense of principle but a defense of social power.
Christian Resistance to Nazism: Too often, Christian “resistance” was to efforts to exert greater control over church activities. Christian churches were willing to tolerate widespread violence against Jews, military rearmament, invasions of foreign nations, banning labor unions, imprisonment of political dissenters, detention of people who had committed no crimes, sterilization of the handicapped, etc. This includes the Confessing Church. Why? Hitler was seen as someone restoring traditional values and morality to Germany.
Christianity in Private, Christianity in Public: Did Hitler and the Nazis only appeal to Christianity as a political ploy and emphasize Christianity in public without intending to promote Christianity in reality? There is no evidence that Hitler and top Nazis only endorsed Christianity for public consumption. Private remarks on religion and Christianity were the same as public remarks, indicating that they believed what they said and intended to act as they claimed. The few Nazis who endorsed paganism did so publicly, without official support.
Adolf Hitler, Nazism, and the Problem of Christian Nationalism: Traditional evaluation of Christian complicity in the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes focuses on the degree to which Christians allowed themselves to be used for Nazi purposes, but this presupposes a distinction between Nazis and Christians which didn’t exist. Christians actively supported the Nazi agenda. Most Nazis were devout Christians and believed that Nazi philosophy was animated by Christian doctrine.
Christians today find it implausible that their religion could have anything in common with Nazism, but they need to recognize that Christianity — including their own — is always conditioned by the culture around it. For Germans at the beginning of the 20th century, Christianity was often profoundly anti-Semitic and nationalistic. This was the same ground which the Nazis found so fertile for their own ideology — it would have been amazing had the two systems not found much in common and been unable to work together.
Nazi Christians didn’t abandon basic Christian doctrines, like the divinity of Jesus. Their oddest religious belief was a denial of the Jewishness of Jesus, but even today there are German Christians who object when Jesus’ Jewishness is focused upon. Nazi Christians didn’t follow an idiosyncratic version of Christianity nor was it “infected” with hate and nationalism. Everything about Nazi Christianity already existed in German Christianity before the Nazis came on the scene.
The actions of Hitler and the Nazis were as “Christian” as those of people during the Crusades or the Inquisition. Some leading Nazis preferred a neo-pagan theistic religion over Christianity, but this was never officially endorsed by the Nazi Party or by Adolf Hitler. Christians may not like seeing Nazism as having anything to do with Christianity, but Germany saw itself as a fundamentally Christian nation and millions of Christians in Germany enthusiastically endorsed Hitler and the Nazi Party, in part because they saw both as embodiments of German and Christian ideals.
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The American Religious Right
http://www.webpan.com/dsinclair/rright.html
The American Religious Righttaking you from information to understanding
"what used to be called liberal is now called radical;what used to be called radical is now called insane;and what used to be called reactionary is now called moderate.. or compasionate; and what used to be called insane is now solid conservative thinking.Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor of The Nation
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it people will eventually come to believe it."
-- Joseph Goebbels
Christian political extremists in the US (which I shall henceforth refer to as "the Religious Right") are only a small minority of the population, but they are well-organized and wield political power far beyond their numbers. They have their own tv stations and they run the Republican party, yet they claim to be victims of "religious persecution". They skillfully manipulate public opinion through letter writing campaigns, to make their extremist views look mainstream. They lie, but they lie so loud and so consistently and so pervasively that many people think they are speaking the truth. When they make up a new untruth, they inject it into their own media machine, at which time it becomes repeated over and over on far-right radio stations across the country, then picked up by the conservative punditocracy on the cable news channels, then by the "liberal" mass media as a whole. Sometimes, the lie ends up being proclaimed as truth on the floor of congress. It is the strategy of the big lie: repeat a deliberate untruth as often as you can, and eventually, it will become a fact in the public consciousness. One of the biggest lies of the right, the one lie that serves all others, is the endlessly repeated assertion that the conservative mass media are liberal. In response to that charge, the mass media go to great lengths to include far-right viewpoints in their coverage, making the Garry Falwells and the Jerry Bauers regular guests on their political shows, while truly liberal viewpoints are always absent. When was the last time you saw Gore Vidal as a guest commentator on The Capital Gang? Or Noan Chomsky?
