a question of tolerance

[Goldensilence]

What is the border between intolerance and criticism?

Can one tolerate something and critcize it or can one criticize something and see it as intolerance?

[CarbonDate]

1. My distinction:

Criticism: "Christianity is stupid."

Intolerance: "Christians are stupid."

An over-simplification, but I generally draw the line between attacking the theology and attacking the people who believe in the theology. Of course, many people who believe the theology take attacks on their beliefs personally because their religion is such a defining part of who they are. That's where the problems come in.

Another problem: the very theology attacks anybody who doesn't believe in it. For example, "atheists are going to Hell." That's just a part of the theology. And since the theology specifically says that bad people go to Hell and good people go to Heaven, it's not that much of a stretch to say that the theology is saying that atheists are bad people. And if you really believe the theology, then you must believe that I'm a bad person, right?

These are the terms that we're going into the discussion with. That's why it's almost impossible to have a discussion about theology without it ending in personal attacks.

[catbert836]

2. The thing is

Many Christians (or all religious people, what the hell) take criticism of their beliefs as criticism of themselves. Which isn't the fault of those who criticise religion, of course. I'm all for people of faith developing a thicker skin.

[manic expression]

4. Well,

that happens with many people, and it can happen with anything someone does or is a part of. For instance, if I tell a punk-rocker that punk-rock sucks and is too commercialized, I'm not sure that person would be too positive about it or take it as just "criticism". Religion is worse for many, because that makes up their closest beliefs.

Another thing is that I get a similar reaction with atheists when I merely suggest that they have beliefs. Of course that is my opinion, and further, that is not even criticism. Should they just develop a "thicker skin" as well?

Just a few thoughts.

[jonnyblitz]

5. we atheists don't get upset if you accuse us of having beliefs

we just get annoyed when you say our lack of religion IS a religion. that makes NO fucking sense. :hi:

[manic expression]

6. You may not

many atheists do.

However, one could make the case for atheism constituting a loose religion, and I would, but that's not the point. The point is that atheists can get as offended as theists.

[InaneAnanity]

17. manic expression

You are absolutely ridiculous.

[manic expression]

34. My point exactly. n/t

[CarbonDate]

7. Well, that's every religion.

People see their religion as being a part of who they are. I remember I used to define myself by my religion, so I certainly can empathize with that feeling.

[manic expression]

3. A few things

In my opinion:
Criticism: "(religion x) is mistaken in certain aspects", or "(religion x) is pretty contradictory"

Saying that something is stupid may constitute "intolerance", but perhaps in the lowest of degrees. But that's pretty much what you said anyway.

Also, is it right to tolerate intolerance? I believe there is nothing wrong with being intolerant towards intolerance, but that is my opinion.

Anyway, as long as people are decent and respectful, theological discussion should stay civil and constructive. When there are either attacks or very strong disagreements, it ceases to be a discussion.

[Goldensilence]

8. just wanting to gauge

What each side of the coin thinks. I think that if we find that border we'd know when it has been crossed and perhaps can keep things hopefully civil and make some sort of understanding at least.Sometimes just a small step forward looks bigger when we get closer.


I always thought it as this and maybe this is a bit is bit off but i hope the idea passes through in some form.

Criticism

Cowboy hats look stupid.

Intolerance

No cowboy hats can be worn around here.

[Arianrhod]

9. I like your analogy better.

I think the biggest problem with theological discussions is not intolerance per se, but rather that people have a strong tendency to hold their religion as ultimate truth. That's easy to understand, since the major Middle-East-derived religions all teach that they are. But not every religion does. It's much easier to have a civil discussion with a Theraveda Buddhist than it is to have one with an Evangelical Christian.

Some religions that don't proclaim themselves to be ultimate arbiters of truth: Theraveda, Zen, Hinduism, Druidism, Wicca, Taoism. All of these religions are experiential, and each insists that the individual must determine for him/herself whether or not the teachings are correct. Such an attitude naturally makes for a stable foundation in which all manner of ideas can be discussed without rancor.

It's my personal belief that all negative emotions and attitudes are ultimately based on fear. Using this definition, then, intolerance is the hostile response to an internal fear that one might be wrong.

[Goldensilence]

11. I would tend to agree

the past three years or so I've studided a good amount into buddhist thought and many times have come to the same conclusion you have. It is experiential and conclusions for me are drawn after much comptemplation and thought. The world is as much inner as it is outside.


It's my personal belief that all negative emotions and attitudes are ultimately based on fear.

I would agree with this statement as well. Some people are intertwined with fear based faith in their existance and actions. This sort of line of thought of "if it's too good to be true it usually is". The of course polar opposite is love.


Using this definition, then, intolerance is the hostile response to an internal fear that one might be wrong.


Good thing I never rule out the possibility that i might be wrong :)
I think it comes down to this the fact that sometimes i wonder if humans have forced themselves colorblind. There's only two colors. Black and White.

[Dorian Gray]

135. I think Golden Silence

has a wonderful point here. There is a huge difference between criticism and intolerance. What strikes me as rude may not strike others as rude. (For instance, I also think cowboy hats look silly. I would never tell that to a person wearing one, however, as it is their style choice.) But, I also would never walk up to a cowboy and tell them that they, and everybody else who dresses like them, is a moron for their choices.

That's my personality, though. I'm somebody who tries to bridge gaps and understand where others are coming from. Thicker skin, however, should be worn by everyone who posts here. I'm sick of both sides whining about what the other side said. Sure, I'll put in my 2 cents, but I'd never be truly upset by anybody who thought that I was an idiot for believing in God, nor would I ever think that they were an idiot for not believing as I do. Why would I? I can not judge what is in another person's heart or brain.

[Zebedeo]

18. You've got it all wrong

the theology specifically says that bad people go to Hell and good people go to Heaven

That is NOT what traditional Christianity teaches. Where did you get that, from the movies? That is just not at all what Christians believe.

Traditional Christians believe that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." The "wages of sin is death," and therefore we ALL deserve Hell. But in His mercy, God sent His Son to shed His blood to atone for our sins. Each of us -- Jew or Greek, male or female, aborigine or Inuit, "good person" or "bad person" -- has the opportunity receive this awesome gift by accepting the sacrifice on our behalf. Christians believe that salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ, and cannot be attained by trying to do "good works."

Christians don't believe that you are a "bad person" because you are an atheist. Christians believe that God has given each of us a pass/fail test -- obey the Commandments and you pass; break them and you fail. We have ALL failed the pass/fail test, including ALL Christians and ALL atheists. That's why we are all in need of redemption through the Cross.

Hope this helps clear up your misconception about what Christians believe.

[trotsky]

19. Can an atheist go to heaven? n/t

[unschooler]

20. The tradtitional shtick is that heaven isn't about being good or bad.

It's about believing the right thing. Therefore, Gandhi (who said he was not a Christian) is in Hell, while Hitler (who professed Catholicism) is in Heaven.

At least we'll have good company while we weep and gnash our teeth for eternity.

[Zebedeo]

22. Actually, Hitler

was viciously anti-Christian. He had the following abominable things to say about Christianity:

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 <is> 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' <who he asserts many times was never a Jew> 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, faggots? 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.... <here insults people who believe
transubstantiation>....
"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 in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold <its demise>." (p 278)

All of the above from Hitler's Table Talk (Adolf Hitler, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1953)

Hilter was a neo-pagan racist whose belief system had its origin in Darwinism. Though he paid lip service to Christianity at times in public, he was not a Christian. He despised Christians and Christianity.

[beam me up scottie]

25. Sorry, Hitler never renounced his christianity, nor was he excommunicated.

His entire philosophy was based on the religious assumptions of Christian theism.
His words show he retained his belief in the christian god.

Let's set the bar:

Webster's:
1. A person professing belief in Jesus as the Christ, or in the religion based on the teachings of Jesus.
www.religioustolerance.org/media_rel3.htm

Nobody knows what was in Hitler's heart and mind, as well as the minds of other professed christians, and since there is no evidence that he was lying when he asserted faith in God and Christ, the only evidence we have is recorded history.

None of Hitler's table talk conversations were recorded or captured by audio, film, or broadcast on radio and there are two different versions.

One of them, the one you, the apologists and historical revisionists quote, was edited by Bormann who was anti-catholic.

Nowhere does Hitler denounce Jesus or his Christianity

A damaging blow to any apologist argument against Hitler's Christianity comes from the fact that nowhere in any known source does Hitler denounce his Christianity or Jesus.

If one is to use the Table-Talk as evidence against Hitler's Christianity, then where does it appear? Nowhere in Trevor-Roper's introduction does he argue that Hitler was not a Christian.

Nowhere in the conversations of Table-Talk, does Hitler denounce his Christianity or Jesus.

On the contrary, Hitler's (or Bormann's editing) aims to show that the Church form of religion produces lies, and that the original Christian religion was an incarnation of Bolshevism, from a falsification from St. Paul. But whenever he mentions Christ, Hitler has nothing but admiration:

Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism the destroyer. Nevertheless, the Galilean, who later was called Christ, intended something quite different. He must be regarded as a popular leader who too up His position against Jewry. Galilee was a colony where the Romans had probably installed Gallic legionaries, and it's certain that Jesus was not a Jew. The Jews, by the way, regarded Him as the son of a whore-- of a whore and a Roman soldier.
The decisive falsification of Jesus's doctrine was the work of St. Paul. He gave himself to this work with subtlety and for purposes of personal exploitation. For the Galiean's object was to liberate His country from Jewish oppression. He set Himself against Jewish capitalism, and that's why the Jews liquidated Him.
-Hitler

Christ was an Aryan, and St. Paul used his doctrine to mobilise the criminal underworld and thus organise a proto-Bolsevism.
-Hitler



As tortured as Hitler's logic is, He never condemns Jesus. On the contrary, he sees Jesus as an Aryan, a liberator against Jewish oppression! If Hitler did not see himself as a Christian, then why doesn't he condemn Jesus? Why doesn't he accuse Christ as being a Jew? Why does he see Christ as a liberator?

Biographer John Toland explains Hitler's reason for exterminating the Jews:

Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, 'I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so,' he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of God. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of God-- so long as it was done impersonally, without cruelty.

Moreover, there are no known documents, speeches, or proclamations by Hitler where he even comes close to denouncing his belief in Christianity, or Jesus.

The Protestant and Catholic Churches in Hitler's time never accused Hitler of apostasy. Hitler's Christianity in Germany was never questioned until years after WWII and then only by Western Christians who are embarrassed to have him as a member of their faith-system.

The reasoning by the apologists in regards to the Table-Talk seems to be that because Hitler spoke against organized religion, then he must therefore be anti-Christian. But even if we take this simplistic approach and assume the Table-Talk as the actual thoughts and beliefs of Hitler, it fails for the simple reason that dismissing a religion of one's own faith does not exclude or excuse one from a personal belief as a Christian. A Christian is simply a person who believes in God and Jesus in some form or manner. Christianity, the body of believing people, simply does not require organized religion at all.

There are many examples of prominent Christians who denounced religions who opposed their own personal beliefs. Indeed, the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther who was once a Catholic monk, denounced the Catholic hierarchy as the work of the anti-Christ and establised by the Devil . Yet I have yet to see a Lutheran accuse Luther as being a non-Christian. The history of Christianity is filled with examples of people of differing Christian faiths denouncing each other. I have personally conversed with many Christians who have denounced all forms of religious organizations, yet they have a strong belief in God and Jesus Christ.

Indeed, even the Table-Talk has Hitler saying:

Luther had the merit of rising against the Pope and the organisation of the Church. It was the first of the great revolutions. And thanks to his translation of the Bible, Luther replaced our dialects by the great German language! -Table-Talk

If simply speaking against a Christian religion were enough to oust one from Christianity, then some of the most influential Christians would have to reside with Hitler.

The papacy is truly the real power and tyranny of the Antichrist.... As beautiful as it was to keep a state of virginity, in the early days of Christianity, so abominable has it now become, when it is used as a means of eliciting Christ's help and grace. -Martin Luther (Luther's Confession, March 1528)

We maintain that the government of the Church was converted into a species of foul and insufferable tyranny. -John Calvin (The Necessity of Reforming the Church, 1544)

If we used the same logic of the apologists against Hitler, then we should remove Luther, Calvin, and many other prominent so-called-Christians from membership of Christianity.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/HitlerSources.htm

Unused quotes

In an attempt to rewrite history, those who desire to eliminate Hitler from membership of Christianity, always find an excuse to dismiss Hitler's actual words. Instead they rely on indirect quotes from a questionable source such as Bormann's edited version of the table talk. But if we were to use this form of dubious scholarship, shouldn't we also quote Hitler from other indirect sources? If so, then, again, their plan fails and reveals the slanting of their bias. For if we took these apocryphal sources as evidence, then Hitler's Christianity become even more evident.

Those who knew Hitler remarked about his Christian views.

Here we have a Christian minister to his fellow Christians:

If anyone can lay claim to God's help, then it is Hitler, for without God's benevolent fatherly hand, without his blessing, the nation would not be where it stands today. It is an unbelievable miracle that God has bestowed on our people.

-Minister Rust, in a speech to a mass meeting of German Chrisitans on June 29, 1933



The established Methodist church paper, the Friedensglocke, vouched for the authenticity of a story about Hitler where he invited a group of deaconesses from the Bethel Institutions into his home at Obersalzberg:

The deaconesses entered the chamber and were astonished to see the pictures of Frederick the Great, Luther, and Bismarck on the wall. Then Hitler said:

Those are the three greatest men that God has given the German people. From Fredrick the Great I have learned bravery, and from Bismarck statecraft. The greatest of the three is Dr. Martin Luther, for he made it possible to bring unity among the German tribes by giving them a common language through his translation of the Bible into German....



One sister could not refrain from saying: Herr Reichkanzler, from where do you get the courage to undertake the great changes in the whole Reich?

Thereupon Hitler took out of his pocket the New Testament of Dr. Martin Luther, which one could see had been used very much, and said earnestly: "From God's word."

Even the Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich who visited Hitler at his mountain retreat in Obersalzburg confessed:


Without a doubt the chancellor lives in faith in God. He recognizes Christianity as the foundation of Western culture...

And this comes from reputable Christian sources of the day including a Cardinal! How odd that there are Christians today who think they can divine the mind of an anti-Christian Hitler they never met, removed by a generation, and dismiss all his direct quotes about Jesus, while denying their own brethren of the Church who actually talked with Hitler. If prominent Christians in the 1930s could be so easily deceived, could not be the same be applied to today's Christians? And if deception describes the temper of the faithful, then what does that say for Christianity as a whole and the thinking process that it entails?

And on Hitler's allegiance to his "true" Christian spirit:

I do not remember even a single occasion when Hitler gave any instructions that ran counter to the true Christian spirit and to humaness.

-Wagener, in Hitler-- Memoirs of a Confinant, p.147

To Wagener, Hitler supposedly confessed his attitude toward his view of true Christianity as a form of socialism as opposed to those he thought did not understand Christianity. Note, Hitler's view here of socialism was not like that of communism (Hitler detested communism) but rather one of a National nature (very similar to Right Wing Christians in America who want to nationalize Christianity) :

Socialism is a question of attitude toward life, of the ethical outlook on life of all who live together in a common ethnic or national space. Socialism is a Weltanschauung!

But in actual fact there is nothing new about this Weltanschauung. Whenever I read the New Testament Gospels and the revelations of various of the prophets and imagine myself back in the era of the Roman and late Hellenistic, as well as the Oriental world, I am astonished at all that has been made of the teachings of these divinely inspired men, especially Jesus Christ, which are so clear and unique, heightened to religiosity. They were the ones who created this new worldview which we now call socialism, they established it, they taught it and they lived it! But the communities that called themselves Christian churches did not understand it! Or if they did, they denied Christ and betrayed him! For they transformed the holy idea of Christian socialism into its opposite! They killed it, just as, at the time, the Jews nailed Jesus to the cross; they buried it, just as the body of Christ was buried. But they allowed Christ to be resurrected, instigating the belief that his teachings too, were reborn!

