Allright...I'm tired of this coming up in every thread about atheism and Christianity. I didn't want to derail another thread about it so lets have it out here, shall we? Keep it out of the other thread, please.

Some people, inparticular Athiests love to say that Hitler/Nazis were Christians. Why do they do this? Because if they can convince people that Hitler/nazis were a Christian group they can point the finger at them and say...seee...seee this is what Christianity gets you. You could also argue that Christians say that Hitler/Nazis were athiests/panthiests/occultists...see....see this is what athiests/panthiests/occultists gets you. The reality is that no one wants to own them. OK we all get that.

Now that, that is overwith lets discuss.

Let me start the ball rolling with some of Hitlers quotes. copy pasted from here....http://answers.org/apologetics/hitquote.html

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 the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. (p 49-52)

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' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation.... Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, [see forum posting rules]? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea. (p 63-65)

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.... .... When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease. (p 118 & 119)

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 Uin the next 200 yearse will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold ." (p 278)



He doesn't sound like much of a Christian does he?

I could go out and buy a Police Officer's uniform, badge and gun, put it all on and arrest people, but without the proper deputization of the authorities I am not really a police officer. The same thing goes for people that profess Christianity at sometime in there lives. They may at one point profess, but fall away, they may have been brought up in Church but never believed. The bottom line is that just because someone professes to be anything at some point doesn't automatically make them that thing.

GG

I'll come back with some quotes from other Nazi leaders..later

Who cares? All parties have plenty of atrocities to pile on them.

Perhaps he was a self hating Christian?

Hitler was neither atheist or christian, he was an donkey-cave.

First off, IBTL.

Secondly, I believe that the OP is correct in his view that the Nazis, and by 'Nazis' I am assuming he is speaking about the inner-circle/cabinet members/elite, were not Christians.( I don't even think a lot of self professed Christians today are 'Christians'.) From a lot of reading I have done in Uni and on my own post-grad time, the Nazis were very interested in the occult. Supposedly, they were attempting to channel beings on Aldebaran, the eye in the constellation of Taurus. I know it sounds far fetched, but when you have secret societies like the Free Masons aligning their buildings and lodges with the rising of Sirius A on the winter solstice for some 'unknown', or 'occult' reason, it doesn't seem so crazy that the Nazi elite might have been privy to some arcane knowledge that us pee-ons know nothing about. Ancient Egypt, Ancient Sumeria, Atlantis all that stuff we figure is a joke, these guys took pretty seriously.

For political reasons, I believe they put on a Christian mask in the late 20s early 30s to gather support. Once they were in power, they kept the facade up to keep Ma and Pa Schmidt happy. Once they were out of power, it was quite obvious they weren't Christians. I think the pile of bodies is enough evidence for that.

generalgrog wrote:

I could go out and buy a Police Officer's uniform, badge and gun, put it all on and arrest people, but without the proper deputization of the authorities I am not really a police officer. The same thing goes for people that profess Christianity at sometime in there lives. They may at one point profess, but fall away, they may have been brought up in Church but never believed. The bottom line is that just because someone professes to be anything at some point doesn't automatically make them that thing.

Then what does? Being judged one by other people? GeneralGrog, if a bunch of other Christians got together and said you weren't a proper christian because they didn't think you really believed, would this make them correct? Would you cease to be one?

Regardless of anything else you've said, this one point alone smacks to me of arrogance, in that it proclaims that you and only you are capable of judging what is and is not christianity.

You may say, 'ah but they do not adhere to my church rules of XYZ', but the fact is, there are so many christian splinter groups that absolutely no branch or sect is qualified to pass judgment on what is or isn't truely counted as Christianity. Yet they all believe they do, and that their slightly different interpretation of the holy book is the correct one. The result being that every christian group believes it and it alone is qualified to judge all the other sects as 'unchristian', 'pseudo-christians', 'wannabe-christians', or 'misguided pseudo-wanabe christians'.

Ketara wrote:

generalgrog wrote:

I could go out and buy a Police Officer's uniform, badge and gun, put it all on and arrest people, but without the proper deputization of the authorities I am not really a police officer. The same thing goes for people that profess Christianity at sometime in there lives. They may at one point profess, but fall away, they may have been brought up in Church but never believed. The bottom line is that just because someone professes to be anything at some point doesn't automatically make them that thing.

Then what does? Being judged one by other people? GeneralGrog, if a bunch of other Christians got together and said you weren't a proper christian because they didn't think you really believed, would this make them correct? Would you cease to be one?

Regardless of anything else you've said, this one point alone smacks to me of arrogance, in that it proclaims that you and only you are capable of judging what is and is not christianity.

You may say, 'ah but they do not adhere to my church rules of XYZ', but the fact is, there are so many christian splinter groups that absolutely no branch or sect is qualified to pass judgment on what is or isn't truely counted as Christianity. Yet they all believe they do, and that their slightly different interpretation of the holy book is the correct one. The result being that every christian group believes it and it alone is qualified to judge all the other sects as 'unchristian', 'pseudo-christians', 'wannabe-christians', or 'misguided pseudo-wanabe christians'.

ketara Jesus Christ said that you would know his sheep by their fruit. Fruit being an example of righteousness as expressed in the Bible. People can look at me and my life and determine whether or not I am bearing good fruit, or that I am a righteous man. I take a look at the nazis and see that they did not bear good fruit.

Now one mistake that you need to be careful of not making, is thinking that because different orthodox denominations differ in some minor issues, that we don't agree on the main tenets of Christianity. There are issues that we can agree to disagree on, such as church organization, baptism rights, charismatic issues, etc.. but we cannot disagree on the Main things such as the doctrines of the resurrection of Christ, the virgin birth, the Trinity, etc.
Also please try to stay on topic..as the above paragraph has nothing to with the topic of the thread.

GG

Adolf Hitler is an anagram of Faith Holder, minus an L. That should be good enough proof that all christians are nazis.

I have an old German belt buckle from WWII.
Around the eagle in the center are the words (translated): God With Us

Now why would they do that?

snurl wrote:I have an old German belt buckle from WWII.
Around the eagle in the center are the words (translated): God With Us

Now why would they do that?

Because most of germany at that time was christian of some denomination?

snurl wrote:I have an old German belt buckle from WWII.
Around the eagle in the center are the words (translated): God With Us

Now why would they do that?

Hmm that's a good question. My first question would be Which God or god are they referring to?

edit..I am specifically referring to the nazi leadership here. It may have been similar to what George Harrison did with his "My sweet lord" song. He intentionally left it vague until the end of the song before you find out the lord he is singing about is krishna.

GG

snurl wrote:I have an old German belt buckle from WWII.
Around the eagle in the center are the words (translated): God With Us

Now why would they do that?

Hitler was god to the Nazi's.

On a slightly related note.........

generalgrog wrote:

snurl wrote:I have an old German belt buckle from WWII.
Around the eagle in the center are the words (translated): God With Us

Now why would they do that?

Hmm that's a good question. My first question would be Which God or god are they referring to?

GG

Probably ganesh.

generalgrog wrote:
ketara Jesus Christ said that you would know his sheep by their fruit. Fruit being an example of righteousness as expressed in the Bible. People can look at me and my life and determine whether or not I am bearing good fruit, or that I am a righteous man. I take a look at the nazis and see that they did not bear good fruit.

Bearing good fruit? I'm sorry, quoting a metaphor at me about fruit fails to answer my query. All you've done is proved my point in fact, that you believe you can judge who is and isn't a christian by whether they've done good in your eyes. The whole 'your' is where it gets subjective, and runs into the problem outlined above.

Now one mistake that you need to be careful of not making, is thinking that because different orthodox denominations differ in some minor issues, that we don't agree on the main tenets of Christianity.

I bet you I can find people who reckon they're Christian and don't necessarily follow what you would consider to be the 'central tenets', Westboro Baptists for example. Would you regard the Knights of the Crusades as being real Christians? Burning and killing across the Holy Land? If not, what makes you more right than they were. Christianity and its central tenets have been changed and bent, and broken dozens of times throughout history. What makes your particular sect in the here and now, right where all those others were wrong?

There are issues that we can agree to disagree on, such as church organization, baptism rights, charismatic issues, etc.. but we cannot disagree on the Main things such as the doctrines of the resurrection of Christ, the virgin birth, the Trinity, etc.
Also please try to stay on topic..as the above paragraph has nothing to with the topic of the thread.
GG

So to clarify, YOU have decided that certain things are more important than others, for example, you would recognise as a christian someone who disagreed about baptism right, but not someone who disagreed over the resurrection of Christ? What if they say that they are christians, and the only christians are the ones who think the way they do? What happens then?

This is entirely relevant, because you don't seem to understand that by deciding whether people are christians or not, you are in effect telling them what they can or cannot consider themselves. And the simple fact is, at the end of the day, your opinion is no better than theirs. You say the Nazi's weren't Christians. Sure. I honestly don't know. But saying that they weren't christians because they killed a lot of people in various ways? The Crusades were killing people in the christian name long before Hitler and co came along. Killing people and being a Christian are not the mutually inexclusive terms you make them out to be.

Ketara if you want to talk about "what constitutes a Christian", please start a new thread, or PM me. This thread is about nazis.

GG

generalgrog wrote:Ketara if you want to talk about "what constitutes a Christian", please start a new thread, or PM me. This thread is about nazis.

GG

So I hear them Nazi's were pretty cool guys...

Ketara wrote:
This is entirely relevant, because you don't seem to understand that by deciding whether people are christians or not, you are in effect telling them what they can or cannot consider themselves. And the simple fact is, at the end of the day, your opinion is no better than theirs. You say the Nazi's weren't Christians. Sure. I honestly don't know. But saying that they weren't christians because they killed a lot of people in various ways? The Crusades were killing people in the christian name long before Hitler and co came along. Killing people and being a Christian are not the mutually inexclusive terms you make them out to be.

OK this is on topic. I say they weren't Christians becausethey said they weren't Christians. Did you even read those Hitler quotes? If I claimed to be a muslim I wouldn't talk trash about Islam and put it down and call it an "invention of sick brains"

GG

generalgrog wrote:

Ketara wrote:
This is entirely relevant, because you don't seem to understand that by deciding whether people are christians or not, you are in effect telling them what they can or cannot consider themselves. And the simple fact is, at the end of the day, your opinion is no better than theirs. You say the Nazi's weren't Christians. Sure. I honestly don't know. But saying that they weren't christians because they killed a lot of people in various ways? The Crusades were killing people in the christian name long before Hitler and co came along. Killing people and being a Christian are not the mutually inexclusive terms you make them out to be.

OK this is on topic. I say they weren't Christians becausethey said they weren't Christians. Did you even read those Hitler quotes? If I claimed to be a muslim I wouldn't talk trash about Islam and put it down and call it an "invention of sick brains"

GG

Why not?
I'm atheist but I often quite openly mock atheism and its various levels of contradiction or hypocrisy. I know many people of various faiths who do the same.

generalgrog wrote:

Ketara wrote:
This is entirely relevant, because you don't seem to understand that by deciding whether people are christians or not, you are in effect telling them what they can or cannot consider themselves. And the simple fact is, at the end of the day, your opinion is no better than theirs. You say the Nazi's weren't Christians. Sure. I honestly don't know. But saying that they weren't christians because they killed a lot of people in various ways? The Crusades were killing people in the christian name long before Hitler and co came along. Killing people and being a Christian are not the mutually inexclusive terms you make them out to be.

OK this is on topic. I say they weren't Christians becausethey said they weren't Christians. Did you even read those Hitler quotes? If I claimed to be a muslim I wouldn't talk trash about Islam and put it down and call it an "invention of sick brains"

GG

You quoted Hitler not being a Christian. Okay. Sure.

You do realise though, that if Churchhill said, 'I'm not a Jew', that wouldn't mean I was unable to be a Conservative and a Jew. The Nazi movement was quite big, and just because the guy at the top wasn't a christian cannot be the basis for statements as broad brushed as 'the Nazi's were not Christian'. I reckon a pretty large amount of them would have been, it being Germany and all.

I honestly don't know whether the majority of Nazi's were Christian or not, or what percentage would have to be before your statement became untrue. Thing is, I doubt you do either. Yet you're issuing a blanket generalised statement.

Beyond Hitler, your only other reasoning as to why they are not Christians is your statements on how they're not Christians in your eyes, which my earlier statements have pointed out as a fallacy.

snurl wrote:I have an old German belt buckle from WWII.
Around the eagle in the center are the words (translated): God With Us

Now why would they do that?

That has little to do with a belief in the tenets of Christ, this was a hold over from Imperial Germany. WWI German Belt buckles had this same motto on there as well. Much of the Nazi's appeal was to disaffected WWI Veterans who felt that they had been betrayed by the "juncker class" (land owners, military industrialists, wealthy bankers) of Imperial Germany because of the surrender in November 1918.

This thread does bring up an interesting thought, but the NSDAP was not based in anything remotely Christian. There were sections of Christianity (Seventh Day Adventists, Catholics & Quakers) that were persecuted just as much as the Jews.

The Nazi hierarchy didn't like Christianity at all, but the Christian population of Germany was large enough for them to not overtly make it a crime to be a practicing Christian, that would come out through "education" in HJ schools, the NPEA Bureaucrat school, Juncker Schools and Public education run by the Party. The idea wasn't to completely turn the table over, but to slowly un-Baptize Germany.

So in short, the Nazi's weren't Christians, they were radical Socialists.

Ketara's got it nailed. And GG, feel free to answer any of the other arguments in the thread you're ignoring. I'm genuinely interested to see what you might have to say.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Ketara's got it nailed. And GG, feel free to answer any of the other arguments in the thread you're ignoring. I'm genuinely interested to see what you might have to say.

Uhh...... what?

GG

He said you got nailed. Like you know...

Ketara wrote:

generalgrog wrote:

Ketara wrote:
This is entirely relevant, because you don't seem to understand that by deciding whether people are christians or not, you are in effect telling them what they can or cannot consider themselves. And the simple fact is, at the end of the day, your opinion is no better than theirs. You say the Nazi's weren't Christians. Sure. I honestly don't know. But saying that they weren't christians because they killed a lot of people in various ways? The Crusades were killing people in the christian name long before Hitler and co came along. Killing people and being a Christian are not the mutually inexclusive terms you make them out to be.

OK this is on topic. I say they weren't Christians becausethey said they weren't Christians. Did you even read those Hitler quotes? If I claimed to be a muslim I wouldn't talk trash about Islam and put it down and call it an "invention of sick brains"

GG

You quoted Hitler not being a Christian. Okay. Sure.

You do realise though, that if Churchhill said, 'I'm not a Jew', that wouldn't mean I was unable to be a Conservative and a Jew. The Nazi movement was quite big, and just because the guy at the top wasn't a christian cannot be the basis for statements as broad brushed as 'the Nazi's were not Christian'. I reckon a pretty large amount of them would have been, it being Germany and all.

I honestly don't know whether the majority of Nazi's were Christian or not, or what percentage would have to be before your statement became untrue. Thing is, I doubt you do either. Yet you're issuing a blanket generalised statement.

Beyond Hitler, your only other reasoning as to why they are not Christians is your statements on how they're not Christians in your eyes, which my earlier statements have pointed out as a fallacy.

So...at what point does the Bible or Christ say it is a good thing to exterminate the jews? Wasn't that a foundational tenet of the Nazis? If you are going to expand the bar to every last person that ever joined the nazi party then, yes it would be pretty hard to justify my saying that every last person that ever joined the nazi party was not a Christian. However, we do have statements from the leadership that show that they certainly were not, and I would postulate that many lower levels were not as well. Especially if they agreed with genocide. And also there is evidence of the SS divisions desecrating churches when they rolled through France.

GG

whatwhat wrote:He said you got nailed. Like you know...

You try to hard at trolling bro.

But I will admit I laughed.

generalgrog wrote:

So...at what point does the Bible or Christ say it is a good thing to exterminate the jews? Wasn't that a foundational tenet of the Nazis?

Relying on a book that's been translated half a dozen times, rewritten to suit political agenda, and is hotly debated even amongst those who claim to follow it is not a good way for defining whether the Nazi's were christian or not. You say exterminating the Jews was a big thing, but it wouldn't be the first time a group has claimed christianity and gone on to merrily slaughter lots of people. There have been pogroms all across Europe since time immemorable with Poles, Russians, Germans, French, English, and many more, all of whom professed Christianity. The Nazi's were simply the latest lot to the front of the queue. As such, killing Jews is not indicative of whether they can be considered Christian or not.

If you are going to expand the bar to every last person that ever joined the nazi party then, yes it would be pretty hard to justify my saying that every last person that ever joined the nazi party was not a Christian. However, we do have statements from the leadership that show that they certainly were not, and I would postulate that many lower levels were not as well. Especially if they agreed with genocide. And also there is evidence of the SS divisions desecrating churches when they rolled through France.

GG

You didn't say every person who joined the Nazi was not a christian. You said the Nazi's were not Christian. This is an amendment to your original claim. And therefore this is where it begins to disentegrate.
Next, you'll have to qualify how many you think would have to be christian for it to count. Then whether those christians were christian or not. And so on ad infinitum.

You'll end up with a statement that sounds something like, 'The Nazi's (except for the 20% who were christian but don't count because they weren't high enough to influence party policy, etc) were not christian(because the other 45% of them who claimed christianity were not sufficiently adherent to the tenets that I believe to be central to the primary of christianity, which is agreed upon in my sect of christianity), however if you consider the opinions of other sects of christianity (which don't count, because they're wrong) then potentially 25% of that 45% could count towards, bringing into mthe majority, but its so minute that it doesn't consists of a sufficient majority to class them all as christians, because......ad inifinitum.

Death by a thousand qualifications It's called. You end up with a statement that's so far from the original, simply because you cannot admit a previous position could be wrong. Therefore you qualify, and qualify, and end up with something ludicrous like I gave above which bears no resemblance to the original claim to begin with.

'The Nazi's were not christians' is an oversimplistic, broad brushed, generalised statement. It's like saying 'All Americans are fat'. Its ultimately indefensible, lacking ind etail, and based in no real statistical fact, debate, or knowledge. Hitler not being christian does not atheist socialists the whole of Germany make. No matter how you try and stretch it.

Saying the Nazi's were Christians is even more foolish.

Nazism and Christianity are not compatible belief systems and you ignore the fact that not every German was a Nazi and not every 'Nazi' was a balls to the wall nutcase like Hitler.

Not all Germans during WW2 were Nazis.

Not all Germans during WW2 were Christian.

Not all Nazis were Christian.

Not all Nazis were NOT Christian.

The Nazi leadership was most definetly not Christian.

Nazi ideology demands (something like) worship, through the personality cult of the leader, of the state/race. That said, sincerely religious people -- both Catholic and Protestant -- supported the Nazi regime. Perhaps they thought their religion was not incompatible with their political allegiances, and that may indeed have been the case. But as a worldview, National Socialism and Christianity are antithetical one to the other. I don't think "atheistic" would be the right word to describe the Nazi state. But "religious" isn't quite right other. "Christian" is absolutely wrong.

Manchu wrote:But as a worldview, National Socialism and Christianity are antithetical one to the other. I don't think "atheistic" would be the right word to describe the Nazi state. But "religious" isn't quite right other. "Christian" is absolutely wrong.

Hobbes would strongly disagree. Leviathan, as exciting a read as it is, is essentially an argument for the need of a strong state controlled by a strong leader to impose divinely sanctioned order. They perverted Christianity by mixing it with other diluted religions (pagan, Hindu) but to pretend it didn't have an influence at all disingenuous. White man's burden and all that.

And I'm sure Hitler took sugar with his coffee too. Does that mean everyone who takes sugar with their coffee is evil too?

Ketara your last reply was so intellectually dishonest that I'm going to refrain from responding to you anymore. When you learn to stop taking people out of context and making stuff up out of the air. Then maybe I''ll try again to have an internet discussion with you.

GG

generalgrog wrote:Ketara if you want to talk about "what constitutes a Christian", please start a new thread, or PM me. This thread is about nazis.

GG

This is a bit of a cop out. You've argued that Nazi's aren't Christian. The first step in this discussion would be to clarify what constitutes a Christian and whether or not Nazis could be viewed as compatible or whether their views clash (on critical levels).

Fafnir wrote:And I'm sure Hitler took sugar with his coffee too. Does that mean everyone who takes sugar with their coffee is evil too?

And here I didn't think the argument was being presented as a zero-sum situation. If only I would have thought of using a straw man myself instead of trying to present a nuanced view of the situation.

Ahtman wrote:

Fafnir wrote:And I'm sure Hitler took sugar with his coffee too. Does that mean everyone who takes sugar with their coffee is evil too?

And here I didn't think the argument was being presented as a zero-sum situation. If only I would have thought of using a straw man myself instead of trying to present a nuanced view of the situation.

We don't like your kind around this here parts. With your fancy logic an such, you and all those who make sense make me sick.

Furthermore, Hitler did always list Martin Luther as one of the greatest reformists to ever live. Martin Luther certainly shared the trait of anti-semitism with Hitler (most of christian Europe did too, but not to such an extent).

It could be argued that Hitler's disgust was directed at Christianity as a religion rather than Jesus Christ the man, and if so is no different to many Christian branches and perfectly in line with German Protestantism. Christianity in many forms has always been intolerant of Jews (capital J?).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

youbedead wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Fafnir wrote:And I'm sure Hitler took sugar with his coffee too. Does that mean everyone who takes sugar with their coffee is evil too?

And here I didn't think the argument was being presented as a zero-sum situation. If only I would have thought of using a straw man myself instead of trying to present a nuanced view of the situation.

We don't like your kind around this here parts. With your fancy logic an such, you and all those who make sense make me sick.

I agree, them smarty people are just downright disgusting. We need to fix this problem once and for all, y'know? Some kind of final solution...

Ahtman wrote:They perverted Christianity by mixing it with other diluted religions (pagan, Hindu) but to pretend it didn't have an influence at all disingenuous.

What one person hears isn't necessarily what another person says. Christianity's "influence" on National Socialism is so broad as to be merely incidental. One might as well say that European history had an influence on National Socialism.

Manchu wrote:

Ahtman wrote:They perverted Christianity by mixing it with other diluted religions (pagan, Hindu) but to pretend it didn't have an influence at all disingenuous.

What one person hears isn't necessarily what another person says. Christianity's "influence" on National Socialism is so broad as to be merely incidental. One might as well say that European history had an influence on National Socialism.

Well, it probably did. European history is awash with anti-semitism. Just not to the extent that camps were being founded. The problem is that this stems from Christianity (though not from scripture).

You rather missed the point, EF. What I mean to say is that Christianity had negligible specific influence on the development of National Socialism. Although that may sound a bit sweeping, it seems to me far more accurate than the counterclaim.

Manchu wrote:You rather missed the point, EF. What I mean to say is that Christianity had negligible specific influence on the development of National Socialism. Although that may sound a bit sweeping, it seems to me far more accurate than the counterclaim.

Well, I wouldn't say that Christianity inspired the Nazi movement, but to say it was a negligible influence is not much better (though at least you aren't claiming he was a Pantheist Pagan anti-theist Omnphile sort of thing ).

Christianity had an effect on everything in Europe. It was just the dominant religion for over a thousand years...

Yeah, so it had the same effect on the development of Nazism as it did on the development of the BBC. That's my point at least.