Christian political extremists have many different organizations, but only one agenda. That agenda is to establish a christian fundamentalist theocracy in the United States. But you will not hear Gary Bauer or Pat Robertson admit to that on CNN. When they are on national television, Religious Right leaders exercise moderation and restraint. They pledge their "love" for the people they hate (=everyone who doesn't share their views), and their deep concern for this nation, and, invariably, "our" children (as if liberals did not have children). They monopolize the word "family", acting as if only extreme-right, fundamentalist christians can be good parents. They have the impudence to claim that they represent "Judeo-Christian" values, but they do not even represent mainstream christianity. They claim the exclusive monopoly on morality - their own very special brand of "morality". They glorify the "golden 50's", a time when the US were supposedly a "moral" nation.
But the truth is that the 1950s were a deeply immoral time. Institutionalized racism, discrimination of women and gays, rampant abuse of wiretapping powers by the FBI and witchhunts against political dissidents were only some of the hallmarks of that "moral" time. Those social ills were finally adressed in the 1960s. But for those who define morality not by "justice and equality for all", but by what is going on in our bedrooms, the 60's mark the begining of the "moral decay" of our nation. According to Pat Robertson, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, inflation, the oil crisis, Watergate, the Iran hostage crisis, the attempted Reagan assassination, the national debt, drug use and the high divorce rates are directly related to the 60's decisions of the Supreme Court to end religious coercion in public schools. source
These are the kinds message they have hammered into the minds of the people for two decades, and it is working. An increasing segment of the population is buying into the "moral decay" lie and supports legislation and constitutional amendments that would forever take away the civil liberties that we take for granted. Never mind that many of the social problems that fuel such sentiments, such as youth violence and crime, are exacerbated or even created by right-wing obstructionist policies, designed by Religious Right leaders and their political minions to make sure their own predictions of gloom and doom come true. First block any meaningful reform in the legislatures, than blame the resulting problems on "lack of moral values". The Religious Right's campaign against public education is just one example of that destructive, cynical strategy. In implementing that strategy, christian extremists know no shame. They aggressively blamed liberal values (= lack of values) for the Columbine massacre, as if Littleton, CO wasn't an affluent, conservative community with a disproportionately high number of evangelical christians! It happened right in James Dobson's back yard, but they have the impudence to blame liberals for it.
Religious Right leaders make no secret of their utter contempt for the constitution and the freedoms it represents. When Phyllis Schlafly makes her hysterical pleas for "no more Clinton judges", what else is she but saying that the US constitution (which gives the president the right to appoint judges) has no meaning to her? What else is Pat Robertson but an enemy of the constitution when he calls for the impeachment of every judge who disagree with his agenda? What could be more unconstitutional than Gary Bauer's presidential campaign promise to permit state facilities to post the ten commandments?
Exposing these people as enemies of constitutional freedoms is easier than taking candy from a baby, but the "liberal" mass media - which are many things, but certainly not liberal - usually shy away from the task. These "liberal" media never expose the hypocrisy of the Religious Right, and the highly selective reading of religious scripture that is behind most of its ideologies. Not that that would be hard - ever wondered why Jerry Falwell is not wearing a beard (Lev. 19[27])? Ever wondered why Pat Robertson is not giving away his millions to the poor (Matt 19 [23-24])?
Many other Religious-Right myths just beg to be challenged: Premarital sex is against christian values? Not according to the bible, which condems adultery, but not sex between two people who are both unmarried (see the responses page for a dissenting viewpoint, and this for an excellent rebuttal. ) Abortion is murder? Not according to Exodus 21 [22], which considers killing a fetus only a minor misdemeanor (reference). Homosexuality condemned by "millenia of moral teaching"? Pure fiction. The ancient Greek and Roman civilizations considered homosexuality perfectly normal, so normal that in fact they did not even have a word for it. Many native societies considered it normal and acceptable as well. And even in the Christian world, there was never a universal agreement that homosexuality was wrong. In the words of Ken Collins:
Some modern Christian teachers allege that the church has officially considered homosexuality to be morally wrong, but that long dogmatic tradition doesn't extend much farther back than the 1960s, and even then only in certain sects. For example, the current edition of the United Methodist Book of Discipline has a lot to say about homosexuality, but the topic doesn't even appear in 1965 edition or in any earlier edition of the same book. If this is such an important historic dogma of the Christian Church, we might reasonably ask why it is not listed as such in historical documents. We might ask, 'Why were the seven ecumenical councils silent on this topic?' Historically, there has always been a debate among Christians on this topic, and the categorical judgments against gays are recent, not ancient.