It is in this that the monstrous crime of these enemies of Christian socialism lies! What the basest hypocrisy they carry before them the cross-- the instrument of that murder which, in their thoughts, they commit over and over-- as a new divine sign of Christian awareness, and allow mankind to kneel to it. They even pretend to be preaching the teachings of Christ. But their lives and deeds are a constant blow against these teachings and their Creator and a defamation of God!

We are the first to exhume these teachings! Through us alone, and not until now, do these teachings celebrate their resurrection! Mary and Magdalene stood at the empty tomb. For they were seeking the dead man! But we intend to raise the treasures of the living Christ!

Herein lies the essential element of our mission: we must bring back to the German Volk the recognition of those teachings! For what did the falsification of the original concept of Christian love, of the community of fate before God and of socialism lead to? By their fruits ye shall know them! The suppression of freedom of opinion, the persecution of the true Christians, the vile mass murders of the Inquisition and the burning of witches, the armed campaigns against the people of free and true Christian faith, the destruction of towns and villages, the hauling away of their cattle and their goods, the destruction of their flourishing economies, and the condemnation of their leaders before tribunals, which, in their unrelenting hypocrisy, can only be described as balaphemous. That is the true face of those sanctimonious churches that have placed themselves between God and man, motivated by selfishness, personal greed for recognition and gain, and the ambition to maintain their high-handed willfulness against Christ's deep understanding of the necessity of a socialist community of men and nations. We must turn all the sentiments of the Volk, all its thinking, acting, even its beliefs, away from the anti-Christian, smug individualism of the past, from the egotism and stupid Phariseeism of personal arrogance, and we must educate the youth in particular in the spirit of those of Christ's words that we must interpret anew: love one another; be considerate of your fellow man; remember that each one of you is not alone a creature of God, but that you are all brothers! This youth will, wit loathing and contempt, abandon those hypocrites who have Christ on their lips but the devil in their hearts, who give alms in order to remain undisturbed as they themselves throw their money around, who invoke the Fatherland as they fill their own purses by the toil of others, who preach peace and incite to war.... and on it goes.

- Hitler in Memoirs of a Confinant, p.139-140

In the second interview from Hitler's secret conversations, Hitler reveals:

We do not judge merely by artistic or military standards or even by purely scientific ones. We judge by the spiritual energy which a people is capable of putting forth, which will enable it in ten years to recapture what is has lost in a thousand years of warfare. I intend to set up a thousand-year Reich and anyone who supports me in this battle is a fellow-fighter for a unique spiritual-- I would say divine-- creation.... Rudolf Hess, my assistant of many years standing, would tell you: If we have such a leader, God is with us.

-Hitler, in Secret Conversations With Hitler, p. 68

On the Concordat between Germany and the Vatican, Hitler remarked:

We do not forget the influence of the churches. There will definitely be no Vatican crusade against us. We know Monsignor Pacelli since he was the Vatican's diplomatic representative in Germany for twelve years; as Secretary of State and adviser to Pope XI it is greatly in his interest that the German Catholics should at last have a statute .

-Hitler, in Secret Conversations With Hitler, p. 79

Rarely do you see apologists against Hitler's Christianity quoting from these memoirs and secret conversations, yet they want us to buy only out-of-context quotes from the Table-Talk. There are many more religious quotes from these other sources, too numerous to cite here. I only give these examples to show that Hitler's Christian thoughts are expressed even more vividly in these extraneous sources. If I had relied only on these sources, the clarion cry of foul would rise from the ire of Christian apologists, yet their only rebuttal comes from the even more dubious copy of the Table Talk edited by Bormann

http://www.nobeliefs.com/HitlerSources.htm

So much for Table Talk.

Let's move on to recorded history.

Myth 1: Hitler was not a Christian


The entire section on Hitler's Christianity provides ample evidence for his brand of Christianity. The evidence itself destroys any opinions or beliefs about Hitler's alleged apostasy.

The evidence shows that:

Hitler was born and baptized into Catholicism

His Jewish antisemitism came from his Christian background.

His early personal notes shows his interest in religion and Biblical views.

He believed that the Bible represented the history of mankind.

His Nazi party platform (their version of a constitution) included a section on Positive Christianity, and he never removed it.

He confessed his Christianity.

He tried to establish a united Reich German Church.

Hitler allowed the destruction of Jewish synagogues and temples, but not Christian churches.

He encouraged Nazis to worship in Christian churches.

He spoke of his Christian beliefs in his speeches and proclamations.

His contemporaries, friends, Protestant ministers and Catholics priests, including the Vatican, thought of Hitler as a Christian.

The Catholic Church never excommunicated Hitler. He died a Catholic.

To ignore the evidence of Hitler's Christianity demonstrates how power of belief can obscure the facts.

****************************

The Christianity of Hitler revealed in his speeches and proclamations

Compiled by Jim Walker

Originated: 27 Feb. 1997

Through subterfuge and concealment, many of today's Church leaders and faithful Christians have camouflaged the Christianity of Adolf Hitler and have attempted to mark him an atheist, a pagan cult worshipper, or a false Christian. However, from the earliest formation of the Nazi party and throughout the period of conquest and growth, Hitler expressed his Christian support to the German citizenry and soldiers. In the 1920s, Hitler's German Workers' Party (pre Nazi term) adopted a "Programme" with twenty-five points (the Nazi version of a constitution). In point twenty-four, their intent clearly demonstrates, from the very beginning, their stand in favor of a "positive" Christianity:

24. We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the morality and moral sense of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession....




Hitler's speeches and proclamations, even more clearly, reveal his faith and feelings toward a Christianized Germany. Nazism presents an embarrassment to Christianity and demonstrates the danger of faith. The following words from Hitler show his disdain for atheism, and pagan cults, and reveals the strength of his Christian feelings:


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 only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech on 12 April 1922

Note, "brood of vipers" appears in Matt 3: 7 & 12:34. John 2:15 depicts Jesus driving out the money changers (adders) from the temple. The word "adders" also appears in Psalms 140:3


It will at any rate be my supreme task to see to it that in the newly awakened NSDAP, the adherents of both Confessions can live peacefully together side by side in order that they may take their stand in the common fight against the power which is the mortal foe of any true Christianity.
-Adolf Hitler, in an article headed "A New Beginning," 26 Feb. 1925


Except the Lord built the house they labour in vain.... The truth of that text was proved if one looks at the house of which the foundations were laid in 1918 and which since then has been in building.... The world will not help, the people must help itself. Its own strength is the source of life. That strength the Almighty has given us to use; that in it and through it we may wage the battle of our life.... The others in the past years have not had the blessing of the Almighty-- of Him Who in the last resort, whatever man may do, holds in His hands the final decision. Lord God, let us never hesitate or play the coward, let us never forget the duty which we have taken upon us.... We are all proud that through God's powerful aid we have become once more true Germans.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech in March 1933





The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life.... The National Government regard the two Christian Confessions as the weightiest factors for the maintenance of our nationality. They will respect the agreements concluded between them and the federal States. Their rights are not to be infringed.... It will be the Government's care to maintain honest co-operation between Church and State; the struggle against materialistic views and for a real national community is just as much in the interest of the German nation as in that of the welfare of our Christian faith. The Government of the Reich, who regard Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation, attach the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy See and are endeavouring to develop them.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech to the Reichstag on 23 March 1933




We want honestly to earn the resurrection of our people through our industry, our perseverance, our will. We ask not of the Almighty 'Lord, make us free'!-- we want to be active, to work, to agree together as brothers, to strive in rivalry with one another to bring about the hour when we can come before Him and when we may ask of Him: 'Lord, Thou seest that we have transformed ourselves, the German people is not longer the people of dishonour, of shame, of war within itself, of faintheartedness and little faith: no, Lord, the German people has become strong again in spirit, strong in will, strong in endurance, strong to bear all sacrifices.' 'Lord, we will not let Thee go: bless now our fight for our freedom; the fight we wage for our German people and Fatherland.'
-Adolf Hitler, giving prayer in a speech on May Day 1933



This is for us a ground for satisfaction, since we desire that the fight in the religious camps should come to an end... all political action in the parties will be forbidden to priests for all time, happy because we know what is wanted by millions who long to see in the priest only the comforter of their souls and not the representative of their political convictions.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech to the men of the SA. at Dormund, 9 July 1933 on the day after the signing of the Concordat.


National Socialism has always affirmed that it is determined to take the Christian Churches under the protection of the State.... The decisive factor which can justify the existence alike of Church and State is the maintenance of men's spiritual and bodily health, for it that health were destroyed it would mean the end of the State and also the end of the Church.... It is my sincere hope that thereby for Germany, too, through free agreement there has been produced a final clarification of spheres in the functions of the State and of one Church.
-Adolf Hitler, on a wireless on 22 July, the evening before the Evangelical Church Election

The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie.
-Adolf Hitler, 22 July 1933, writing to the Nazi Party (quoted from John Cornwell's "Hitler's Pope"


We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933




I believe that Providence would never have allowed us to see the victory of the Movement if it had the intention after all to destroy us at the end.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech to old members of the Party at Munich on 8 Nov. 1933


The German Church and the People are practically the same body. Therefore there could be no issue between Church and State. The Church, as such, has nothing to do with political affairs. On the other hand, the State has nothing to do with the faith or inner organization of the Church. The election of November 12th would be an expression of church constituency, but not as a Church.
-Adolf Hitler, answering C. F. Macfarland about Church & State (in his book, The New Church and the New Germany)


While we destroyed the Centre Party, we have not only brought thousands of priests back into the Church, but to millions of respectable people we have restored their faith in their religion and in their priests. The union of the Evangelical Church in a single Church for the whole Reich, the Concordat with the Catholic Church, these are but milestones on the road which leads to the establishment of a useful relation and a useful co operation between the Reich and the two Confessions.
-Adolf Hitler, in his New Year Message on 1 Jan. 1934


Imbued with the desire to secure for the German people the great religious, moral, and cultural values rooted in the two Christian Confessions, we have abolished the political organizations but strengthened the religious institutions.
-Adolf Hitler, speaking in the Reichstag on 30 Jan. 1934


It would have been more to the point, more honest and more Christian, in past decades not to support those who intentionally destroyed healthy life than to rebel against those who have no other wish than to avoid disease. Moreover, a policy of laissez faire in this sphere is not only cruelty to the individual guiltless victims but also to the nation as a whole.... If the Churches were to declare themselves ready to take over the treatment and care of those suffering from hereditary diseases, we should be quite ready to refrain from sterilizing them.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech on 30 Jan. 1934


We have experienced a miracle, something unique, something the like of which there has hardly been in the history of the world. God first allowed our people to be victorious for four and a half years, then He abased us, laid upon us a period of shamelessness, but now after a struggle of fourteen years he has permitted us to bring that period to a close. It is a miracle which has been wrought upon the German people.... It shows us that the Almighty has not deserted our people, that He received it into favour at the moment when it rediscovered itself. And that our people shall never again lose itself, that must be our vow so long as we shall live and so long as the Lord gives us the strength to carry on the fight.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech to the "Old Guard" of the Party at Munich on 19 March, 1934


The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavour to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren ), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of to-day.
-Adolf Hitler, on 26 June 1934, to Catholic bishops to assure them that he would take action against the new pagan propaganda


No, it is not we that have deserted Christianity, it is those who came before us who deserted Christianity. We have only carried through a clear division between politics which have to do with terrestrial things, and religion, which must concern itself with the celestial sphere. There has been no interference with the doctrine (Lehre ) of the Confessions or with their religious freedom (Bekenntnisfreiheit ), nor will there be any such interference. On the contrary the State protects religion, though always on the one condition that religion will not be used as a cover for political ends....
National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on the ground of a real Christianity.... For their interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of to-day, in our fight against a Bolshevist culture, against atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for a consciousness of a community in our national life... These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles! And I believe that if we should fail to follow these principles then we should to be able to point to our successes, for the result of our political battle is surely not unblest by God.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech at Koblenz, to the Germans of the Saar, 26 Aug. 1934


So far as the Evangelical Confessions are concerned we are determined to put an end to existing divisions, which are concerned only with the forms of organization, and to create a single Evangelical Church for the whole Reich....
And we know that were the great German reformer with us to-day he would rejoice to be freed from the necessity of his own time and, like Ulrich von Hutten, his last prayer would be not for the Churches of the separate States: it would be of Germany that he would think and of the Evangelical Church of Germany.
-Adolf Hitler, in his Proclamation at the Parteitag at Nuremberg on 5 Sept. 1934



What we are we have become not against, but with, the will of Providence. And so long as we are true and honourable and of good courage in fight, so long as we believe in our great work and do not capitulate, we shall continue to enjoy in the future the blessing of Providence.
-Adolf Hitler, at Rosenheim in Bavaria, 11 Aug. 1935


Only so you can appeal to your God and pray Him to support and bless your courage, your work, your perseverance, your strength, your resolution, and with all these your claim on life.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech at Frankfurt on 16 March 1936


In this world him who does not abandon himself the Almighty will not desert. Him who helps himself will the Almighty always also help; He will show him the way by which he can gain his rights, his freedom, and therefore his future.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech at Hamburg on 20 March 1936


Providence has caused me to be Catholic, and I know therefore how to handle this Church.
-Adolf Hitler, reportedly to have said in Berlin in 1936 on the enmity of the Catholic Church to National Socialism


I believe in Providence and I believe Providence to be just. Therefore I believe that Providence always rewards the strong, the industrious, and the upright.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech to National Socialist women at the Nuremberg Parteitag of 1936 <11 Sept. 1936>


So long as they concern themselves with their religious problems the State does not concern itself with them. But so soon as they attempt by any means whatsoever-- by letters, Encyclica, or otherwise-- to arrogate to themselves rights which belong to the State alone we shall force them back into their proper spiritual, pastoral activity.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech delivered in Berlin on the May Day festival, 1937


We National Socialists, too, have deep in our hearts our own faith. We cannot do otherwise. No man can mould the history of peoples or of the world unless he has upon his will and his capacities the blessing of Providence.
-Adolf Hitler, to Nazi leaders on 2 June 1937, as reported by a correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph"


I will never allow anyone to divide this people once more into religious camps, each fighting the other....
You, my Brown Guard, will regard it as a matter of course that this German people should go only by the way which Providence ordained for it when it gave to Germans the common language. So we go forward with the profoundest faith in God into the future. Would that which we have achieved have been possible if Providence had not helped us?
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech at Regensburg on 6 June 1937


If we pursue this way, if we are decent, industrious, and honest, if we so loyally and truly fulfill our duty, then it is my conviction that in the future as in the past the Lord God will always help us. In the long run He never leaves decent folk in the lurch. Often He may test them, He may send trials upon them, but in the long run He always lets His sun shine upon them once more and at the end He gives them His blessing.
-Adolf Hitler, at the Harvest Thanksgiving Festival on the Buckeburg held on 3 Oct. 1937


This Winter Help Work is also in the deepest sense a Christian work. When I see, as I so often do, poorly clad girls collecting with such infinite patience in order to care for those who are suffering from the cold while they themselves are shivering with cold, then I have the feeling that they are all apostles of a Christianity-- and in truth of a Christianity which can say with greater right than any other: This is the Christianity of an honest confession, for behind it stand not words but deeds.
-Adolf Hitler, speaking of the Winter Help Campaign on 5 Oct. 1937


Remain strong in your faith, as you were in former years. In this faith, in its close-knit unity our people to-day goes straight forward on its way and no power on earth will avail to stop it.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech at Coburg on 15 Oct. 1937


In this hour I would ask of the Lord God only this: that, as in the past, so in the years to come He would give His blessing to our work and our action, to our judgement and our resolution, that He will safeguard us from all false pride and from all cowardly servility, that He may grant us to find the straight path which His Providence has ordained for the German people, and that He may ever give us the courage to do the right, never to falter, never to yield before any violence, before any danger.... I am convinced that men who are created by God should live in accordance with the will of the Almighty.... If Providence had not guided us I could often never have found these dizzy paths.... Thus it is that we National Socialists, too, have in the depths of our hearts our faith. We cannot do otherwise: no man can fashion world-history or the history of peoples unless upon his purpose and his powers there rests the blessings of this Providence.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech at Wurzburg on 27 June 1937


National Socialism is not a cult-movement-- a movement for worship; it is exclusively a 'volkic' political doctrine based upon racial principles. In its purpose there is no mystic cult, only the care and leadership of a people defined by a common blood-relationship.... We will not allow mystically-minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else-- in any case something which has nothing to do with us. At the head of our programme there stand no secret surmisings but clear-cut perception and straightforward profession of belief. But since we set as the central point of this perception and of this profession of belief the maintenance and hence the security for the future of a being formed by God, we thus serve the maintenance of a divine work and fulfill a divine will-- not in the secret twilight of a new house of worship, but openly before the face of the Lord.... Our worship is exclusively the cultivation of the natural, and for that reason, because natural, therefore God-willed. Our humility is the unconditional submission before the divine laws of existence so far as they are known to us men.
-Adolf Hitler, in Nuremberg on 6 Sept. 1938.




