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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?