I would add that even if such universal and long-standing condemnation existed, it would be irrelevant, considering the many grave errors in moral judgement that Christians commited throughout the centuries, of which approval and defense of slavery is only one example.
The United States of America: A Christian Nation?
When the US House recently passed the "Defense of the Ten Commandments" amendment to the juvenile justice bill, the supporters of the bill reiterated the christian-right mantra that the USA is a Christian Nation, and that our legal system is founded on the Christian Bible. In a press conference attended by Gary Bauer, Rep. Robert Aderholt (R, Alabama), the sponsor of the amendment, said: "The Ten Commandments represent the very cornerstone of the values this nation was built upon, and the basis of our legal system here in America".
I challenge everyone who subcribes to this belief to tell me where the Ten Commandments speak of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the form of government, free elections, separation of powers, checks and balances, separation of church and state, and virtually everything else that defines our system of government. The fact is that the very first commandment ("I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me") runs contrary to the establishment clause of the Bill of Rights and is nothing but a sectarian claim to religious supremacy. The fact is that the principles of modern democracy were not laid out in the bible, but by political philosophers such as John Locke in the 17th century. The fact is that our legal system is rooted in the common law of ancient Rome, not in the capriciousness of biblical authoritarianism. Ever wondered why good law schools require reading knowledge of latin, not greek or hebrew? That's why. The fact is that societies in the Mediterranean and the Middle East had highly developed legal systems millenia before Christians walked on the face of the earth. As far as moral or secular law is concerned, there is nothing original or unique about the ten commandments. Why not post the holy laws of all the other religions in public spaces as well?
Read this article for an excellent rebuttal of the arguments behind the radical right campaign to impose an ancient Hebrew tribal code on modern society. I also recommend Is America a Christian Nation? by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a short, but excellent article which debunks common Religious Right arguments that supposedly show that the United States were founded as a Christian nation.
"The first four commandments: no other gods, no graven images, not take name in vain, and remember the Sabbath are wholly religious in nature unrelated to any civil or criminal law. That is 40 percent of the commandments. Two other commandments: the fifth commandment to honor thy father and mother, and the tenth commandment not to covet are semi-religious social and psychological norms which would have to be enforced by thought police." (...)
In Mark 10:19 Jesus said, "Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honor thy father and mother." Thus he omitted five of the original Ten Commandments--- most notably those dealing with God and the practice of religion---- and added a new one of his own. Elsewhere, in Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus replied that the greatest commandments were the golden rules rather than any of the Ten Commandments. source
I have created this site to contribute my own small part in the fight against the Religious Right agenda. I don't want to live in a "Christian Iran", and I'm sure most people don't either.
If you have comments or criticism, or you discover factual inaccuracies, feel free to send me an email.
Separation of Church and State and George W. Bush
"(...) Even if "Charitable Choice" is expanded across the board, barriers to the use of federal funds by faith-based groups will remain. Governor Bush believes a concerted effort to identify and remove all such barriers is needed."
source: George W. Bush's Official Website
"The appropriation of funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies, [is] contrary to the article of the Constitution which declares that 'Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment'"
James Madison, February 27, 1811
Religious Right extremists in their own words
As President, I will oppose the political agenda of the organized "gay rights" movement, including same-sex marriage and "special rights" legislation, permit voluntary prayer in public schools, protect religious freedoms and pass federal legislation to permit state facilities to post the Ten Commandments. Gary Bauer on his presidential campaign 2000 website
Gary Bauer apparently was too cheap to keep his domain for another 2 years, because going to Bauer2k.com now redirects you to a celebrity porn site.