The National Socialist Movement has wrought this miracle. If Almighty God granted success to this work, then the Party was His instrument.
-Adolf Hitler, in his proclamation to the German People on 1 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 (Einstellung), nor will anyone in the future be so persecuted.... The Churches are the greatest landed proprietors after the State... Further, the Church in the National Socialist State is in many ways favoured in regard to taxation, and for gifts, legacies, &c., it enjoys immunity from taxation.
It is therefore, to put mildly-- effrontery when especially foreign politicians make bold to speak of hostility to religion in the Third Reich.... I would allow myself only one question: what contributions during the same period have France, England, or the United States made through the State from the public funds?
3. The National Socialist State has not closed a church, nor has it prevented the holding of a religious service, nor has it ever exercised any influence upon the form of a religious service. It has not exercised any pressure upon the doctrine nor on the profession of faith of any of the Confessions. In the National Socialist State anyone is free to seek his blessedness after his own fashion.... There are ten thousands and ten thousands of priests of all the Christian Confessions who perform their ecclesiastical duties just as well as or probably better than the political agitators without ever coming into conflict with the laws of the State.... This State has only once intervened in the internal regulation of the Churches, that is when I myself in 1933 endeavoured to unite the weak and divided Protestant Churches of the different States into one great and powerful Evangelical Church of the Reich. That attempt failed through the opposition of the bishops of some States; it was therefore abandoned. For it is in the last resort not our task to defend or even to strengthen the Evangelical Church through violence against its own representatives.... But on one point it is well that there should be no uncertainty: the German priest as servant of God we shall protect, the priest as political enemy of the German State we shall destroy.
-Adolf Hitler, a speech in the Reichstag on 30 Jan. 1939


If positive Christianity means love of one's neighbour, i.e. the tending of the sick, the clothing of the poor, the feeding of the hungry, the giving of drink to those who are thirsty, then it is we who are the more positive Christians. For in these spheres the community of the people of National Socialist Germany has accomplished a prodigious work.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech to the "Old Guard" at Munich on 24 Feb. 1939


Sources:

Baynes, Norman H. Ed. "The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939," Vol. 1 of 2, Oxford University Press, 1942

Cornwell, John, "Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII," Viking, 1999

From Myth #2:

The only evidence we have, or could ever have, about people who call themselves Christian comes from the very confession of those making the claim. And since Hitler makes his claim to Christianity abundantly and clearly, we can only rely on his claim, regardless of whether he actually believed in Christ or not. False Christianity has as just much validity as any claim to Christianity, even if you could prove dishonesty.

But regardless of how you view a person's claim to their religion, to say Hitler used Christianity only for political forces has absolutely no historical basis to back it up. To simply rely on belief or opinion says absolutely nothing about historical fact.

The No True Scotsman fallacy is not proof.


And before you run back to the apologetic's index to get more fallacy fuel, keep in mind I have tons of evidence also refuting Myth #3-that Hitler got his ideas of Aryan superiority and Jewish hatred from Darwinian evolution and Myth #4- Hitler followed Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy.

[unschooler]

44. Wow! What a post! That's more like a thesis!

I should have read yours before I plowed in with my little synopsis. And I'd love to hear what you've got on Hitler and Darwin or Nietzche.

:yourock: :applause: :yourock: :applause: :yourock: :applause:

[hunter]

61. This failure of Christianity is well documented.

Especially within the Catholic Church. There are many examples of individual Catholics standing against the Nazis, but the institution itself did not.

This was equally true in the United States. Many people within the United States were greatly alarmed by the rise of the Nazi State, and published specific accounts of crimes against humanity as they were committed by the Nazis, but the vast majority of American Christians did not actively reject the Nazi ideology. In fact many American actively supported the Nazi regime, especially in their business dealings.

It did not end with the war. After Nazi Germany was defeated the United States federal government provided cover for various members of the Nazi Party they thought might be useful in the continuing war against Soviet communism.

I will go so far as to say that the current leadership of the Republican party is merely a "kinder gentler" form of National Socialism, but it is covert rather than overt. We are all free to speak, but only so long as we don't upset the existing power structures. Martin Luther King is dead. Malcolm X is dead.

The various classes of people we officially discriminate against are now simply deprived of resources, they are not pro-actively destroyed as was done in Nazi Germany.

Our official national response to the massive relocations following hurricanes Katrina and Rita is especially telling. As a nation we will care for our own so long as they are not Native American, Black, Hispanic, Asian, or poor white "trailer trash."

It is not surprising that many Christians in the United States worship a dirty blond white guy on a cross who may or may not be Jesus -- as if God was a big white guy in the sky and Mary was a Middle Eastern Jew.

[raccoon]

167. Great post, especially this:

"I will go so far as to say that the current leadership of the Republican party is merely a "kinder gentler" form of National Socialism, but it is covert rather than overt. We are all free to speak, but only so long as we don't upset the existing power structures. Martin Luther King is dead. Malcolm X is dead."

And this:

"The various classes of people we officially discriminate against are now simply deprived of resources, they are not pro-actively destroyed as was done in Nazi Germany."

Not yet, anyway. Let's hope that day doesn't come.

[struggle4progress]

134. The Vatican on the Reich: Mit Brennender sorge (1937)

Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on the Church and the German Reich.
To the Venerable Brethren, the Archbishops and Bishops of Germany ...

It is with deep anxiety .. that We have long been following .. the increasing vexations which afflict those who have remained loyal .. in the midst of a people that once received from St. Boniface .. the Gospel of Christ and God's Kingdom.

.. the .. determination to place before the Christian world the truth .., prompt Us to add: "Our pastoral heart knows no deeper pain, no disappointment more bitter, than to learn that many are straying from the path of truth" ...

.. The experiences of these last years have fixed responsibilities and laid bare intrigues, which from the outset only aimed at a war of extermination. In the furrows, where We tried to sow the seed of a sincere peace, other men - the "enemy" of Holy Scripture - oversowed the cockle of distrust, unrest, hatred, defamation, of a determined hostility overt or veiled, fed from many sources and wielding many tools, against Christ and His Church. They, and they alone with their accomplices, silent or vociferous, are today responsible, should the storm of religious war, instead of the rainbow of peace, blacken the German skies.

.. The believer in God is not he who utters the name in his speech, but he for whom this sacred word stands for a true and worthy concept of the Divinity. Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God ...

.. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things - whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God ...

.. Beware, Venerable Brethren, of that growing abuse, in speech as in writing, of the name of God as though it were a meaningless label ...

.. None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe ...

.. We thank you, .. who have persisted .. in the teeth of an aggressive paganism ...

.. And today we again repeat with all the insistency We can command: it is not enough to be a member of the Church of Christ, one needs to be a living member, in spirit and in truth ...

.. In your country, Venerable Brethren, voices are swelling into a chorus urging people to leave the Church, and among the leaders there is more than one whose official position is intended to create the impression that this infidelity to Christ the King constitutes a signal and meritorious act of loyalty to the modern State. Secret and open measures of intimidation, the threat of economic and civic disabilities, bear on the loyalty of certain classes of Catholic functionaries, a pressure which violates every human right and dignity ...

.. Should men, who are not even united by faith in Christ, come and offer you the seduction of a national German Church, be convinced that it is nothing but a denial of the one Church of Christ and the evident betrayal of that universal evangelical mission, for which a world Church alone is qualified and competent. The live history of other national churches with their paralysis, their domestication and subjection to worldly powers, is sufficient evidence ...

.. Faith in these truths, which in your country are today the butt of the cheap derision of Christ's enemies, belongs to the inalienable treasury of Christian revelation ...

.. Thousands of voices ring into your ears a Gospel which has not been revealed by the Father of Heaven. Thousands of pens are wielded in the service of a Christianity, which is not of Christ. Press and wireless daily force on you productions hostile to the Faith and to the Church, impudently aggressive against whatever you should hold venerable and sacred ...

.. the violation of temples is nigh, and it will be every one's duty to sever his responsibility from the opposite camp, and free his conscience from guilty cooperation with such corruption. The more the enemies attempt to disguise their designs, the more a distrustful vigilance will be needed, in the light of bitter experience ...

Given at the Vatican on Passion Sunday, March 14, 1937.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html

The full document is long, and very Catholic in emphasis, but makes quite clear the Church's view about Germany's political leaders: they are regarded as blasphemers. One can accept that this was the official Catholic position, without believing that the Catholic church reacted adequately to the Nazi-organized deterioration of German civil society. AS far as I can tell, the loudest proponents of the view that Hitler was some sort of Christian appear to be the neo-Nazis, who believe such propaganda serves their political aims ...

[beam me up scottie]

136. Are you seriously trying to use this to defend the church?

Where do you think his hatred for jews was born?

Compelling Jews to wear yellow badges came from an invention of the Catholic Church. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 set up the Inquisition along with enforcement of Jews wearing a yellow spot on their clothes and a horned cap (pileum cornutum) to mark them as the murderers of Christ and to remind them of their descent from the devil. During the Black Death plague which ravaged Europe in the 14th century, the Catholic clergy aimed its blame at the Jews claiming they worked for the Devil and had poisoned the wells and springs. Their extermination compares with the pogroms that took place in the 20th century under Hitler. During the Spanish Inquisition, the Catholic Church directed its actions against the baptized Jews, the marranos. They forbade them to hold any office in the Church or the state; many suffered torture or death.

Popes have traditionally supported anti-Jewish acts and beliefs. Pope Paul IV in the sixteenth century established the Roman ghetto (another Catholic invention). For more than two centuries afterward, Catholics humiliated the Roman Jews and degraded them at the annual carnival. In the same century, Pope Gregory XIII instituted enforced Christian sermons insulting Judaism. . In a Papal custom Popes performed an anti-Jewish ceremony on their way to the basilica of St. John Lateran. Here the Pontiff would receive a copy of the Pentateuch from the hand of Rome's rabbi. The Pope then returned the text upside down with twenty pieces of gold, proclaiming that, while he respected the Law of Moses, he disapproved of the hard hearts of the Jewish race.

Forcing Jews, and heretics into the Catholic faith, of course has always served as a hallmark of Catholicism. When they could not legally use strong-arm tactics they used propaganda. Although most people associate the term with Hitler, propaganda actually came as an invention by the Catholics long before the Nazis, from the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, an organization established by Pope Gregory XV in 1622.

In the 1930s, as the Catholic leaders listened to Hitler's rhetoric against the Jews during his appeal for power, his speeches condemning Jews only correlated with the Church's own long history of Jewish hatred. Indeed, in Hitler's meeting with Bishop Berning and Monsignor Steinmann on April 26, 1933, Hilter reminded his Catholic guests that the Church, for 1,500 years had regarded the Jews as parasites, had banished them into ghettos, and had forbidden Christians to work for them. Hitler said he merely intended to do more effectively what the Church had attempted to accomplish for so long.

It should come to no surprise that at no time before or during Hitler's rise did the Catholic Church speak up against such talk. Sadly the Church remained mostly silent, with its main objections concerned with its own power structure in Germany. Thus it aimed to prevent loss of control and, indeed, to gain Church control through an expansion of papal power, control of appointment of bishops, and the control of Catholic schools. This self-serving interest gave the Vatican an impetus to form an agreement with Germany. In this sense, Hitler actually saved Catholicism in Germany, especially considering that Bismark before him had begun a Kulturkampf ("culture struggle"), a policy of persecution against Catholicism.

The Reich Concordat between Hitler and the Vatican:

In 1917, Eugenio Pacelli, later to become Pope Pius XII, resided in a nunciature in Munich, directly opposite to what was later to become the Brown House, the cradle of Nazism. There he showed his first inkling of his unsympathetic feelings toward the Jews when he refused to come to the assistance of Jews and calling them a "Jewish cult." . In a typewritten letter, he described "a gang of young women, of dubious appearance, Jews as like all the rest of them, hanging around in the offices with lecherous demeanor and suggestive smiles." In the 1920s Pacelli presented his credentials to the Weimer government where he stated, "For my part, I will devote my entire strength to cultivating and strengthening the relations between the Holy See and Germany." Pacelli's stay in Germany with his familiarity with their political, religious, and racist views must have influenced his later work to unify Catholicism with Germany.

In Italy, the Holy See signed a pact (drafted by Pacelli's brother and Pietro Gasparri) with Mussolini in February 1929, known as the Lateran Treaty. Hitler had taken note of the Lateran Treaty and hoped for an identical agreement for his future regime. The Vatican encouraged priests to support the Fascists and the Pope spoke of Mussolini as "a man sent by Providence." The Church has a history of pacts with criminal states as the Holy See signed treaties with monarchs and governments regardless of slavery, inhumanity, or torture they may have induced upon fellow human beings. Even Mussolini's attack on Ethiopia on October 3, 1935 was not condemned by the Holy See. Nor did Pius XI restrain the Italian hierarchy from war enthusiasm. "O Duce!, declared the bishop of Terracina, "today Italy is Fascist and the hearts of all Italians beat together with yours."

In the 1930s, Pacelli and his associates negotiated with the Nazis to form a contract which got signed in 1933 as the Reich Concordat with the approval of the Pope. Note that the Catholic hierarchy believes in the infallibility of Popes in matters of faith and morals (ever since the First Vatican Council of 1870). This Concordat with its Papal infallible authority had arguably neutralized the potential of 23 million Catholics to protest and resist and which helped Hitler into legal dictatorship. After the agreement, Hitler, mimicking Pacelli fourteen years earlier stated, "I will devote my entire strength to cultivating and strengthening the relations between the Holy See and Germany." (Hitler, spent more time and effort on the concordat with Pacelli than on any other treaty in the entire era of the Third Reich ). This Concordat gave Germany an opportunity to create an area of trust with the Church and gave significance to the developing struggle against international Jewry. According to John Cornwell, this papal endorsement of Nazism helped seal the fate of Europe which makes it plausible that these Catholic prejudices bolstered aspects of Nazi anti-Semitism.

The Concordat and the following Jewish persecutions resulted in the silence of the Pope and the bishops. Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich, referring to the Nazi attacks on the Jews, wrote to Pacelli, confirming that protest proved pointless since it could only extend the struggle to Catholics. He told Pacelli, "Jews can help themselves." Most bishops and Cardinals were Nazi sympathizers as were bishop Wilhelm Berning of Osnabruck and Archbishop Grober of Freiburg (Pacelli's choice for emissaries).

On April 25, thousands of Catholic priests across Germany became part of an anti-Semitic attestation bureaucracy, supplying details of blood purity through marriage and baptism registries in accordance with the Nazi Nuremberg laws which distinguished Jews from non-Jews. Catholic clerical compliance in the process would continue throughout the period of the Nazi regime. Any claimed saving of all-too-few Jewish lives by a few brave Catholics must stand against the millions who died in the death camps as an indirect result of the official workings of the Catholic body.

After Kristallnacht (where Nazis broke Jewish store windows and had synagogues burned) there issued not a single word of condemnation from the Vatican, the German Church hierarchy, or from Pacelli. Yet in an encyclical on anti-Semitism, titled Humani generis unitas (The Unity of the Human Race) by Pope Pius XI, a section claims that the Jews were responsible for their own fate. God had chosen them to make way for Christ's redemption but they denied him and killed him. And now, "Blinded by their dream of worldly gain and material success," they had deserved the "worldly and spiritual ruin" that they had brought down upon themselves. Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, archbishop of Vienna warmly received Hitler in Vienna after his triumphal march through the capital where he expressed public satisfaction with Hitler's regime. Meanwhile, Cardinal Bertram sent Hitler an effusive telegram, published on October 2 in the Nazi newspaper Volkischer Beobachter, "The great deed of safeguarding peace among the nations moves the German episcopate acting in the name of the Catholics of all the German dioceses, respectfully to extend congratulations and thanks and to order a festive ringing of bells on Sunday."