Manchu wrote:Yeah, so it had the same effect on the development of Nazism as it did on the development of the BBC. That's my point at least.

The BBC isn't a political movement, and it doesn't promote anti-semitism.

So what?

Manchu wrote:So what?

There's no evidence to suggest that BBC has a decidely Christian agenda (if we are even allowed by OP to discuss what that means). They weren't inspired by the teachings of Martin Luther and it wasn't founded with the goal of running a country.

There's more evidence of christianity having an influence on the Nazi party than there is on the BBC. Though I have to admit I don't know if the BBC was particularily anti-semitic in the 1930's.

Again: you've missed the point. You could say that Christianity had an effect on anything in Western culture. It's a truism. Nothing particular is explained about National Socialism by trying to trace its origins in Christianity -- because it has no specific origins in Christianity.

Manchu wrote:Again: you've missed the point. You could say that Christianity had an effect on anything in Western culture. It's a truism. Nothing particular is explained about National Socialism by trying to trace its origins in Christianity -- because it has no specific origins in Christianity.

As a Catholic I'm not sure if you think this guy is part of Christianity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Jews_and_Their_Lies

He went along with it until he could start removing the Catholics, then the Protestants, then, hey, only the adoration of the Fuhrer was left in Germany's houses. He was a crazy fether who did whatever was needed for his evil goals.

They came first for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

-- Pastor Martin Niemoller, Holocaust victim.

@EF: In the ancient Church, Christians were often persecuted for their beliefs. Sometimes they would renounce their faith in order to save their lives. The question came up of what to do with such "traitors." One group, called the Donatists, believed that those who renounced their faith could never again participate in the Church. They went so far as to turn over the "traitor" Christians to the pagans. The pagans, of course, burned and otherwise tortured the Christians who had been turned over by the Donatists. The Donatists also believed that the sacraments celebrated by priests who had renounced their faith to escape persecution were invalid. To them, a sinner could not celebrate valid sacraments.

The orthodox Catholic position in these matters was quite different. First, the Church recognized that people threatened with fatal violence -- against themselves as well as their loved ones -- would very likely break down and renounce their faith. Such people should be treated with compassion rather than kicked out much less turned over to the pagans for the torment and execution they had formerly escaped. Furthermore, as St Augustine himself argued, the validity of the sacraments flows from God and not from the moral character of the celebrant. It was apparent to the orthodox Catholics of the ancient Church that there would be a rare few priests who might become saints and plenty more who had a much harder road of it. Even as it is unto these days . . .

In other words, there has always been in orthodox Christianity an explicit recognition that human beings -- in contrast to God -- are imperfect, fallible, fallen, sinful, in constant need of redemption, &etc. Martin Luther's prejudices do not mean he was not a Christian. They merely signify that he was human: yes, capable of holding and teaching despicable ideas. But also capable of nobler things.

What Martin Luther has to do with Hitler specifically -- outside of Hitler's ahistorical understanding of the German Volk -- or, what you claim their relationship to be, is totally beyond me. I don't see any relationship between Protestantism and Nazism except inasmuch as the historical "trends" or "forces" or whatever you want to call them that called up the modern age with the unfurling of the Reformation (namely: the increasing confusion of God with the state) ultimately find their grimmest expression in Auschwitz.

What can really be said about Christianity and fascism? Well, as Christianity declines in influence . . . the influence of fascism seems to wax.

Manchu wrote: I don't see any relationship between Protestantism and Nazism

Again, read Hobbes.

Manchu wrote:Again: you've missed the point. You could say that Christianity had an effect on anything in Western culture. It's a truism. Nothing particular is explained about National Socialism by trying to trace its origins in Christianity -- because it has no specific origins in Christianity.

It's just an attempt to link lower Christianity by saying that they influenced Nazism.

Manchu wrote:In other words, there has always been in orthodox Christianity an explicit recognition that human beings -- in contrast to God -- are imperfect, fallible, fallen, sinful, in constant need of redemption, &etc. Martin Luther's prejudices do not mean he was not a Christian. They merely signify that he was human: yes, capable of holding and teaching despicable ideas. But also capable of nobler things.

I did not imply that Martin Luther was inhuman, or that he was not Christian. Also, at the time, there would have been absolutely nothing out of the ordinary regarding his distaste for the Jews. Europe was extensively anti-semite, a trait very much owing to the influence of Christianity.

What Martin Luther has to do with Hitler specifically -- outside of Hitler's ahistorical understanding of the German Volk -- or, what you claim their relationship to be, is totally beyond me. I don't see any relationship between Protestantism and Nazism except inasmuch as the historical "trends" or "forces" or whatever you want to call them that called up the modern age with the unfurling of the Reformation (namely: the increasing confusion of God with the state) ultimately find their grimmest expression in Auschwitz.

All I've said is that they're are Christian teachings that fell perfectly in line with what Hitler believed. Just as there were teachings that he chose to twist or ignore completely. He used Christianity for political expedience, just as he would have done with whatever religion Germany had been at the time (and had mentioned that a Germany with a Japanese or Islamic religion would have been easier to 'militarise'). It annoys me when posters like GG repeatedly claim that Hitler was personally either an athiest or a pagan, especially given his public adversity to such movements. It further annoys me when such posters claim that the Nazi's had little-to-no connection to Christianity, and absolutely refuses to engage in discussion.

Amaya wrote:

Manchu wrote:Again: you've missed the point. You could say that Christianity had an effect on anything in Western culture. It's a truism. Nothing particular is explained about National Socialism by trying to trace its origins in Christianity -- because it has no specific origins in Christianity.

It's just an attempt to link lower Christianity by saying that they influenced Nazism.

Except it did, but not much more than other influences. I don't believe it has been stated that Christianity was the primary driving force behind Nazism or even the only one. That certainly wouldn't be true. The main driving force was much the same as for the characters in The Social Network, getting girls.

WWII isn't needed to make Christianity look foolish or malevolent, Christians can do that all by themselves at any given time. Thank goodness the vast majority of Christians aren't either.


The difference between Martin Luther's brand of antisemitism and the Nazis is that ML's was a religious discrimination. Conversion would absolve, whereas, armed with poor science, it became a racial issue and converting or not had no bearing. It is an important distinction. Though this could be argued for either side I think it shows how, besides some elements and manipulation purposes, little Christian ideology played in the actual underpinnings of their thinking.

What do you call it when people speak the truth, but do so in a manner that comes dangerously close to trolling?

What Christian teachings fall in line with Nazism?

Amaya wrote:What Christian teachings fall in line with Nazism?

Depends on what you class as 'Christian teachings', and whether only scripture can be classed as a christian teaching.

@Ahtman: Why bother with Hobbes when I can lament over the ironies of Kant? The development of modernism, I'd argue, is about unconscious as well as conscious rejection of traditional Christianity rather than a development of it. Perhaps the world would have been better off if men like Hobbes and Kant had focused their energies on hunting down the works of the Church Fathers and learning about Christianity as a historical as well as eternal phenomenon. But we might as well wish that they invented electricity -- or cured AIDS and cancer, for that matter.

Ahtman wrote:The difference between Martin Luther's brand of antisemitism and the Nazis is that ML's was a religious discrimination. Conversion would absolve, whereas, armed with poor science, it became a racial issue and converting or not had no bearing. It is an important distinction. Though this could be argued for either side I think it shows how, besides some elements and manipulation purposes, little Christian ideology played in the actual underpinnings of their thinking.

A fair point, but the idea of Jews having a racial inferiority might never have occured if not for the religious brands of antisemitism.

Amaya wrote:What Christian teachings fall in line with Nazism?

We've already dismissed this argument several times. By now it would be a nuisance argument and you'd be fined by the court.

The same ones that said slavery was not only good but necessary. The same ones that allowed the Inquisition to kill and torture people. The same ones that Jim Phelps uses in his arguments, or Jim Jones. The same ones that made Timothy McVeigh bomb a federal building in Oklahoma. The same ones that get people to murder doctors. The same ones that make tell people in AIDS ravaged countries to not use condoms. That is the tip of the list of idiots, but every one of them considered themselves Christian and didn't and don't care whether you think they are or not.

Where in the Bible does it say to go hate Jews?


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Ahtman wrote:

Amaya wrote:What Christian teachings fall in line with Nazism?

We've already dismissed this argument several times. By now it would be a nuisance argument and you'd be fined by the court.

The same ones that said slavery was not only good but necessary. The same ones that allowed the Inquisition to kill and torture people. The same ones that Jim Phelps uses in his arguments, or Jim Jones. The same ones that made Timothy McVeigh bomb a federal building in Oklahoma. The same ones that get people to murder doctors. The same ones that make tell people in AIDS ravaged countries to not use condoms. That is the tip of the list of idiots, but every one of them considered themselves Christian and didn't and don't care whether you think they are or not.

And where are these in the New Testament?

Manchu wrote:@Ahtman: Why bother with Hobbes when I can lament over the ironies of Kant?

Becuase it answers the question you asked? Hobbes wrote a treatise on the importance and connection between a strong state and divinity. You said you didn't see a connection between the two and I'm giving an example of an imoprtant piece of writing from a Christian author that did make the connextion, though it wasn't in reference to Nazism specifically, but it would be a bit of Christian writing that would influence them.

@Amaya: are you really this naive or just trolling? If you don't know enough history to understand the historical connection between Christianity and antisemitism in Europe than you may need to do some research before coming in here. Pretending your view on what it means to be Christian now has no bearing at all on what people in the past believed it meant as well as what many modern Christians believe. If all you are going to do is just pull a True Scotsman on every point this is going to be a short and fruitless discussion.

Amaya wrote:Where in the Bible does it say to go hate Jews?

I don't beleive it does (at least not specifically). However, it is a not-so-minor view that the Jewish people squandered the opportunity that Christ provided, and the resentment that some Christians feel at the people who denounced their God as a criminal and killed him is understandble. But over time it's become an issue of intolerance of other cultures (supported by the Curch) rather than an idealogical battle.

Ahtman wrote:

Amaya wrote:What Christian teachings fall in line with Nazism?

We've already dismissed this argument several times. By now it would be a nuisance argument and you'd be fined by the court.

The same ones that said slavery was not only good but necessary. The same ones that allowed the Inquisition to kill and torture people. The same ones that Jim Phelps uses in his arguments, or Jim Jones. The same ones that made Timothy McVeigh bomb a federal building in Oklahoma. The same ones that get people to murder doctors. The same ones that make tell people in AIDS ravaged countries to not use condoms. That is the tip of the list of idiots, but every one of them considered themselves Christian and didn't and don't care whether you think they are or not.

And where are these in the New Testament?

Why is the Old Testament invalid?

Ahtman wrote:Becuase it answers the question you asked?

Not really. But I should probably say that I don't think much of Anglican philosopher's views regarding divinity -- especially when they're only really interested in the State anyhow.


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Emperors Faithful wrote:Why is the Old Testament invalid?

You have a weird habit, in this thread at least, of severely missing people's points.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Amaya wrote:Where in the Bible does it say to go hate Jews?

I don't beleive it does (at least not specifically). However, it is a not-so-minor view that the Jewish people squandered the opportunity that Christ provided, and the resentment that some Christians feel at the people who denounced their God as a criminal and killed him is understandble. But over time it's become an issue of intolerance of other cultures (supported by the Curch) rather than an idealogical battle.

Ahtman wrote:

Amaya wrote:What Christian teachings fall in line with Nazism?

We've already dismissed this argument several times. By now it would be a nuisance argument and you'd be fined by the court.

The same ones that said slavery was not only good but necessary. The same ones that allowed the Inquisition to kill and torture people. The same ones that Jim Phelps uses in his arguments, or Jim Jones. The same ones that made Timothy McVeigh bomb a federal building in Oklahoma. The same ones that get people to murder doctors. The same ones that make tell people in AIDS ravaged countries to not use condoms. That is the tip of the list of idiots, but every one of them considered themselves Christian and didn't and don't care whether you think they are or not.

And where are these in the New Testament?

Why is the Old Testament invalid?

Because Jesus made a New Covenant with mankind, invalidationg the Covenant made with Abraham.

Invalidating is a pretty serious word there, and one that many theologians are going to disagree with.

Manchu wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:Why is the Old Testament invalid?

You have a weird habit, in this thread at least, of severely missing people's points.

Please explain.

Amaya wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Amaya wrote:And where are these in the New Testament?

Why is the Old Testament invalid?

Because Jesus made a New Covenant with mankind, invalidationg the Covenant made with Abraham.

I must have severely misunderstood what the New Testament taught. I was under the impression that the New Covenant invalidated the covenant with Abraham, not the entire Old Testament.

Invalidated is not the word at all. Fulfilled is better.

I think what Amaya is getting at by mentioning the NT rather than the OT is that he's looking for where these beliefs/practices that Ahtman mentioned can be found in Christian scripture (as opposed to Jewish scripture coopted by Christians).

Amaya wrote:Where in the Bible does it say to go hate Jews?


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Ahtman wrote:

Amaya wrote:What Christian teachings fall in line with Nazism?

We've already dismissed this argument several times. By now it would be a nuisance argument and you'd be fined by the court.

The same ones that said slavery was not only good but necessary. The same ones that allowed the Inquisition to kill and torture people. The same ones that Jim Phelps uses in his arguments, or Jim Jones. The same ones that made Timothy McVeigh bomb a federal building in Oklahoma. The same ones that get people to murder doctors. The same ones that make tell people in AIDS ravaged countries to not use condoms. That is the tip of the list of idiots, but every one of them considered themselves Christian and didn't and don't care whether you think they are or not.

And where are these in the New Testament?

You are either missing the point or refuse to except it. The word of god has been twisted by many in history, slavery became institutionalized in the south largely because of the twisted souls who used Christianity to support it.The inquisition worked for the catholic church etc. Many popes have ordered the killing of thousands because they felt they were doing gods work.

There's a lot of talk about "the Inquisition" flying around that is obviously not supported by even the most cursory investigation. I suggest some of you put down the Dan Abnett and pick up some actual history books. You could start with the wikipedia article, even.

youbedead wrote: The word of god has been twisted by many in history, slavery became institutionalized in the south largely because of the twisted souls who used Christianity to support it.

Civilisations and nations have practiced slavery since the beginning of recorded history, many of which were not Christian or Jewish. It's unfair to blame what was a universally accepted practice on Christianity (although the US was one of the last to outlaw it).

And Christians played central roles in illegalizing it, both in the US and the UK.

Manchu wrote:There's a lot of talk about "the Inquisition" flying around that is obviously not supported by even the most cursory investigation. I suggest some of you put down the Dan Abnett and pick up some actual history books. You could start with the wikipedia article, even.

Which allegations? That they tortured and even killed people? We know they did that, it isn't a conspiracy theory. It wasn't as extensive as it is sometimes portrayed, but it did happen.

Manchu wrote:There's a lot of talk about "the Inquisition" flying around that is obviously not supported by even the most cursory investigation. I suggest some of you put down the Dan Abnett and pick up some actual history books. You could start with the wikipedia article, even.

Condescending post is condescending.

Ahtman hasn't really gone into any extensive detail regarding what the Inquisition did. Though much of their darker tales and acts of evil may be exaggerated, some of their practices are historical fact.

youbedead wrote:

Amaya wrote:Where in the Bible does it say to go hate Jews?


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Ahtman wrote:

Amaya wrote:What Christian teachings fall in line with Nazism?

We've already dismissed this argument several times. By now it would be a nuisance argument and you'd be fined by the court.

The same ones that said slavery was not only good but necessary. The same ones that allowed the Inquisition to kill and torture people. The same ones that Jim Phelps uses in his arguments, or Jim Jones. The same ones that made Timothy McVeigh bomb a federal building in Oklahoma. The same ones that get people to murder doctors. The same ones that make tell people in AIDS ravaged countries to not use condoms. That is the tip of the list of idiots, but every one of them considered themselves Christian and didn't and don't care whether you think they are or not.

And where are these in the New Testament?

You are either missing the point or refuse to except it. The word of god has been twisted by many in history, slavery became institutionalized in the south largely because of the twisted souls who used Christianity to support it.The inquisition worked for the catholic church etc. Many popes have ordered the killing of thousands because they felt they were doing gods work.

Except it?

Nothing, NOTHING, in the NT says go and kill non believers. The most annoying thing Christians are told to do is go and spread the Gospel. Which amounts to those obnoxious Jehovah's witnesses showing up at your door with their 'literature'.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

youbedead wrote: The word of god has been twisted by many in history, slavery became institutionalized in the south largely because of the twisted souls who used Christianity to support it.

Civilisations and nations have practiced slavery since the beginning of recorded history, many of which were not Christian or Jewish. It's unfair to blame what was a universally accepted practice on Christianity (although the US was one of the last to outlaw it).

I am talking about how salve owners would use the church as way to support what they were doing, I am not blaming Christians for slavery itself.

Manchu wrote:And Christians played central roles in illegalizing it, both in the US and the UK.

Exactly, which I find peculiar.


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(though not in a bad way)

Ahtman wrote:

Manchu wrote:There's a lot of talk about "the Inquisition" flying around that is obviously not supported by even the most cursory investigation. I suggest some of you put down the Dan Abnett and pick up some actual history books. You could start with the wikipedia article, even.

Which allegations? That they tortured and even killed people? We know they did that, it isn't a conspiracy theory. It wasn't as extensive as it is sometimes portrayed, but it did happen.

I am guessing he is talking about the fact that it was more of a political organization then a religious one, and for much of its history it functioned as a fundraising organization through extortion.

Christianity hasn't been blamed for slavery to my knowledge, but it was used to justify and in the states, used as a tool to better control the slave population.

Manchu wrote:And Christians played central roles in illegalizing it, both in the US and the UK.

Indeed. The history of Slavery and anti-slavery is for more complex than is usually given light. Of course the flipside is that they weren't being egalitarians either, they thought slavery was wrong but wanted the slaves back with their own kind. That kind of equality would come later using the strategy of a little Hindu and lead mostly by Churchs.

Amaya wrote:

youbedead wrote:

Amaya wrote:Where in the Bible does it say to go hate Jews?


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Ahtman wrote:

Amaya wrote:What Christian teachings fall in line with Nazism?

We've already dismissed this argument several times. By now it would be a nuisance argument and you'd be fined by the court.

The same ones that said slavery was not only good but necessary. The same ones that allowed the Inquisition to kill and torture people. The same ones that Jim Phelps uses in his arguments, or Jim Jones. The same ones that made Timothy McVeigh bomb a federal building in Oklahoma. The same ones that get people to murder doctors. The same ones that make tell people in AIDS ravaged countries to not use condoms. That is the tip of the list of idiots, but every one of them considered themselves Christian and didn't and don't care whether you think they are or not.

And where are these in the New Testament?

You are either missing the point or refuse to except it. The word of god has been twisted by many in history, slavery became institutionalized in the south largely because of the twisted souls who used Christianity to support it.The inquisition worked for the catholic church etc. Many popes have ordered the killing of thousands because they felt they were doing gods work.

Except it?

Nothing, NOTHING, in the NT says go and kill non believers. The most annoying thing Christians are told to do is go and spread the Gospel. Which amounts to those obnoxious Jehovah's witnesses showing up at your door with their 'literature'.

That is what people are saying, men who believed themselves devout Christians committed heinous acts in the name of the faith.


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Ahtman wrote:Christianity hasn't been blamed for slavery to my knowledge, but it was used to justify and in the states, used as a tool to better control the slave population.

Manchu wrote:And Christians played central roles in illegalizing it, both in the US and the UK.

Indeed. The history of Slavery and anti-slavery is for more complex than is usually given light. Of course the flipside is that they weren't being egalitarians either, they thought slavery was wrong but wanted the slaves back with their own kind. That kind of equality would come later using the strategy of a little Hindu and lead mostly by Churchs.

Exactly, thanks for understanding the point.

Ahtman wrote:

Manchu wrote:There's a lot of talk about "the Inquisition" flying around that is obviously not supported by even the most cursory investigation. I suggest some of you put down the Dan Abnett and pick up some actual history books. You could start with the wikipedia article, even.

Which allegations? That they tortured and even killed people? We know they did that, it isn't a conspiracy theory. It wasn't as extensive as it is sometimes portrayed, but it did happen.

I am referring to the phrase "worked for the Catholic Church," as if the either the Church or the Inquisition were monolithic bureaucracies similar to the KGB or the SD. These kind of false analogies, especially regarding Catholicism, produce the sort of misinformation that this thread is founded upon. As for torturing and killing -- fine, but let's also add clamping down on superstition-motivated violence and inventing/employing objective and comparatively fair investigative and legal procedures when civil authorities either could not or would not do so, among other positive contributions, to that list.


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Ahtman wrote:Christianity hasn't been blamed for slavery to my knowledge, but it was used to justify and in the states, used as a tool to better control the slave population.

And used by slaves to resist being controlled.

Manchu wrote:]And used by slaves to resist being controlled.

That came later and after they had been stripped of their family, community, and religious ties of their past. They turned the weapon against their oppressors,but it was still a weapon first.

As for why the Inquisition was hastily brought up, creating some distortion, is because no one expected them, and were taken by surprise.

Manchu wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Manchu wrote:There's a lot of talk about "the Inquisition" flying around that is obviously not supported by even the most cursory investigation. I suggest some of you put down the Dan Abnett and pick up some actual history books. You could start with the wikipedia article, even.

Which allegations? That they tortured and even killed people? We know they did that, it isn't a conspiracy theory. It wasn't as extensive as it is sometimes portrayed, but it did happen.

I am referring to the phrase "worked for the Catholic Church," as if the either the Church or the Inquisition were monolithic bureaucracies similar to the KGB or the SD. These kind of false analogies, especially regarding Catholicism, produce the sort of misinformation that this thread is founded upon. As for torturing and killing -- fine, but let's also add clamping down on superstition-motivated violence and inventing/employing objective and comparatively fair investigative and legal procedures when civil authorities either could or would not do so, among other positive contributions, to that list.

Sorry for putting the wrong thing down, i shall amend it.
The inquisition worked for the Spanish monarchy, which believed that they were devout catholics. And because of this initially kicked all the jews and muslims out (which nearly collapsed the economy of spain. Then founded the inquistion as a last ditch effort to gather money for the state.

Is that better

That is much more accurate. You -- and others who might read your post -- can now see how the ambitions of Castille and Aragon in Iberia, over and against Muslim dominance, had more to do with the Spanish Inquisition than the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Manchu wrote:That is much more accurate.

And entirely unexpected

Ahtman wrote:That came later and after they had been stripped of their family, community, and religious ties of their past. They turned the weapon against their oppressors,but it was still a weapon first.

You seem more ready to take the faith of oppressors seriously than that of the oppressed. I guess the opposite charge could be made of me, but then again I am Christian.

As for why the Inquisition was hastily brought up, creating some distortion, is because no one expected them, and were taken by surprise

It is their chief weapon. Or amongst their weapons.

Manchu wrote:That is much more accurate. You -- and others who might read your post -- can now see how the ambitions of Castille and Aragon in Iberia, over and against Muslim dominance, had more to do with the Spanish Inquisition than the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Honestly I think the greatest moment during this period is when isabella demanded that all jews and muslims were to exiled. The problem being that most of the bankers and merchant were jews and muslims, since contemporary christian thought damned those professions. It is not hard to imagine what happens when you remove all bankers and merchants

A golden age of Spanish imperial power? Cause that's what happened.