"I am sure that only a Christian-controlled country is going to be able to stand up to the impending threat and avert the approaching disaster that our nation is facing." Rev. D. James Kennedy, president of the Center for Reclaiming America
"When I said during my presidential bid that I would only bring Christians and Jews into the government, I hit a firestorm. `What do you mean?' the media challenged me. `You're not going to bring atheists into the government? How dare you maintain that those who believe in the Judeo-Christian values are better qualified to govern America than Hindus and Muslims?' My simple answer is, `Yes, they are.'" Pat Robertson, in his book The New World Order
"Those who practice homosexuality should swiftly be put to death by the government. God emphatically condemns the practice of exchanging proper gender characteristics among men and women. God justly calls for the death-penalty for anyone who practices homosexuality. " Citizens for the Ten Commandments
"The perversion that follows homosexuality is bestiality and then human sacrifice and cannibalism." (Barbara Blewster, a member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints and the Arizona State Legislature)
Recommended Reading
The Right and the Righteous : The Christian Right Confronts the Republican Party
Why the Religious Right Is Wrong About Separation of Church and State
James Dobson's War on America
The Antigay Agenda : Orthodox Vision and the Christian Right
Sex and the Church
The Gay Agenda : Talking Back to the Fundamentalists
Media, Culture, and the Religious Right
Perfect Enemies : The Religious Right, the Gay Movement, and the Politics of the 1990s
Roads to Dominion : Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States
The Godless Constitution : The Case Against Religious Correctness
Change is possible.
Are you trapped in the destructive, unhealthy Christian fundamentalist lifestyle? Think that you don't have a choice? The truth is: christian political extremists can change. You have a choice to walk away from Christian fundamentalism.
It's not about hate. It's about hope.
"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine." George Washington
"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion ..." from the Treaty of Tripoli, signed by John Adams, June 10, 1797.
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State."Thomas Jefferson, in his historic Danbury letter, January 1, 1802
"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?"
James Madison, in "Memorial and Remonstrance", 1785
"The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of church and state." James Madison, March 2, 1819
Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State."The U.S. Supreme Court, 1947
"They have kept us in submission because they have talked about separation of church and state. There is no such thing in the Constitution. It's a lie of the left, and we're not going to take it anymore."
Pat Robertson, adressing the ACLJ, 1993
"A Christian nation. That is the phrase that drives the liberals mad. That is the concept that infuriates them all. It is infuriating because it is true. Primary source documents will simply not allow humanists or atheists to declare with any kind of intellectual integrity that our Founding Fathers were either unreligious or irreligious. "From a July 4, 2001 article on the American Family Association's Website
"The national government ... will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality."
Adolf Hitler
"The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life" (Hitler, Adolf. My New Order . New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941., Proclamation to the German Nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933).
The Consistency of Biblical Morality - you shall not kill?
You shall not kill. Exod. 20 [13] and Deut. 5[17] (the fifth commandment)
Lev. 20 [15]:If a woman approaches any beast and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the beast; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.
Num 31[17]: (...) Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.
Deut 13 [6-9]: "If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, `Let us go and serve other gods,' which neither you nor your fathers have known, (....) but you shall kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
1 Sam 15[2-3]: And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ash'kelon and killed thirty men of the town (..).
Judg. 14[19]: Thus says the LORD of hosts, `I will punish what Am'alek did to Israel in opposing them on the way, when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and smite Am'alek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.'"
Slavery: approved by the Bible
Lev. 25[44]: As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are round about you.
God likes capitalism and hates communism?
Acts.2 [44-45]: And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need.
Religious Tolerance as practiced in the Bible
Deut.7 [1-5]:"When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Gir'gashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Per'izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb'usites, seven nations greater and mightier than yourselves, and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them; then you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them. You shall not make marriages with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons.
For they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Ashe'rim, and burn their graven images with fire.
Two Biblical Commandments that Bible-Believing Christians usually ignore
"You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor shall there come upon you a garment of cloth made of two kinds of stuff." (Lev. 19[19])
"You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard." (Lev. 19[27])
"Abstinence" in the bible
2 Samuel 11[2-5]: It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking upon the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful.
And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, "Is not this Bathshe'ba, the daughter of Eli'am, the wife of Uri'ah the Hittite?" So David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her (...).
And the woman conceived; and she sent and told David, "I am with child."
If you want more information on biblical pornography and the sexual escapades of the holy men whose lifes are supposedly moral examples for the rest of us, read
Jesus and "family values"
Luke 14:26: "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. "
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Hitler – Christian, Atheist, or neither?
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/mischedj/ca_hitler.html
In my wanderings through the Web, I have sometimes come across statements from Christians saying that Adolf Hitler was an atheist, and more often, statements from atheists saying that Hitler was a devout Christian. He seems to be a guy that nobody wants on their team, which I guess is fair enough, given the part that he played in humanity's bloodiest endeavour. However since some of the "Hitler was a Christian" comments have been occasionally directed at me, I thought it would be wise to investigate the matter for myself and see just what I could come up with.