After the death of Pius XI, the electoral procedure to elect another pope had begun. The March 1939 election favored Pacelli and four days later, Pacelli made it clear that he would handle all German affairs personally. He proposed the following affirmation of Hitler:

To the Illustrious Herr Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer and Chancellor of the German Reich! Here at the beginning of Our Pontificate We wish to assure you that We remain devoted to the spiritual welfare of the German people entrusted to your leadership.... During the many years we spent in Germany, We did all in Our power to establish harmonious relations between Church and State. Now that the responsibilities of Our pastoral function have increased Our opportunities, how much more ardently do We pray to reach that goal. May the prosperity of the German people and their progress in every domain come, with God's help, to fruition!

Pacelli became a crowned Pope on March 12, 1939 (Pius XII). The following month on April 20, 1939, at Pacelli's express wish, Archbishop Orsenigo, the nuncio in Berlin, opened a gala reception for Hitler's fiftieth birthday. The birthday greetings thus initiated by Pacelli immediately became a tradition; each April 20 during the few years left to Hitler and his Reich, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin would send "warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany," to which he added "fervent prayers which the Catholics in Germany are sending to heaven on their altars." By this time Pacelli could call on the loyalty and devotion of a half-billion people, of which half the populations of Hitler's new Reich had become Catholics, including a quarter of the SS. At this time bishops, clergy, religious, and faithful had bound themselves to the Pope, and by his own self estimation, served as the supreme arbiter of moral values on earth.

Throughout the war, not only did Catholic priests pay homage to Hitler and contribute to the anti-Semitic feelings, several priests also protected Nazis from criminal charges. For example, Nazi sympathizers such as Bishop Alois Hudal helped Nazi criminals escape to South America by assisting them with false papers and hiding places in Rome. Father Dragonovic worked with the U.S. Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) to organize the escape of the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie to South America. Barbie had also lived under Dragonovic's protection in San Girolamo for about a year.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/ChurchesWWII.htm#anchor2a

Sorry, but history shows Hitler not only considered himself a christian, he acted like one.

He used the parts of his religion that would suit his agenda and ignored the rest.

[struggle4progress]

138. Mit Brennender Sorge was written after the Reich Concordat:

it makes clear that Pius XI had come to regard the Concordat as a mistake.

Although there's no question in my mind that a number of grave crimes have been conducted in the name of Christ, neither the idiocies of 1215 nor Pacelli's presentation of credentials to the Weimer government have any relevance to the question of whether Hitler was Christian.

Similarly, an affirmative answer to the question, whether there have been individuals who called themselves Christians and yet who continued to hold inexcusable anti-semitic views, including some persons with positions of authority in the church, does not imply an affirmative answer to the question, whether official Catholic teaching sanctioned the religious views of Hitler and his circle, as evidenced by the society they set out to build. Mit Brennender Sorge makes clear the official view of the Church regarding the religion of the Nazi state -- namely, that the state religion is non-Christian.

It's very easy, and perhaps emotionally satisfying, to denounce the inaction of leaders of that time -- and it's meaningless. The political machinations, that led to the scuttling of the anti-semitic encyclical of Pius XI, and the subsequent accommodations of Pius XII, seem reprehensible to me from my comfortable perch sixty years later -- but, as a friend (who escaped Nazi Germany in his youth) once pointed out, when I expressed dismay at the non-response to the Nazi machine, I wasn't there and really couldn't understand the kind of heroism that would have been required of ordinary people to mount an effective response. Rather than empty polemics, what would be interesting and useful would be to develop insights into peoples' minds from that time and to draw contemporary lessons from that ...

[beam me up scottie]

140. My mother was a refugee in Germany during the war.

I don't need to wonder about what kind of heroism it took to retain one's humanity.

I don't speak in defense of the Americans who raped women in the refugee camp she was in because I share their nationality.

So you'll understand why I don't much care for christians who defend the actions or inactions of the churches in Nazi Germany.

[struggle4progress]

172. I haven't expressed an opinion about the Church under the Nazis, ..

.. though as a Lutheran I have no problem reminding you that Germany was essentially a Lutheran state and that the German Lutheran church and German Lutherans present a somewhat larger and more obvious target than the Catholics -- unless, of course, your real intent is to engage in anti-Catholic rhetoric, as some of your posts might suggest ...

[beam me up scottie]

197. I want you to show me WHERE I used "anti-catholic" rhetoric.

The fact that you need to attack me for highlighting the deeds of your fellow christians shows me who the real bigot is.

Face it, bad people can be christians too.

You can't disown them no matter how much you want to.

I suggest you get over it and start attacking those of your faith who want to do to this country what Hitler did to Germany.

[struggle4progress]

216. #136: You claim the Catholic church is the source of anti-Semitism.

There have been historically a number of anti-Semitic movements, and I would be remiss, speaking as a Lutheran, if I failed to note that a number of Catholics consider some of Luther's vicious anti-Semitic writings to be a wellspring of German anti-Semitism.

From a historical materialist perspective, however, it is reasonable to consider other factors, in particular, the xenophobic reaction of Europe to the Eastern expulsions and pograms, a number of which occurred in regions where the Orthodox Church predominated.

[beam me up scottie]

219. Wrong. I should alert on your dishonest ass but I prefer to educate.

My post:

Are you seriously trying to use this to defend the church?

Where do you think his hatred for jews was born?

Compelling Jews to wear yellow badges came from an invention of the Catholic Church. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 set up the Inquisition along with enforcement of Jews wearing a yellow spot on their clothes and a horned cap (pileum cornutum) to mark them as the murderers of Christ and to remind them of their descent from the devil. During the Black Death plague which ravaged Europe in the 14th century, the Catholic clergy aimed its blame at the Jews claiming they worked for the Devil and had poisoned the wells and springs. Their extermination compares with the pogroms that took place in the 20th century under Hitler. During the Spanish Inquisition, the Catholic Church directed its actions against the baptized Jews, the marranos. They forbade them to hold any office in the Church or the state; many suffered torture or death.

Popes have traditionally supported anti-Jewish acts and beliefs. Pope Paul IV in the sixteenth century established the Roman ghetto (another Catholic invention). For more than two centuries afterward, Catholics humiliated the Roman Jews and degraded them at the annual carnival. In the same century, Pope Gregory XIII instituted enforced Christian sermons insulting Judaism. . In a Papal custom Popes performed an anti-Jewish ceremony on their way to the basilica of St. John Lateran. Here the Pontiff would receive a copy of the Pentateuch from the hand of Rome's rabbi. The Pope then returned the text upside down with twenty pieces of gold, proclaiming that, while he respected the Law of Moses, he disapproved of the hard hearts of the Jewish race.

Forcing Jews, and heretics into the Catholic faith, of course has always served as a hallmark of Catholicism. When they could not legally use strong-arm tactics they used propaganda. Although most people associate the term with Hitler, propaganda actually came as an invention by the Catholics long before the Nazis, from the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, an organization established by Pope Gregory XV in 1622.

In the 1930s, as the Catholic leaders listened to Hitler's rhetoric against the Jews during his appeal for power, his speeches condemning Jews only correlated with the Church's own long history of Jewish hatred. Indeed, in Hitler's meeting with Bishop Berning and Monsignor Steinmann on April 26, 1933, Hilter reminded his Catholic guests that the Church, for 1,500 years had regarded the Jews as parasites, had banished them into ghettos, and had forbidden Christians to work for them. Hitler said he merely intended to do more effectively what the Church had attempted to accomplish for so long.

It should come to no surprise that at no time before or during Hitler's rise did the Catholic Church speak up against such talk. Sadly the Church remained mostly silent, with its main objections concerned with its own power structure in Germany. Thus it aimed to prevent loss of control and, indeed, to gain Church control through an expansion of papal power, control of appointment of bishops, and the control of Catholic schools. This self-serving interest gave the Vatican an impetus to form an agreement with Germany. In this sense, Hitler actually saved Catholicism in Germany, especially considering that Bismark before him had begun a Kulturkampf ("culture struggle"), a policy of persecution against Catholicism.

The Reich Concordat between Hitler and the Vatican:

In 1917, Eugenio Pacelli, later to become Pope Pius XII, resided in a nunciature in Munich, directly opposite to what was later to become the Brown House, the cradle of Nazism. There he showed his first inkling of his unsympathetic feelings toward the Jews when he refused to come to the assistance of Jews and calling them a "Jewish cult." . In a typewritten letter, he described "a gang of young women, of dubious appearance, Jews as like all the rest of them, hanging around in the offices with lecherous demeanor and suggestive smiles." In the 1920s Pacelli presented his credentials to the Weimer government where he stated, "For my part, I will devote my entire strength to cultivating and strengthening the relations between the Holy See and Germany." Pacelli's stay in Germany with his familiarity with their political, religious, and racist views must have influenced his later work to unify Catholicism with Germany.

In Italy, the Holy See signed a pact (drafted by Pacelli's brother and Pietro Gasparri) with Mussolini in February 1929, known as the Lateran Treaty. Hitler had taken note of the Lateran Treaty and hoped for an identical agreement for his future regime. The Vatican encouraged priests to support the Fascists and the Pope spoke of Mussolini as "a man sent by Providence." The Church has a history of pacts with criminal states as the Holy See signed treaties with monarchs and governments regardless of slavery, inhumanity, or torture they may have induced upon fellow human beings. Even Mussolini's attack on Ethiopia on October 3, 1935 was not condemned by the Holy See. Nor did Pius XI restrain the Italian hierarchy from war enthusiasm. "O Duce!, declared the bishop of Terracina, "today Italy is Fascist and the hearts of all Italians beat together with yours."

In the 1930s, Pacelli and his associates negotiated with the Nazis to form a contract which got signed in 1933 as the Reich Concordat with the approval of the Pope. Note that the Catholic hierarchy believes in the infallibility of Popes in matters of faith and morals (ever since the First Vatican Council of 1870). This Concordat with its Papal infallible authority had arguably neutralized the potential of 23 million Catholics to protest and resist and which helped Hitler into legal dictatorship. After the agreement, Hitler, mimicking Pacelli fourteen years earlier stated, "I will devote my entire strength to cultivating and strengthening the relations between the Holy See and Germany." (Hitler, spent more time and effort on the concordat with Pacelli than on any other treaty in the entire era of the Third Reich ). This Concordat gave Germany an opportunity to create an area of trust with the Church and gave significance to the developing struggle against international Jewry. According to John Cornwell, this papal endorsement of Nazism helped seal the fate of Europe which makes it plausible that these Catholic prejudices bolstered aspects of Nazi anti-Semitism.

The Concordat and the following Jewish persecutions resulted in the silence of the Pope and the bishops. Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich, referring to the Nazi attacks on the Jews, wrote to Pacelli, confirming that protest proved pointless since it could only extend the struggle to Catholics. He told Pacelli, "Jews can help themselves." Most bishops and Cardinals were Nazi sympathizers as were bishop Wilhelm Berning of Osnabruck and Archbishop Grober of Freiburg (Pacelli's choice for emissaries).

On April 25, thousands of Catholic priests across Germany became part of an anti-Semitic attestation bureaucracy, supplying details of blood purity through marriage and baptism registries in accordance with the Nazi Nuremberg laws which distinguished Jews from non-Jews. Catholic clerical compliance in the process would continue throughout the period of the Nazi regime. Any claimed saving of all-too-few Jewish lives by a few brave Catholics must stand against the millions who died in the death camps as an indirect result of the official workings of the Catholic body.

After Kristallnacht (where Nazis broke Jewish store windows and had synagogues burned) there issued not a single word of condemnation from the Vatican, the German Church hierarchy, or from Pacelli. Yet in an encyclical on anti-Semitism, titled Humani generis unitas (The Unity of the Human Race) by Pope Pius XI, a section claims that the Jews were responsible for their own fate. God had chosen them to make way for Christ's redemption but they denied him and killed him. And now, "Blinded by their dream of worldly gain and material success," they had deserved the "worldly and spiritual ruin" that they had brought down upon themselves. Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, archbishop of Vienna warmly received Hitler in Vienna after his triumphal march through the capital where he expressed public satisfaction with Hitler's regime. Meanwhile, Cardinal Bertram sent Hitler an effusive telegram, published on October 2 in the Nazi newspaper Volkischer Beobachter, "The great deed of safeguarding peace among the nations moves the German episcopate acting in the name of the Catholics of all the German dioceses, respectfully to extend congratulations and thanks and to order a festive ringing of bells on Sunday."

After the death of Pius XI, the electoral procedure to elect another pope had begun. The March 1939 election favored Pacelli and four days later, Pacelli made it clear that he would handle all German affairs personally. He proposed the following affirmation of Hitler:

To the Illustrious Herr Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer and Chancellor of the German Reich! Here at the beginning of Our Pontificate We wish to assure you that We remain devoted to the spiritual welfare of the German people entrusted to your leadership.... During the many years we spent in Germany, We did all in Our power to establish harmonious relations between Church and State. Now that the responsibilities of Our pastoral function have increased Our opportunities, how much more ardently do We pray to reach that goal. May the prosperity of the German people and their progress in every domain come, with God's help, to fruition!

Pacelli became a crowned Pope on March 12, 1939 (Pius XII). The following month on April 20, 1939, at Pacelli's express wish, Archbishop Orsenigo, the nuncio in Berlin, opened a gala reception for Hitler's fiftieth birthday. The birthday greetings thus initiated by Pacelli immediately became a tradition; each April 20 during the few years left to Hitler and his Reich, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin would send "warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany," to which he added "fervent prayers which the Catholics in Germany are sending to heaven on their altars." By this time Pacelli could call on the loyalty and devotion of a half-billion people, of which half the populations of Hitler's new Reich had become Catholics, including a quarter of the SS. At this time bishops, clergy, religious, and faithful had bound themselves to the Pope, and by his own self estimation, served as the supreme arbiter of moral values on earth.

Throughout the war, not only did Catholic priests pay homage to Hitler and contribute to the anti-Semitic feelings, several priests also protected Nazis from criminal charges. For example, Nazi sympathizers such as Bishop Alois Hudal helped Nazi criminals escape to South America by assisting them with false papers and hiding places in Rome. Father Dragonovic worked with the U.S. Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) to organize the escape of the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie to South America. Barbie had also lived under Dragonovic's protection in San Girolamo for about a year.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/ChurchesWWII.htm#anchor2a

Sorry, but history shows Hitler not only considered himself a christian, he acted like one.

He used the parts of his religion that would suit his agenda and ignored the rest.

I cited sources that illustrate Hitler's antisemitism began with his religion.

But you knew that.

You used scummy right wing tactics to smear me because you don't like the fact that Hitler was a christian.

If you can't abide by the rules, go play in their sandbox.

[struggle4progress]

224. "Where do you think his hatred for jews was born?" is clearly a claim ..

.. that the Church was the source of the anti-Semitism. I have pointed elsewhere in this thread to the Wotanist societies.

[beam me up scottie]

228. So Hitler was raised a Wotanist? I'm still waiting for your explanation.

How does saying Hitler's antisemitism got its roots in the church he was raised in "anti-catholic rhetoric"?

[struggle4progress]

332. See also #137 as a response to my Mit brennender sorge post

[beam me up scottie]

334. Back to framing me for something I never said, again, are you?

I'm still waiting for your apology for misrepresenting me.

[struggle4progress]

344. #137 isn't your post?

[beam me up scottie]

348. What post did you reply to?Pay attention-I'm tired of picking up the slack

And I'm still waiting for your apology.

[struggle4progress]

353. Yawn

[beam me up scottie]

356. No proof yet? How about the apology for your personal attack?

Get back to me with those, I've got intelligent posters to talk to.

[beam me up scottie]

209. As an atheist, I have no problem reminding you that I could care less

what brand of faith hypocrites practice.

How nice of you to ignore the fact that most catholics also have issues with the Vatican.