Manchu wrote:Aragon in Iberia, over and against Muslim dominance

Now who is being inaccurate? Aragorn was to busy with Mordoor to ever get to Iberia.

Manchu wrote:had more to do with the Spanish Inquisition than the teachings of Jesus Christ.

And yet that has never stopped anyone from doing horrible things in has name over and over. We are going in circles here.

Ahtman wrote:

Manchu wrote:Aragon in Iberia, over and against Muslim dominance

Now who is being inaccurate? Aragorn was to busy with Mordoor to ever get to Iberia.

Manchu wrote:had more to do with the Spanish Inquisition than the teachings of Jesus Christ.

And yet that has never stopped anyone from doing horrible things in has name over and over. We are going in circles here.

You act as those people doing horrible things in the name of something that couldn't possibly support their cause is a new and exciting concept.

Ahtman wrote:And yet that has never stopped anyone from doing horrible things in has name over and over. We are going in circles here.

So I'll complete this iteration of the circle by claiming to post this in your name.

All I am saying is if the answer to every question is 'they weren't real Christians' we will never understand why people who claim it do such terrible things. In the end this isn't unique to Christianity, but in this case, is specifically about Christianity.

Just saying "they aren't real Christians" may make other Christians feel better for not being horrible people, as stated earlier the vast majority are not, but it doesn't help create an understanding of why. The ones committing such acts considered themselves Christians whether we think so or not so why don't we understand why a Christian would act in such a way instead of trying to shut the conversation down.

Manchu wrote:A golden age of Spanish imperial power? Cause that's what happened.

I originally went to google to find documents supporting my point, and instead found out that what i learned in school was wrong. By the time of the edict of expulsion the jews had withdrawn from the financial sector in spain, and the expulsion and little adverse effect on the spanish economy.

It might have something to do with the fact that people of all over the world have a habit of doing terrible things.
It might also have something to do with the the corrupt establishment that uses Christianity to further it's political agenda.

@Ahtman: Yeah, I see your point. See my comment to EF re: Martin Luther.

generalgrog wrote:Ketara your last reply was so intellectually dishonest that I'm going to refrain from responding to you anymore. When you learn to stop taking people out of context and making stuff up out of the air. Then maybe I''ll try again to have an internet discussion with you.

GG

I beg your pardon?

I have no problem with admitting I'm wrong online, if I can be demonstrably proven to be wrong. I've done it in here several times. Telling me I'm being intellectually dishonest, and then refraining to expound upon that point is mildly counter-intuitive?

If you disagree with me, say why. Lay it out logically and precisely.

Telling me I'mw rong but you don't want to talk to me anymore is not only a waste of your time to post, but a waste of my time to read.

There were inquisitions before the Spanish Inquisition.

generalgrog wrote:Why do they do this? Because if they can convince people that Hitler/nazis were a Christian group they can point the finger at them and say...seee...seee this is what Christianity gets you. You could also argue that Christians say that Hitler/Nazis were athiests/panthiests/occultists...see....see this is what athiests/panthiests/occultists gets you. The reality is that no one wants to own them. OK we all get that.

I would definately argue that it is the Christians that love to mention Hitler as opposed to atheists, because whenever I see the point argued its always the Bill O Reilly/Glenn Beck/Fox news anchor type person who brings it up first. "Hitler!" they shriek. Its like the Religious groups love mentioning the guy even though it is utterly irrelevant. They are in love with personally attacking Charles Darwin as well, which is disgraceful and again, utterly irrelevant to the fact of evolution. Would Einsteins work suddenly become wrong if he was a pedophile?

But anyway, Ive chilled alot of the Religion stuff as i am well aware that once a persons mind is made up on this topic they are unlikely to change it, and I get along well with most people regardless of If they believe in magic or not. So all i will say is, maybe he was not a Christian, but he absolutely 100% DID believe in "a" God, so therefore he may not have been a Christian (though I believe he was) but he most certainly cannot have been an Atheist, because we believe that there is no God, and Hitler never shut up about "The Lord" or "The almighty" or whatever, and the quote in my sig is a famous Hitler one as well.

Khornholio wrote:I think the pile of bodies is enough evidence for that.

No, neither murder nor torture are evidence against someone's choice of religion. People do evil things in the name of religion all the damn time.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

generalgrog wrote:Ketara if you want to talk about "what constitutes a Christian", please start a new thread, or PM me. This thread is about nazis.

GG

This is a bit of a cop out. You've argued that Nazi's aren't Christian. The first step in this discussion would be to clarify what constitutes a Christian and whether or not Nazis could be viewed as compatible or whether their views clash (on critical levels).

It's not a cop out...if we started to talk about an issue as large as "what is a Christian really?" it would end up usurping this entire thread. You see how the slavery rabbit hole went. Also it's not a cop out because I told him to start a new thread if he wanted to explore it.

GG

Given the prevalence of Christianity in Europe during the time period, I would definitely say that it is incredibly likely most Nazis were Christian... but that doesn't mean they represented Christianity in all of its myriad forms. No, Nazis represented only for Nazis.

Claiming that Nazis aren't Christian just because they did bad things is irrelevant, as adhering to a religion does not prevent anyone from doing bad things.

Ketara wrote:

generalgrog wrote:Ketara your last reply was so intellectually dishonest that I'm going to refrain from responding to you anymore. When you learn to stop taking people out of context and making stuff up out of the air. Then maybe I''ll try again to have an internet discussion with you.

GG

I beg your pardon?

I have no problem with admitting I'm wrong online, if I can be demonstrably proven to be wrong. I've done it in here several times. Telling me I'm being intellectually dishonest, and then refraining to expound upon that point is mildly counter-intuitive?

If you disagree with me, say why. Lay it out logically and precisely.

Telling me I'mw rong but you don't want to talk to me anymore is not only a waste of your time to post, but a waste of my time to read.

Allright I'll give it one more try.( I hate to do this because it is off the topic of nazi/Christianity debate)

You made a claim that I was relying on a book that had been translated 1/2 a dozen times. That 1/2 a dozen times figure shows your ignorance of the subject. The Bible has probably been translated 1,000's of times. I don't know how many languages their are in the world but I'm sure there is a translated Bible for each of them.

And if you were implying that the historical Bible was translated over and over again like the phone game or something again you would be showing your ignorance of the transmissional process of the ancient texts. You pulled that stuff out of the air to try and make people think the Bible is unreliable, which it isn't unreliable to anyone that has actually done some research on the subject.(again if you want to debate Bible reliability pm me or start a new thread)

My original point was regarding the leadership of nazis. You were the one to expand the definition to anyone that claimed to be nazi. I agreed with your assesment that my original classification was too narrow(I.E. only the leadership). This is why I started to talk about "every one that claimed to be a nazi and so forth". Then you took me out of context and claimed that I had changed, when in reality I was just accepting your expansion. You started accusing me of having "disintegrated argument" or whatever you said. It just seemed to me that you were willfully ignoring my attempt at finding common ground with you.

GG



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Melissia wrote:Given the prevalence of Christianity in Europe during the time period, I would definitely say that it is incredibly likely most Nazis were Christian... but that doesn't mean they represented Christianity in all of its myriad forms. No, Nazis represented only for Nazis.

Claiming that Nazis aren't Christian just because they did bad things is irrelevant, as adhering to a religion does not prevent anyone from doing bad things.

Of course this totally contradicts what Christ said about wolves in sheep clothing.

GG

And that matters how?

People are inherently flawed. If you want to say everyone who doesn't follow every single edict given by their religious faith is not actually a member of their religious faith, then I guaran-fething-tee that less tan five percent of the population belongs to any religion.

Melissia wrote:Given the prevalence of Christianity in Europe during the time period, I would definitely say that it is incredibly likely most Nazis were Christian... but that doesn't mean they represented Christianity in all of its myriad forms. No, Nazis represented only for Nazis.

Claiming that Nazis aren't Christian just because they did bad things is irrelevant, as adhering to a religion does not prevent anyone from doing bad things.

I have to agree ...History is filled with examples of atrocities committed by those who professed to be Christian,and the fact that someone was a member of the National Socialist Party doesn't mean that they abandoned their Christian identity.

The idea that they weren't following Christian tenants does not negate that many considered themselves to be Christian.

Melissia wrote:And that matters how?

If a wolf dresses in sheeps clothing, and walks around with the sheep, is it a wolf or a sheep?

I see that there is a new thread about "what is a Christian". I'm gonna mosey on over there for this.

GG

Funny, I think ninety percent of Christians would be disqualified from being Christians by that statement.

What I find extremely interesting is the way many Christians will (understandably) try to distance themselves from "distasteful examples" of people who profess to believe the same basic things they themselves believe.

For example..(although admittedly a reach)..

If I,as a War gamer,who has read all the rule books,know the rules of the game,play regularly etc etc,was to go and shoot someone in the head....could the war gaming community claim I was "Not" a War gamer?

generalgrog wrote:
It's not a cop out...if we started to talk about an issue as large as "what is a Christian really?" it would end up usurping this entire thread. You see how the slavery rabbit hole went. Also it's not a cop out because I told him to start a new thread if he wanted to explore it.

GG

You argued that Nazi's are not Christians. The logical next step would be to define what is a Nazi (easy enough), what is a Christian (much harder), and whether the two are comparable.

FITZZ wrote:
If I,as a War gamer,who has read all the rule books,know the rules of the game,play regularly etc etc,was to go and shoot someone in the head....could the war gaming community claim I was "Not" a War gamer?

I like this example.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

generalgrog wrote:
It's not a cop out...if we started to talk about an issue as large as "what is a Christian really?" it would end up usurping this entire thread. You see how the slavery rabbit hole went. Also it's not a cop out because I told him to start a new thread if he wanted to explore it.

GG

You argued that Nazi's are not Christians. The logical next step would be to define what is a Nazi (easy enough), what is a Christian (much harder), and whether the two are comparable.

FITZZ wrote:
If I,as a War gamer,who has read all the rule books,know the rules of the game,play regularly etc etc,was to go and shoot someone in the head....could the war gaming community claim I was "Not" a War gamer?

I like this example.

Each stage of completing a thread requires a new thread.

Clearly.

corpsesarefun wrote:
Each stage of completing a thread requires a new thread.

Clearly.

Well, now we have to define 'thread' as well as 'new'.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:
Each stage of completing a thread requires a new thread.

Clearly.

Well, now we have to define 'thread' as well as 'new'.

I'll go make a new thread for it

But to do that we must first define what "new" and "thread" are so I know what to do to find out what "thread" and "new" are...

corpsesarefun wrote:I'll go make a new thread for it

But to do that we must first define what "new" and "thread" are so I know what to do to find out what "thread" and "new" are...

Yeah, I er-um....

FITZZ wrote: What I find extremely interesting is the way many Christians will (understandably) try to distance themselves from "distasteful examples" of people who profess to believe the same basic things they themselves believe.

For example..(although admittedly a reach)..

If I,as a War gamer,who has read all the rule books,know the rules of the game,play regularly etc etc,was to go and shoot someone in the head....could the war gaming community claim I was "Not" a War gamer?

It is quite simple, I as a jew recognize that some the Israeli leadership are nationalistic, racists, bastards. I also realize they are in fact jewish, regardless of how far the stray from following the tenants of the torah.

generalgrog wrote:Allright...I'm tired of this coming up in every thread about atheism and Christianity. I didn't want to derail another thread about it so lets have it out here, shall we? Keep it out of the other thread, please.

Some people, inparticular Athiests love to say that Hitler/Nazis were Christians. Why do they do this? Because if they can convince people that Hitler/nazis were a Christian group they can point the finger at them and say...seee...seee this is what Christianity gets you. You could also argue that Christians say that Hitler/Nazis were athiests/panthiests/occultists...see....see this is what athiests/panthiests/occultists gets you. The reality is that no one wants to own them. OK we all get that.

Now that, that is overwith lets discuss.

Let me start the ball rolling with some of Hitlers quotes. copy pasted from here....http://answers.org/apologetics/hitquote.html

The book being relied on by the website you listed, Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944, is widely, almost completely disregarded by serious historians. There are no supporting documents for any of the quotes given, and in many instances we know them to be complete fabrications, because Hitler was known to be an entirely different place at the time of the supposed quote. It is a work of fiction, that was written with the specific political goal of distancing Hitler from Christianity.

The actual, reliable quotes from Hitler that we do have paint a very different picture;

From Mein Kampf;
"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.."

""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."

From a Munich speech; 28 July 1922
"Just as the Jew could once incite the mob of Jerusalem against Christ, so today he must succeed in inciting folk who have been duped into madness to attack those who, God's truth! seek to deal with this people in utter honesty and sincerity."

Another Munich speech, 1 May 1923
"We have faith that one day Heaven will bring the Germans back into a Reich over which there shall be no Soviet star, no Jewish star of David, but above that Reich there shall be the symbol of German labor - the Swastika. And that will mean that the first of May has truly come."

He overtly stated his party stood for positive Christianity, the absurd belief that Jesus was part of an aryan tribe in the region, and that the bible should be read first and foremost as a call to arms against the Jews for their persecution of the aryans. Which is utterly, utterly stupid, and should be called such, and the real and very important differences between it and other Christian teachings should be recognised... but pretending is an historical delusion, accepted by people who like to think that merely considering oneself part of their religion somehow makes them a moral person.

Which just isn't how the world works.


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Khornholio wrote:From a lot of reading I have done in Uni and on my own post-grad time, the Nazis were very interested in the occult.

That wasn't the Nazis as a whole. That was one guy, SS leader Heinrich Himmler, who had occult leanings in amongst his other lunacies. From there we've seen a vast mythology develop in fiction and pseudo-historical fiction, which makes great sense in fiction terms, because zombie occult Nazis are awesome, but has nothing to do with actual history.


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generalgrog wrote:Hmm that's a good question. My first question would be Which God or god are they referring to?

They're referring to the Christian God. The buckle reference is still there from it's origins in Prussian military garb.

Think about what you just did, by the way. You attempted to create some kind of secret conspiracy in which Nazis deified some other God that was so secret not even the Nazis knew about him... in order to avoid accepting the idea that someone can profess a belief in Jesus, and also be a fethwit.


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Stormrider wrote:This thread does bring up an interesting thought, but the NSDAP was not based in anything remotely Christian. There were sections of Christianity (Seventh Day Adventists, Catholics & Quakers) that were persecuted just as much as the Jews.

No. You can belief in your own form of Christianity while persecuting many other kinds. Exactly as the Nazis did, constantly referencing a belief in German Protestantism.

The Nazi hierarchy didn't like Christianity at all

Nonsense.

So in short, the Nazi's weren't Christians, they were radical Socialists.

Ridiculous. Calling them socialists is exactly as sensible as claiming North Koreans are Republicans.


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generalgrog wrote:So...at what point does the Bible or Christ say it is a good thing to exterminate the jews? Wasn't that a foundational tenet of the Nazis?

Are yuo claiming there was no anti-semitic teaching in church in Germany (greater Europe actually) in the inter-war period. It was horrendously common.

And also there is evidence of the SS divisions desecrating churches when they rolled through France.

Catholic churches, yeah? You do know the history of protestantism and catholicism in Europe, yeah?


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Amaya wrote:Saying the Nazi's were Christians is even more foolish.

No, it isn't. While the situation is very complex, the only simple way to describe the situation is to say that Nazi Germany was majority Protestant, that the leadership of the Nazi party almost entirely professed a belief in Protestantism, and encouraged belief and chruch attendance among German citizens.

Nazism and Christianity are not compatible belief systems and you ignore the fact that not every German was a Nazi and not every 'Nazi' was a balls to the wall nutcase like Hitler.

Incompatibility doesn't make one incapable of being both. All it requires is for the individual to be hypocritical or delusional. Something that was in no short supply in Nazi Germany, nor in other place at any point in time.

The Nazi leadership was most definetly not Christian.

But they were. Saying otherwise is basic historical ignorance.


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Manchu wrote:Again: you've missed the point. You could say that Christianity had an effect on anything in Western culture. It's a truism. Nothing particular is explained about National Socialism by trying to trace its origins in Christianity -- because it has no specific origins in Christianity.

The animosity towards the Jews has a particularly Christian origin, though*. Look at the Bloody White Baron as he took over Mongolia, the people were right there with him as he persecuted the Chinese merchants, but utterly baffled as he set about persecuting the Jews - they had no idea why anyone would consider the Jews a threat or an enemy.



*Well, Abrahamic orgin, I guess, given the Muslims have a hate on for the Jews as well.


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Manchu wrote:What Martin Luther has to do with Hitler specifically -- outside of Hitler's ahistorical understanding of the German Volk -- or, what you claim their relationship to be, is totally beyond me.

Hitler's understanding and approach to God was steeped in Protestant Christian thought. He went to church. The only reason anyone would claim he was somehow not Christian was because they don't want him in their camp. Which has everything to do with revising history to make it easier to fit with pre-existing worldviews, and nothing to do with learning the truth.

What can really be said about Christianity and fascism? Well, as Christianity declines in influence . . . the influence of fascism seems to wax.

Note there is no correlation between the level of Christianity in specific countries and the level of fascism - in fact, given the three countries in Europe to fall to fascism were its most faithful, you could make a (weak) argument for the exact opposite of what you're claiming.


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Amaya wrote:It's just an attempt to link lower Christianity by saying that they influenced Nazism.

No, it is an attempt to represent the realities of Nazi belief. It does not, and cannot, reflect poorly on the millions upon millions of Christians who have led, and continue to lead good lives.

It is an important thing, because history will teach you that even people who express a belief in the same God as you can still be very, very bad people, and that it is important to look past such superficial piffle and into the real substance of a leader.


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Emperors Faithful wrote:What do you call it when people speak the truth, but do so in a manner that comes dangerously close to trolling?

If a person is telling the truth, in a way that's relevant to the thread, then he can't be trolling. In those cases anyone accusing him of trolling is just putting their fingers in the ears and yelling 'I can't hear you!'


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Amaya wrote:Where in the Bible does it say to go hate Jews?

Anti-semitic teaching was commonplace in churches in Europe at the time.

And where are these in the New Testament?

Biblical literalism often plays with taking specific quotes in isolation, without any consideration for the surrounding passages, or the historical conditions at the time, or how those lines have been understood and used by Christians through history.

Amaya, your effort above is perhaps the most pure example of that I've ever seen.


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generalgrog wrote:

Melissia wrote:And that matters how?

If a wolf dresses in sheeps clothing, and walks around with the sheep, is it a wolf or a sheep?

It is a wolf. But note the analogy argues for some kind of deceipt to be present, that the wolf is dressing up in, and pretending to be something it knows it is not.

Now consider a sheep, it isn't dressed as if it were a sheep, but it really is a sheep that lives with others just like it. Except is kills and murders other sheep. It is not a wolf, it is still a sheep, albeit a very bad one and not like the other sheep at all. But still a sheep.

Stormrider wrote:

snurl wrote:I have an old German belt buckle from WWII.
Around the eagle in the center are the words (translated): God With Us

Now why would they do that?

That has little to do with a belief in the tenets of Christ, this was a hold over from Imperial Germany. WWI German Belt buckles had this same motto on there as well. Much of the Nazi's appeal was to disaffected WWI Veterans who felt that they had been betrayed by the "juncker class" (land owners, military industrialists, wealthy bankers) of Imperial Germany because of the surrender in November 1918.

This thread does bring up an interesting thought, but the NSDAP was not based in anything remotely Christian. There were sections of Christianity (Seventh Day Adventists, Catholics & Quakers) that were persecuted just as much as the Jews.

The Nazi hierarchy didn't like Christianity at all, but the Christian population of Germany was large enough for them to not overtly make it a crime to be a practicing Christian, that would come out through "education" in HJ schools, the NPEA Bureaucrat school, Juncker Schools and Public education run by the Party. The idea wasn't to completely turn the table over, but to slowly un-Baptize Germany.

So in short, the Nazi's weren't Christians, they were radical Socialists.

Thank you for that answer. I have wondered about that for years.

snurl wrote:Thank you for that answer. I have wondered about that for years.

You really shouldn't thank him. 90% of his post was nonsense.

sebster wrote:

snurl wrote:Thank you for that answer. I have wondered about that for years.

You really shouldn't thank him. 90% of his post was nonsense.

But it feels true, and isn't that really what makes something true?

Ahtman wrote:But it feels true, and isn't that really what makes something true?

Truthiness!

sebster wrote:If a person is telling the truth, in a way that's relevant to the thread, then he can't be trolling. In those cases anyone accusing him of trolling is just putting their fingers in the ears and yelling 'I can't hear you!'

Well, I would have called it being blunt, but whatever floats your boat.

sebster wrote:

generalgrog wrote:
If a wolf dresses in sheeps clothing, and walks around with the sheep, is it a wolf or a sheep?

It is a wolf. But note the analogy argues for some kind of deceipt to be present, that the wolf is dressing up in, and pretending to be something it knows it is not.

Now consider a sheep, it isn't dressed as if it were a sheep, but it really is a sheep that lives with others just like it. Except is kills and murders other sheep. It is not a wolf, it is still a sheep, albeit a very bad one and not like the other sheep at all. But still a sheep.

This is very much sigged, BTW.

sebster wrote:

snurl wrote:Thank you for that answer. I have wondered about that for years.

You really shouldn't thank him. 90% of his post was nonsense.

Really? Some proof would be great. I shouldn't expect any though.

The NSDAP is completely godless in it's foundation, the use of Christianity was a ploy to rile up Germany's substantial Christian population. The hierarchy of the NSDAP considered Christians useful idiots.

Surely the idea of "because he did bad things he wasnt a Christian" is absurd, I liked KCs wargaming analogy, but isnt it even easier than that?

When i see a Christian asking a non believer questions (Ray Comfort is a good one) one of the first things he does is say "Did you ever tell a lie?" or "do you ever use the lords name in vain?" or "do you ever look at a woman with lust?" and when the answer is invariably "Yes", he points out that "just being a good guy isnt enough" because God is so pure, that even a tiny white lie means you cant get into heaven, and thats why we believe in Jesus.

Ergo. If according to the bible, a tiny lie, or a bit of lust, or a little theft are just as bad as murder or rape, then surely, by that logic NOBODY is a Christian?

Seems like a logic fail to me. And in that case, i think its safe to assume that Adolf was a Christian, or at the very absolute least he was a Deist. He might have been a dick, but he talked about God, praying and "the lord" and described himself as one, so ergo, he was one.

He most certainly wasnt in Mattys camp.

Not that it matters anyway.

Are you referring to yourself in the third person now?

Alright Hitler made his OWN church SO NOT christian BUT the pope of rome publicly sent his praise to Mr Adolf for such good and christian work he was doing???

so we've established Hitler was religious but he wasn't CHRISTIAN ok.

But i still dont like the overenthusiastic buggers anyway.
(not christians nazi's)

Ultrasmurf_no_REALY wrote:Alright Hitler made his OWN church

Because no Christian ever started their own church, which is why there is only one church and one unified sect.

Most of the heads of the Nazi party were drug adicts who knows what they were thinking.

But if you are asking whether Hitler himself hated Jews because of religion then I can answer this.

Hitler actullay didn't have a strong problem with jews until he was trying to gain power. He used the jews as a way of blaming them for the problems Germany was having. It more of a political move. Blame a group of people that can easily rally groups.

Lots of people had prejudice against jews in that time in europe and Hitler saw this as an opportunity in gaining support for power if he targeted the jews.