My conclusion is that Hitler, although he was brought up and confirmed as a Catholic, had abandoned Christianity by the time he was in control of Germany. Importantly though, he was not an atheist either. Read on to find out more…
Some Quotes Used to Establish Hitler's Christianity
The Internet is awash with many quotes from Hitler that could be used in support of the idea that he considered himself Christian, or thought he was acting in accord with God's will, or something like that. I have collected a number of such citations myself. But bear in mind that these are mostly public sayings, so you have to be careful about how much you trust them. A good one is this from Mein Kampf:
"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
Another popular one is this, from a speech in 1922:
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter."
The idea of Jesus being greatest as a fighter rather than a sufferer is of course a long way from orthodox Christianity. To quote Kevin Davids, author of an excellent article on Hitler,
"When one looks at the atrocities committed under the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler and compares them to the teacher of universal love, Jesus of Nazareth, one might come to the immediate conclusion that the notion that Hitler was a Christian is absurd".
An example that springs to mind of the contrast between Jesus and Hitler is that Christ said the meek shall inherit the earth. Hitler on the other hand called the Nazis "lords of the earth" because of "the genius and the courage with which they can conquer and defend it" (Mein Kampf, Vol 2, Ch 14).
Regardless of what Hitler published, his actions put himself outside the Church, in a similar manner to the way an outspoken atheist would not really be an atheist if at the same time he regularly attended church, studied the Bible, and prayed the rosary.
Just How Honest Was Hitler Anyway?
It is important to be able to identify the difference between Hitler's public speeches and writing and what he really thought. A devious politician leading a nominally Christian country like 1930s Germany will say lots of Christian-sounding stuff to maintain popularity. Mein Kampf illustrates Hitler's views on propaganda:
"To whom should propaganda be addressed? … It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses… The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. The whole art consists in doing this so skilfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself … its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect… it's soundness is to be measured exclusively by its effective result". (Main Kampf, Vol 1, Ch 6 and Ch 12)
As an example of Hitler's honesty, consider the following from a letter by Hitler to the French fascist Hervé and published in the Nazi Völkischer Beobachter on October 26, 1930 [Heiden, Der Fuehrer, p. 414] :
"I think I can assure you that there is no one in Germany who will not with all his heart approve any honest attempt at an improvement of relations between Germany and France. My own feelings force me to take the same attitude... The German people has the solemn intention of living in peace and friendship with all civilized nations and powers... And I regard the maintenance of peace in Europe as especially desirable and at the same time secured, if France and Germany, on the basis of equal sharing of natural human rights, arrive at a real inner understanding... The young Germany, that is led by me and that finds its expression in the National Socialist Movement, has only the most heartfelt desire for an understanding with other European nations."
This is from the guy who started World War II.
In a similar vein, consider this, from a speech in the Reichstag on 30 Jan. 1939:
"Amongst the accusations which are directed against Germany in the so called democracies is the charge that the National Socialist State is hostile to religion. In answer to that charge I should like to make before the German people the following solemn declaration: 1. No one in Germany has in the past been persecuted because of his religious views, nor will anyone in the future be so persecuted..."
Hmm… would you trust this guy's public announcements?
Quotes Establishing Hitler's Non-Christianity
Hitler may in public have claimed to be doing the will of God, but records of his private conversations show otherwise. Many of these were recorded by his secretary and published in a book called Hitler's Table Talk (Adolf Hitler, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1953). I have lifted the text of these from the soc.religion.christian newsgroup's Hitler FAQ.
Night of 11th-12th July, 1941
"National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... "The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... "Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things." (p 6 & 7)
10th October, 1941, midday
"Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure." (p 43)
14th October, 1941, midday
"The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... "Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... "...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... "Christianity
19th October, 1941, night
"The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity."
21st October, 1941, midday
"Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer.... "The decisive falsification of Jesus'
13th December, 1941, midnight
"Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery....
14th December, 1941, midday
"Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.... "Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics." (p 119 & 120)
9th April, 1942, dinner
"There is something very unhealthy about Christianity." (p 339)
27th February, 1942, midday
"It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie." "Our epoch in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold
Quotes Establishing Hitler's Non-Atheism
"We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out".