When they criticize its continuing cover-up of the crimes committed against children by priests, are they engaging in "anti-Catholic rhetoric" as well?

[beam me up scottie]

144. No, all we have is Hitler's words that he believed in the christian god.

That's all we have from ANY christian, isn't it?

Prove he renounced his christianity or stop wasting my time with apologist propaganda.

[struggle4progress]

175. Mit Brennender sorge: " .. The believer in God is not he who utters ..

.. the name in his speech ..."

[beam me up scottie]

196. So anybody who speaks god's name in a speech is not a "real" christian?

Or are you pointing out the hypocrisy of christians who think they can pick and choose who gets to be in the club?

Either way, good job.:thumbsup:

[struggle4progress]

230. " ... but he for whom this sacred word stands for a true and worthy ..

but he for whom this sacred word stands for a true and worthy concept of the Divinity. Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God"

Note the clear reference to "pre-Christian Germanic" Wotanism.

[beam me up scottie]

233. Your opinion does not invalidate his belief in the christian god.

Feebler by the minute...

[struggle4progress]

242. You, qua atheist, testify to Hitler's "faith"?

[beam me up scottie]

243. I don't have to, Hitler did.

Remember?

[struggle4progress]

248. And Bush says he obeys the law -- but he doesn't.

[beam me up scottie]

250. Feeble. Belief in god is not something you can verify.

Feeble.

[struggle4progress]

251. "Who says, I love God, yet hates his brother, is a liar; for, if he ..

.. loves not his brother, whom he sees, how can he love God, whom he sees not?" 1 John 4:20

[beam me up scottie]

254. Prove he renounced his faith. PROVE IT or bow out.

You do know what proof is, don't you?

[struggle4progress]

259. You posted much evidence to that effect, with claims it was irrelevant.

[beam me up scottie]

262. I posted proof Hitler claimed he believed in the christian god.

You posted words from your religious text.

[struggle4progress]

268. So you think I should find Hitler's words more convincing than John's?

[beam me up scottie]

274. I don't care what you find convincing, you can't disprove belief.

Relax, that means I can't disprove your belief either.

[struggle4progress]

281. You hold that faith can be proved but not disproved?

[beam me up scottie]

283. Feeble. All we have from any christian is their proclamation of faith.

Feebler by the minute.

[struggle4progress]

285. See #175.

[beam me up scottie]

286. Hitler renounced his christian faith in #175? I thought he was dead.

:rofl:

[struggle4progress]

290. You argue you may judge correctly about faith by utterances. In its ..

.. discussion of the German situation that I quoted above, the Vatican explicitly warns against this view of what it means to be Catholic.

On what grounds do you hold that your view, of what constitutes acceptance of the Catholic faith, should be accounted more than the view of the Vatican on this matter?

This question is a completely independent from the questions of whether some Catholics have committed grave crimes, or whether the Catholic faith is correct or coherent, or whether the Church behaved in an acceptable manner during the Nazi era.

The question is: who is entitled to decide the criteria for Catholic inclusion? Without putting too fine a point on it, the natural answer would be: it's up to the Catholics. And since you profess atheism, I should think you don't have a dog in that fight -- and yet, without sense, you appear very interested in precisely this issue ...

[beam me up scottie]

294. Who said I judge anything? All we have is your word that you are christian

Is that not enough?

Am I supposed to say I KNOW you're telling the truth/lying when I have no way of knowing that?

Am I supposed to poll other christians and let them judge?

I got news for you, the very fact that you're posting on this site would automatically disqualify you according to all of the christians in this area.

YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY KNOW WHAT ANOTHER PERSON BELIEVES OR DOESN'T.

Got it?


YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY KNOW WHAT ANOTHER PERSON BELIEVES OR DOESN'T.




I think we're done here.

[struggle4progress]

304. "You will know them by their fruits" Matthew 7:15-16

If the only evidence, that I am a Christian, is my assertion I am a Christian, then I think you should conclude I am not a Christian -- but merely some noisy hypocrite.

On the other hand, if you're not interested in Christianity, it's not clear to me why it would matter to you whether I was "really a Christian" or not.

Anyway, aren't occult and inner "beliefs" largely irrelevant? We humans always tell ourselves comfortable lies about our beliefs and motives.

Your neighbors don't scare me: a number of Christians have denounced me as an atheist ...

[beam me up scottie]

305. "Of course, the Bible is a human record, containing all manner of material

...reflecting any number of prejudices and forgotten power struggles, some of which has been used to justify various idiocies, and a surprising amount of it is worthless, except perhaps as a record of how a living community developed ..."




Except, of course, when a christian wants to use it to try to disown another christian.


You're no different than the christians I work with- they also think their particular faith makes them better than non-christians and able to judge who gets to be part of their club.

[struggle4progress]

307. Why does it matter to you whether some Christians call other people ..

.. Christians or not, if you have decided you are not a Christian?

[beam me up scottie]

309. I hate bigotry in ALL of its forms.

But christian intolerance gets on my nerves all day long at work, so I tend to blast it on DU when I see it.

[struggle4progress]

314. Your definition of a bigot is a Christian who doesn't accept Hitler?

[beam me up scottie]

315. Nope.

The definition of a bigot is someone who thinks their faith makes them morally superior to others not of their faith.

[struggle4progress]

325. So a Christian who rejects Hitler is a bigot?

[beam me up scottie]

328. Nope, christians who think they're better than non christians are bigots.

It's pretty simple, I don't know why you can't grasp the concept.

Maybe the mirror is confusing you.

[struggle4progress]

330. A Christian who calls someone else a non-Christian is a bigot?

[beam me up scottie]

333. Is English your first language?

Try reading my post slowly.

Sound it out if you need to.

Get back to me if you're still confused, I have a children's dictionary around here someplace.

[struggle4progress]

337. See your response #309 to my #307

[beam me up scottie]

340. I see you're still having difficulty with the words.

Try it again after you've had some sleep.

[greyl]

338. I don't know about that, my fruits are coy. nt

[beam me up scottie]

137. Where's the Encyclical on pedophilia?

How many priests were and still are being protected by the Vatican?

Where's Cardinal Law right now?

And where's the Encyclical condemning the denial of education and condoms to people who live in countries ravaged by AIDS, effectively sentencing millions of them to death?


Spare me.

[struggle4progress]

139. Irrelevant to the question under discussion.

[beam me up scottie]

142. Sorry, you brought up catholic Encyclicals.

You'll have to try a lot harder than that to convince me that the Vatican was more interested in protecting people than itself and its interests.

Its actions speak louder than its words, then and now.

[struggle4progress]

173. OK, then. Please provide a link to your supposed Encyclical. And ..

.. then explain its relevance to the question of whether Hitler was Catholic ...

[beam me up scottie]

200. Did I say Hitler was a catholic?

I said he was christian.

You posted an Encyclical in an attempt to prove that the Vatican condemned Hitler and I posted examples of the hypocrisy of the Vatican.

Are you trying to tell me you can't see the relevance?


For those who are a little slow on the uptake:

The Vatican only condemns when continued support or apathy threaten it.

And even then, it only does it on paper.

Like I said; actions speak louder than words.

[struggle4progress]

210. #22: "The Catholic Church never excommunicated Hitler. He died a Catholic"

[beam me up scottie]

213. Hitler said he was a catholic, I didn't.

And according to the church, unless you're excommunicated, you die a catholic.

I don't write the rules, dear.

[struggle4progress]

218. And Bush says he obeys the law -- but he doesn't.

[beam me up scottie]

220. What the fuck does THAT have to do with Hitler being a christian?

You need to get some perspective.

Find another obsession, you can't win this debate.

[struggle4progress]

223. What Hitler said, you believe?

[beam me up scottie]

225. I believe ANY christian who says they believe in the christian god.

Nice try, einstein.

Quit before you embarrass yourself even more.

[struggle4progress]

244. As non-Christian, you set yourself as a arbiter of who is Christian?

[beam me up scottie]

245. As a non-god/non-mind reader I can't invalidate the beliefs of another.

Can you?

[struggle4progress]

263. So you are now agnostic on the question of whether Hitler was Christian?

[beam me up scottie]

265. Oh brother. I can't invalidate claims of belief. If you can, do so.

Stop wasting my time.

[struggle4progress]

273. You can validate faith but not invalidate it?

[beam me up scottie]

275. Feeling obtuse, tonight? Your belief does not invalidate his.

Get over it.

[struggle4progress]

291. You claim your belief validates, mine does not invalidate?

[beam me up scottie]

295. I don't believe anything. I KNOW Hitler said he believed in your god.

Just like you probably claim you do.

Get over it.

[struggle4progress]

306. Judging from his actions the god he actually worshipped was an idol ..

.. like Moloch. It is neither my intention to worship such idols nor to act in such ways. What you might judge from my actual acts, of course, I do not know. But I cannot see that you have any basis for your claim ...

[beam me up scottie]

308. Judging from his actions, he's just like a lot of other christians.

Nice being able to pick and choose what parts of the book to pay attention to, isn't it?

So, really, we have no choice but to take your word that you believe in the christian god.


We have to take the word of the billions of other christians, jews, muslims, etc etc etc when they proclaim their faith.


Unless you can prove that the amazing struggle4progress can read their minds and/or has the right to judge them all based on their actions.



Until you can prove anybody doesn't believe in their chosen god, you're a whiny mosquito buzzing in my ear.

[struggle4progress]

322. I really don't remember meeting any exterminationists.

Re: ".. we have no choice but to take your word that you believe in the christian god .." I'll ignore your careless wording and refer you back to #307

[beam me up scottie]

324. I'll refer you back to your providing proof Hitler renounced christianity.

You're no better than any other person who claims belief, then or now.

Why should your claim be worth more than anyone else's?

[struggle4progress]

326. See #310

[beam me up scottie]

331. See the dozens of times we've asked you to prove your claims.

And the equal amount of times you've failed miserably, used circular logic, resorted to personal attacks, rinsed and repeated.

[struggle4progress]

342. See #137 and #173

[beam me up scottie]

347. Nope, no proof there. It's put up or shut up time. PROVE your claim or

[struggle4progress]

174. You claim he didn't fall under excommunication a jure, latæ sententiæ?

[beam me up scottie]

198. You claim that he did?

Prove it.

[Goblinmonger]

267. Even if

there is a crime that would classify someone to be excommunicated a jure, latae sententiae, there would still have to be a directive from the pope or some other official able to excommunicate at that level. All a jure tells us is that the excommunication would have taken effect at the time of the offense and not the time of the finding of excommunication, so I think the point is still valid: Prove that the church excommunicated Hitler. Why wouldn't they go through the motion to distance themselves from Hitler--or actually try to reform him since that is really the true, at least stated, reason for excommunication.

[struggle4progress]

269. Wrong.

[Goblinmonger]

270. I guess I may be stunned from the brilliance of that response

but what, exactly, is wrong? That a proclimation needs to be made? That they never excommunicated Hitler? That the purpose of excommunication is reform?

[Goblinmonger]

276. Since you aren't making it clear

here are the answers. All quotes are from the Catholic Encyclopedia. And before you start getting bitchy about me being an atheist and talking about Catholics, I went to a Catholic seminary for 3 years.

It needs to come from some body that declares the excommunication, even a jure:

Excommunication, especially a jure, is either latæ or ferendæ sententiæ. The first is incurred as soon as the offence is committed and by reason of the offence itself (eo ipso) without intervention of any ecclesiastical judge; it is recognized in the terms used by the legislator, for instance: "the culprit will be excommunicated at once, by the fact itself ". The second is indeed foreseen by the law as a penalty, but is inflicted on the culprit only by a judicial sentence; in other words, the delinquent is rather threatened than visited with the penalty, and incurs it only when the judge has summoned him before his tribunal, declared him guilty, and punished him according to the terms of the law. It is recognized when the law contains these or similar words: "under pain of excommunication"; "the culprit will be excommunicated".

See, even latae needs to come from a "legislator" that makes the excommunication formal.

Hitler wasn't excommunicated. Well, that would be up to you to prove he was. The null hypothesis would be that he wasn't unless shown with positive evidence that he was.

The purpose of excommunication is to reform:

It is also a medicinal rather than a vindictive penalty, being intended, not so much to punish the culprit, as to correct him and bring him back to the path of righteousness.

Pretty clear.

So I guess when you said "wrong" you were talking about something else.

[struggle4progress]

287. Responded in #272

[struggle4progress]

272. It would not necessarily require some special directive -- that is, ..

.. actions and/or beliefs can incur a jure excommunication, without any further church proclamation

[Goblinmonger]

278. Not true

See above. They can say if you visit X site (there is one in Wisconsin) you will be excommunicated. So show me where they said that about Hitler.

[struggle4progress]

288. See #222

[Goblinmonger]

292. Thanks for making me look for you post

Well, I don't think you are right.

Heretic

The penalties (see CENSURES, ECCLESIASTICAL) latae sententiae are: (1) Excommunication specially reserved to the Roman pontiff, which is incurred by all apostates from the Catholic Faith, by each and all heretics, by whatever name they are known and to whatever sect they belong, and by all who believe in them ( credentes ), receive, favour, or in any way defend them (Const. "Apostolicae Sedis", 1869). Heretic here means formal heretic, but also includes the positive doubter, that is, the man who posits his doubt as defensible by reason, but not the negative doubter, who simply abstains from formulating a judgment.

Please show me where Hitler ever was a formal hertic or a positive doubter, e.g. an apostate. As to schismatic, what forbidden schism did Hitler declare his devotion?

[struggle4progress]

310. Plenty of examples in Table Talk

.. National Socialism and religion cannot exist together ..

.. 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 ..

.. The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death .. We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State ..

.. 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 ..

.. Christianity is an invention of sick brains ..

.. There is something very unhealthy about Christianity ..

.. Our epoch in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity ..

http://answers.org/history/hitquote.html


I've posted a number of other links indicating the use of Wotan as a symbol for the German antisemites and suggesting a fascination with Wotan ...

[beam me up scottie]

311. You do realize there are two versions of Hitler's notes, don't you?

And that the one used in table talk is not reliable because it was edited by Borman and translated by a person with an agenda?

And that even at best, in your case, they're hearsay?

Oh, yeah, and even with the revisionist spin, nowhere does Hitler renounce his christianity.

I was wondering where you got your info.

Now I know, from Apologists/Revisionists R Us.

[struggle4progress]

320. Reject the testimony of associates and there's little history left.

Bormann, as Hitler's secretary, had regular access to Hitler and is unlikely to have survived long in that position had his views been much different from Hitler's, as the Reich was not known for glad tolerance of dissent ...

[beam me up scottie]

327. Borman edited the notes and was adamantly anti-catholic.

The shoddy translation was done by someone who had an interest in trying to prove Hitler wasn't a christian.

Shocking, isn't it?

But you would know all this if you had bothered to do any research on the matter.

[struggle4progress]

335. And certain rightwing websites say its complete forgery. I won't link ..

.. to them ...

[beam me up scottie]

336. So you frequently visit Holocaust denial websites?

Why am I not surprised?

They like to revise history too.

[struggle4progress]

350. ? Where did that come from ?

[beam me up scottie]

351. See post 525798541- 687598646151- 3657984632132

[Goblinmonger]

359. Look at my posts on table talk

where it is made clear that Hitler is talking about the misinterpretation of Christ's message by the Jews (primarily Saul/Paul). He's not denouncing his belief in Christ, but is pissed that the church has watered down Jesus' Jew hating message.

[struggle4progress]

313. See Mit brennender sorge post supra

".. In your country, Venerable Brethren, voices are swelling into a chorus urging people to leave the Church, and among the leaders there is more than one whose official position is intended to create the impression that this infidelity to Christ the King constitutes a signal and meritorious act of loyalty to the modern State .."

As Hitler had dictatorial power at the time, it is reasonable to infer that this was his policy ...

[struggle4progress]

339. Nuremberg produced a substantial record of attacks on Churches

See for example the Claire Hulme and Dr. Michael Salter document here:

Nazi's Persecution of Religion as a War Crime: The OSS's Response Within the Nuremburg Trials Process http://www-camlaw.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/JVol3.htm

[beam me up scottie]

341. And that proves Hitler renounced his christianity and was excommunicated?

[struggle4progress]

346. See #222

[beam me up scottie]

349. See 254798. See 57982168. See 2874135869.

[struggle4progress]

352. 13 Feb 1945: ".. Christianity is not a natural religion for the Germans,

.. but a religion that has been imported and which strikes no responsive chord in their hearts and is foreign to the inherent genius of the race ..."
http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Testament/00000015.htm

There are similar anti-Christian quotes in other portions of the documents.