Thus it was'nt religous although I cant say for the rest of the Nazi party.

Well he was beaten to art school by a jew although he was crap anyway

generalgrog wrote:Allright...I'm tired of this coming up in every thread about atheism and Christianity. I didn't want to derail another thread about it so lets have it out here, shall we? Keep it out of the other thread, please.

Some people, inparticular Athiests love to say that Hitler/Nazis were Christians. Why do they do this? Because if they can convince people that Hitler/nazis were a Christian group they can point the finger at them and say...seee...seee this is what Christianity gets you.

Do they really? Because I see people far more frequently claiming that darwinism/atheism are rooted in the nazis and to be blamed for the holocaust. But then again people try to draw various conclusions from the fact he was a vegetarian. Except he wasn't a vegetarian. The nazis certainly were surrounded by christian iconography, but they also were interested in the occult. So it's a mixed bag of religious ideas. They also took steps against atheist organisations, though it has to be said that a lot of atheist organisations were also left wing which was a more immediate cause for them to be a target. Nazi Germany was christians just like most European countries were christian, it's neither here nor there when trying to make a point about what was responsible for nazism. Anyone who boils down nazism down to atheism or christianity is a fool.

Depending who it suits for the sake of an internet discussion Hitler was a darwinist, a jew, a christian, a vegetarian or had one testicle and that's why the Godwin argument applies, because once you start comparing someone to the nazis to make a point the discussion is generally a waste of time afterwards.



I think there's a bit of goal post moving here though that genuinely is 'intellectually dishonest', if we are using such terms. To say "The Nazis were not Christians, I know this because the nazis were bad people, and christianity says you should be good, ergo this precludes the Nazis from being christian" is pure sophistry. You can't claim that all christians are good because by definition a bad person won't be a christian. That isn't how christianity is defined, there are bad people everywhere, and some bad people are definitely christian. You only have to look at the likes of the Westboro Church to see a group of Christians who are thoroughly unpleasant. Doesn't mean they aren't christian though, even though no decent christian person would share a table with them. They believe in a christian god and follow christian texts however twisted it might appear from the outside. But to take people like them, or Osama Bin Laden, and try to draw any kind of general point about christianity or islam is wrong.

Politics and relegion are different things. Just because a lot of christians may have been followers of the Nazi party, doesn't mean that their political policies were solely based around that relegion (there were Jewish Nazis too mind. They may not have been into the anti semitism, but the other policies worked for them). Fascism, as it was known around the mid 20th centuary, was based around cults of personality. Sure these could include relegion to further their own ends, but that's not usually their main tool. ¬¬

generalgrog wrote:
It's not a cop out...if we started to talk about an issue as large as "what is a Christian really?" it would end up usurping this entire thread. You see how the slavery rabbit hole went. Also it's not a cop out because I told him to start a new thread if he wanted to explore it.

The questions "Were the Nazis Christian?" and "Were there Christian Nazis?" are impossible to answer without first answering the question "What is a Christian?"

You're ignoring a necessary premise of any argument that might be made in response to the original question, which seems an awful lot like an attempt to avoid presenting an explicit definition of what you consider a Christian to be. That might not be your intention, but that's how it appears.

Yak9UT wrote:Most of the heads of the Nazi party were drug adicts who knows what they were thinking.

But if you are asking whether Hitler himself hated Jews because of religion then I can answer this.

Hitler actullay didn't have a strong problem with jews until he was trying to gain power. He used the jews as a way of blaming them for the problems Germany was having. It more of a political move. Blame a group of people that can easily rally groups.

Lots of people had prejudice against jews in that time in europe and Hitler saw this as an opportunity in gaining support for power if he targeted the jews.

Thus it was'nt religous although I cant say for the rest of the Nazi party.

He hated Jews long before that.

Ultrasmurf_no_REALY wrote:Alright Hitler made his OWN church SO NOT christian BUT the pope of rome publicly sent his praise to Mr Adolf for such good and christian work he was doing???

so we've established Hitler was religious but he wasn't CHRISTIAN ok.

No, we've established no such thing.

generalgrog wrote:Now one mistake that you need to be careful of not making, is thinking that because different orthodox denominations differ in some minor issues, that we don't agree on the main tenets of Christianity. There are issues that we can agree to disagree on, such as church organization, baptism rights, charismatic issues, etc.. but we cannot disagree on the Main things such as the doctrines of the resurrection of Christ, the virgin birth, the Trinity, etc.GG

Surely following the teachings of Jesus Christ is the one doctrine that is essential to being a Christian? Belief (or lack thereof) in the resurrection, virgin birth, etc doesn't validate or invalidate the worth someone sees in those teachings.


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generalgrog wrote:You made a claim that I was relying on a book that had been translated 1/2 a dozen times. That 1/2 a dozen times figure shows your ignorance of the subject. The Bible has probably been translated 1,000's of times. I don't know how many languages their are in the world but I'm sure there is a translated Bible for each of them.

You're missing the point there. It doesn't matter how many different languages it's been translated into. It does many how many layers of translation it's been through before it reached the current version. If all current versions of the bible were translated from an original so that A->B, A->C, A->D, etc then all would be reasonably accurate. You could even compare B to C and so on for greater accuracy. The problem with the current versions of the bible is that they've been through numerous layers of translation A->B->C->D->E to get to where we are now. As such, the potential for gross inaccuracy is considerable. Add in the potential for deliberate mistranslation by people who had an axe to grind or a point to make and it's even worse.


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sebster wrote:

Manchu wrote:What Martin Luther has to do with Hitler specifically -- outside of Hitler's ahistorical understanding of the German Volk -- or, what you claim their relationship to be, is totally beyond me.

Hitler's understanding and approach to God was steeped in Protestant Christian thought. He went to church. The only reason anyone would claim he was somehow not Christian was because they don't want him in their camp. Which has everything to do with revising history to make it easier to fit with pre-existing worldviews, and nothing to do with learning the truth.

Stormrider wrote:Really? Some proof would be great. I shouldn't expect any though.

Did you read my earlier response in this thread? Failing to bother reading the arguments already put forward, then claiming no proof has been offered is incredibly cheeky.

The NSDAP is completely godless in it's foundation, the use of Christianity was a ploy to rile up Germany's substantial Christian population. The hierarchy of the NSDAP considered Christians useful idiots.

Except that is all nonsense that you've either made up or heard from someone who made it up. Read about Positive Christianity, something Hitler himself professed belief in and that he stated was a core belief of the Nazi party. Your claim that the NSDAP considered Christians useful idiots is complete fantasy, invented in the '50s to excuse Christian culpability in Nazi crimes, when many Christians were willing participants in the Nazi party, and in its leadership group.


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Ultrasmurf_no_REALY wrote:Alright Hitler made his OWN church SO NOT christian BUT the pope of rome publicly sent his praise to Mr Adolf for such good and christian work he was doing???

He didn't make his own church. I don't know where you got that from.

so we've established Hitler was religious but he wasn't CHRISTIAN ok.

No, he was Christian. A particularly confused and bizarre Christian, but still a Christian.


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Yak9UT wrote:Most of the heads of the Nazi party were drug adicts who knows what they were thinking.

This is another myth. Herman Goring was addicted to a mild painkiller, and had at one time been a morphine addict but was recovered by the mid-1930s. There has been speculation about other Nazis including Hitler but it is never any more than speculation.

But if you are asking whether Hitler himself hated Jews because of religion then I can answer this.

Hitler actullay didn't have a strong problem with jews until he was trying to gain power. He used the jews as a way of blaming them for the problems Germany was having. It more of a political move. Blame a group of people that can easily rally groups.

No, seriously, he hated the Jews. Really, really hated them. His part in the final solution is more debateable, as that seemed to come out of the junior leaders wanting to one-up each other in who hated the Jews the mostest, and out of a mutual panic as the situation on the Eastern Front got worse, but there can't be any doubt Hitler really hated the Jews.


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Ultrasmurf_no_REALY wrote:Well he was beaten to art school by a jew although he was crap anyway

Which is a great story with countless variations (he was failed by a Jewish teacher, a Jew was placed ahead of him in class due to ethnic quotas etc) but there's no evidence for any of the stories being any more than, well, stories.


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Howard A Treesong wrote:They believe in a christian god and follow christian texts however twisted it might appear from the outside. But to take people like them, or Osama Bin Laden, and try to draw any kind of general point about christianity or islam is wrong.

I'm now wondering if Muslims can start claiming Osama bin Laden isn't a Muslim. Actually, I suspect some Muslim folk probably do, and for much the same reasons as Christians try to claim Hitler wasn't Christian...

sebster wrote:
I'm now wondering if Muslims can start claiming Osama bin Laden isn't a Muslim. Actually, I suspect some Muslim folk probably do, and for much the same reasons as Christians try to claim Hitler wasn't Christian...

I've heard that Osama isn't adhereing to the correct process of waging a justified Jihad (destruction of buildings and killing of civilians, especially women and children being prohibited) but I haven't heard anyone claim that he is not a Muslim at all.

The problem is that whenever you see these arguments, people always just say Hitler was X so X must be bad.

This is of course a bad idea, as it makes little since to do this. Whenever you overgeneralize at this level, I generally assume the rest of their point is invalid.

People will just keep doing it though. They'll just keep trying to invalidate groups they dislike by comparing them to Hitler. It's Godwin's Law.

Personally I really dislike religious arguments, I like to talk about it, but people fight too much about it. Even on Dakka we have had some inflammatory comments made about religion, and most sites don't have the same amount of moderation and civility as we do.

As for FITZZ's analogy, we can't say you aren't a wargamer, but we can damn well say not all wargamers's are like you. We can very well defend our hobby from those who would say it only causes problems just because some people that participated in it have done bad things, and they have.

Emperors Faithful wrote:I've heard that Osama isn't adhereing to the correct process of waging a justified Jihad (destruction of buildings and killing of civilians, especially women and children being prohibited) but I haven't heard anyone claim that he is not a Muslim at all.

Absolutely. Do you think that's more than a little related to the high level of influence Christian groups have in the media here, and the relatively small representation of Islamic groups?


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Mike Noble wrote:As for FITZZ's analogy, we can't say you aren't a wargamer, but we can damn well say not all wargamers's are like you. We can very well defend our hobby from those who would say it only causes problems just because some people that participated in it have done bad things, and they have.

Absolutely. And I'd welcome Christian groups to make the exact same comments regarding Hitler...

The only reason anyone would claim he was somehow not Christian was because they don't want him in their camp. Which has everything to do with revising history to make it easier to fit with pre-existing worldviews, and nothing to do with learning the truth.

I dunno, I think this is unfair, and not really the normal sebsterian level of nuance.

I agree, if somebody says "I'm a Christian" and goes to Christian church, and generally lives with the trappings of the relgion, it's not entirely possible to just say they're not a Christian.

On the other hand, I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that somebody is not acting in accordance with Christian teachings, and is not representative of "true" Christianity.

So, if somebody says that Hitler never claimed to be a Christian, never associated with Christianity, yeah, that'd be revisionist.

On the other hand, if they say he was in no way representative of Christian values, or even if they shorthand that by saying he was "not a Christian" I think that's perfectly legitimate.

sebster wrote:

Stormrider wrote:Really? Some proof would be great. I shouldn't expect any though.

Did you read my earlier response in this thread? Failing to bother reading the arguments already put forward, then claiming no proof has been offered is incredibly cheeky.

The NSDAP is completely godless in it's foundation, the use of Christianity was a ploy to rile up Germany's substantial Christian population. The hierarchy of the NSDAP considered Christians useful idiots.

Except that is all nonsense that you've either made up or heard from someone who made it up. Read about Positive Christianity, something Hitler himself professed belief in and that he stated was a core belief of the Nazi party. Your claim that the NSDAP considered Christians useful idiots is complete fantasy, invented in the '50s to excuse Christian culpability in Nazi crimes, when many Christians were willing participants in the Nazi party, and in its leadership group.


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Ultrasmurf_no_REALY wrote:Alright Hitler made his OWN church SO NOT christian BUT the pope of rome publicly sent his praise to Mr Adolf for such good and christian work he was doing???

He didn't make his own church. I don't know where you got that from.

so we've established Hitler was religious but he wasn't CHRISTIAN ok.

No, he was Christian. A particularly confused and bizarre Christian, but still a Christian.


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Yak9UT wrote:Most of the heads of the Nazi party were drug adicts who knows what they were thinking.

This is another myth. Herman Goring was addicted to a mild painkiller, and had at one time been a morphine addict but was recovered by the mid-1930s. There has been speculation about other Nazis including Hitler but it is never any more than speculation.

But if you are asking whether Hitler himself hated Jews because of religion then I can answer this.

Hitler actullay didn't have a strong problem with jews until he was trying to gain power. He used the jews as a way of blaming them for the problems Germany was having. It more of a political move. Blame a group of people that can easily rally groups.

No, seriously, he hated the Jews. Really, really hated them. His part in the final solution is more debateable, as that seemed to come out of the junior leaders wanting to one-up each other in who hated the Jews the mostest, and out of a mutual panic as the situation on the Eastern Front got worse, but there can't be any doubt Hitler really hated the Jews.


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Ultrasmurf_no_REALY wrote:Well he was beaten to art school by a jew although he was crap anyway

Which is a great story with countless variations (he was failed by a Jewish teacher, a Jew was placed ahead of him in class due to ethnic quotas etc) but there's no evidence for any of the stories being any more than, well, stories.


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Howard A Treesong wrote:They believe in a christian god and follow christian texts however twisted it might appear from the outside. But to take people like them, or Osama Bin Laden, and try to draw any kind of general point about christianity or islam is wrong.

I'm now wondering if Muslims can start claiming Osama bin Laden isn't a Muslim. Actually, I suspect some Muslim folk probably do, and for much the same reasons as Christians try to claim Hitler wasn't Christian...

Hitler Didn't like Jews yes but in one of his early journals he talks about how using the jews as a political tool could give him support with people in Germany. As I said his motives were more Political then religious.

Hitler didn't like jews yes but it wasn't as great as when he was in power. He would even talk to and get help by Jews selling his paintings.

Phryxis wrote:I dunno, I think this is unfair, and not really the normal sebsterian level of nuance.

I agree, if somebody says "I'm a Christian" and goes to Christian church, and generally lives with the trappings of the relgion, it's not entirely possible to just say they're not a Christian.

On the other hand, I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that somebody is not acting in accordance with Christian teachings, and is not representative of "true" Christianity.

So, if somebody says that Hitler never claimed to be a Christian, never associated with Christianity, yeah, that'd be revisionist.

On the other hand, if they say he was in no way representative of Christian values, or even if they shorthand that by saying he was "not a Christian" I think that's perfectly legitimate.

Thing is, we've been getting the revisionist claim that he was never a Christian, that his only association with them was to play them as fools, and that he was entirely contemptuous of Christians. Which is revisionist history devised to distance the faith from the Nazis, and what I've been arguing against in this thread.

I agree that it was not representative of Christianity or its true teachings, but that doesn't change the fact that Hitler thought it was.


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Yak9UT wrote:Hitler Didn't like Jews yes but in one of his early journals he talks about how using the jews as a political tool could give him support with people in Germany. As I said his motives were more Political then religious.

Hitler didn't like jews yes but it wasn't as great as when he was in power. He would even talk to and get help by Jews selling his paintings.

All sorts of racist jackholes work, even closely, with the targets of their race hate. Racism is really weird like that.

But from the very earliest start to his political career, Hitler really had a hate-on for the Jews. The early stages of the Nazi party included all kinds of weird politics taken from across the political continuum (it would take until the Night of the Long Knives for Hitler to gain complete control and settle on the final version) but one thing was constant - the hate for the Jews.

I'm astounded that a thread prominently featuring religion and Nazis has made it all the way to 5 pages whilst remaining unlocked.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:I'm astounded that a thread prominently featuring religion and Nazis has made it all the way to 5 pages whilst remaining unlocked.

Actually that's fairly typical. The catalyst that sends these threads into their doom has yet to show itself, but it very well may.

Let's hope not though.

Phryxis wrote:

The only reason anyone would claim he was somehow not Christian was because they don't want him in their camp. Which has everything to do with revising history to make it easier to fit with pre-existing worldviews, and nothing to do with learning the truth.

I dunno, I think this is unfair, and not really the normal sebsterian level of nuance.

I agree, if somebody says "I'm a Christian" and goes to Christian church, and generally lives with the trappings of the relgion, it's not entirely possible to just say they're not a Christian.

On the other hand, I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that somebody is not acting in accordance with Christian teachings, and is not representative of "true" Christianity.

So, if somebody says that Hitler never claimed to be a Christian, never associated with Christianity, yeah, that'd be revisionist.

On the other hand, if they say he was in no way representative of Christian values, or even if they shorthand that by saying he was "not a Christian" I think that's perfectly legitimate.

I nominate sebsterian as word of the year.

I agree it is perfectly fair to say that he in way is Representative of all Christians.

sebster wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:I've heard that Osama isn't adhereing to the correct process of waging a justified Jihad (destruction of buildings and killing of civilians, especially women and children being prohibited) but I haven't heard anyone claim that he is not a Muslim at all.

Absolutely. Do you think that's more than a little related to the high level of influence Christian groups have in the media here, and the relatively small representation of Islamic groups?

Actually, I wasn't including any media outlets giving this information. I was reffering to conversations I've had with Muslims, some of which I consider friends. I'm sure that some station (maybe not Al Jazeera but att least someone) or a Imam in a televised account would do their best to distance Osama from the wider Islamic religion. But the actual people that I've talked to didn't really try to outright deny Osama's status as a Muslim (a few supported his resistence to Western Ideals) but they universally felt that his actions only tarnished the Muslim faith and encouraged further attacks (and only made people favour Israel more, but that's a whole other issue that resulted in many passionate speechs on their part). Suffice to say, I really didn't try to bring the fellow up too much. I got enough gak from asking about Israel.

Phryxis wrote:On the other hand, if they say he was in no way representative of Christian values, or even if they shorthand that by saying he was "not a Christian" I think that's perfectly legitimate.

The difficulty with simply saying "he wasn't a Christian" is that Hitler certainly seemed to consider himself to be a Christian. His writings suggest strongly that it was something he was reasonably passionate about and that he considered himself a good Christian.

None of that is a reflection on anybody else that considers themselves to be a Christian but it's certainly something that any thoughtful Christian is going to find difficult to reconcile which is why, I think, Hitler and the other Nazi's are dismissed as being crazy or drug addicts. Easier to write them off as in some way damaged or defective than to come to terms with the idea that reasonably intelligent men could find some kind of moral position where the things that they were doing were not only acceptable but also Christian (to them, at least).

So I thought of something recently, which goes in accordance with this.

One of the Ten Commandments was "Thou shalt not murder." Well, does that mean, that once you kill someone you cease to be a true Christian, or are you simply not a very good one?

I think that it is hard to justify violence with Christianity considering that if you do kill you are breaking one of the most important laws of it. So in a sense, Hitler may have considered himself a Christian, but he certainly didn't follow the rules very well.

Mike Noble wrote:I think that it is hard to justify violence with Christianity considering that if you do kill you are breaking one of the most important laws of it. So in a sense, Hitler may have considered himself a Christian, but he certainly didn't follow the rules very well.

Seems to me in the Bible you can kill as many people as you like if God is on your side.

Mike Noble wrote:So I thought of something recently, which goes in accordance with this.

One of the Ten Commandments was "Thou shalt not murder." Well, does that mean, that once you kill someone you cease to be a true Christian, or are you simply not a very good one?

I think that it is hard to justify violence with Christianity considering that if you do kill you are breaking one of the most important laws of it. So in a sense, Hitler may have considered himself a Christian, but he certainly didn't follow the rules very well.

Then what about a christian in the army? Hitler certainly beleived what he was doing was good for his government and country.

If hitler beleived in the bible followed any form of Christianity then sorry but he's a Christian, it doesent make Christians bad or anything (westboro baptist church anyone? noone (sane) beleive they represent all christians). Same way extreamist Muslims doesent make Muslims bad. (again, if you have some sanity)

"Murder" is an unlawful/immoral killing. Killing someone can be sanctioned under the law and by moral/religious authorities, particularly in the cases of self-defense and justified war. The Nazis thought what they were doing was justified, so they didn't consider it murder, self-deluded though they were.

Mannahnin wrote:"Murder" is an unlawful/immoral killing. Killing someone can be sanctioned under the law and by moral/religious authorities, particularly in the cases of self-defense and justified war. The Nazis thought what they were doing was justified, so they didn't consider it murder, self-deluded though they were.

I probebly should of made my post clearer... but thanks for clearing that up

Hey I am not great with computers so I don't know how to bring Howard a Treesong's post here, but he mentioned that he saw Nazism being attributed to darwinism etc.

Just wanted to point out that this thread is a response to some (very intellectual) atheists bringing up the Christian-Nazi connection on a thread about why do Christians do good deeds (I'm parapharasing very poorly here). So the shoe does fall on that foot as well.

Sebster gave a nice response to many of the points made but gave a very casual dismissal to the source of the original quotes made by the OP. Is this really a questionable source?

I have never read said book, but they seem logical from a fascists mindset. Most if not all politicians lie to the public, so comments spoken before a large gathering of protestant christians seem more like political bravo (like how Gore "created the internet") that actual belief.

So my question remains, is the source of the original quotes not considered true?

Here's a detailed article.

BY JINGO I THINK I'VE CRACKED IT!

Generalgrog is a Christian.
Generalgrog is not a Nazi.
Therefore, the Nazis were not Christian.

That's essentially what you're saying. Of course give me sufficient time, and the patience to do so, and I'll find you a Christian that say's you're no such thing yourself.

Ah Religion....so much for bringin peace and succor!

"Mr. Mystery", I think we're better off leaving personal arguments out of it.

But that is his argument. GG has used himself (rightly or wrongly) as the definition of Christianity for this thread.

His reasoning has been suspect, but I don't think he's ever defined a Christian as being someone who believes the exact same thing he does. In fact I believe he's openly stated that there are other Christians who believe differently.

@Mannahnin: thanks for the read. Interesting.

I guess Hitler saw himself as a Christian, he just did not really get the message.

Bastion of Mediocrity wrote:@Mannahnin: thanks for the read. Interesting.

I guess Hitler saw himself as a Christian, he just did not really get the message.

Or current christians do not get the message and he did.

As was discovered already in the other thread, the only true qualifier to be a christian is to consider yourself one. He didn't just 'see himself' as christian, he was a christian. Simple as, really. Because no-one is definitively qualified to prove he was NOT a christian.

Viewing from the outside, IMO Hitler and company were not good followers of Jesus' teachings, even if many of them were indeed Christians.

@Ketara, we can debate what is a "Christian" all day, frankly I grew up Mormon and a lot of Christians would not consider me Christian although I worship Jesus Christ.

The message however is what Christ taught. The 2 great commandments were 1. love and worship God and 2. love your fellow man. Killing many people (Jews, Slavs, gays and crippled people) is against the 2nd great commandment.

Anyway, from what I read in your posts you seem to enjoy the value of argument, so you may feel the message is debatable. I guess I see the gospel message as being more literal.

Nice that we can agree to disagree without setting up concentration camps.

Mannahnin wrote:Viewing from the outside, IMO Hitler and company were not good followers of Jesus' teachings, even if many of them were indeed Christians.