"For their interests [the Church's] cannot fail to coincide with ours [the National Socialists] alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of to-day, in our fight against a Bolshevist culture, against atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for a consciousness of a community in our national life".
Both of these quotes are from Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, Oxford University Press, 1942, cited in an Internet article by Doug Krueger.
Another interesting quote from Hitler is found in a book by Albert Speer, Hitler's Minister of Armaments:
"I often feel that we will have to undergo all the trials the devil and hell can devise before we achieve Final Victory....I may be no pious churchgoer, but deep within me I am nevertheless a devout man. That is to say, I believe that he who fights valiantly obeying the laws which a god has established and who never capitulates but instead gathers his forces time after time and always pushes forward—such a man will not be abandoned by the Lawgiver. Rather he will ultimately receive the blessing of Providence. And that blessing has been imparted to all great spirits in history." (Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich : Memoirs. Bonanza Books ; Distributed by Crown Publishers, 1982, cited in an Internet article by Kevin Davids).
These sentiments are obviously neither atheist nor Christian.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I think that Hitler was not an atheist, but he was not a Christian either. While he was materialist and rationalist in a lot of things, he also talked a lot about "Providence", or "Nature", as a sort of mystical force of fate, and he saw himself as somehow destined for victory even when the war was going badly for him, simply because of the purity of his purpose, his strength of will, and his feeling of destiny. I have even read that he believed in reincarnation. To me, some of his quotes and writings make it sound like he worshipped the German national identity; some make it seem like instead of God he worshipped or idealised or divinised Providence / Nature / Fate, with his glorious destiny assured no matter what; and in some ways it seems to me like he worshipped himself.
For a more detailed analysis of Hitler's thinking and his Christianity or otherwise, I strongly recommend Kevin Davids' excellent article on the subject.
Finally, two last points. The first is not very compelling, but I found it interesting. The first time I found Hitler's Mein Kampf on-line was at a White Supremacy hate site whose homepage had a litany of Hitler's anti-Christian quotes.
The second point is that even the Atheism Web highlights the difference between Hitler's public speeches before he came to power, and his attitude after 1935 when he saw Christianity as a threat to Nazi domination.
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http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhitlerchristian.html
Was Hitler a Christian?
From Cecil's Mailbag by the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board
Dear Straight Dope:
In my numerous online debates in various chatrooms, I have learned the following: many Christians seem to think that Adolf Hitler was an atheist (or at least wasn't "Christian"). Of course I and my fellow atheists know better, as Hitler mentions his devotion to Christianity numerous times in his writings. Can you clear this up for me? Was Hitler an "honest to God" Christian, or was he simply using religion as a means of control? --Carl Stieger
SDSTAFF David replies:
The short answer is a definite "maybe" or, more precisely, "probably neither." The looooong answer is somewhat more complicated.
You are right that Hitler did mention Christianity many times in his writings. He paid Christianity a lot of lip service in Mein Kampf, and he claimed to be a Christian. But Hitler's secretary, Martin Bormann, also declared that "National Socialism [Nazism] and Christianity are irreconcilable" and Hitler didn't squawk too much about it. Similarly, Hermann Rauschning, a Hitler associate, said, "One is either a Christian or a German. You can't be both." In addition, Hitler declared Nazism the state religion and the Bible was replaced by Mein Kampf in the schools. You really want confusion? Randy Alley, one of my best WWII history sources, noted that the SS were supposedly forbidden to believe in God--yet the military's belt buckles said "Gott mit uns" ("God is with us")! See photo, below.
German Buckle
First, let's look at what he said that seems to put him on the anti-Christian side:
According to a press release from Catholic League President, William A. Donohue (2/4/99): "Hitler was a neo-pagan terrorist whose conscience was not informed by Christianity, but by pseudo-scientific racist philosophies. Hitler hated the Catholic Church, made plans to kill the Pope, authorized the murder of thousands of priests and nuns, and did everything he could to suppress the influence of the Church. In 1933, Hitler said, 'It is through the peasantry that we shall really be able to destroy Christianity because there is in them a true religion rooted in nature and blood.'" The Catholic League also quoted Hitler, in a 4/23/99 Op-Ed ad in the New York Times, as saying, "Antiquity was better than modern times, because it didn't know Christianity and syphilis." Ouch!
