Bright Life

I posted the answer to your "so what" question earlier.

Magus55

Some of them are, just like some protestants are, and some aren't. In fact, I do recall Chili, a Catholic, stating that he wasn't Christian, he was Catholic ( yes this confused me to).

Bright Life

I think we can both agree that Chili is...well...unique. He, from what I understand, views the bible as some sort of allegorical how-to manual to reach "heaven." He believes he will become god, or will merge with god...something like that. Interesting, but as to definition, catholics are christians.

BL

Mageth

And I'm confused as to who is a non-Christian protestant. :huh:

jbernier

Which is patently absurd. I am not sure why we need to go to Hitler to show that patent absurdity.

Isn't it about asking whether Hitler (not generic "mass murderers") was Christian?

jbernier

Fair enough.

Again, fair enough.


I would agree. And I think your distinction between "anti-Judaism" and "anti-Semitism" is very helpful in thinking about this issue.

To me, the problem I have with discussing questions like "Was Hitler a Christian?" is that they get too wrapped up in this one man, Hitler. To me it is much more important to look at such things as Verus Israel and deicide rhetoric to consider what aspects of the (primarily German) Christian tradition allowed for the conditions under which the NSDAP and the Holocaust occurred. I think that focussing upon Hitler is too narrow and too emotion-laden to really say anything meaning about what led up to this tragic history.

Bright Life

It's that it is patently absurd that one does need to go to this extreme. Some folks just won't believe that:

Christian = Good Person
Atheist = Bad Person

just doesn't hold water.


BL

The Evil One

To echo BL: I know it's patently absurd and you know it's patently absurd, but certain Christians (not getting at anyone in particular here) seem to need it demonstrating to them. Certain Christians would love to be able to claim that being a Christian makes you more moral and stops you doing wicked things. Thus the thread.


It's about Hitler because he's the one who came up. The reason he keeps on coming up is that he's the only Christian mass murderer absolutely everyone has heard of, whose evil is absolutely beyond question, and is thus the one certain Christians are most eager to disown. It doesn't make much odds, really; Hitler's a fair enough test case for the issue, Is it possible to be both a mass murderer and a Christian?

I mean, we could debate whether or not Charlemagne was a True Christian (TM) if you wanted, but I know I haven't got the historical cojones to do that, and I doubt more than a couple of people here do. <shrugs>

Philippe*

Adolf Hitler privately to Heinrich Himmler, October 14, 1941:

"It may be asked whether concluding a concordat with the churches wouldn't facilitate our exercise of power.

"First, in this way the authority of the state would be vitiated by the fact of the intervention of a third power concerning which it is impossible to say how long it would remain reliable. In the case of the Anglican Church, this objection does not arise, for England knows she can depend upon her church. But what about the Catholic Church? Wouldn't we be running the risk of her one day going into reverse after having put herself at the service of the state solely in order to safeguard her power? If one day the state's policy ceased to suit Rome or the clergy, the priests would turn against the state, as they are doing now. History provides examples that should make us careful.

"Secondly there is also a question of principle. Trying to take a long- range view of things, is it conceivable that one could found anything durable based on falsehood? When I think of our people's future, I must look beyond immediate advantages, even if these advantages were to last 300-500 years or more. I'm convinced that any pact with the church can offer only a provisional benefit, for sooner or later the scientific spirit will disclose the harmful character of such a compromise. Thus the state will have based its existence on a foundation that one day will collapse.

"An educated man retains the sense of the mysteries of nature, and bows before the unknowable. An uneducated man, on the other hand, runs the risk of going over to atheism (which is a return to the state of the animal) as soon as he perceives that the state, in sheer opportunism, is making use of false ideas in the matter of religion, whilst in other fields it bases everything on pure science.

"Being weighed down by a superstitious past, men are afraid of things that can't, or can't yet be explained - that is to say, of the unknown. If anyone has needs of a metaphysical nature, I can't satisfy them with the party's program. Time will pass until the moment when science can answer all the questions.

"So it's not opportune to hurl ourselves now into a struggle with the churches. The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death. A slow death has something comforting about it. The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advance of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble. All that's left is to prove that in nature there's no frontier between the organic and the inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light but worlds - perhaps inhabited worlds like ours - then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.