If we take the 10 commandments as indicative of Jesus' teachings, then the only ones that were explicitly violated en mass were the 8th (false witness) and the 10th (do not covet thy neighbors property).

That isn't to say that 10 commandments are evil, or anything of that sort, but only that they're very open to interpretation.

Nazis is a group of people all with differing views, adolph hitler is one man who lead the nazi party

That being said his views are not always consistent and change over time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_religious_views

Hitler often associated atheism with Germany's communist enemy.[52] Hitler stated in a speech to the Stuttgart February 15, 1933: "Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany’s fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity. Fourteen years they have gone arm in arm with atheism. At no time was greater damage ever done to Christianity than in those years when the Christian parties ruled side by side with those who denied the very existence of God. Germany's entire cultural life was shattered and contaminated in this period. It shall be our task to burn out these manifestations of degeneracy in literature, theater, schools, and the press—that is, in our entire culture—and to eliminate the poison which has been permeating every facet of our lives for these past fourteen years."[53]

He wasnt necissarily Christian but he did beleive in God

Also, do you know who else breathed air and was a vertebrate? Hitler.

Mr Mystery wrote:BY JINGO I THINK I'VE CRACKED IT!

Generalgrog is a Christian.
Generalgrog is not a Nazi.
Therefore, the Nazis were not Christian.

That's essentially what you're saying. Of course give me sufficient time, and the patience to do so, and I'll find you a Christian that say's you're no such thing yourself.

Ah Religion....so much for bringin peace and succor!

And its excellent trolling posts like this about religion that make me so want to get rid of the OT.

Bastion of Mediocrity wrote:@The message however is what Christ taught. The 2 great commandments were 1. love and worship God and 2. love your neighbour (which could arguably be more limited than fellow man). Killing many people (Caananites, Assyrians, gays and anyone who pisses the Chosen People off) is against the 2nd great commandment.

Noticed a little typo there.

Even a cursory read through of the bible provides evidence not only of genocide (putting every man, woman and child to the sowrd becuase 'they' as a people were universally evil) but also purges (which included fatricide). It's not too much of a stretch to compare the purges of the unfaithful during the exodus to the purges under Stalin several thousand years later.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the ten commandments from the Old Testament, and derived from Judaism? If following them defines one as a Christian, then theoretically all Jews would be Christian, as the Old Testament was rather heavily ripped from the Torah.

Ketara wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the ten commandments from the Old Testament, and derived from Judaism? If following them defines one as a Christian, then theoretically all Jews would be Christian, as the Old Testament was rather heavily ripped from the Torah.

I believe acknowledging Jesus Christ is the more important part to a Christian, though I would assume they still have to follow the commandments. Whether this means the big #2, the medium #10 or the min #200+, I'm not sure.

Gibbsey wrote:
He wasnt necissarily Christian but he did beleive in God

Also, do you know who else breathed air and was a vertebrate? Hitler.

This is one of those times it is better to not trust Wikipedia because of how contentious the subject matter is. I'll go with the verified quotes from trusted historians that were used earlier in the thread in which Hitlers has called himself a Christian. There is a difference between not being a Christian and not being what a majority of people would think of as a good example of a Christian.

Ketara wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the ten commandments from the Old Testament, and derived from Judaism? If following them defines one as a Christian, then theoretically all Jews would be Christian, as the Old Testament was rather heavily ripped from the Torah.

I don't feel like explaining it in detail, but while the Ten Commandments are based on the OT they were also referenced quite frequently in the NT.

Below is a good, short list of the relevant passages from here.

The following passages in the New Testament confirm, either explicitly or by example, that Jesus Christ and the apostles viewed the Ten Commandments as a necessary part of Christian living.

First Commandment: Matthew 4:10; 22:37-38.

Second Commandment: 1 John 5:21; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 10:7, 14; Ephesians 5:5.

Third Commandment: Matthew 5:33-34; 7:21-23; Luke 11:2; 1 Timothy 6:1.

Fourth Commandment: Luke 4:16; Acts 13:14, 42, 44; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4; Hebrews 4:4, 9.

Fifth Commandment: Matthew 15:3-6; 19:17-19; Ephesians 6:2-3.

Sixth Commandment: Matthew 5:21-22; 19:17-18; Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:19-21; James 2:10-12.

Seventh Commandment: Matthew 5:27-28; 19:17-18; Romans 13:9; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 10:8; Ephesians 5:5; Galatians 5:19-21; James 3:10-12.

Eighth Commandment: Matthew 19:17-18; Romans 13:9, Ephesians 4:28

Ninth Commandment: Matthew 19:17-18; Romans 13:9; Colossians 3:9; Ephesians 4:25

Tenth Commandment: Luke 12:15; Romans 7:7; 13:9; Ephesians 5:3, 5.

dogma wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Viewing from the outside, IMO Hitler and company were not good followers of Jesus' teachings, even if many of them were indeed Christians.

If we take the 10 commandments as indicative of Jesus' teachings, then the only ones that were explicitly violated en mass were the 8th (false witness) and the 10th (do not covet thy neighbors property).

That isn't to say that 10 commandments are evil, or anything of that sort, but only that they're very open to interpretation.

Perhaps my memory is poor, but I associate the 10 Commandments much more with Moses than Jesus. Not to say that he didn't teach those too, but he talked about a lot of other stuff as well.

The passage quoted a couple of times earlier in the thread has Jesus saying "love god" and "love thy neighbor as thyself". The latter doesn't seem to accurately describe how the Nazis treated many of their neighbors; in Germany or outside of it.

Not unless they were extremely masochistic.

Mannahnin wrote:
Perhaps my memory is poor, but I associate the 10 Commandments much more with Moses than Jesus. Not to say that he didn't teach those too, but he talked about a lot of other stuff as well.

They are, but Jesus certainly preached in a manner that presumed all the commandments to be equivalent; whether that was a matter of orthodox propriety, or legitimate belief is an open question.

Mannahnin wrote:
The passage quoted a couple of times earlier in the thread has Jesus saying "love god" and "love thy neighbor as thyself". The latter doesn't seem to accurately describe how the Nazis treated many of their neighbors; in Germany or outside of it.

"And who is my neighbor?"" (Luke 10:29)

The generally accepted response from Matthew is that all who suffer are neighbors. However, "suffering" can be broadly interpreted. Are Aryan Germans suffering from the presence of Jews? Are Jews suffering as a result of being Jewish? These seem like absurd questions on their faces, but insofar as Christianity and good conduct are determined internally* they are still important.


*That is to say, all people are able to judge what is good. They cannot be mistaken, but many other people can disagree, and so act in opposition.

dogma wrote:

Ketara wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the ten commandments from the Old Testament, and derived from Judaism? If following them defines one as a Christian, then theoretically all Jews would be Christian, as the Old Testament was rather heavily ripped from the Torah.

I don't feel like explaining it in detail, but while the Ten Commandments are based on the OT they were also referenced quite frequently in the NT.

Below is a good, short list of the relevant passages from here.

The following passages in the New Testament confirm, either explicitly or by example, that Jesus Christ and the apostles viewed the Ten Commandments as a necessary part of Christian living.

First Commandment: Matthew 4:10; 22:37-38.

Second Commandment: 1 John 5:21; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 10:7, 14; Ephesians 5:5.

Third Commandment: Matthew 5:33-34; 7:21-23; Luke 11:2; 1 Timothy 6:1.

Fourth Commandment: Luke 4:16; Acts 13:14, 42, 44; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4; Hebrews 4:4, 9.

Fifth Commandment: Matthew 15:3-6; 19:17-19; Ephesians 6:2-3.

Sixth Commandment: Matthew 5:21-22; 19:17-18; Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:19-21; James 2:10-12.

Seventh Commandment: Matthew 5:27-28; 19:17-18; Romans 13:9; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 10:8; Ephesians 5:5; Galatians 5:19-21; James 3:10-12.

Eighth Commandment: Matthew 19:17-18; Romans 13:9, Ephesians 4:28

Ninth Commandment: Matthew 19:17-18; Romans 13:9; Colossians 3:9; Ephesians 4:25

Tenth Commandment: Luke 12:15; Romans 7:7; 13:9; Ephesians 5:3, 5.

I'm not debating that the commandments may have been repeated elsewhere. Rather, I'm intrigued by the concept that if you follow moral Rules X,Y, and Z, you are considered to be a christian.

Simply put, It was outlined earlier that one could not be a christian for violating certain criteria. Fair enough. But if you make it so that you are defined as a christian by following certain criteria, then surely that leads you into problems with people who are of other religions, but follow the same broad moral criteria being technically christian?

For example 'The message however is what Christ taught. The 2 great commandments were 1. love and worship God and 2. love your fellow man.'.

Say I'm Jewish and I love and worship God, and love my fellow man. Does this make me christian? I'm pretty sure Jesus never actually said anywhere, 'You must love and worship me specifically as the son of God/God himself at the same time/part of this holy trio thing'. That all came later, to my knowledge (although feel free to disprove me on that).

Mt 22:36 “[Jesus], which is the great commandment in the law?” And he said to him, ’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

But there are many other religions who follow these precise teachings. So surely they cannot act as the sole criteria to determine faith?

Ketara wrote:But there are many other religions who follow these precise teachings. So surely they cannot act as the sole criteria to determine faith?

No, but I'd think that at least attempting to follow those two greatest commandments would be indicative of whether or not someone was even trying to be Christian.

Well, in this case, a Nazi Christian would have been able to love the lord, fulfilling the first criteria. And as Jews were untermensch, they wouldn't have counted as neighbours in their view. After all, would you consider a rat your neighbour?
So from their own perspective at least, it seems they could easily meet both requirements.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Actually, I wasn't including any media outlets giving this information. I was reffering to conversations I've had with Muslims, some of which I consider friends. I'm sure that some station (maybe not Al Jazeera but att least someone) or a Imam in a televised account would do their best to distance Osama from the wider Islamic religion. But the actual people that I've talked to didn't really try to outright deny Osama's status as a Muslim (a few supported his resistence to Western Ideals) but they universally felt that his actions only tarnished the Muslim faith and encouraged further attacks (and only made people favour Israel more, but that's a whole other issue that resulted in many passionate speechs on their part). Suffice to say, I really didn't try to bring the fellow up too much. I got enough gak from asking about Israel.

True, I was really just riffing on the idea that if Christians can't start picking and choosing who's really Christian, why can't Muslims...


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Bastion of Mediocrity wrote:Just wanted to point out that this thread is a response to some (very intellectual) atheists bringing up the Christian-Nazi connection on a thread about why do Christians do good deeds (I'm parapharasing very poorly here). So the shoe does fall on that foot as well.

There's no denying Christianity spurs a number of believers into doing very good deeds.

There's also no denying that the ideas of evolution inspired some particularly horrible people to begin to develop the ideas of eugenics, which in time spread into other circles, including religious ones.

Sebster gave a nice response to many of the points made but gave a very casual dismissal to the source of the original quotes made by the OP. Is this really a questionable source?

Yeah, it's dodgy as hell. No quote in the book has a reliable primary source, and it wildly contradicts every primary source we have on Hitler's thoughts.

I have never read said book, but they seem logical from a fascists mindset. Most if not all politicians lie to the public, so comments spoken before a large gathering of protestant christians seem more like political bravo (like how Gore "created the internet") that actual belief.

We have other primary sources for Hitler's thoughts that were private. And many of the public ones were made when Hitler had complete political control of Germany. And the brand of Christianity Hitler espoused was a very contraversial form, that no-one would accept if they simply looking to pander to Christians.

So my question remains, is the source of the original quotes not considered true?

You won't find many historians of Hitler who use the work, outside of the small circle of Christian historians dedicated to making the claim that Hitler wasn't Christian.


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Bastion of Mediocrity wrote:@Ketara, we can debate what is a "Christian" all day, frankly I grew up Mormon and a lot of Christians would not consider me Christian although I worship Jesus Christ.

The message however is what Christ taught. The 2 great commandments were 1. love and worship God and 2. love your fellow man. Killing many people (Jews, Slavs, gays and crippled people) is against the 2nd great commandment.

Totally. I'm on board with the idea that Hitler was not a good Christian. It's just that whether you are or are not a Christian isn't based on whether you're a good one, but whether you believe in Jesus Christ as your saviour.

Nice that we can agree to disagree without setting up concentration camps.

That's what you think. In about an hour a lovely man from FEMA will be around to pick you up. You are permitted to take one small suitcase with you, no more.


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Emperors Faithful wrote:I believe acknowledging Jesus Christ is the more important part to a Christian, though I would assume they still have to follow the commandments. Whether this means the big #2, the medium #10 or the min #200+, I'm not sure.

I would assume that if one was to honestly acknowledge Jesus that would mean embracing his laws. That many people claim their love for Jesus without actually tempering their lives by his* laws is a bit of a shame.





*You know how you capitalise His when you're talking about God, do you do that for Jesus as well?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ahtman wrote:This is one of those times it is better to not trust Wikipedia because of how contentious the subject matter is. I'll go with the verified quotes from trusted historians that were used earlier in the thread in which Hitlers has called himself a Christian. There is a difference between not being a Christian and not being what a majority of people would think of as a good example of a Christian.

Yeah, the wikipedia pages on this are horrendous. I think it's that perfect storm of being not quite important enough for serious historians to worry about building pages on, but important enough for amateur's with an agenda to throw loads of almost research into.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mannahnin wrote:Perhaps my memory is poor, but I associate the 10 Commandments much more with Moses than Jesus. Not to say that he didn't teach those too, but he talked about a lot of other stuff as well.

The passage quoted a couple of times earlier in the thread has Jesus saying "love god" and "love thy neighbor as thyself". The latter doesn't seem to accurately describe how the Nazis treated many of their neighbors; in Germany or outside of it.

Hitler believed Jesus was an Aryan who fought against the oppression of the Jews. He felt himself to be doing the same. It's safe to say his own brand of Christianity was sufficiently ridiculous to defy judgement according to traditional Christian principals.

Which, of course, doesn't make him not Christian. It makes him a follower of a bizarrely contorted variant.

sebster wrote:

Ahtman wrote:This is one of those times it is better to not trust Wikipedia because of how contentious the subject matter is. I'll go with the verified quotes from trusted historians that were used earlier in the thread in which Hitlers has called himself a Christian. There is a difference between not being a Christian and not being what a majority of people would think of as a good example of a Christian.

Yeah, the wikipedia pages on this are horrendous. I think it's that perfect storm of being not quite important enough for serious historians to worry about building pages on, but important enough for amateur's with an agenda to throw loads of almost research into.

Only reason i brought up the Wikipedia article is it state there are many quotes but many are not sourced/ from unreliable sources, plus it mentions that his religious beliefs were not completely clear

Gibbsey wrote:Only reason i brought up the Wikipedia article is it state there are many quotes but many are not sourced/ from unreliable sources, plus it mentions that his religious beliefs were not completely clear

Thing is, his beliefs are fairly clear. It's just that a lot of people don't like the answer.

sebster wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:Actually, I wasn't including any media outlets giving this information. I was reffering to conversations I've had with Muslims, some of which I consider friends. I'm sure that some station (maybe not Al Jazeera but att least someone) or a Imam in a televised account would do their best to distance Osama from the wider Islamic religion. But the actual people that I've talked to didn't really try to outright deny Osama's status as a Muslim (a few supported his resistence to Western Ideals) but they universally felt that his actions only tarnished the Muslim faith and encouraged further attacks (and only made people favour Israel more, but that's a whole other issue that resulted in many passionate speechs on their part). Suffice to say, I really didn't try to bring the fellow up too much. I got enough gak from asking about Israel.

True, I was really just riffing on the idea that if Christians can't start picking and choosing who's really Christian, why can't Muslims...

Well Mormons (Christian or no?) seem to be able to pick and choose which dead people are Mormon, so really there's nothing stopping anyone. It's a well known fact that Joan of Arc was actually Muslim, as decided some 500 years or so after her death.

Emperors Faithful wrote:I believe acknowledging Jesus Christ is the more important part to a Christian, though I would assume they still have to follow the commandments. Whether this means the big #2, the medium #10 or the min #200+, I'm not sure.

I would assume that if one was to honestly acknowledge Jesus that would mean embracing his laws. That many people claim their love for Jesus without actually tempering their lives by his* laws is a bit of a shame.





*You know how you capitalise His when you're talking about God, do you do that for Jesus as well?

A damn good question.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Mike Noble wrote:I think that it is hard to justify violence with Christianity considering that if you do kill you are breaking one of the most important laws of it. So in a sense, Hitler may have considered himself a Christian, but he certainly didn't follow the rules very well.

Seems to me in the Bible you can kill as many people as you like if God is on your side.

Yeah but it says "Thou shalt not kill.", Not, Thou shalt not kill.....unless you really want to."

Just because their are certain people God doesn't like, that doesn't mean anyone can kill them, that would be His job. The way I see it at least.

Mike Noble wrote:
Yeah but it says "Thou shalt not kill.", Not, Thou shalt not kill.....unless you really want to."

Just because their are certain people God doesn't like, that doesn't mean anyone can kill them, that would be His job. The way I see it at least.

Do different bibles get 'Kill' and 'Murder' mixed up, or is this a common misconception?

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Mike Noble wrote:
Yeah but it says "Thou shalt not kill.", Not, Thou shalt not kill.....unless you really want to."

Just because their are certain people God doesn't like, that doesn't mean anyone can kill them, that would be His job. The way I see it at least.

Do different bibles get 'Kill' and 'Murder' mixed up, or is this a common misconception?

Shockingly, this depends on who you ask.

@ Emporer's Faithful: Christ did not say to kill the various races listed, that occurs in the old testament. Many Christians believe that Jesus taught a higher law than given to Moses and the prophets of old.

Thus love thy neighbor as thyself (a high-minded law that no country that I am aware of has kept very well) is from Christ as the second great commandment. Killing canaanites was part of the lesser law (according to some Christians), and if you have the stamina to read the old testament you will see that it was not as well kept as you may think. Either way I have not read any scripture in the new testament that quoted Jesus saying "Thou shalt kill . . ."

@Sebster, lol! I think FEMA will probably not arrive on time, right?

Also my 2 cents is that if you bellieve similar to certain tenants of any faith it does not make you a member of it. So even if your belief system is similar to that presented by Christ, it does not make you Christian unless you profess to worship him.

On the other hand if you profess to worship him but do not follow the tenants of his faith, you are also not a Christian. My opinion only, no quotable source or clever/analytical thereom. Just me.

Good luck to you all.

Bastion of Mediocrity wrote:@ Emporer's Faithful: Christ did not say to kill the various races listed, that occurs in the old testament. Many Christians believe that Jesus taught a higher law than given to Moses and the prophets of old.

Many Christians believe that Christ is God, part of the Trinity. And God certainly did command the utter destruction and annhilation of some select races in the Old Testament.

Thus love thy neighbor as thyself (a high-minded law that no country that I am aware of has kept very well) is from Christ as the second great commandment. Killing canaanites was part of the lesser law (according to some Christians), and if you have the stamina to read the old testament you will see that it was not as well kept as you may think. Either way I have not read any scripture in the new testament that quoted Jesus saying "Thou shalt kill . . ."

So now there are 'Higher Laws' and 'Lesser Laws'? I cannot recall a passage in the New Testament where Jesus claims to overide the Old Testament. On the contrary, and many christians will tell you this, he is supposed to have fullfilled it.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Mike Noble wrote:
Yeah but it says "Thou shalt not kill.", Not, Thou shalt not kill.....unless you really want to."

Just because their are certain people God doesn't like, that doesn't mean anyone can kill them, that would be His job. The way I see it at least.

Do different bibles get 'Kill' and 'Murder' mixed up, or is this a common misconception?

Given that the bible is very clear on the subject of self defence, I suspect that it's supposed to be 'murder'.

"If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him." Exodus 22:2

"Then said he [Jesus] unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." Luke 22:36

Bastion of Mediocrity wrote:@Sebster, lol! I think FEMA will probably not arrive on time, right?

Typical Federal Government...

Allright guys....now that I'm back from new job boot camp. I've been reading the thread and I have to say that so many smart people getting wrapped around the axle was amusing but it's also quite sad.

Sebster keeps saying that my source is crap..but he offers no counter source. Mannahin did show a link, which I haven't looked at yet(I will when I get time). For some reason you guys think that anyone that raises their hand and says "I'm a Christian" is one(I haven't peeped over at the other thread yet).

So lets just keep this simple shall we.

Hitler is supposed to have said this..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)

Do you know of any "real" Christian to have said anything like this? Hitler said Christianity is a failure(paraphrased) Would a real believer say such a thing?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More tidbits from NAZI eyewitnesses.

From Inside the Third Reich, Memiors by Albert Speer, Translated from the German by Richard and Clara Winston, Avon Publishers, 1970:

What remains in my memory of social life at Obersalzberg is a curious vacuity. Fortunately, during my first years of imprisonment, while my recollections were still fresh, I noted down a few scraps of conversations which I can now regard as reasonably authentic....

Amid his political associates in Berlin, Hitler made harsh pronouncements against the church, but in the presence of women he adopted a milder tone -- one of the instances where he adapted his remarks to his surroundings.

"The church is certainly necessary for the people. It is a strong and conservative element," he might say at one time or another in this private circle. However, he conceived of the church as an instrument that could be useful to him. "If only Reibi [this was his nickname for Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller] had some kind of stature. But why do they appoint a nobody of an army chaplain? I'd be glad to give him my full support. Think of all he could do with that. Through me the Evangelical [Protestant] Church could become the established church, as in England."

Even after 1942 Hitler went on maintaining that he regarded the church as indispensable in political life. He would be happy, he said in one of those teatime talks at Obersalzberg, if someday a prominent churchman turned up who was suited to lead one of the churches -- or if possible both the Catholic and Protestant churches reunited. He still regretted that Reich Bishop Müller was not the right man to carry out his far-reaching plans. But he sharply condemned the campaign against the church, calling it a crime against the future of the nation. For it was impossible, he said, to replace the church by any "party ideology." Undoubtedly, he continued, the church would learn to adapt to the political goals of National Socialism in the long run, as it had always adapted in the course of history. A new party religion would only bring about a relapse into the mysticism of the Middle Ages. The growing SS myth showed that clearly enough, as did Rosenburg's unreadable Myth of the Twentieth Century.

If in the course of such a monologue Hitler had pronounced a more negative judgment upon the church, Bormann would undoubtedly have taken from his jacket pocket one of the white cards he always carried with him. For he noted down all Hitler's remarks that seemed to him important; and there was hardly anything he wrote down more eagerly than deprecating comments on the church. At the time I assumed that he was gathering material for a biography of Hitler.

Around 1937, when Hitler heard that at the instigation of the party and the SS vast numbers of his followers had left the church because it was obstinately opposing his plans, he nevertheless ordered his chief associates, above all Goering and Goebbels, to remain members of the church. He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church, he said, although he had no real attachment to it. And in fact he remained in the church until his suicide.

Hitler had been much impressed by a scrap of history he had learned from a delegation of distinguished Arabs. When the Mohammedans attempted to penetrate beyond France into Central Europe during the eight century, his visitors had told him, they had been driven back at the battle of Tours. Had the Arabs won this battle, the world would be Mohammedan today. For theirs was a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that faith. The Germanic peoples would have become the heirs to that religion. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the Germanic temperament. Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate and conditions of the country. They could not have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire.