Unfortunately, the press release had no citations attached and the Catholic League did not include any reference to it in the package they sent when I asked about them. The syphilis quote is cited as having come from Hitler's Third Reich: A Documentary History, by Louis Snyder, but they are quoting Patrick Buchanan quoting this book. In other words, they may not have actually checked the source themselves (if they did, why mention Buchanan?). This makes me a bit worried about the validity of both of these (I have not been able to find the book to check on my own). While this doesn't necessarily make them untrue, we have to recognize that there are a lot of bogus Hitler quotes floating around, some allegedly coming directly from Mein Kampf, for example. The problem is that people who have actually read Mein Kampf find that they aren't in there anywhere! I'm not saying these quotes fall into that category, but just a note to be wary of lots of the unsourced "quotes" that are around. (I did my best to check out the various Mein Kampf quotes that I use here, including referencing a friend who actually plowed through the whole thing.)
That said, we can move on to some other relevant info. Jehuda Bauer, Professor of Holocaust Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, describes the real "god" of Hitler and the Nazis in his article, "The Trauma of the Holocaust: Some Historical Perspectives," by saying: ""They wanted to go back to a pagan world, beautiful, naturalistic, where natural hierarchies based on the supremacy of the strong would be established, because strong equaled good, powerful equaled civilized. The world did have a kind of God, the merciless God of nature, the brutal God of races, the oppressive God of hierarchies." In other words, definitely non-Christian.
Historian Paul Johnson wrote that Hitler hated Christianity with a passion, adding that shortly after assuming power in 1933, Hitler told Hermann Rauschnig that he intended "to stamp out Christianity root and branch."
As Hitler grew in power, he made other anti-Christian statements. For example, he was quoted in Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, by Allan Bullock, as saying: "I'll make these damned parsons feel the power of the state in a way they would have never believed possible. For the moment, I am just keeping my eye upon them: if I ever have the slightest suspicion that they are getting dangerous, I will shoot the lot of them. This filthy reptile raises its head whenever there is a sign of weakness in the State, and therefore it must be stamped on. We have no sort of use for a fairy story invented by the Jews."
But in contrast to these quotes, some of Hitler's speeches definitely seem to put him in the Christian camp as a fighter against atheism. For example, he said, on signing the Nazi-Vatican Concordat, April 26, 1933: "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without religious foundation is built on air; consequently all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . ."
An Associated Press article from the Lansing State Journal, February 23, 1933, is headlined, "Hitler Aims Blow at 'Godless' Move," and talks about how Hitler was campaigning against atheist communists and wanted support from Catholic Nazis. One line in the article specifically says, "Hitler, himself, is a Catholic." (You can see the entire article at http://www.infidels.org/library/his torical/unknown/hitler.html .) In addition, in 1941, Hitler told General Gerhart Engel: "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." He never left the church. He was baptized a Roman Catholic as an infant and was a communicant and altar boy in his youth.
In a speech at Koblenz, August 26, 1934, Hitler said: "National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on the ground of a real Christianity . . . For their interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of today, in our fight against a Bolshevist culture, against atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for a consciousness of a community in our national life . . . These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles!"
Related to the above, the "Religion" article in The Oxford Companion to World War II notes that early on in his career, Hitler sponsored something called "practical Christianity," and that "German Christians emerged who claimed to be able to synthesize the best of National Socialism [Nazism] and the best of Christianity. Many Christians seemed to be able to reconcile themselves to at least certain aspects of anti-Semitic legislation. Those who could not . . . often ended up in concentration camps . . . Many anguished Christians serving in the Wehrmacht began to feel a little more comfortable about supporting a war that now included the overthrow of godless communism."
Getting back to quotes, on October 24, 1933, in a speech in Berlin, Hitler said: "We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf: "I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work." In 1938, he quoted those same words in a Reichstag speech.
In a speech delivered April 12, 1922, published in "My New Order," and quoted in Freethought Today (April 1990), Hitler said:
My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.
In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.
Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.
As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice . . .
And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery.
When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited.""
I could probably find more speeches in which Hitler claims himself to be a Christian, but I think the point has been made. He said it. Now, what did it mean?
It seems Hitler, like many modern-day politicians, spoke out of both sides of his mouth. And when he didn't, his lackeys did. It may have been political pandering, just like many of our current politicians who invoke God's name to gain support.