[beam me up scottie]

355. More Borman notes. You just don't know any better, do you?

Do I have to explain this to you every time?

Hearsay is as useless as your beliefs about Hitler.

Besides, even in Borman's edited notes, Hitler didn't renounce his faith.


Keep digging, thousands have already tried and come up with zilch.

Get back to me when you have proof of Hitler renouncing his christianity.:evilgrin:

[struggle4progress]

358. Yawn

[struggle4progress]

176. Ask some Catholics how bad they think it is to murder a priest:

... According to the best estimate some 2,771 clergyman were inmates in Dachau. The largest number of clergyman were Catholic priests, seminarians, and lay brothers. A disproportionate number were the 1,780 Polish clergy, 780 of whom died in Dachau. Three thousand additional Polish priests were sent to other concentration camps. In addition, 780 priests died at Mauthausen, 300 at Sachsenhausen and 5,000 in Buchenwald. With the Nazi conquest of Western Europe, hundreds of priests were shot or shipped to concentration camps, many dying en route. Also many nuns were either imprisoned or shot ...

http://www.seattlecatholic.com/article_20030328.html

[beam me up scottie]

201. Why would I need to do that?

I have nothing against catholics.

It's the Vatican I have a problem with.

[struggle4progress]

211. Relevant to #174

[beam me up scottie]

214. How? You still don't prove the church excommunicated him

You're really grasping here.

Hitler was a christian, deal with it.

[struggle4progress]

222. Clearly, under latae sententiae, as apostate, heretic, and schismatic.

[beam me up scottie]

229. Yabba dabba do. Show me documents that prove he was excommunicated.

Stop wasting my time.

[struggle4progress]

232. Not understand what I said?

[beam me up scottie]

235. Looking for the documentation that Hitler was excommunicated. Show me.

You can prove it, can't you?

After all, just because lots of people who are much more knowledgeable than you have been trying for DECADES and haven't succeeded doesn't mean you can't.

[struggle4progress]

238. Learn something about excommunication before arguing about it.

[beam me up scottie]

240. Learn something about proof before debating.

It's not the same thing as faith.

[struggle4progress]

246. How can you discuss excommunication, if you know nothing about it?

[beam me up scottie]

247. I'm not discussing excommunication, I'm requiring proof of it.

Prove it or bow out, I'm sick of your attacks.

[struggle4progress]

253. Try to understand #174

[beam me up scottie]

256. Try to understand proof, and honesty, while you're at it.

For relevance, that would be NOT making false claims about your opponent when you cannot prove your point.

[struggle4progress]

180. Toland quotes a poem Hitler wrote on Wotan:

I often go on bitter nights
To Wotan's oak in the quiet glade
With dark powers to weave a union -
The runic letter the moon makes with its magic spell
And all who are full of impudence during the day
Are made small by the magic formula!

http://www.worldspirituality.org/wotan.html

[beam me up scottie]

202. Does bad poetry make one a non-christian?

:rofl:

[struggle4progress]

226. Evidence he was a Wotanist, hence an apostate, so under latae sententiae

[beam me up scottie]

231. Your opinion is less than worthless. Show documentation.

Prove it, in other words.

[struggle4progress]

234. Not understand what I said?

[beam me up scottie]

236. I require proof. Your opinion is less than worthless to me.

Prove it.

[struggle4progress]

239. Learn something about excommunication before arguing about it.

[beam me up scottie]

241. Learn something about proof before debating. And honor.

Smearing your opponent because you lost is revolting.

[struggle4progress]

258. Oh, dear.

[beam me up scottie]

261. You couldn't prove Hitler renounced his christian faith so you attacked me

You claimed excerpts from an article were my words.

That's pretty scummy.

Who would Jesus smear?

[Goblinmonger]

297. That poem is PROOF Hitler was a follower of

Odin? Seriously? So if Pope Ratzy every wrote a poem in which he talks about Zeus and uses some metaphoric or other poetic devices in there, he is excommunicated. Holy shit. You can't possibly believe that is the intent of excommunication and all it takes. I went to school with people that are now priests and they all wrote a variety of poems about the "virtues" of Roman gods/godesses for our literature class. You are telling me they are excommunicated? Wow.

[struggle4progress]

316. Evidence. It adds up. One poem, big deal. Enthusiasm for ..

.. the mythology, well, OK. A habit of associating with Wotanists, adoption of their anti-Semitic platform and swastika -- maybe there's a case here.

[beam me up scottie]

317. A case? Who made you judge and jury? Prove he renounced christianity.

Or stifle it.

[Goblinmonger]

360. Funny you choose those words

If there is "a case" there, that would be something that would have to be met on for the Catholic church to issue an excommunication since you clearly indicate there is no public denouncing of Catholicism. Thanks for proving my point, though.

[struggle4progress]

181. Hitler apparently like the idea that Wotan created the world:

.. In redecorating the Berlin chancellery palace for his use, Hitler's artistic ameliorations consisted mostly of a few fairly modernistic rooms, plus some Nordic mythological tapestries for the Great Hall which depict Wotan Creating the World ...

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/oss-sb-flanner.html

Why not ask a few Catholics whether they think the church accepts that sort of view?

[beam me up scottie]

203. And I like the idea that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world.

Your feeble attempts to portray me as intolerant to catholics are amusing.

[struggle4progress]

212. Relevant to #174

[beam me up scottie]

215. I feel sorry for you.

You can't prove Hitler wasn't a christian so you attack me for telling the truth.

If I was a bigot, I'd say that wasn't very christian of you.

[struggle4progress]

217. Pointing out Hitler's relation to the Wotan societies is an attack on you?

[beam me up scottie]

221. Accusing me of calling catholics antisemitic is.

It's also very Bush-esque in method.

Looking for a job?

I heard they're looking for a few good people to smear truth tellers this year.

[struggle4progress]

227. #136: "Popes have traditionally supported anti-Jewish acts and beliefs"

A clear assertion that anti-semitism is somehow a Catholic "tradition" ...

[beam me up scottie]

237. I didn't say that, did I? Stop misrepresenting my words.

You can't admit you lost the debate so you smear your opponent.

How republican of you.

[struggle4progress]

249. Cut and paste from your post.

[beam me up scottie]

252. From the article I quoted. I'm revolted by your dishonesty.

I'm grateful most DUers, myself included, are above such tactics.

[struggle4progress]

255. You posted it.

[beam me up scottie]

257. I posted an article. You claimed the words were mine. That's called a lie.

Apologize.

[struggle4progress]

260. Do you renounce what is in your post?

[beam me up scottie]

264. You claimed the words were mine. Apologize for your misrepresentation.

I'm waiting.

[struggle4progress]

271. You posted it.

[beam me up scottie]

277. You claimed the words in the article were mine. Apologize.

I'm waiting.

[Goblinmonger]

266. Well, a little outside the argument perspective

While I AM NOT SAYING THAT ALL CATHOLICS are anti-semites, there is a history of that mindset in the Catholic church. Look at the Passion Play for example (which is revised in Gibson's nightmare The Passion). It focuses on what the Jews did to Jesus and was shown in the Middle Ages in an attempt to increase hatred of the Jews. Hitler, a Catholic, did not like the Jews for many reasons, but one certainly was that they killed Christ. Hell, even my parents, devout Catholics both, hated Jews and told me when I was growing up in the 70s that Jews had horns on their head. I swear.

Now again, to say that Popes have traditionally supported anti-Jewis acts may not be all that far from the truth. Again, I'm not saying all Catholics are anti-semites, nor am I saying that you are, nor that the pope is, but it is pretty hard to deny the history of it (even the Crusades resulted in a good deal of Jewish deaths in addition to Muslim--and Christian for that matter).

[struggle4progress]

280. How very kind of you to admit "not .. all Catholics are anti-Semites."

Perhaps we need not discuss in detail the variants of this versatile "Not all -- are --" formula, which has many relatives, such as "Of course, there are good --." Such rhetoric was probably as common in Nazi Germany as it was in the Jim Crow South.

Specific historical events are worth detailed discussion; sweeping glosses, such as "Popes have traditionally supported anti-Jewish acts," are dishonest and misleading.

Perhaps I should add that "the Jews" did not kill Christ: the Romans did.

[beam me up scottie]

282. Why would he need to admit to anything? He didn't make false accusations.

You did.

Perhaps you can learn a lesson from Goblinmonger about how to handle debates without resorting to personal attacks and smear tactics.

[Goblinmonger]

289. Thank you

Nice subtle jab that I am both a Nazi and a Reconstruction racist. I like that. But seriously, there are Catholics that are staunch anti-semites. I know a lot of them. I also know a lot of Catholics that aren't. So the statement "Not all Catholics are anti-semites" would be factually correct. Some are, some aren't. Lots of popes and other bishops have been.

Are you going to tell me that Popes and other high ranking bishops haven't supported anti-Jewish acts? Inquisition? Crusades? Just to name a couple really biggies.

Perhaps I should add Thessalonians 2:14-16. Read it. See what your good book has to say about who killed Jesus.

[struggle4progress]

302. I objected to the structure "Not all -- are --" and to similar sentence ..

.. structures. These have essentially the same force as "I noticed -- was sober today," as you were undoubtedly aware.

Having complained of my theatrics, you immediately proceed with your own, asking, "Are you going to tell me that Popes and other high ranking bishops haven't supported anti-Jewish acts?" So I say again, that historical matters are best discussed in specific detail, with attention to specific persons and contexts, rather than glossed sweepingly and misleadingly: the one approach yields useful insights, the other only noise. Certainly there have been, and are, plenty of foul deeds, often committed by people who knew better and had no real mitigating circumstances except their own rottenness.

"See what your good book has to say about who killed Jesus," you add, with reference to Thessalonians 2:14-16 -- which says nothing whatsoever on that particular subject. Of course, the Bible is a human record, containing all manner of material, reflecting any number of prejudices and forgotten power struggles, some of which has been used to justify various idiocies, and a surprising amount of it is worthless, except perhaps as a record of how a living community developed ...

[Goblinmonger]

361. Well

if it is a well-known fact that X is drunk a lot, it isn't a problem to note that he was sober. There are catholics that are anti-semites. My statement correct.

And about Thessalonians not saying who killed Christ:

14 For ye, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judaea in Christ Jesus: for ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen, even as they did of the Jews;

15 who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove out us, and pleased not God, and are contrary to all men;

16 forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved; to fill up their sins always: but the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.

Says at the end of 14 and into 15 that the Jews 1) killed Jesus, 2) and the prophets, and 3) drove them out. And for somebody that argues Catholic canon law so strictly, you have a pretty big pair of balls to now say that the bible was just "a human record, containing all manner of material." That, my friend, would get you excommunicated by your standards.

[Goblinmonger]

298. Again, relying on mythology

for pieces of art results in excommunication. I bet if I went into the Vatican and looked through the Pope's (I would reckon rather large) art collection, I would find paintings of A LOT of different Greek, Roman, Norse, and other mythological gods/godesses. The pope is therefore excommunicated? Seriously, you need to realize that excommunication is something the church actually stopped throwing around like cheap candy at a parade because of the heinous shit they did during the middle ages. It is for serious offenses, not art collections.

[struggle4progress]

329. See #316

[struggle4progress]

182. Hitler was also an enthusiast of the anti-semitic journal Ostara, named ..

.. after Wotan's consort.

LANZ, ADOLF JOSEF (GEORG LANZ von LIEBENFELS) (1874-1954) Defrocked Cistercian monk, conman (doctor, baron) and race-fanatic whose writings had a great influence on both Hitler and Eckart. In 1900, Lanz founded an antisemitic lodge known as the "Order of the New Temple" and set himself up as grandmaster. Its symbol, chosen by Lanz himself, was the Swastika. Lanz's magazine "Ostara" became extremely popular for a time in Vienna and throughout the German speaking world. Lanz and Hitler met in Vienna sometime in 1908-1909 (possibly earlier when Lanz visited Lambach in late 1890's). Several books by Lanz were found in Hitler's library when it was seized by the Allies at the end of the war.
http://www.humanitas-international.org/holocaust/bios_l.htm

Lanz, according to his own testimony, was once visited by the young Hitler, whom he supplied with two missing issues of the magazine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanz_von_Liebenfels

[beam me up scottie]

204. All you have to do is prove he renounced his faith in the christian god.

Until you can do that, you're wasting my time and polluting DU's bandwith.

[Goblinmonger]

299. Now owning books

is cause for excommunication? Are there any catholics left. Catholics can't read about Odin, then?

And holy shit, he actually met with Lanz when he was young. Yikes. That is an excommicatable offense.

[struggle4progress]

354. See #316

[beam me up scottie]

357. Nope, you tried that. No proof of Hitler renouncing his faith. Try again.

[struggle4progress]

183. Wotanism seems to have been a major source of 20th century ..

.. German antisemitism. A speech at the Thule Society in Munich, 1918:

In the evening, Thule Grandmaster Sebottendorff, delivers an oration to the Thule Society in Munich, stating: " Yesterday we experienced the collapse of everything which was familiar, dear and valuable to us. In the place of our princes of Germanic blood rules our deadly enemy: Judah. What will come of this chaos, we do not know yet. But we can guess. A time will come of struggle, the most bitter need, a time of danger... As long as I hold the iron hammer (a reference to his Master's hammer), I am determined to pledge the Thule to this struggle. Our Order is a Germanic Order, loyalty is also Germanic. Our god is Walvater, his rune is the Ar-rune. And the trinity: Wotan, Wili, We is the unity of the trinity. The Ar-rune signifies "Aryan," primal fire, the sun and the eagle. And the eagle is the symbol of the "Aryans." In order to depict the eagle 's capacity for self immolation by fire, it is colored red. From today on our new symbol is the red eagle, which warns us that we must die in order to live." Sebottendorff continues by exhorting the Thule members to fight "until the swastika rises victoriously out of the icy darkness" and closes his speech with a racist-theosophical poem by Philipp Stauff. (Roots)
http://www.humanitas-international.org/holocaust/1910-19t.htm

[beam me up scottie]

205. And that invalidates the influence of christian antisemitism?

Explain.

[Goblinmonger]

300. And this has WHAT to do with HItler

Hitler was born a catholic. Baptized, eucharist, confession, confirmation. The big 4 sacraments. Never did he renounce his religion (give a specific link where he does that--not owning a book about something, having art made with something, or knowing someone involved in another religion) nor declare his following of another religion. Without that, he is not a heretic, apostate, or schismatic.

Until you provide specific evidence that he renounced catholicism or DECLARED his allegiance to another sect, he was catholic.

[struggle4progress]

318. He adopted the Wotanist symbol, the swastika, as well as their ..

.. anti-semitic platform. The quote "Wotan, Wili, We is the unity of the trinity" exhibits the religious views of these groups.

[beam me up scottie]

319. He called himself a christian four times in one speech.

Next.

[struggle4progress]

321. See #175

[beam me up scottie]

323. Prove he renounced his christianity.

[struggle4progress]

184. In 1911, infamous antisemite Pohl is elected master of the "Wotan Lodge"

In 1912, Pohl begins publishing the newsletter of the Germanenorden, an anti-semitic group sometimes known for wearing helmets with Wotan horns.

[trotsky]

188. Spam much?

Sheesh!

Historical fact: Hitler was a Catholic, and was never excommunicated.

It's OK, that doesn't invalidate your faith, and it won't cause the world to stop spinning if you accept it.

[beam me up scottie]

206. And Fred Flintstone was elected Grand Poobah.

Your point would be?

[unschooler]

43. He sure didn't mind playing Christian on TV.

While, of course, no one can no what Hitler truly believed, consider this:

He lined up hundreds Catholic priests and bishops to give their blessing to his cause. Vatican officials even helped Nazi war criminals escape to South America after the war.

He developed his own particular brand of the nationalist German Lutheranism, complete with its own flag containing a cross and swastika (followed by the majority of German Lutherans, Bonhoeffer and friends excepted).