Hitler usually concluded this historical speculation by remarking: "You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japaneses, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to use than Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------


To quote Herman Goerbels
"The Fuhrer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian. He views Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race... Both [Judaism and Christianity] have no point of contact to the animal element, and thus, in the end, they will be destroyed."

A lot of stuff here... http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/id2.html


I'm tired going to bed.

GG

Yeah gg, so he most definately WAS Religious.

To quote Herman Goerbels
"The Fuhrer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian. He views Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race... Both [Judaism and Christianity] have no point of contact to the animal element, and thus, in the end, they will be destroyed."

Ergo, he wasnt an atheist.

Seriously though mate, it is irrelevant, who cares what he was? I really feel that it has no importance with regards to what is going on today, and i really feel that it is Christians that keep bringing it up in some childlish attempt to discredit non believers.

But yeah, he believed in some kinda God, Christian or not. So he wasnt an atheist. Hurrah!

How do we know he didn't change his ideas? He could have very well changed his mind, after all, that quote is somewhat true, Christianity comes from Judaism, so he would have to exterminate them too technically, and Muslims as well.

Eh, doesn't really matter what he was anyway.

I'd assume some sort of Christian, but I could be wrong. In an organization so large you're bound to have multiple religious beliefs held by the members.

In all honesty, I could see Adolf pandering to whatever major religion was abound in the country in an attempt to gain popularity and power, and that was probably Christianity.

Ok, reading this thread has been a slog. So I will make only a few general points at this time.

1. Hitler and his speeches.

I think we can all take it as a given that Adolf Hitler was an amoral opportunist who didn't really care who he sacrficed or victimised in order to achieve his own goals. He was also a master orator. The former comment needs no further exposition, however let me stres this latter point, Hitler is still regarded as one of the to-watch figures when learning the orators craft. Perhaps he was not the best orator of all time, but he was certainly the first to use modern mass media to its full extent. While a lot of that success was due to cinematography and choreography Hitler was at the centre of the drama and his speechcraft was impecable. This is why those studying oratory or political science are encouraged to learn from Hitler above all others no matter the potential penalty if being witnessed doing so.
This is relevant to paint a picture that Hitler was an amoral person who also knew his trade: convincing people through his speechcraft. One of the key factors of speechcraft is not only managing your own delivery but reading your audience, a good orator can read the flow of an audience and adapt as needed to have the best effect. Consequently as with many politicians Hitler said different things to different people for different reasons.

This is why quotes of Adolf Hitler on religion for and against are suspect. Were there some consistency in his commenatries some analogy could be inferred however clearly there is not. there are plenty of Hitler quotes by which he claims to be doing Gods work, others show his open distain for religion. Often one set of quotes or another are brought out to make a point. This is unfair. Both sets of quotations should be used. I wont quote them, we see enough of them from above quotes. What would be interesting is to know what he said and to whome, but most of the quotes I see here and elsewhere do not give much detail as to the setting.

The only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that Hitler said what he said out of expediency. Any cursory look at Hitlers career shows that he cannot be trusted either in his politics or his oratory. Germany's war effort suffered when Hitler insisted his military prioritised fulfilling a promise he had recently made in one of his rallies. Likewise people suffered as Hitler shifted blame or created scapegoats to fuel his own oratory and to focus public ire where he wanted it.


2. Hitler and his personal religion.

Hitler may or may not have had a religious upbringing, he was raised a Roman Catholic, but this may have been either nominal or church going. Frankly it is not really relevant anyway he was certainly his own man, in his position he could believe whatever he chose without much consequence after he was entrenched.
Let us assume a worst case scenario from the point of view of any relgious person who wants to detach Hitler from his own creed and assume that Hitler did have an active faith life in his youth. Does that matter. No it does not as Hitler in his youth was a budding painter and later soldier who attempted to serve his society in both professions to some degree or other. The seed of Nazi-ism might have been there already but it was not surfaced.

Similarly it is known that at the turn of the twentieth century the man later known as Stalin was a Bible college student. Communism under the Soviet Union was very clearly an atheistic system, and stalin was no exception to the leadership.
Stalin persecuted the Russian church extensively, though he failed to destroy it and after a manner 'put it on ice' (beyond the literal meaning of deporting many priests to Siberia). In the Winter of 1941 with the Germans encrouching on Moscow Stalin ordered the churches reopened. This period of remission was not to last and was permitted to suit the strategic prurposes only. By Marxist dogma, as an 'opiate of the masses' relgion was an adequate tool to fix lagging morale during this time of despair.

Any cursory look at the relgiosity of Hitler and the Nazis in general cannot be alluded to from their quotations wherther from speeches texts or belt buckles, especially because they are directly contradictory and there is a logical reason as to why they are so. Soviet Communism is easier to define but still changed its tune to some degree for the same reason of expediency.

Hitler is often credited with being as Christian, though not as any other relgious denomination. Though Norse pagan symbolism is frequently used as well as the Hindu orginated swastika. The symbolism can be safely ignored as symbols are very often rehashed and reused even by religions in relation to each other, such as early medieval Christianity's hijacking of the Yule and Ishtar festivals.

To investage the lives of Hitler and the other Nazi leaders we need to look at the next two points:


3. Christianity. Who is?

As Hitler is credited with being a Christian let us now look at what one is. Let us take this from the source:

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Matthew 7: 15-22 Quotations of Jesus Christ from the Sermon on the Mount.

Verse 16 is the key here, but I covered the lot to ensure context. Not much more I need say on that.


4. Religion. Who is?

A more general comment relating to who is what with regards to both Christianity and other major religions, including Islam. By and large I find this to be true of most successful faiths, it can also apply to denominations within faiths as well as the faiths themselves. To some extent cukts too, well designed cults normally fall apart about Stage C, most cults dont survive Stage A. For the purposes of this statement a cult is defined as a new denomination or faith headed by a less than holy initial figurehead, this is not entirely correct but is acurate enough to suffice for the exercise, defining relgions is difficult at best.

a. Most faiths that go the distance start with a single benign leader wielding considerable respect if not political power. Often these individuals are opposed by the politcal or other relgious leadership of the time, or detached from it. Their followers might be few and they may not have much power themselves.

b. After the initial relgious figurehead passes on to whtever fate their scripture make for them, or the simple death/retirement of a denominational reformer the immediated followers take over. The denomination/faith grows in size and begins to grow in power. The orgnaisation is still largely uncorrupted because it is led by first hand attendeants of the orginal benign figurehead who taught them well.

c. The next generation is taught by those who learned from the orginal figurehead, perhaps they are descendents of the orginal followers. They too may be holy-ish according to the paradigm of the religion because they were raised that way from childhood by the initial core of beleivers. If the leadership was brought in proceed almost immeidately to stage d.

d. The next generation of leadership is taught by the descendents of those who never knew the original leader, as the initial fire has largely died the tenets of the faith. At this point some tenets may change or be corrupted, or omitted out of expediency, error or plain lack of a sufficient complete religious book. As the faith is growing it attracts more people of different backgrounds to it. The leadership may grown more savvy but also more pragmatic.

e. Assuming ther faith is survived this long it is now a major force and a good career move, for some. It can interfere with politcal power rather than just be a pawn of such and is likely to survive long term in one form or another. Because leading such an organisation is a good career move and potentialy lucrative the leadership falling increasingly into ther hands of those who can play economic or politcial games rather than the holiest available person.

In a nutshell: Religious groups start with solid well intentioned beleivers and end up led by and used by politicians.

Thus religion as a powerbase in inherently poltical first and faith based second, if at all.

Understanding of this truth will explain to you not only Hitlers motive for being flexible on his 'beliefs' but also explains why adhering to or condemining a belief/beliefs or the concept of belief can be expedient. It certainly explains Islam, Zionism and much of Christian chruch history. It is important to note that atheism is no solution to religious politics in terms or political tooling Atheism is proven to be just another politicised faith group voting/recruiting blok.


5. What happened then?

When Hitler started his persecutions some Christians were among the the first to go. The mentally ill and disabled were sometimes euthenised, sometimes sterilised on a race purity dogma. Christians died next because some Christian denominations were particularly opposed to Nazi-ism and were vocal about it or practiced the Charismata, which often draws persecution of itself. Approximately 200,000 German Christians were executed, mostly prior to the Final Solution and mostly of fringe denominations.
Jews were already perscuted openly since approx 1937 but no efforts at eradication were made until the Winter of 1941-2.
It is not widely acknowledged that Christians were targeted for extermination partly because the larger denominations were not as heavily touched. Pentecostalism was started in Germany shortly after the Napoleonic Wars, particularly by the Von Bulow family and others in Prussia, only later did it spread to America and elsewhere.
Pentecostalism claims to be a return to the orginal pre-catholic form of Christianty as described in the book of Acts. It is often synonymous with charismatic which means those churches that practice the 'Charismata' - Holy Gifts such as speaking in Tongues and prophesy. Those who understand Christianity may find it interesting and not at all suprising that this particular form of spiritual Christianity was particularly opposed by the Nazis and goes a long way to defining the spirit of Nazi-ism.


6. Further notes.

I will leave you with this:


The above diagram indicates the type of identification markers worn by victims of the concentration camp system in Nazi Germany. Normally modern media shows nothing beyond the yellow 'star of David' which is only incidentally a star of David and means that the wearer is Jewish and without any secondary 'offense'. The example shown on the bottom left is for a Jewish Communist.
Ther basic symbol is a triangle of whichever colour categorises the victim. While Jews comprised the majoirty of the concentration camp system, at least one million others in addition to the six million Jews died in the holocaust.

I wish to draw your attention to the purple triangle: Bibelforsher. This is sometimes translated as Jehovahs Witnesses, however this is not entirely correct. The Nazis did attempt to wipe out the Jehovahs Witnesses within reach and the victims were given purple triangles to wear in the camps. However the symbol also applied to Charismatic, Pentecostal and some other types of Protestant Christianity.

From what I know of generalgrog had the Nazis caught him he would go to the camps wearing such as symbol, so would I.


My Personal Conclusion.

Quotes from Nazi leaders on the subject of religion are flexible enough to be used as propoganda by many with an axe to grind. I can forgive generalgrog for his commenatries as they are mostly used on anti-Christian 'poster' image files, though it would be more accurate to use them to counter commentaries that Hitler was on 'our side' as some like to put it. There is no evidence to link Hitler with any non-Christian religion and the arguments to suggest he was pro-Christian are not convincing because comments in this direction are cancelled out by other opposed quotes. Meanwhile by his actions, which speak far louder than his words, Hitler was bitterly opposed to some forms of Christianity, and played political games with other larger forms. Towards the end even very robust denominations like the Roman Catholics that had attempted to placate Hitler to save their own parishioners were witnessing severe persecution under the Nazis.
In light of all that attempts by anti-Christian groups to paint Hitler as pro-Christian for their own gain is not only ignorant, it's insulting.

vs

That was a lot of typing jus to toss out that old chestnut "he wasn't a real Christian", which has been tossed out already over 7 pages.

I don't offer chestnuts, I offer something logically whole.

You can often condense the truths of books in a line or two, but if that is all that is written they would be rather bare.

Some points are worth explaining properly. Just tossing out opinions dont add any real weight to the arguements on the thread, really they are just a vote on the issue.

Orlanth wrote:I don't offer chestnuts, I offer something logically whole.

Orlanth wrote:
I wish to draw your attention to the purple triangle: Bibelforsher. This is sometimes translated as Jehovahs Witnesses, however this is not entirely correct. The Nazis did attempt to wipe out the Jehovahs Witnesses within reach and the victims were given purple triangles to wear in the camps. However the symbol also applied to Charismatic, Pentecostal and some other types of Protestant Christianity.

Interesting points, I enjoyed reading this. Can you provide a source that shows the translation into Jehovah's Witness is not entirely correct?

Furthermore, the persecution of other Christian sects does not immediately exclude one from being a Christian themselves.

Orlanth wrote:I don't offer chestnuts, I offer something logically whole.

You can often condense the truths of books in a line or two, but if that is all that is written they would be rather bare.

Some points are worth explaining properly. Just tossing out opinions dont add any real weight to the arguments on the thread, really they are just a vote on the issue.

I agree with much of your analysis, however it breaks down when you offer fringe sects in the camps as proof that Hitler wasn't a Christian.

One of the results of the What is a Christian? thread was that it means following the Nicene and Apostolic Creeds. Various minority sects such as Pentecostalists do not follow these creeds, and can be considered not Christian by the established majority churches, thus making them arguably heretical, etc, blah blah blah, and therefore "legitimate" targets for persecution.

That doesn't in itself make Hitler a Christian, of course.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Orlanth wrote:I don't offer chestnuts, I offer something logically whole.

You can often condense the truths of books in a line or two, but if that is all that is written they would be rather bare.

Some points are worth explaining properly. Just tossing out opinions dont add any real weight to the arguments on the thread, really they are just a vote on the issue.

I agree with much of your analysis, however it breaks down when you offer fringe sects in the camps as proof that Hitler wasn't a Christian.

One of the results of the What is a Christian? thread was that it means following the Nicene and Apostolic Creeds. Various minority sects such as Pentecostalists do not follow these creeds, and can be considered not Christian by the established majority churches, thus making them arguably heretical, etc, blah blah blah, and therefore "legitimate" targets for persecution.

That doesn't in itself make Hitler a Christian, of course.

Entirely wrong KK. As a Christian, my perspective is that no heretical group is a "legitimate" target for persecution. There is a difference between persecuting and following truth and trying to help someone understand their error via loving reason. Escpecially to the scale of the inquisition and the holocaust.

The point is that anyone that thinks it's ok to persecute ANYONE is not a Christian.

Melissia kind of had it earlier when she made the statement that 90% of the people in the modern Church aren't really Christians(based on my statements). I'm not saying that 90% is the number but the vast majority of them will be surprised on judgement day. Their is a lot of religious people that have a form of Godliness but deny the power of a true walk with Christ.

GG

generalgrog wrote:

The point is that anyone that thinks it's ok to persecute ANYONE is not a Christian.

So......that would exclude most of christianity over the last 2000 years? If anything I'd say you're in the minority there.

generalgrog wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Orlanth wrote:I don't offer chestnuts, I offer something logically whole.

You can often condense the truths of books in a line or two, but if that is all that is written they would be rather bare.

Some points are worth explaining properly. Just tossing out opinions dont add any real weight to the arguments on the thread, really they are just a vote on the issue.

I agree with much of your analysis, however it breaks down when you offer fringe sects in the camps as proof that Hitler wasn't a Christian.

One of the results of the What is a Christian? thread was that it means following the Nicene and Apostolic Creeds. Various minority sects such as Pentecostalists do not follow these creeds, and can be considered not Christian by the established majority churches, thus making them arguably heretical, etc, blah blah blah, and therefore "legitimate" targets for persecution.

That doesn't in itself make Hitler a Christian, of course.

Entirely wrong KK. As a Christian, my perspective is that no heretical group is a "legitimate" target for persecution. There is a difference between persecuting and following truth and trying to help someone understand their error via loving reason. Escpecially to the scale of the inquisition and the holocaust.

No, he's entirely right. Millions of Christians through history have practiced persecuting others as a part of their faith. As repeatedly mentioned in these threads, Nazi antisemitism was an obvious outgrowth of the long tradition of Christian antisemitism practiced for centuries in Europe.

The point is that anyone that thinks it's ok to persecute ANYONE is not a Christian.

Melissia kind of had it earlier when she made the statement that 90% of the people in the modern Church aren't really Christians(based on my statements).

But the point is that YOU don't get to decide who is a Christian. I find the arrogance you display here kind of breathtaking, coming from someone who proclaims himself a Christian, a religion which I understand supposedly teaches you to be humble.

You can exercise your personal judgment (although I understand that your holy book cautions you about that) over who is a GOOD Christian, but from an objective standpoint the only way to categorize people by religion is to see what religion they claimed membership in, and check the historical record to see what they most closely match. Hitler proclaimed himself a Christian on numerous occasions, as well as criticising the church/religion on numerous occasions. He may have been a bad Christian, but he was certainly a Christian much more than he was anything else.

Or are you going to also claim that Osama Bin Laden is not a Muslim, because he also perverted his religion to justify evil acts?

Emperors Faithful wrote:
Interesting points, I enjoyed reading this. Can you provide a source that shows the translation into Jehovah's Witness is not entirely correct?
Furthermore, the persecution of other Christian sects does not immediately exclude one from being a Christian themselves.

Purple Triangle

The direct translation is Bible Student. This does not mean all who study the Bible, though eventually it might have done so had Nazi-ism persisted. It refered to those outside the mainstream churches, surviving under the kirshenkampf namely Roman Catholicism and Lutheran Protestantism which were too big to persecute and included many appeasers anyway.

The majority of those listed were Jehovah's Witnesses, but not exclusively so. From the Nazis own definition they were defering to those they consistered Bible followers. To follow the Bible yet be outisde the large established churches has a flexible meaning by the victims included any threat to the Nazi regime of a Christian nature. This included fringe christian groups and leaders of other Christian groups that would not do as they were told.
It should be remembered that pre-war numbers of Charismatics in Europe were very small, and while they were targeted as a relgious group they amounted to only a tiny percentage of the camp population.

Kilkrazy wrote:
Some points are worth explaining properly. Just tossing out opinions dont add any real weight to the arguments on the thread, really they are just a vote on the issue.

I agree with much of your analysis, however it breaks down when you offer fringe sects in the camps as proof that Hitler wasn't a Christian.

One of the results of the What is a Christian? thread was that it means following the Nicene and Apostolic Creeds. Various minority sects such as Pentecostalists do not follow these creeds, and can be considered not Christian by the established majority churches, thus making them arguably heretical, etc, blah blah blah, and therefore "legitimate" targets for persecution.

That doesn't in itself make Hitler a Christian, of course.

Orlanth wrote:Persecution of other Christian factions, let alone 'cults' is commonplace in Christian history. However persecution in any form is not Christian and as explained in part 4, such acts are a consquence of politicised leadership of Christian groups and not Christianity itself. In a medievalist sense persecuting fringe groups not accepted by mainstream churches would not only be considered Christian, it may be considered holy! In fact Hitler by attempted to eradicate Jews and Jehovahs Witnesses could attempt claim salvation under Crusader Law as set out by Pope Urban in 1095. Nevertheless such acts then as now are in no means Christian. Politicised Christianity has very little to do with the teachings of Jesus and a lot to do with political expediency, resource accumulation, indoctrination, rabble rousing and focusing the attention of the masses.

There is a contradiction here between Christianity as a religion and Christians as a group of people we observe in the real world, as opposed to what some of them ideally would like to be.

As you say, persecution of fringe groups could be considered a holy act by church authorities under a number of circumstances, and many Christians have justified cruel and brutal acts by that sanction. Whether you or I think they were misguided and wrong to do so, that doesn't make them not Christians.

My post was sitting in my reply window for a long time due to other things.

In addendum what grog says is esstinally correct, though it needs to be reworded a little.

Ketara wrote:

generalgrog wrote:

The point is that anyone that thinks it's ok to persecute ANYONE is not a Christian.

So......that would exclude most of christianity over the last 2000 years? If anything I'd say you're in the minority there.

Christianity is achieved by Grace. All fall short in some means or other, however while good deeds does not achieve Christian salvation, it does help define whether or not someone is behaving as a Christian should.

This is why the difference between the politicised church and those faithful to Christ needs to be established.

Mannahnin wrote:

But the point is that YOU don't get to decide who is a Christian. I find the arrogance you display here kind of breathtaking, coming from someone who proclaims himself a Christian, a religion which I understand supposedly teaches you to be humble.

Actually Grog is following the teachings of Jesus in this regard. 'Know them by their fruit.'

Mannahnin wrote:
You can exercise your personal judgment (although I understand that your holy book cautions you about that) over who is a GOOD Christian, but from an objective standpoint the only way to categorize people by religion is to see what religion they claimed membership in, and check the historical record to see what they most closely match. Hitler proclaimed himself a Christian on numerous occasions, as well as criticising the church/religion on numerous occasions. He may have been a bad Christian, but he was certainly a Christian much more than he was anything else.

Actually no. There is a warning, though it goes the other way: Not to judge a man's salvation. This is purely on the grounds that anyone, even monsters like Stalin and Hitler could technically make a last minute true act of repentence or confession to God before they die.
With some we can be pretty clear where they are going but its is intended as a more general comment. Nevertheless we can comment on whether someone lived a Christian life based on obedience to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Here the waters muddy a little because noone can match up to Jesus' standards. However salvation by Grace followed by an attempt to live according to Jesus' teaching is a detectable element of Christian living known as a Testimony.

Adolf Hitler wasnt a bad Christian, in accordance with Christian teaching he wasnt a Christian at all. He had no detectable Christian Testimony and under the circumstances it is unlikely he made any last minute repentance. Though we cannot be literally 100% sure of that, even within a faith paradigm, just as we cannot be 100% sure of the Theory of Gravity to call it a Law.

Mannahnin wrote:
Or are you going to also claim that Osama Bin Laden is not a Muslim, because he also perverted his religion to justify evil acts?

This is one of the points Part 4 of my prior thread. Islam like Christianity is politicised. Most forms of Islamic miltancy and for that matter Zionist extremism too are essentially political in nature.
While Jihad is a part of the Koran wheras Crusading is not part of the Bible, it is widely accepted amopngst level headed Moselm scholars that Jihad as practiced by Al Quaeda et al is not in accordance with true Koranic teaching.
Jews have similar bugberars written into the pentateuch that are best not taken absolutely literally but are taken as such by extremists.

As with the Bible the Koran is a book intented to be interpreted rather than approached with a dogmatic literalist reading. Bin Laden does not preach the true Islam.

I do not agree with Islam anyway as it is mutuallly exclusive with Christianity, however the pattern of politicisation is similar. Often politicised leaders and members of both relgions do things openly that not only oppress large numbers of people but also do so in direct violation of what their scripture teach.

Mannahnin wrote:

As you say, persecution of fringe groups could be considered a holy act by church authorities under a number of circumstances, and many Christians have justified cruel and brutal acts by that sanction. Whether you or I think they were misguided and wrong to do so, that doesn't make them not Christians.

I'll go back to Jesus' wolf in sheeps clothing parable. And I ask you if a wolf dresses up in sheeps clothing it is a sheep? or is it a wolf? The Christian is the sheep the unrepentent ungodly person is the wolf.

So can a wolf be sheep by pretending to be one?

GG

GG, please go back and actually read through the threads. You missed a lot.

Sebster covered this one several days ago. The Wolf in Sheep's clothing requires deceit. Something is deliberately pretending to be something else.

Hitler or the worst Inquisitors were not wolves, they were sheep. Sheep who killed other sheep. They believed themselves to be Christians, espoused Christianity publicly, and considered themselves to be acting in keeping with their (in our view twisted) understanding of their faith.

Mannahnin wrote:

There is a contradiction here between Christianity as a religion and Christians as a group of people we observe in the real world, as opposed to what some of them ideally would like to be.

As you say, persecution of fringe groups could be considered a holy act by church authorities under a number of circumstances, and many Christians have justified cruel and brutal acts by that sanction. Whether you or I think they were misguided and wrong to do so, that doesn't make them not Christians.

This is why the medieval church insisted on a Latin bible, no translation and didnt encourage teaching Latin to outsiders. Medieval Catholicism went a long way to hide Christian teaching from the populace because it often condemned what they were doing.