"But one must continue to pay attention to another aspect of the problem. It's possible to satisfy the needs of the inner life by an intimate communion with nature., or by knowledge of the past. Only a minority, however, at the present stage of the mind's development, can feel the respect inspired by the unknown and thus satisfy the metaphysical needs of the soul. The average human being has the same needs, but can satisfy them only by elementary means. That's particularly true of women, as also of peasants who impotently watch the destruction of their crops. The person whose life tends to simplification is thirsty for belief, and he dimly clings to it with all his strength.

"Nobody has the right to deprive simple people of their childish certainties until they've acquired others that are more reasonable. Indeed it's most important that the higher belief should be well established in them before the lower belief has been removed. We must finally achieve this. But it would serve no purpose to replace an old belief by a new one that would merely fill the place left vacant by its predecessor.

"It seems to me that nothing would be more foolish than to reestablish the worship of Odin. Our old mythology had ceased to be viable when Christianity implanted itself. Nothing dies unless it is moribund. At that point the ancient world was divided between the systems of philosophy and the worship of idols. It's not desirable that the whole of humanity should be stultified - and the only way of getting rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.

"If in the course of 1-2,000 years science arrives at the necessity of renewing its points of view, that will not mean that science is a liar. Science cannot lie, for it's always striving, according to the momentary state of knowledge, to deduce what is true. When it makes a mistake, it does so in good faith. It's Christianity which is the liar; it's in perpetual conflict with itself.

"One may ask whether the disappearance of Christianity would entail the disappearance of a belief in God. That's not to be desired. The notion of divinity gives most men the opportunity to concretize the feeling they have of supernatural realities. Why should we destroy this wonderful power they have of incarnating the feeling for the divine that is within them?"

- Adolf Hitler, in _Bormann-Vermerke_ (transcribed by Martin Bormann), reprinted as _Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944_ (H.R. Trevor-Roper, Trans.), New York: Farrar, Straus & Young, 1953, pages #48-51.

Plus it would have been rather weird for a christian to
*allow his fellow Heinrich Himmler to rehabilitate aryan heathenism among the SS and publy some heathen antichristian books such as Otto Rahn wrote Kreuzzug gegen den Gral ("Crusade Against the Grail") and Luzifers Hofgesinf ("Lucifer's Court").
*build a temple for Richard Wagner, and "worship" Nietzsche who was antichristian, his last book called "Antichrist".
Hitler was for sure not an atheist, he was a theist, believing in providence, perhaps a weird christian since he allowed the most fanatic ss to be antichristian.

Philippe

Philippe*

Extracted from http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/mis...ca_hitler.html

Just How Honest Was Hitler Anyway?
It is important to be able to identify the difference between Hitler's public speeches and writing and what he really thought. A devious politician leading a nominally Christian country like 1930s Germany will say lots of Christian-sounding stuff to maintain popularity. Mein Kampf illustrates Hitler's views on propaganda:

"To whom should propaganda be addressed? … It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses… The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. The whole art consists in doing this so skilfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself … its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect… it's soundness is to be measured exclusively by its effective result". (Main Kampf, Vol 1, Ch 6 and Ch 12)

As an example of Hitler's honestly, consider the following from a letter by Hitler to the French fascist Hervé and published in the Nazi Völkischer Beobachter on October 26, 1930 [Heiden, Der Fuehrer, p. 414] :


"I think I can assure you that there is no one in Germany who will not with all his heart approve any honest attempt at an improvement of relations between Germany and France. My own feelings force me to take the same attitude... The German people has the solemn intention of living in peace and friendship with all civilized nations and powers... And I regard the maintenance of peace in Europe as especially desirable and at the same time secured, if France and Germany, on the basis of equal sharing of natural human rights, arrive at a real inner understanding... The young Germany, that is led by me and that finds its expression in the National Socialist Movement, has only the most heartfelt desire for an understanding with other European nations."

This is from the guy who started World War II.


In a similar vein, consider this, from a speech in the Reichstag on 30 Jan. 1939:


"Amongst the accusations which are directed against Germany in the so called democracies is the charge that the National Socialist State is hostile to religion. In answer to that charge I should like to make before the German people the following solemn declaration:
1. No one in Germany has in the past been persecuted because of his religious views, nor will anyone in the future be so persecuted..."

Hmm… would you trust this guy's public announcements?

Philippe