The slogan "Gott Mit Uns" (God With Us)was inscribed on Nazi soldiers' belt buckles during WWII.

Nearly every piece of Nazi military regalia contained a cross or other Christian symbol.

"Mein Kampf" contains numerous references to God and Jesus.

As a young man, Hitler was a prolific painter and often painted religious subjects.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm


I don't know where the "Hitler was a neo-pagan" idea comes from or what neo-paganism has to do with Darwin, but, if he was a neo-pagan, he surely didn't leave much evidence of that.

[Inland]

63. Hitler didn't even play one.

Actually, this subject and the thesis that Hitler was sympathetic to christianity got beat to death in another thread. Basic conclusion of mine was that for a guy who wrote a thousand pages on his own beliefs, would speak for hours without notes, and was essentially a politician, he nods in the direction of christianity were pretty slim, not just for a believer, but for a person who could see the practical need in a christian nation.

But there's a particularly need, isn't there, to show Hitler to be a christian in a thread on the question of tolerance.

[Goblinmonger]

68. "pretty slim nods"

You gotta be kidding me. Did you read the stuff BMUS posted.

This is a slim nod?

<>

Apologize all you want, Hitler is the christains to deal with. The catholics (they're christians, right) threw him a lot of support. Even helped his home boys escape europe after all the shit hit the fan.

[Inland]

80. Read it, without prejudice.

Even I haven't read it here, I've read everything he has ever written and probably ever will. The mindnumbing sigularity of purpose and sheer repetition of material is why he's on my ignore list. If there's something added someday, I'n sure not looking for it.

Even you feel it necessary to change the subject from "Hitler was a christian" to "Catholics threw him a lot of support", as if one vague conclusion had something to do with another vague conclusion.

I know that somehow the point of the "tolerance" thread is to make Hitler something for the Chrisitians to "deal with", that is, they must let people make them into fellow travelers with Hitler. Good luck with that. That sort of cosmic association is a leap even from the historical fallacy.

[Goblinmonger]

89. Did BMUS hurt your feelings?

If I put every christain with a singular purpose on my ignore list, the threads in R/T would often look like they were posted in Atheists/Agnostics.

What do you mean, "vague conclusion." Hitler was a christain. How the hell is that vague? He was raised as one; he declared himself to be one. Talk all you want about not liking him, but he's still a christain. That would be the same as saying Stalin wasn't a REAL socialist. He was a socialist. And a prick. Socialists have to live with that prick. Christains have to live with theirs.

I don't think it is changing the subject to say that Catholics supported Hitler. See it goes like this. Hitler was a Christain. The pope and the RCC supported him. The RCC is a christain church. They don't throw that kind of support behind non-christains. If you are going to say they do, I am preemptively demanding a solid example with a link because I don't believe. I don't even know what example you are going to give, but I don't believe it. And giving money to places where they are trying to convert more catholics doesn't count either because that is not what they were doing with Hitler.

I never, ever, fucking EVER said that all christains were fellow travelers with Hitler. Please link to the post where I said that all christains were like Hitler or shut up about it. That cosmic leap of logic is yours and yours alone. All I said was that Hitler was Christain. Period. Something Christains seem to want to deny.

Stopping bearing false witness against me, or you may end up in the firey lake with me, and (nothing personal) I don't want to spend eternity with you.

[Inland]

92. He tried. But mostly he just got boring.

Like most crusaders, who have the same thing to say and and show up constantly at the door, the only thing to do is close the curtains and pretend nobody's home.

At some point, I could have written the posts for him, if I had the interest. Talk about eternity.

As to Hitler being a christian, that's old ground. Raised as one, declared himself as one...well, being raised doenstn' mean shit, and rather than take Hitler's word for it in a single statment in, what, 1932, we could look at his entire body of work.

Mein Kampf, and a million hours of off the cuff speeches, and there's damn little to indicate faith. The most biographed human on the planet, and slim pickings. You would think even a non believer politician in a christian country would, for example, PRETEND to go to church. Not Hitler. Or announce his deep personal faith in Jesus. Not Hitler. I get more religion out of a dedication out of a bridge than all the Hitler quotes put together.

As to whether catholics throw their support behind non-christians, it's a non sequitur. At the very least you could cite to the catholics themselves on what they thought Hitler's beliefs were. I suspect none of them thought he was catholic. But if catholics backed hitler than hitler was catholic, I guess. That's where the "fellow traveler" shit comes in.

Of course, nobody ever bothers to talk about christians that were against hitler. Wouldn't that prove that Hitler wasn't a christian? Of course it doesn't. It only works one way.

Yep, you want to saddle Hitler with chrisitianity, but if he was a christian he must have gone a long way to keep it from showing. I mean, really. When you repost the picture of a belt buckle, you've pretty much hit the nadir. Ask old what's his name for the picture of Dolph leaving a church. It's pretty much all there is. Hitler, Church means Hitler a believing christian. Hitler, leading a christian country, he's a christian. Christians like Hitler, he's a christian.

It's all just association, sort of the Bacon game except trying to find fewer than six degrees of separation between a bad guy and christianity.

[beam me up scottie]

94. Do you always pretend nobody's home when truth knocks at your door?

At some point, I could have written the posts for him...

Very unlikely since you seem to have ignored the facts and evidence they contained.


Let's recap:


You claim that Hitler only said he was a christian once:

As to Hitler being a christian, that's old ground. Raised as one, declared himself as one...well, being raised doenstn' mean shit, and rather than take Hitler's word for it in a single statment in, what, 1932, we could look at his entire body of work.

"take Hitler's word for it in a single statment(sic)"?


Ignoring the 34 statements spanning many years provided in post #25 doesn't make them disappear, you know.
Check it out, they're still there: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=46721&mesg_id=47352



Next, you admit there are a "million" hours of speeches while claiming you see little to indicate faith:

Mein Kampf, and a million hours of off the cuff speeches, and there's damn little to indicate faith. The most biographed human on the planet, and slim pickings. You would think even a non believer politician in a christian country would, for example, PRETEND to go to church. Not Hitler. Or announce his deep personal faith in Jesus. Not Hitler. I get more religion out of a dedication out of a bridge than all the Hitler quotes put together.

"damn little to indicate faith"?

I wouldn't call the 34 statements in post #25 "damn little", especially since there are many more where those came from.


"PRETEND to go to church"?

Since Hitler was an avowed christian believer in a christian country and had the backing of the christian churches, he didn't need to "pretend" to do anything.


"announce his deep personal faith"?

Again, he did so many times, see the examples I cited in post 25.



Then you infer we're excluding evidence that shows Hitler wasn't a christian, try to use your own beliefs about Adolph as proof and finish by misrepresenting the poster's intent:

As to whether catholics throw their support behind non-christians, it's a non sequitur. At the very least you could cite to the catholics themselves on what they thought Hitler's beliefs were. I suspect none of them thought he was catholic. But if catholics backed hitler than hitler was catholic, I guess. That's where the "fellow traveler" shit comes in.

"I suspect none of them thought he was catholic."?

You suspect?

Wow, there's some rock solid evidence that Hitler wasn't christian. :eyes:

The fact that many christians believed Hitler was chistian and some even said they thought that he was sent to them by god is well documented.

Here are just a few examples:

Each April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was to send "warmest congratulations to the Führer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany" and added with "fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars."
-Cardinal Bertram (quoted from John Cornewll's "Hitler's Pope")
***

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The way has been shown to us by the Führer.
-Dean Eckert, sermon at Tegel, North Berlin, 10 February 1935 (Rolf Tell, Sound and Führer)
***

At a time when the heads of the major nations in the world faced the new Germany with reserve and considerable suspicion, the Catholic Church, the greatest moral power on earth, through the Concordat, expressed its confidence in the new German government.
-Cardinal Faulhaber, Carroll, James, "Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews,"Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001
***

You can see from this that we bishops, of our own free will and without compulsion, have fulfilled our national duty. I know that this declaration will be followed by a successful collaboration. With the most respectful regards and Heil Hitler!
-Cardinal Innitzer, in a letter to Gauleiter, Fritz Bürke, cited from Johann Neumann's "1945: The German churches before and afterwards"
***

We joyously profess or allegiance to the German Volksgemeinschaft and feel ourselves linked to it in good as well as in bad times... In this staunchly Christian spirit we also now participate wholeheartedly in the great struggle of our people for the protection of their life and importance in the world. With admiration we look upon our army, which in courageous fighting under extraordinary leadership has achieved and continues to achieve unparalleled success. We thank God for his support. Especially as Christians we are determined to rally all our strength so that the final victory will be secured for our fatherland. Especially as believing Christians, inspired by God's love, we faithfully stand behind our Führer who with firm hands guides the fortunes of our people.
-Bishop Kaller of Ermland, in a pastoral letter in January 1941,
***

Adolf Hitler to thee alone we are bound. In this hour we would renew our solemn vow; in this world we believe in Adolf Hitler alone. We believe that National Socialism is the sole faith to make our People blessed. We believe that there is Lord God in heaven, who has made us, who leads us, who guides us and who visibly blesses us. And we believe that this Lord God has sent us Adolf Hitler, that Germany might be established for all eternity.
-Schulungsbrief, April 1937. Bibl. 1, 35, p. 222 Nathaniel Micklem, National Socialism and the Roman Catholic Church, OUP 1939
***

Adolf Hitler gave us back our faith. He showed us the true meaning of religion. He came to take us from the faith of our fathers? No, he has come to renew for us the faith of our fathers and to make us new and better things. Just as Christ made his twelve disciples into a band faithful to the martyr's death whose faith shook the Roman Empire, so now we witness the same spectacle again: Adolf Hitler is the true Holy Ghost.
-Hans Kerrl, addressing SA leaders, Brunswick, 19 November 1935
***

He who serves our Führer, Adolf Hitler, serves Germany and he who serves Germany, serves God.
-Baldur von Schirach (speech to Hitler Youth, 25 July 1936)
***

Oath to the Führer

We stand as walls about you
With loyalty and patience.
No sacrifice is so great or hard,
We are in your debt.
We silently fight the holy war,
Which your word sanctifies for us.
We know but one thing: Victory,
And Germany's eternity.
We know that your work succeeds,
Because God is in your heart.
Peace will follow your victory,
Peace for all the world.

-Gerhard Schumann, German poet

Your next post makes absolutely no sense. The logic(?) contained in it is nothing short of ridiculous:

Of course, nobody ever bothers to talk about christians that were against hitler. Wouldn't that prove that Hitler wasn't a christian? Of course it doesn't. It only works one way.

Talking about christians that were "against" Hitler would prove he wasn't a christian?




And finally, you accuse us of trying to "saddle" Hitler, an avowed christian, with chrisitianity(sic):

Yep, you want to saddle Hitler with chrisitianity, but if he was a christian he must have gone a long way to keep it from showing. I mean, really. When you repost the picture of a belt buckle, you've pretty much hit the nadir. Ask old what's his name for the picture of Dolph leaving a church. It's pretty much all there is. Hitler, Church means Hitler a believing christian. Hitler, leading a christian country, he's a christian. Christians like Hitler, he's a christian.

Hitler must have gone a long way to keep it from showing?

On the contrary, he proclaimed his faith clearly and often.

You, on the other hand, have performed Olympic feats in mental gymnastics trying to make an argument out of your own beliefs and talking points used by apologetics.


And as if that wasn't enough, you tried again to dismiss recorded history by inferring that we were shoehorning evidence:

It's all just association, sort of the Bacon game except trying to find fewer than six degrees of separation between a bad guy and christianity.

So, after other posters and I have produced, on more than one occasion, in this forum, countless quotes, pictures, letters and other verifiable historical records attesting to the fact that Hitler frequently and earnestly proclaimed to have faith in the christian god, you're still pretending that a belt buckle, a picture of him leaving a church and the fact that Germany was a christian country is "all there is"?



That's called denial, Inland.

[Goblinmonger]

101. Since the truth hurts you so much

Let me repost something that was on your ignore list. Please respond to these. All of them. Apologize for each of them. Notice not one belt buckle, not one picture of him leaving a church.

Six degrees of separation. :rofl:

Nowhere does Hitler denounce Jesus or his Christianity

A damaging blow to any apologist argument against Hitler's Christianity comes from the fact that nowhere in any known source does Hitler denounce his Christianity or Jesus.

If one is to use the Table-Talk as evidence against Hitler's Christianity, then where does it appear? Nowhere in Trevor-Roper's introduction does he argue that Hitler was not a Christian.

Nowhere in the conversations of Table-Talk, does Hitler denounce his Christianity or Jesus.

On the contrary, Hitler's (or Bormann's editing) aims to show that the Church form of religion produces lies, and that the original Christian religion was an incarnation of Bolshevism, from a falsification from St. Paul. But whenever he mentions Christ, Hitler has nothing but admiration:

Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism the destroyer. Nevertheless, the Galilean, who later was called Christ, intended something quite different. He must be regarded as a popular leader who too up His position against Jewry. Galilee was a colony where the Romans had probably installed Gallic legionaries, and it's certain that Jesus was not a Jew. The Jews, by the way, regarded Him as the son of a whore-- of a whore and a Roman soldier.
The decisive falsification of Jesus's doctrine was the work of St. Paul. He gave himself to this work with subtlety and for purposes of personal exploitation. For the Galiean's object was to liberate His country from Jewish oppression. He set Himself against Jewish capitalism, and that's why the Jews liquidated Him.
-Hitler

Christ was an Aryan, and St. Paul used his doctrine to mobilise the criminal underworld and thus organise a proto-Bolsevism.
-Hitler



As tortured as Hitler's logic is, He never condemns Jesus. On the contrary, he sees Jesus as an Aryan, a liberator against Jewish oppression! If Hitler did not see himself as a Christian, then why doesn't he condemn Jesus? Why doesn't he accuse Christ as being a Jew? Why does he see Christ as a liberator?

Biographer John Toland explains Hitler's reason for exterminating the Jews:

Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, 'I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so,' he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of God. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of God-- so long as it was done impersonally, without cruelty.

Moreover, there are no known documents, speeches, or proclamations by Hitler where he even comes close to denouncing his belief in Christianity, or Jesus.

The Protestant and Catholic Churches in Hitler's time never accused Hitler of apostasy. Hitler's Christianity in Germany was never questioned until years after WWII and then only by Western Christians who are embarrassed to have him as a member of their faith-system.

The reasoning by the apologists in regards to the Table-Talk seems to be that because Hitler spoke against organized religion, then he must therefore be anti-Christian. But even if we take this simplistic approach and assume the Table-Talk as the actual thoughts and beliefs of Hitler, it fails for the simple reason that dismissing a religion of one's own faith does not exclude or excuse one from a personal belief as a Christian. A Christian is simply a person who believes in God and Jesus in some form or manner. Christianity, the body of believing people, simply does not require organized religion at all.

There are many examples of prominent Christians who denounced religions who opposed their own personal beliefs. Indeed, the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther who was once a Catholic monk, denounced the Catholic hierarchy as the work of the anti-Christ and establised by the Devil . Yet I have yet to see a Lutheran accuse Luther as being a non-Christian. The history of Christianity is filled with examples of people of differing Christian faiths denouncing each other. I have personally conversed with many Christians who have denounced all forms of religious organizations, yet they have a strong belief in God and Jesus Christ.

Indeed, even the Table-Talk has Hitler saying:

Luther had the merit of rising against the Pope and the organisation of the Church. It was the first of the great revolutions. And thanks to his translation of the Bible, Luther replaced our dialects by the great German language! -Table-Talk

If simply speaking against a Christian religion were enough to oust one from Christianity, then some of the most influential Christians would have to reside with Hitler.

The papacy is truly the real power and tyranny of the Antichrist.... As beautiful as it was to keep a state of virginity, in the early days of Christianity, so abominable has it now become, when it is used as a means of eliciting Christ's help and grace. -Martin Luther (Luther's Confession, March 1528)

We maintain that the government of the Church was converted into a species of foul and insufferable tyranny. -John Calvin (The Necessity of Reforming the Church, 1544)

If we used the same logic of the apologists against Hitler, then we should remove Luther, Calvin, and many other prominent so-called-Christians from membership of Christianity.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/HitlerSources.htm

Myth 1: Hitler was not a Christian


The entire section on Hitler's Christianity provides ample evidence for his brand of Christianity. The evidence itself destroys any opinions or beliefs about Hitler's alleged apostasy.