Even so mass politics is not rational. Even post the counter reformation and within Protestant denominations politcised leadrs could amass people to strike at each other based on relgious dogma. This extends even into contemprary Ireland and some parts of Spain.

One might think that somewhere like Ireland with modern information media might understand that is Catholic and Protestant hate each other neither are doing what their relgion commands. However often they do not. in some cases the hatred has gone on so long that it becomes habit passed down in generations.

Even without a long term feud politicised religion can rear its ugly head in direct violation of anything that relgion has written or taught by its own holier ancestors. People will follow out of fear, habit or ignorance. This is a powerful tool in the hands of the politicised. However all of this can be 'achieved' without attaining true membership of the religion involved.


Let us put it another way. If someone hacked Dakka took your account details and started filling your posts with unpleasant image files, your account might be censured, you might even be blamed by some, but you wouldn't be responsible and the person who did this would not be posting as you, just masquerading as you.
Relgions are 'hacked into' by amoral opportunists who seek personal gain or to create mischief. As they are often more ambitious, rutherless or politically connected than true believers they find it easier to reach higher ranks.

Orlanth wrote:

Ketara wrote:

generalgrog wrote:

The point is that anyone that thinks it's ok to persecute ANYONE is not a Christian.

So......that would exclude most of christianity over the last 2000 years? If anything I'd say you're in the minority there.

Christianity is achieved by Grace. All fall short in some means or other, however while good deeds does not achieve Christian salvation, it does help define whether or not someone is behaving as a Christian should.

This is why the difference between the politicised church and those faithful to Christ needs to be established.

The problem here is that you're coming into the discussion late and moving the goalposts. When we categorize people into one religion or another we're not talking about what Christians aspire to be. We're not talking about what they should be. We're talking about identifying people as members of one religion or another (or none at all), which is separate from the judgment of whether they are good or ideal adherents and exemplars of that religion.

If you include only those members of a religion who best exemplify its principles, than what do we call the other 90+% of that religion's supposed followers?

Orlanth wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:

There is a contradiction here between Christianity as a religion and Christians as a group of people we observe in the real world, as opposed to what some of them ideally would like to be.

As you say, persecution of fringe groups could be considered a holy act by church authorities under a number of circumstances, and many Christians have justified cruel and brutal acts by that sanction. Whether you or I think they were misguided and wrong to do so, that doesn't make them not Christians.

One might think that somewhere like Ireland with modern information media might understand that is Catholic and Protestant hate each other neither are doing what their relgion commands. However often they do not. in some cases the hatred has gone on so long that it becomes habit passed down in generations.

Even without a long term feud politicised religion can rear its ugly head in direct violation of anything that relgion has written or taught by its own holier ancestors. People will follow out of fear, habit or ignorance. This is a powerful tool in the hands of the politicised. However all of this can be 'achieved' without attaining true membership of the religion involved.


Let us put it another way. If someone hacked Dakka took your account details and started filling your posts with unpleasant image files, your account might be censured, you might even be blamed by some, but you wouldn't be responsible and the person who did this would not be posting as you, just masquerading as you.
Relgions are 'hacked into' by amoral opportunists who seek personal gain or to create mischief. As they are often more ambitious, rutherless or politically connected than true believers they find it easier to reach higher ranks.

I think you're drawing a false dichotomy between politics and religion. True believers can also be misguided and wrong, and teach messages of hate and persecution. While explicit antisemitism may not be found in the Bible, it was a part of the Christian tradition for centuries, and still is in some places. It is on that evil tree that the fruit of the Nazis Final Solution grew.

Mannahnin wrote:GG, please go back and actually read through the threads. You missed a lot.

Sebster covered this one several days ago. The Wolf in Sheep's clothing requires deceit. Something is deliberately pretending to be something else.

Hitler or the worst Inquisitors were not wolves, they were sheep. Sheep who killed other sheep. They believed themselves to be Christians, espoused Christianity publicly, and considered themselves to be acting in keeping with their (in our view twisted) understanding of their faith.

Thoroughly incorrect. However grog should try and use different analogies or espouse them more fully to avoid you making these thoroughly mistaken analogies. Much of Christian teaching goes a lot deeper than it first appears and should not be used as soundbites unless you are willing to take the time in advance to fully explain what the verses mean. Yes, a wolf-in-sheeps clothing analogy requires deceit. Hitler was nothing is he was not deceptive. The various quotes by which he identified with and denied Christianity can be implied one of two ways; either he was confused or he was deceptive, and Hitler was not confused, not in terms of political communication and spin. He knew what he was doing when he said various things to various people, it was a calculating political end. However I would not put Hitler as a wolf-in-sheeps clothing, he was a wolf-in-wolfs-clothing. His identifiable comments towards Christianity were few and far between. The Churches that dealt with him out of fear not ignorance, they knew him for what he was but had no choice but to deal with him. A side note on this point: The Catholics in particular trod a very thin line between appeasement and seeing their parishioners slaughtered. By keeping the Vatican neutral in the war Pius XII should be honoured rather than vilified as a collaborator, he held the fates of literally hundreds of thousands of Catholic priests and workers throughout Europe, and Vatican neutrality was used to smuggle out many other victims of Nazi persecution.

Mannahnin wrote:

If you include only those members of a religion who best exemplify its principles, than what do we call the other 90+% of that religion's supposed followers?

Jesus called them weeds...

Mt 13:24-29(NIV)
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

GG

Orlanth, I think your judgment is compromised by your revulsion of Hitler and your eagerness to disown him. While I generally respect your historical scholarship, in Hitler's case he was an avowed Christian and justified many of his acts based on his twisted interpretation of his faith.

I agree that he was a terrible representative of Christianity, but Christianity is the only religion with which he ever identified, and it certainly far more so than atheism.

I agree that he was a manipulator and an opportunist, and that (based particularly on Grog's quotes, although the source of many of them is apparently very untrustworthy), it appears that he became less religious and more hostile to the Christian church later in life.

generalgrog wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:

If you include only those members of a religion who best exemplify its principles, than what do we call the other 90+% of that religion's supposed followers?

Jesus called them weeds...

If so, then Jesus' definition is useless for the purposes of keeping useful and truthful histories, and for sociological classification. You started this thread in an attempt to disown people who did evil things in the name of your religion, and attempt to paint them (with some spurious evidence) as atheists. But while that may work in your own mind, for the purposes of discussing what religious (or non) groups different people fall into, the criteria you're attempting to use are useless. By the measures used in any normal survey, America is predominently inhabited by Christians. By the definition you're quoting from Jesus, America is predominantly inhabited by weeds. Can you not see the problem here?

While by your personal definiton of "who counts as a Christian", Hitler may not count, that's not a useful definition when you're talking to anyone who doesn't share your exact religious perspective. On a similar note, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints may posthumously baptize Joan of Arc, Anne Frank, and Buddha as Mormons, but do you think that makes it honest or historically accurate for us to refer to those people as Mormons?

When we're talking about history, and we are talking to people who do not share the exact same religious beliefs as ourselves, we have to work from common and objective definitions. And by the objective, external definitions, a person can be a member of a religion without being a perfect and ideal representative of that religion.

I believe Hitler had a deep and profound respect for the Jesuits and the Roman Catholic Church. However, that respect wasn't rooted in any kind of religious belief. Hitler's respect and admiration towards them was rooted in their means of controlling the masses under their charge. He could see, and understand, how to manipulate people into feeling a profoundly spiritual bond with words, symbols, and environment.

Orlanth wrote: there are plenty of Hitler quotes by which he claims to be doing Gods work, others show his open distain for religion.

As I've said before in other threads, religion and the belief in God are not the same thing, and cannot be used as though they were interchangeable.

One can be religious without believing in God (most prominently some Buddhists), or believe in God without being religious (Agnostic theists).

Given this, its easy to understand how someone might consider themselves to be a Christian while holding disdain for the establishment of religion. In fact, there was a fairly prominent priest who behaved largely in consistence with that idea, I think he nailed something to a door at some point.

@ Orlanth, I am a little late here but I really enjoyed the insights you brought with the diagrams.

I have enjoyed reading the intelligent debate on this thread but have a question for those pushing the Hitler = Christian theory? Just a devil's advocate thing? or is there a reason you think it is important?

Thanks.

dogma wrote:

Orlanth wrote: there are plenty of Hitler quotes by which he claims to be doing Gods work, others show his open distain for religion.

As I've said before in other threads, religion and the belief in God are not the same thing, and cannot be used as though they were interchangeable.

One can be religious without believing in God (most prominently some Buddhists), or believe in God without being religious (Agnostic theists).

Given this, its easy to understand how someone might consider themselves to be a Christian while holding disdain for the establishment of religion. In fact, there was a fairly prominent priest who behaved largely in consistence with that idea, I think he nailed something to a door at some point.

This comment has indicative not exhaustive. Hitler showed more than a 'distain for religion', I mentioned that rather than everything Hitler appeared opposed to with regards to relgion in total because the point was that hisd comments were directly contradictory. Hitler was no Buddhist or Agnostic theist or anything other than an amoral opportunist. Any deep set views he may have had were clearly to any political mileage he could get from playing one cartd of another.

To reiterate, the only constant with Hitlers spiritual beliefs or pretty much anything else is that what he said changed as per his political whims or needs. In this as in most other things he was dangerously unscrupulous to the extent that any promise or policy he made was not reliable or stable. The German people, his own party and military commanders found this out on a recurring basis, as did his Axis partners and anyone else he dealt with diplomatically.
This combined with unequivocably contradictory statements on spiritual matters cant be read in any way other than that Hitlers religious beliefs were utterly flexible, changable and interchangable. This pattern does not match any religion, denomination or philosophical movement with which I am familiar. In fact it is mutually exclusive with most faiths which rely on a consistent declaration and commitment of faith to some extent or other, with Christianity being no exception.

Orlanth wrote:
Hitler showed more than a 'distain for religion', I mentioned that rather than everything Hitler appeared opposed to with regards to relgion in total because the point was that hisd comments were directly contradictory

Yes, and I disagree with that. The core of my point is that what you're claiming as contradictory was in fact, not. And, even if that were the case, simple contradiction is not sufficient to indicate that a particular person does not believe something., as it does not allow for the possibility that the person is simply highly tolerant of cognitive dissonance. We've all met people that are perfectly comfortable saying things like "I'm a theist, but I don't believe in God."

I could have gone further, but felt that a short response was more fitting, as I disagree with nearly every statement made in the post in question for the reason stated.

Orlanth wrote:
Any deep set views he may have had were clearly to any political mileage he could get from playing one cartd of another.

Actually, I don't think its clear at all. Hitler was a political opportunist, but his passion for Nazism seems awfully likely to have been legitimate; as much of that ideology is less than useful in terms of seizing power. One can be relatively amoral (and I sincerely doubt that Hitler was amoral given his tendency to make moral pronouncements) and opportunistic while having deep seated convictions.

Orlanth wrote:
This combined with unequivocably contradictory statements on spiritual matters cant be read in any way other than that Hitlers religious beliefs were utterly flexible, changable and interchangable.

Again, they aren't contradictory, but even to the extent that you might view them in such a way it makes no sense to to conclude that erratic pronouncements of faith disqualify a person from a certain religion, as doing creates a very, very strange standard of religiosity. Is the person who is wracked by a crisis of faith no longer a Christian? Is a person whose understanding of Jesus' teachings changes over time not a Christian?

Orlanth wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:
Interesting points, I enjoyed reading this. Can you provide a source that shows the translation into Jehovah's Witness is not entirely correct?
Furthermore, the persecution of other Christian sects does not immediately exclude one from being a Christian themselves.

Purple Triangle

The direct translation is Bible Student. This does not mean all who study the Bible, though eventually it might have done so had Nazi-ism persisted. It refered to those outside the mainstream churches, surviving under the kirshenkampf namely Roman Catholicism and Lutheran Protestantism which were too big to persecute and included many appeasers anyway.

It was used to brand Jehovah Witnesses, that is essentially the sole use of the purple band. Your arguement that this would eventually include all those who study the bible is complete conjecture and has honestly come with little reliable evidence.

The majority of those listed were Jehovah's Witnesses, but not exclusively so. From the Nazis own definition they were defering to those they consistered Bible followers. To follow the Bible yet be outisde the large established churches has a flexible meaning by the victims included any threat to the Nazi regime of a Christian nature. This included fringe christian groups and leaders of other Christian groups that would not do as they were told.

None of which makes the Nazi's non-Christian.

It should be remembered that pre-war numbers of Charismatics in Europe were very small, and while they were targeted as a relgious group they amounted to only a tiny percentage of the camp population.

Just 1% in your link (whether this is camp population or the percentage that the purple band was given to I'm not sure).

Bastion of Mediocrity wrote:I have enjoyed reading the intelligent debate on this thread but have a question for those pushing the Hitler = Christian theory? Just a devil's advocate thing? or is there a reason you think it is important?

It's not a theory. It's generally accepted historical fact. There's no other religious category he really fits into. Also, if you attempt to disconnect Nazism's antisemitism from traditional European Christian antisemitism, you lose some important historical perspective.

General Grog's effort in this thread is historical revisionism. He's passing on the writings/ideas of people who are attempting to change history to better suit their wishful view of reality. I feel an obligation to oppose this due to my love of truth.

Incidentally, wasn't it GG who initially called Hitler a neo-pagan antitheist in another thread?

Emperors Faithful wrote:Incidentally, wasn't it GG who initially called Hitler a neo-pagan antitheist in another thread?

He was using language which comes from the historical revisionists to whom I just referred.

Mannahnin wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:Incidentally, wasn't it GG who initially called Hitler a neo-pagan antitheist in another thread?

He was using language which comes from the historical revisionists to whom I just referred.

Yes, whereas Orlanth is suggesting that it is the athiests who are repeatedly using Hitler's religion as a whacking stick against Christian posters.

There's one atheist whom I'm aware of who I guess you could say that about. Matty has one of those Hitler quotes in his sig, though he leaves it unattributed. Overall he seems to have softened a bit and stopped ranting so much about "god botherers". Orlanth has definitely had some success getting Matty to be more polite, and I think a lot of people have accepted that most of the time when he's talking trash he's had a few beers and doesn't mean any harm. When he crosses the line he's still subject to moderator response, of course, but he seems to do so less often.

If you see an atheist raise the issue of Hitler's religion in an unrelated discussion, that would seem to be an invocation of Godwin's Law.

Ah well, that's matty. He hates everyone equally.

Mannahnin wrote:
If you see an atheist raise the issue of Hitler's religion in an unrelated discussion, that would seem to be an invocation of Godwin's Law.

I take offense at this. A theist is every bit as capable of invoking Godwin's Law as an athiest.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:
If you see an atheist raise the issue of Hitler's religion in an unrelated discussion, that would seem to be an invocation of Godwin's Law.

I take offense at this. A theist is every bit as capable of invoking Godwin's Law as an athiest.

What are you taking offense to? Nothing I wrote excludes the possibility of theists running up against Godwin's Law too.

Mannahnin wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:
If you see an atheist raise the issue of Hitler's religion in an unrelated discussion, that would seem to be an invocation of Godwin's Law.

I take offense at this. A theist is every bit as capable of invoking Godwin's Law as an athiest.

What are you taking offense to? Nothing I wrote excludes the possibility of theists running up against Godwin's Law too.

It was a joke. I knew I should have put one of these at the end of it.

generalgrog wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Orlanth wrote:I don't offer chestnuts, I offer something logically whole.

You can often condense the truths of books in a line or two, but if that is all that is written they would be rather bare.

Some points are worth explaining properly. Just tossing out opinions dont add any real weight to the arguments on the thread, really they are just a vote on the issue.

I agree with much of your analysis, however it breaks down when you offer fringe sects in the camps as proof that Hitler wasn't a Christian.

One of the results of the What is a Christian? thread was that it means following the Nicene and Apostolic Creeds. Various minority sects such as Pentecostalists do not follow these creeds, and can be considered not Christian by the established majority churches, thus making them arguably heretical, etc, blah blah blah, and therefore "legitimate" targets for persecution.

That doesn't in itself make Hitler a Christian, of course.

Entirely wrong KK. As a Christian, my perspective is that no heretical group is a "legitimate" target for persecution. There is a difference between persecuting and following truth and trying to help someone understand their error via loving reason. Escpecially to the scale of the inquisition and the holocaust.

The point is that anyone that thinks it's ok to persecute ANYONE is not a Christian.

That's your personal view. Hitler and the Nazis may not have had the same perspective on things.

I am pointing out the fact that to the established churches, splinter sects may look like heretical groups ripe for entirely legitimate (in their eyes) persecution. We have seen it happen often enough in history.

The purpose of this point is to refute the idea that Hitler cannot have been a Christian because he persecuted Pentecostalists who are fellow Christians. If Hitler did not seen them as Christians, he was not persecuting fellow Christians. Put simply, an orthodox Christian Hitler might easily persecute Pentecostalists.

This doesn't prove he was or wasn't a Christian.

generalgrog wrote:Allright guys....now that I'm back from new job boot camp. I've been reading the thread and I have to say that so many smart people getting wrapped around the axle was amusing but it's also quite sad.

Sebster keeps saying that my source is crap..but he offers no counter source.

bs. I offered a simple reason to discount the quotes you provided; "There are no supporting documents for any of the quotes given, and in many instances we know them to be complete fabrications, because Hitler was known to be an entirely different place at the time of the supposed quote. It is a work of fiction, that was written with the specific political goal of distancing Hitler from Christianity."

I followed this up with direct quotes from Hitler in public forums, in which he couched his arguments in religious terms. I then mentioned his direct involvement in Positive Christianity, an effort to reconcile Christian belief and anti-semitism.

You didn't try to argue that, you just claimed my counter wasn't good enough and went on with pretending it didn't exist. That's a very poor effort at debate.

For some reason you guys think that anyone that raises their hand and says "I'm a Christian" is one(I haven't peeped over at the other thread yet).

No, I believe that someone who used his belief in Christ, among other things, to form his political views is a Christian.

So lets just keep this simple shall we.

Hitler is supposed to have said this..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)

Do you know of any "real" Christian to have said anything like this? Hitler said Christianity is a failure(paraphrased) Would a real believer say such a thing?

The point, as I've already explained, is that he didn't say that or anything like that or anything else in Hitler's Tabletalk or any of the similar publications. There is no primary record for any of the quotes, they directly contradict known quotes from Hitler, the scribes charged with recording the information are on record as saying they were edited, and the man charged with editing them had an obvious motive to distance Christianity from the Nazis (he was a very Christian fellow). There is no reason to consider them reliable, unless you really, really want to believe that Hitler didn't believe in Christ.

More tidbits from NAZI eyewitnesses.

"Hitler usually concluded this historical speculation by remarking: "You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japaneses, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to use than Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"

And you will note nowhere in Speers wirting does he show Hitler giving anything like the rejection or contempt to Nazism that shows up in the frankly laughable Hitler's Table Talk.

To quote Herman Goerbels
"The Fuhrer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian. He views Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race... Both [Judaism and Christianity] have no point of contact to the animal element, and thus, in the end, they will be destroyed."

Yes, but he couldn't extend his contempt of of the Jewish roots of Christianity to overtly reject Christianity. That would mean embacing some non-German religion, or worse yet, atheism. Instead he developed positive christianity, which re-wrote the Bible as the story of Jesus the aryran being betrayed and killed by the deceitful Jews. Which is, of course, ridiculous, but the important lesson from that is to realise that Christianity, like any religion or any belief in general, is not immune to ridiculous re-interpretations that let people act how they want to act.

In other news, that link you provided is awful. Incredibly disineguous and well, stupid. It's built by people with an ideology, to repeat that ideology to like minded folk, with almost complete indifference to the history of what really happened. Most of the points made can be disproved with five minutes. The stuff on gun control is hilarious.

Orlanth wrote:This is why quotes of Adolf Hitler on religion for and against are suspect. Were there some consistency in his commenatries some analogy could be inferred however clearly there is not. there are plenty of Hitler quotes by which he claims to be doing Gods work, others show his open distain for religion. Often one set of quotes or another are brought out to make a point. This is unfair. Both sets of quotations should be used. I wont quote them, we see enough of them from above quotes. What would be interesting is to know what he said and to whome, but most of the quotes I see here and elsewhere do not give much detail as to the setting.

Certainly, all quotes that are reliable should be used. The real issue is the reliance on extremely dodgy quotes, that are only accepted because they allow people to believe what they want to believe.

The only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that Hitler said what he said out of expediency. Any cursory look at Hitlers career shows that he cannot be trusted either in his politics or his oratory. Germany's war effort suffered when Hitler insisted his military prioritised fulfilling a promise he had recently made in one of his rallies. Likewise people suffered as Hitler shifted blame or created scapegoats to fuel his own oratory and to focus public ire where he wanted it.

Many of the quotes I provided came Hitler's speaches when he was in complete control of Germany. He had no reason to pander, yet he used religious terms anyway. The only sensible conclusion is that he believed.

Now, obviously, he wasn't a humble man who used the the good book as the guide to all his major decisions. He was a raging egomaniac with a wide range of ridiculous, almost nonsensical beliefs. He was raised Christian, and applied the same willingness he showed to re-interpreting history through the eyes of an anti-semite that he applied to his faith.

Frankly it is not really relevant anyway he was certainly his own man, in his position he could believe whatever he chose without much consequence after he was entrenched.

Yes, hence my point that his latter speaches are a good indicator of his beliefs. He was entrenched in power, and had no need to pander.

Hitler is often credited with being as Christian, though not as any other relgious denomination.

Because he didn't believe in another denomination, and it would be silly to argue he did.

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Matthew 7: 15-22 Quotations of Jesus Christ from the Sermon on the Mount.

Verse 16 is the key here, but I covered the lot to ensure context. Not much more I need say on that.

Which means that only people who are seen in the fullness of history as good can be Christian, all those who believed in Christ but did harm are dropped away. The problems with which should be very obvious, from the point of view of gathering a full understanding of history.

Understanding of this truth will explain to you not only Hitlers motive for being flexible on his 'beliefs' but also explains why adhering to or condemining a belief/beliefs or the concept of belief can be expedient. It certainly explains Islam, Zionism and much of Christian chruch history. It is important to note that atheism is no solution to religious politics in terms or political tooling Atheism is proven to be just another politicised faith group voting/recruiting blok.

Yes, and we get that Hitler will have pandered to religion, as he pandered to the conservatives. But this doesn't discount the very plain and obvious fact that he had religious beliefs of his own.

When Hitler started his persecutions some Christians were among the the first to go.

Umm, persecuting specific sects of Christianity doesn't make you not Christian. Otherwise the Catholics couldn't be Christian because of what they did to the Protestants, and the Protestants couldn't be Christian because of what they did to the Catholics, and what kind of a nonsense would that be?

From what I know of generalgrog had the Nazis caught him he would go to the camps wearing such as symbol, so would I.

As an atheist, I would have been as well. Defining Hitler by the specifics of those he persecuted makes for a nonsense.

Quotes from Nazi leaders on the subject of religion are flexible enough to be used as propoganda by many with an axe to grind. I can forgive generalgrog for his commenatries as they are mostly used on anti-Christian 'poster' image files, though it would be more accurate to use them to counter commentaries that Hitler was on 'our side' as some like to put it. There is no evidence to link Hitler with any non-Christian religion and the arguments to suggest he was pro-Christian are not convincing because comments in this direction are cancelled out by other opposed quotes. Meanwhile by his actions, which speak far louder than his words, Hitler was bitterly opposed to some forms of Christianity, and played political games with other larger forms. Towards the end even very robust denominations like the Roman Catholics that had attempted to placate Hitler to save their own parishioners were witnessing severe persecution under the Nazis.