Also, it seems probable that Hitler, being the great manipulator, knew that he couldn't fight the Christian churches and their members right off the bat. So he made statements to put the church at ease and may have patronized religion as a way to prevent having to fight the Christian-based church.
In fact, Anton Gil notes in his book, An Honourable Defeat: A History of German Resistance to Hitler, 1933-1945: "For his part, Hitler naturally wanted to bring the church into line with everything else in his scheme of things. He knew he dare not simply eradicate it: that would not have been possible with such an international organisation, and he would have lost many Christian supporters had he tried to. His principal aim was to unify the German Evangelical Church under a pro-Nazi banner, and to come to an accommodation with the Catholics."
In other words, while he was certainly evil, he also usually knew which wars he could win (at least until 1941) and only fought those. He knew he could beat the Polish, French, and British armies and he allegedly counseled the Japanese against attacking the U.S.; he also requested that they open up a front against Russia. He couldn't beat the church in open warfare--so he took control and then attacked them piecemeal while making statements to put them at ease. Think about it--how many other times did Hitler break his word or ignore a treaty? He said whatever would make things easiest, and then ignored it later.
Author Doug Krueger notes that "so many Germans were religious believers that Hitler, if not religious himself, at least had to pretend to be a believer in order to gain support." He adds, "If the [Christian] message won converts, it would seem that most Nazis were probably [Christians] too. After all, would appeal to divine mandate win more theists or atheists to the cause?" He also points out that "Even if Hitler was not a [Christian], he could still have been a theist. Or a deist" (www.infidels.org/library /modern/doug_krueger/copin.html). Remember that being a non-Christian is not equal to being an atheist.
When all is said and done, Krueger says that anecdotal evidence from those close to him near the end of his life suggests that he was a at least a deist, if not a theist. Krueger concludes: "So here's what evidence we have. There is a certain worldview, Nazism. Its leader, Hitler, professes on many occasions to be religious, and he often states that he's doing the will of god. The majority of his followers are openly religious. There is no evidence anywhere that this leader ever professed to anyone that he is an atheist. He and his followers actively campaign against atheism, even to the point of physical force, and this leader allies himself with religious organizations and churches. This is the evidence. So where does atheism fit in?" As Krueger notes, there seems to be no real evidence that Hitler was an atheist. On the other hand, since one could never be sure when he was speaking his real thoughts and when he was simply riling up the masses, it's difficult to say for certain.
An interesting side note: Two of my sources, both of whom are well-versed in WWII history, said something to the effect that Hitler acted as if he had a messianic complex and perhaps believed himself to essentially be a god or the messiah. As one put it, you could certainly make the argument that he was a firm believer in God, if by "God" you mean "Adolf Hitler."
As for your chat-room experiences, well, my friend and source David Gehrig noted that Hitler still sets the gold standard for "easiest rhetorical cheap shot." He related a comment from Usenet that there is an empirical law: As a Usenet discussion gets longer, the probability that someone in it will compare someone else in it to Hitler asymptotically approaches 1. In other words, atheists looking for a quick cheap-shot may claim Hitler was a Christian; similarly, Christians looking for a quick shot may claim he was an atheist. Know what? Hitler was a vegetarian! Oooh, those evil vegetarians! He also recommended that parents give their children milk to drink instead of beer and started the first anti-smoking campaign. (So by the "reasoning" used in these types of arguments, if you are truly anti-Hitler, you should smoke heavily and only give your baby beer!) Better watch out, though he was an oxygen-breather, too! In other words, does it really matter whether Hitler was an atheist or a Christian or whatever? Just because somebody may hold a particular worldview (along with other views) doesn't make him a spokesman for that view, or even remotely representative of others who hold that view. No matter how his madness is painted, he was still evil incarnate.
I have one more quote to share on this topic. This, again, from David Gehrig: "Let's save the rhetorical comparisons to Hitler and Nazis for those who really deserve them--hate groups who proudly assume the Nazi mantle, and 'Holocaust revisionists' who would fantasize away Hitler's genocidal crimes."
--SDSTAFF DavidStraight Dope Science Advisory Board
Cecil's Mailbag is researched and written by members of the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board, Cecil's online auxiliary. Although the SDSAB does its best, these articles are edited by Ed Zotti, not Cecil, so accuracywise you'd better keep your fingers crossed.………………………………………………………………………………………..…………………………
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