You want an actual understanding of Hitler's religious views. Read up on the actual church he started, which I've been mentioning from the first page, Positive Christianity.

In light of all that attempts by anti-Christian groups to paint Hitler as pro-Christian for their own gain is not only ignorant, it's insulting.

I'm sorry if you've read my efforts as such. I will tell you right now I am certainly not ignorant on this matter, and would find it very insulting if you considered me such.

I have no axe to grind against Christianity, I think I've made that very clear over countless threads by this point. My only interest is in the truth of the matter. Claiming Hitler didn't have Christian beliefs is not true.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

generalgrog wrote:The point is that anyone that thinks it's ok to persecute ANYONE is not a Christian.

Applying this posthumous 'he wasn't really a Christian' line of reasoning makes a nonsense of any effort to debate the role of religion in politics.

In history, we're interested in how religion played a part in deciding how and why people did what they did, so you can read Christian as 'someone who believed in Jesus Christ'.

If you want to take part in discussion of history, the definition of Christian as 'someone who's actions are approved by GG's understanding of the bible' has got to go.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

generalgrog wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:

As you say, persecution of fringe groups could be considered a holy act by church authorities under a number of circumstances, and many Christians have justified cruel and brutal acts by that sanction. Whether you or I think they were misguided and wrong to do so, that doesn't make them not Christians.

I'll go back to Jesus' wolf in sheeps clothing parable. And I ask you if a wolf dresses up in sheeps clothing it is a sheep? or is it a wolf? The Christian is the sheep the unrepentent ungodly person is the wolf.

So can a wolf be sheep by pretending to be one?

GG

I've already pointed out the fallacy in your argument above. I know you must have seen it, as it's Emperor's Faithful's sig. That argument refers to someone who thinks himself a wolf, but assumes the sheepskin of Christianity to prey on the Christians/sheep.

But here we are talking about someone who by any plain understanding of history thought himself a Christian. In this context your quote makes no sense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bastion of Mediocrity wrote:@ Orlanth, I am a little late here but I really enjoyed the insights you brought with the diagrams.

I have enjoyed reading the intelligent debate on this thread but have a question for those pushing the Hitler = Christian theory? Just a devil's advocate thing? or is there a reason you think it is important?

Thanks.

There are many folk, you have likely read posts from some of them in this thread, who believe a Christian is a better person than a non-Christian. Or even more incredibly, that a non-Christian can only be a good person by borrowing the beliefs of Christians. These folk have a real problem with recognising that belief in the Christian God isn't the only way that a person can be good, and this lends to them assuming that bad people couldn't possibly have been Christian. Some time ago on this forum there a poster who was utterly shocked at the idea that any serial killer could have been Christian, despite many posters listing many serial killers who professed a strong belief in Jesus Christ.

The issue, then, is the efforts of folk to protect that belief by rewriting history.

Does it matter that Hitler was a Christian? No, he could have had any faith, or none at all, and would have been just as monstrous.

Does it matter that people realise Christians can be just as monstrous as anyone else? Yes, that really, really matters.

Thank you to everyone who responded to my question. Very enlightening. As someone who is not well versed in Nazi history, I found a lot of the information provided very interesting.

At first I felt that nazis could not be eugenist and Christian, but I have since relented because, frankly, people can convince themselves to believe in 2 non-agreeing philosophies and not feel hypocritical.

What a marvel is man! (sarcastic)

A man is a forked radish (Shakespeare).

Both the USA and Sweden carried out eugenist practices in the early 20th century.

It was not a purely Nazi obsession.

I have no idea about the specifically Christian outlook on the concept.

My argument hang on several seperate points each of which independently challenge any attribution of a faith group Christian or otherwise to Hitler. This is why my previous argument was presented in stages, though that appears to have been overlooked.

Answering commentaries on:

Hitlers quotes and what we can ascertain from them.

dogma wrote:

Orlanth wrote:
Hitler showed more than a 'distain for religion', I mentioned that rather than everything Hitler appeared opposed to with regards to relgion in total because the point was that hisd comments were directly contradictory

Yes, and I disagree with that. The core of my point is that what you're claiming as contradictory was in fact, not. And, even if that were the case, simple contradiction is not sufficient to indicate that a particular person does not believe something., as it does not allow for the possibility that the person is simply highly tolerant of cognitive dissonance. We've all met people that are perfectly comfortable saying things like "I'm a theist, but I don't believe in God."

An incorrect argument sorry. It is entirely contradictory. Let me take two example quotes, we will take an assumption of authenticity for both groups of quotes for now or we will get nowhere, and end up picking others until we get a match:

"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."

vs

"By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work."

I picked the first two I could find and they are contradictory in word and ethos. There is the possibility that a didferent Lord is meant, grog has implied this. I don't buy that explanation. In any event both are soundbites, either one can be beleived as Hitlers true opinion, or the other, not both but possibly neither. Allowing for Hitlers Modus Operandi of saying what he wanted to who he wanted and holding his promises lightly there is no rweason to take him at his word for either comment.

dogma wrote:

Orlanth wrote:
Any deep set views he may have had were clearly to any political mileage he could get from playing one card or another.

Actually, I don't think its clear at all. Hitler was a political opportunist, but his passion for Nazism seems awfully likely to have been legitimate; as much of that ideology is less than useful in terms of seizing power. One can be relatively amoral (and I sincerely doubt that Hitler was amoral given his tendency to make moral pronouncements) and opportunistic while having deep seated convictions.

However Hitlers passion for National Socialism had a consistency to it, as did his distain for blacks, Jews etc. Thus there is a legitimacy to say Hitler was an anti-semite or a racist. There is no consistency on Hitlers commentaries on religion, this combined with a known tendency to say what he wanted others to hear, his track record of success and skill in terms of charismatic persuasion, his track record of not being in the slightest bit trustworthy in regards to his promises, plus his track record of amoral leadership and lack of personal humantarian ethics, thats all five in a row; all this makes Hitler a witness with a poor credibility.

Were this any form of testimony at a hearing it would be thrown out or dismissed out of hand. Hitlers contradictory comments on religion may indicate an obsession over the subject, bourne up by the fact that he persecuted unto death many peole for their religion or relgious ethnicity. From this we can safely conclude he hated certain types, we cant conclude membership of any other.

This is not just concerning Christianity. I found some fairly 'positive' Hitler quotes regarding Islam and how it was a superior religion or should have been the religion of Europe. I will link and link but not bother quoting them won't bother quoting them, partly because its futile as its just more contradiction. Besides I would not want anyone to think Hitler was pro-Muslim and by extension assume he might have been one. There is enough ammo against Islam without adding something unfair like a pro-Moslem Hitler quote.

dogma wrote:
Is the person who is wracked by a crisis of faith no longer a Christian? Is a person whose understanding of Jesus' teachings changes over time not a Christian?

Yes to both counts, though I will cover this below.


The meaning of the Purple Triangle

Further evidence of the non-Christian identity of Hitler. On two counts, first some groups that Hitler persecuted were Christians; second some individual Christians of denominations not specifically targeted were individually targeted and some of those were murdered/martyred. I do not want to give weighting of Christian victims of Hitler over any other in terms of human suffering, it is merely clearer evidence of the non-Christian nature of Hitler and Naziism in general.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
Purple Triangle
It was used to brand Jehovah Witnesses, that is essentially the sole use of the purple band. Your arguement that this would eventually include all those who study the bible is complete conjecture and has honestly come with little reliable evidence.

It should be remembered that pre-war numbers of Charismatics in Europe were very small, and while they were targeted as a relgious group they amounted to only a tiny percentage of the camp population.

Just 1% in your link (whether this is camp population or the percentage that the purple band was given to I'm not sure).

1% sounds about right because the fringe denominations were very small, mostly limited to youth groups Christian elements of the Jazz Clubs. Were there more of them it would be a larger percentage. Nevertheless is was a Christian group marked for death.



Can Hitler previously had been or later become a Christian.

Hitler was raised a Roman Catholic, this of itself doesnt mean much. Manny Dakka atheists or agnostics were taised ointo one denomination or other, ones personal choice is relevant. Also being raised into a denomination might not indicate a relgious faith even in the parental group but a social or cultural distinction. A good more modern example of this is northern Ireland, everyone knows if they are a Cath or a prod, this doesnt indicate that they believe at all or they ever set foot in a church.
Nevertheless let us leave it open that Hitler might have been raised a Christian or even been one. I will ignore speculation on this and for the sake of arguemnt assume it was so becaise it is not in any way relevant. Peiople can turn away from a faith and Hitler may have been a Christian in his youth, as there is evidence that Stalin possibly was, that is equally irrelevant. Stalin was something else by the time he rose to power, and he was at least consistent on his unbelief.

Could Hitler have later become a full Christian? Technically yes. One one condition, a deathbed repentence was possible. We will ignore the fact that suicide is a sin, all sin is forgivable but one and Hitler did worse sins than suicide, but he chose his own death and the timing of it, so if he genuinely prepented before he shot himself he may have become Christian, even saved. This Hitler-might-be-in-Heaven comment might anger some, but this promise of Jesus to accept all who genuinely repent concerns everyone, not just monsters. Excluding monsters irregardless of repentence would mock the ideal of salvation or its limitless grasp. Hitler probably knew enough about the Christian faith to attempt this, God however is a good judge of character and the question 'do you mean it' is not one you can wrangle round him by deception. A repentence means a pro-active new life, Hitler showed no evidence of saying, I goofed, let the remaining victims go, his last hours were more of the same and there is recod of his actions in them.

Furthermore a last minute repentence is irrelevant to the real question, was he a Christian throughout or in part of his time in power? Any one of us could make a last minute repentance, inlcuding those who are opposed to Christianity on this thread, any one of us may have been a Christian in the past, and rejected it at a later date, choosing another life. in terms of there here and now, or in hitlers case in terms of his actions during his time of power, both are irrelevant.


Can Hitler have been a Christian in spite of his actions.

We have a number of people who think he can:

Orlanth wrote:The majority of those listed were Jehovah's Witnesses, but not exclusively so. From the Nazis own definition they were defering to those they consistered Bible followers. To follow the Bible yet be outisde the large established churches has a flexible meaning by the victims included any threat to the Nazi regime of a Christian nature. This included fringe christian groups and leaders of other Christian groups that would not do as they were told.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
None of which makes the Nazi's non-Christian.

Mannahnin wrote:

Bastion of Mediocrity wrote:I have enjoyed reading the intelligent debate on this thread but have a question for those pushing the Hitler = Christian theory? Just a devil's advocate thing? or is there a reason you think it is important?

It's not a theory. It's generally accepted historical fact. There's no other religious category he really fits into.

Orlanth wrote:They are all WRONG.

Who's getting upset again? I certainly didn't get upset with GG. I pointed out his error, and yours.

Your and GG's and Jesus' opinion on who is a "true" or good Christian is totally irrelevant to determining what religion a person is a member of for sociological or historical purposes. The majority of Americans are not weeds. And you can't accurately call every bad Christian something else any more than the Mormons can honeslty call Anne Frank a Mormon.

Hitler espoused Christianity. He attempted to found his own version of it, Positive Christianity. In public and private comments he denigrated the church, but also endorsed and supported Christianity in general, especially his twisted interpretation of it.

Orlanth wrote:National Socialism and religion cannot exist together....

You are still referencing and quoting a discredited source. Choosing not to respond to criticisms that this source is highly unreliable, but continuing to quote it, is a dishonest argument.

Mannahnin wrote:

Orlanth wrote:They are all WRONG.

Who's getting upset again? I certainly didn't get upset with GG. I pointed out his error, and yours.

Not upset, underline for emphasis.

Your still wrong Mannahnin, and you will keep being wrong until you use Jesus Christs definition of Christianity rather than your own.
This doesnt mean you must be a Christian to understand, only you must understand Christianity.

I covered that point when I stated that Mohammed's testimony in the Koran is a categoric source as to who or what is a Moslem. I am no Moslem, not that I needed to repeat that bit, but I dont need the robes or go on Hajj to apply the yardstick.

Mannahnin wrote:
Your and GG's and Jesus' opinion on who is a "true" or good Christian is totally irrelevant to determining what religion a person is a member of for sociological or historical purposes. The majority of Americans are not weeds. And you can't accurately call every bad Christian something else any more than the Mormons can honeslty call Anne Frank a Mormon.

Hitler wsnt a bad Christian, he wasnt a Christian at all.
Jesus' rules, not mine.

Mannahnin wrote:
Hitler espoused Christianity. He attempted to found his own version of it, Positive Christianity. In public and private comments he denigrated the church, but also endorsed and supported Christianity in general, especially his twisted interpretation of it.

It had Mein Kampf replacing Bibles on altars. This was at best a 'cult' based on Christianity, there are plenty of those around. Christian Science is one, its neither Christianity, nor Science.

Come on Mannahnin, you think a new join-or-face-Gestapo denomination called Positive Christianity founded by Hitler during the Third Reich was going to be.. Positive? It's as much a stretch of the imagination to call it Christian either.

For your information the current Chinese regime has been trying something similar. At firt they just tried to kill, imprison or drive out the Christians, but like the Romans they found that didnt work. So they incorporated it instead. The state church in China allows certain things to be preached but not others and interferes in what Christianity teaches or means, not to be a member of the state Church is to face brutal prosecution. In a State Church you can for example sing hymns, but you preach Jesus is the 'Way the Truth and the Life', because the Party is. I have met dissidents fleeing from China who were part of the House Churches, so called because those wgho did not worship at the state church.
China has relaxed a little, partly because some non state Churtches do good work, such as Catholics coming in and setting up mnursing homes for the elderly. The other reason they are quieting down is because House Churches are hard to eradicate, Communist china is far from the first monolithic state to try and rid itself of Christians, you can butcher a few, but there will always be more. China understands that the way to kill a church is to let it stagnate not to persecute it. Dodgy vicars, boring vicars, grasping televangelists and kiddy fiddlers will succeed where legions of secret police will not.
Still joining non State Church is a bad career move, the Chinese know this and so the state Churches still exist and are still used even though they clearly dont preach the same message, the Chinese know that too.

Mannahnin wrote:

Orlanth wrote:National Socialism and religion cannot exist together....

You are still referencing and quoting a discredited source. Choosing not to respond to criticisms that this source is highly unreliable, but continuing to quote it, is a dishonest argument.

You are confusing one type of 'unreliable quote' with another. Quotes can be unreliable as to whether a person said it, or unreliable as to whether a person meant it. I can point out that this and the other matching but diametrically opposed quotes are contradictory, and are thus unreliable in terms of whether they were honest personal opinions of Hitler. That is an honest argument.

Were the quotes spurious, and not quotes from Hitler then they would not indeed make an honest argument. However this is not the case. We have plenty of Hitler quotes to choose from on this subject, and no great debate indicating that the quotes were not Hitler quotes at all. I must admit to not knowing where these quotes came from, but there are a lot, and you can find them and the pattern of contradiction is there. If even some of them were true it would be enough to draw the conclusions I have done, as Hitler is a very studied figure, for them all or nearly all to be bogus would have raised major questions by now. My study of Hitler quotes comes from a Google search, though I did double source quotes or choose opposed viewpoints. I am no student of Hitler or authority on his quotes, if you know more please tell. Howver I am yet to find any reference to bogus Hitler quotes clogging the internet to be used by people to assume the other guy has Hitler on 'their side'.

If you were to assume that the quotes themselves form a dishonest argument because they cannot be proven as coming from Hitler then frankly you shoot down your argument not mine. Were Hitlers own commentaries not indicative then there is no excuse to paint him as a Christian, bad one or otherwise. After all any study of the subject will conclude that by his actions he wasn't a Christian. As it so happens that is the only real acid test anyway, but if you insist on thinking (erroneously according to Jesus) that a vacant confession of Christianity make him a Christian, in spite of other statements denying Christianity vehemently (which makes your conclusing illogical anyway), then denying Hitlers quotes denies your only opportunity to even attempt to claim Hitler was Christian.

Orlanth wrote:
An incorrect argument sorry. It is entirely contradictory. Let me take two example quotes, we will take an assumption of authenticity for both groups of quotes for now or we will get nowhere, and end up picking others until we get a match:

"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."

vs

"By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work."

I picked the first two I could find and they are contradictory in word and ethos. There is the possibility that a didferent Lord is meant, grog has implied this. I don't buy that explanation. In any event both are soundbites, either one can be beleived as Hitlers true opinion, or the other, not both but possibly neither. Allowing for Hitlers Modus Operandi of saying what he wanted to who he wanted and holding his promises lightly there is no rweason to take him at his word for either comment.

Again, those aren't contradictory. A contradiction follows when two opposing premises of an argument are held to be simultaneously true. A good example of a contradiction is "I''m a Christian, but also not a Christian."

It is not contradictory to excoriate Christianity, while also considering oneself to be a Christian; that sort of consideration leads to a strange world in which Martin Luther is not a Christian.

Additionally, I have no idea what you mean by a "contradiction of ethos". I think, perhaps, that you believe that the two offered statement could not possibly be made one person with a contiguous set of beliefs, but that strikes me as a product of your ow myopic perspective, rather than any real attempt at appreciating what is necessary to prove a contradiction, Contradictions cannot arise from how you feel about something.

Also, its very poor form for you to use a quote from a discredited source (Table Talk), while also framing an argument that allows you to insert your own views due to Hitler's own supposed unreliability.

Orlanth wrote:
There is no consistency on Hitlers commentaries on religion, this combined with a known tendency to say what he wanted others to hear, his track record of success and skill in terms of charismatic persuasion, his track record of not being in the slightest bit trustworthy in regards to his promises, plus his track record of amoral leadership and lack of personal humantarian ethics, thats all five in a row; all this makes Hitler a witness with a poor credibility.

I've already dealt with the supposed inconsistency of Hitler's statements on religion.

Amorality and a lack of humanitarian ethics is not something that makes someone an unreliable source. I can fully endorse the genocide of one group of people, while refusing to tell the slightest lie to another. Similarly, not being trustworthy with regards to a set of promises does not mean Hitler lied, it means he failed to fulfill his promises for an undefined reason. Likewise being charismatic does not make one a liar, and the premise "Hitler said what others wanted to hear" renders your argument circular.

You're drawing needlessly specific conclusions.

Orlanth wrote:
Were this any form of testimony at a hearing it would be thrown out or dismissed out of hand.

Yes, we know that's how you feel. But how you feel has no bearing on the quality of your argument.

Orlanth wrote:
Yes to both counts, though I will cover this below

So, you're effectively claiming that if someone's faith wavers (crisis of faith), or they obtain a better understanding of Gospel of Mark when reading it for a second, third, or fourth time (changing interpretations) then they are not Christians? That's preposterous for two reasons. First, it indicates that anyone who struggles with their faith (every person who has it) cannot be a Christian; meaning that there are no Christians. Second, it indicates that anyone who develops their faith over time (every person who has faith) cannot be a Christian; meaning that there are no Christians.

You're running head first into a Scotsman.

The logic being employed here by Orlanth and GG is so twisted it's actually painful to read. I could spend the next hour typing up examples, but I'll just allow sebster and dogma to do that for me.....

dogma wrote:
Again, those aren't contradictory. A contradiction follows when two opposing premises of an argument are held to be simultaneously true. A good example of a contradiction is "I''m a Christian, but also not a Christian."

They are contradictory in that they cannot both indicate a core belief, they can indicate something Hitler said on a whim. This is the issue at stake. Was Hitler a Christian? For this to be so it must ba a core belief, if it isn't a core belief then he wasnt a Christian anyway.
When it comes to 'a contradiction follows when two opposing premises of an argument are held to be simultaneously true', where do you get that idea. This isnt a lab, you shouldnty be applying that type of contradiction as with determining a methematical or pure logical principle. The contradiction here is human: contradictory statements need not be simultaneous to be contradictory. Someones testimony in say, a court, may contradict itself later. its a condradiction, and it rendeers a testimony invalid. You need to think more like a lawyer or historical scholar than a philosopher or physicist. Besides the timeline of Hitlers quotes cover a span of several years and overlap.

Meanwhile you are ignoring the other part of the argument. Above all the point that Hitler failed to be a Christian according to Jesus' methods for detecting Christianity in someone.

dogma wrote:
It is not contradictory to excoriate Christianity, while also considering oneself to be a Christian; that sort of consideration leads to a strange world in which Martin Luther is not a Christian.

How do you come to that conclusion?

dogma wrote:
Additionally, I have no idea what you mean by a "contradiction of ethos".

Because you don't understand religion. This is called a Testimony, Christianity and other religions including Islam and Judaism (I canot speak for other relgions beyond that) rely heavily on the Testimony to determine who is what. Now as stated in the above posts the true perspective is how the 'heart' is changed by a relationship with God. Therefore as Jesus said 'you will know them by their fruit'. At some point you will have to get to the real point and address this issue if you have any hope of negating my argument, as I argue, as backed by scripture that Jesus' example of how to define a Christian is the one to use, all this argument over quotes is largely a smokescreen. The argument bwegins and ends whwen we ask the question, 'did Hitler bear good fruit or bad'. I hope you wont get too picky over the definition of 'fruit', Hitler wasn't a tree.

Nevertheless while fruit determines the heart attitude and thus the true spiritual status according to Christianity. Testimony is important accrding to all the Juaic based relgions including Christianity.

Q. Did Hitler show a consistent Testimony of faith in his religious comments?
A. No he didn't, he was contradictory and inconsistent

Again using the human/theological/legal/debate definition of 'contradiction' rather than one applied to pure science.

dogma wrote:
I think, perhaps, that you believe that the two offered statement could not possibly be made one person with a contiguous set of beliefs, but that strikes me as a product of your ow myopic perspective, rather than any real attempt at appreciating what is necessary to prove a contradiction, Contradictions cannot arise from how you feel about something.

As proven, you don't understand it, so you call it myopic. Isn't that more than a little loaded, to talk rationally you must rise above your bias. We are doing well so far, don't start to troll me now.
I can rise above my bias which is why I use Islam in my above posts as comparitive example, I am no fan of Islam (now reiterated a fourth time) but I can use the same theological principle I use for Christianity with Islam to assess what Islam judges to be true of itself from an internal perspective.

dogma wrote:
Also, its very poor form for you to use a quote from a discredited source (Table Talk), while also framing an argument that allows you to insert your own views due to Hitler's own supposed unreliability.

I covered this with Mannahnin above, probably while you were typing, refer to previous post.

dogma wrote:
Amorality and a lack of humanitarian ethics is not something that makes someone an unreliable source. I can fully endorse the genocide of one group of people, while refusing to tell the slightest lie to another. Similarly, not being trustworthy with regards to a set of promises does not mean Hitler lied, it means he failed to fulfill his promises for an undefined reason. Likewise being charismatic does not make one a liar, and the premise "Hitler said what others wanted to hear" renders your argument circular.

You are not getting the point because you have not 'dealt with the supposed inconsistency of Hitler's statements on religion' and as a result the rest of your argument is confused.

dogma wrote:
Were this any form of testimony at a hearing it would be thrown out or dismissed out of hand.

Yes, we know that's how you feel. But how you feel has no bearing on the quality of your argument.