The evidence shows that:

Hitler was born and baptized into Catholicism

His Jewish antisemitism came from his Christian background.

His early personal notes shows his interest in religion and Biblical views.

He believed that the Bible represented the history of mankind.

His Nazi party platform (their version of a constitution) included a section on Positive Christianity, and he never removed it.

He confessed his Christianity.

He tried to establish a united Reich German Church.

Hitler allowed the destruction of Jewish synagogues and temples, but not Christian churches.

He encouraged Nazis to worship in Christian churches.

He spoke of his Christian beliefs in his speeches and proclamations.

His contemporaries, friends, Protestant ministers and Catholics priests, including the Vatican, thought of Hitler as a Christian.

The Catholic Church never excommunicated Hitler. He died a Catholic.

To ignore the evidence of Hitler's Christianity demonstrates how power of belief can obscure the facts.

****************************

The Christianity of Hitler revealed in his speeches and proclamations

Compiled by Jim Walker

Originated: 27 Feb. 1997

Through subterfuge and concealment, many of today's Church leaders and faithful Christians have camouflaged the Christianity of Adolf Hitler and have attempted to mark him an atheist, a pagan cult worshipper, or a false Christian. However, from the earliest formation of the Nazi party and throughout the period of conquest and growth, Hitler expressed his Christian support to the German citizenry and soldiers. In the 1920s, Hitler's German Workers' Party (pre Nazi term) adopted a "Programme" with twenty-five points (the Nazi version of a constitution). In point twenty-four, their intent clearly demonstrates, from the very beginning, their stand in favor of a "positive" Christianity:

24. We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the morality and moral sense of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession....




Hitler's speeches and proclamations, even more clearly, reveal his faith and feelings toward a Christianized Germany. Nazism presents an embarrassment to Christianity and demonstrates the danger of faith. The following words from Hitler show his disdain for atheism, and pagan cults, and reveals the strength of his Christian feelings:


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 only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech on 12 April 1922

Note, "brood of vipers" appears in Matt 3: 7 & 12:34. John 2:15 depicts Jesus driving out the money changers (adders) from the temple. The word "adders" also appears in Psalms 140:3


It will at any rate be my supreme task to see to it that in the newly awakened NSDAP, the adherents of both Confessions can live peacefully together side by side in order that they may take their stand in the common fight against the power which is the mortal foe of any true Christianity.
-Adolf Hitler, in an article headed "A New Beginning," 26 Feb. 1925


Except the Lord built the house they labour in vain.... The truth of that text was proved if one looks at the house of which the foundations were laid in 1918 and which since then has been in building.... The world will not help, the people must help itself. Its own strength is the source of life. That strength the Almighty has given us to use; that in it and through it we may wage the battle of our life.... The others in the past years have not had the blessing of the Almighty-- of Him Who in the last resort, whatever man may do, holds in His hands the final decision. Lord God, let us never hesitate or play the coward, let us never forget the duty which we have taken upon us.... We are all proud that through God's powerful aid we have become once more true Germans.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech in March 1933





The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life.... The National Government regard the two Christian Confessions as the weightiest factors for the maintenance of our nationality. They will respect the agreements concluded between them and the federal States. Their rights are not to be infringed.... It will be the Government's care to maintain honest co-operation between Church and State; the struggle against materialistic views and for a real national community is just as much in the interest of the German nation as in that of the welfare of our Christian faith. The Government of the Reich, who regard Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation, attach the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy See and are endeavouring to develop them.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech to the Reichstag on 23 March 1933




We want honestly to earn the resurrection of our people through our industry, our perseverance, our will. We ask not of the Almighty 'Lord, make us free'!-- we want to be active, to work, to agree together as brothers, to strive in rivalry with one another to bring about the hour when we can come before Him and when we may ask of Him: 'Lord, Thou seest that we have transformed ourselves, the German people is not longer the people of dishonour, of shame, of war within itself, of faintheartedness and little faith: no, Lord, the German people has become strong again in spirit, strong in will, strong in endurance, strong to bear all sacrifices.' 'Lord, we will not let Thee go: bless now our fight for our freedom; the fight we wage for our German people and Fatherland.'
-Adolf Hitler, giving prayer in a speech on May Day 1933



This is for us a ground for satisfaction, since we desire that the fight in the religious camps should come to an end... all political action in the parties will be forbidden to priests for all time, happy because we know what is wanted by millions who long to see in the priest only the comforter of their souls and not the representative of their political convictions.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech to the men of the SA. at Dormund, 9 July 1933 on the day after the signing of the Concordat.


National Socialism has always affirmed that it is determined to take the Christian Churches under the protection of the State.... The decisive factor which can justify the existence alike of Church and State is the maintenance of men's spiritual and bodily health, for it that health were destroyed it would mean the end of the State and also the end of the Church.... It is my sincere hope that thereby for Germany, too, through free agreement there has been produced a final clarification of spheres in the functions of the State and of one Church.
-Adolf Hitler, on a wireless on 22 July, the evening before the Evangelical Church Election

The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie.
-Adolf Hitler, 22 July 1933, writing to the Nazi Party (quoted from John Cornwell's "Hitler's Pope"


We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933




I believe that Providence would never have allowed us to see the victory of the Movement if it had the intention after all to destroy us at the end.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech to old members of the Party at Munich on 8 Nov. 1933


The German Church and the People are practically the same body. Therefore there could be no issue between Church and State. The Church, as such, has nothing to do with political affairs. On the other hand, the State has nothing to do with the faith or inner organization of the Church. The election of November 12th would be an expression of church constituency, but not as a Church.
-Adolf Hitler, answering C. F. Macfarland about Church & State (in his book, The New Church and the New Germany)


While we destroyed the Centre Party, we have not only brought thousands of priests back into the Church, but to millions of respectable people we have restored their faith in their religion and in their priests. The union of the Evangelical Church in a single Church for the whole Reich, the Concordat with the Catholic Church, these are but milestones on the road which leads to the establishment of a useful relation and a useful co operation between the Reich and the two Confessions.
-Adolf Hitler, in his New Year Message on 1 Jan. 1934


Imbued with the desire to secure for the German people the great religious, moral, and cultural values rooted in the two Christian Confessions, we have abolished the political organizations but strengthened the religious institutions.
-Adolf Hitler, speaking in the Reichstag on 30 Jan. 1934


It would have been more to the point, more honest and more Christian, in past decades not to support those who intentionally destroyed healthy life than to rebel against those who have no other wish than to avoid disease. Moreover, a policy of laissez faire in this sphere is not only cruelty to the individual guiltless victims but also to the nation as a whole.... If the Churches were to declare themselves ready to take over the treatment and care of those suffering from hereditary diseases, we should be quite ready to refrain from sterilizing them.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech on 30 Jan. 1934


We have experienced a miracle, something unique, something the like of which there has hardly been in the history of the world. God first allowed our people to be victorious for four and a half years, then He abased us, laid upon us a period of shamelessness, but now after a struggle of fourteen years he has permitted us to bring that period to a close. It is a miracle which has been wrought upon the German people.... It shows us that the Almighty has not deserted our people, that He received it into favour at the moment when it rediscovered itself. And that our people shall never again lose itself, that must be our vow so long as we shall live and so long as the Lord gives us the strength to carry on the fight.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech to the "Old Guard" of the Party at Munich on 19 March, 1934


The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavour to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren ), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of to-day.
-Adolf Hitler, on 26 June 1934, to Catholic bishops to assure them that he would take action against the new pagan propaganda


No, it is not we that have deserted Christianity, it is those who came before us who deserted Christianity. We have only carried through a clear division between politics which have to do with terrestrial things, and religion, which must concern itself with the celestial sphere. There has been no interference with the doctrine (Lehre ) of the Confessions or with their religious freedom (Bekenntnisfreiheit ), nor will there be any such interference. On the contrary the State protects religion, though always on the one condition that religion will not be used as a cover for political ends....
National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on the ground of a real Christianity.... For their interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of to-day, in our fight against a Bolshevist culture, against atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for a consciousness of a community in our national life... These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles! And I believe that if we should fail to follow these principles then we should to be able to point to our successes, for the result of our political battle is surely not unblest by God.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech at Koblenz, to the Germans of the Saar, 26 Aug. 1934


So far as the Evangelical Confessions are concerned we are determined to put an end to existing divisions, which are concerned only with the forms of organization, and to create a single Evangelical Church for the whole Reich....
And we know that were the great German reformer with us to-day he would rejoice to be freed from the necessity of his own time and, like Ulrich von Hutten, his last prayer would be not for the Churches of the separate States: it would be of Germany that he would think and of the Evangelical Church of Germany.
-Adolf Hitler, in his Proclamation at the Parteitag at Nuremberg on 5 Sept. 1934



What we are we have become not against, but with, the will of Providence. And so long as we are true and honourable and of good courage in fight, so long as we believe in our great work and do not capitulate, we shall continue to enjoy in the future the blessing of Providence.
-Adolf Hitler, at Rosenheim in Bavaria, 11 Aug. 1935


Only so you can appeal to your God and pray Him to support and bless your courage, your work, your perseverance, your strength, your resolution, and with all these your claim on life.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech at Frankfurt on 16 March 1936


In this world him who does not abandon himself the Almighty will not desert. Him who helps himself will the Almighty always also help; He will show him the way by which he can gain his rights, his freedom, and therefore his future.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech at Hamburg on 20 March 1936


Providence has caused me to be Catholic, and I know therefore how to handle this Church.
-Adolf Hitler, reportedly to have said in Berlin in 1936 on the enmity of the Catholic Church to National Socialism


I believe in Providence and I believe Providence to be just. Therefore I believe that Providence always rewards the strong, the industrious, and the upright.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech to National Socialist women at the Nuremberg Parteitag of 1936 <11 Sept. 1936>


So long as they concern themselves with their religious problems the State does not concern itself with them. But so soon as they attempt by any means whatsoever-- by letters, Encyclica, or otherwise-- to arrogate to themselves rights which belong to the State alone we shall force them back into their proper spiritual, pastoral activity.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech delivered in Berlin on the May Day festival, 1937


We National Socialists, too, have deep in our hearts our own faith. We cannot do otherwise. No man can mould the history of peoples or of the world unless he has upon his will and his capacities the blessing of Providence.
-Adolf Hitler, to Nazi leaders on 2 June 1937, as reported by a correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph"


I will never allow anyone to divide this people once more into religious camps, each fighting the other....
You, my Brown Guard, will regard it as a matter of course that this German people should go only by the way which Providence ordained for it when it gave to Germans the common language. So we go forward with the profoundest faith in God into the future. Would that which we have achieved have been possible if Providence had not helped us?
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech at Regensburg on 6 June 1937


If we pursue this way, if we are decent, industrious, and honest, if we so loyally and truly fulfill our duty, then it is my conviction that in the future as in the past the Lord God will always help us. In the long run He never leaves decent folk in the lurch. Often He may test them, He may send trials upon them, but in the long run He always lets His sun shine upon them once more and at the end He gives them His blessing.
-Adolf Hitler, at the Harvest Thanksgiving Festival on the Buckeburg held on 3 Oct. 1937


This Winter Help Work is also in the deepest sense a Christian work. When I see, as I so often do, poorly clad girls collecting with such infinite patience in order to care for those who are suffering from the cold while they themselves are shivering with cold, then I have the feeling that they are all apostles of a Christianity-- and in truth of a Christianity which can say with greater right than any other: This is the Christianity of an honest confession, for behind it stand not words but deeds.
-Adolf Hitler, speaking of the Winter Help Campaign on 5 Oct. 1937


Remain strong in your faith, as you were in former years. In this faith, in its close-knit unity our people to-day goes straight forward on its way and no power on earth will avail to stop it.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech at Coburg on 15 Oct. 1937


In this hour I would ask of the Lord God only this: that, as in the past, so in the years to come He would give His blessing to our work and our action, to our judgement and our resolution, that He will safeguard us from all false pride and from all cowardly servility, that He may grant us to find the straight path which His Providence has ordained for the German people, and that He may ever give us the courage to do the right, never to falter, never to yield before any violence, before any danger.... I am convinced that men who are created by God should live in accordance with the will of the Almighty.... If Providence had not guided us I could often never have found these dizzy paths.... Thus it is that we National Socialists, too, have in the depths of our hearts our faith. We cannot do otherwise: no man can fashion world-history or the history of peoples unless upon his purpose and his powers there rests the blessings of this Providence.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech at Wurzburg on 27 June 1937


National Socialism is not a cult-movement-- a movement for worship; it is exclusively a 'volkic' political doctrine based upon racial principles. In its purpose there is no mystic cult, only the care and leadership of a people defined by a common blood-relationship.... We will not allow mystically-minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else-- in any case something which has nothing to do with us. At the head of our programme there stand no secret surmisings but clear-cut perception and straightforward profession of belief. But since we set as the central point of this perception and of this profession of belief the maintenance and hence the security for the future of a being formed by God, we thus serve the maintenance of a divine work and fulfill a divine will-- not in the secret twilight of a new house of worship, but openly before the face of the Lord.... Our worship is exclusively the cultivation of the natural, and for that reason, because natural, therefore God-willed. Our humility is the unconditional submission before the divine laws of existence so far as they are known to us men.
-Adolf Hitler, in Nuremberg on 6 Sept. 1938.




The National Socialist Movement has wrought this miracle. If Almighty God granted success to this work, then the Party was His instrument.
-Adolf Hitler, in his proclamation to the German People on 1 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 (Einstellung), nor will anyone in the future be so persecuted.... The Churches are the greatest landed proprietors after the State... Further, the Church in the National Socialist State is in many ways favoured in regard to taxation, and for gifts, legacies, &c., it enjoys immunity from taxation.
It is therefore, to put mildly-- effrontery when especially foreign politicians make bold to speak of hostility to religion in the Third Reich.... I would allow myself only one question: what contributions during the same period have France, England, or the United States made through the State from the public funds?
3. The National Socialist State has not closed a church, nor has it prevented the holding of a religious service, nor has it ever exercised any influence upon the form of a religious service. It has not exercised any pressure upon the doctrine nor on the profession of faith of any of the Confessions. In the National Socialist State anyone is free to seek his blessedness after his own fashion.... There are ten thousands and ten thousands of priests of all the Christian Confessions who perform their ecclesiastical duties just as well as or probably better than the political agitators without ever coming into conflict with the laws of the State.... This State has only once intervened in the internal regulation of the Churches, that is when I myself in 1933 endeavoured to unite the weak and divided Protestant Churches of the different States into one great and powerful Evangelical Church of the Reich. That attempt failed through the opposition of the bishops of some States; it was therefore abandoned. For it is in the last resort not our task to defend or even to strengthen the Evangelical Church through violence against its own representatives.... But on one point it is well that there should be no uncertainty: the German priest as servant of God we shall protect, the priest as political enemy of the German State we shall destroy.
-Adolf Hitler, a speech in the Reichstag on 30 Jan. 1939


If positive Christianity means love of one's neighbour, i.e. the tending of the sick, the clothing of the poor, the feeding of the hungry, the giving of drink to those who are thirsty, then it is we who are the more positive Christians. For in these spheres the community of the people of National Socialist Germany has accomplished a prodigious work.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech to the "Old Guard" at Munich on 24 Feb. 1939


Sources:

Baynes, Norman H. Ed. "The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939," Vol. 1 of 2, Oxford University Press, 1942

Cornwell, John, "Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII," Viking, 1999

[Inland]

103. The truth doesn't hurt me. That's why I'm in favor of it.

Really, there are so many people who actually were christian that were bad people, one has to wonder why the fundamentalist atheist has to insist that Hitler too was christian. Apparently it's an article of faith that there is no evil aside from religion. Oh, well.

As for your fine cut and paste job, before I read it, again, I'll just point out one fine example of how you haven't read it once:

The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie.
-Adolf Hitler, 22 July 1933, writing to the Nazi Party (quoted from John Cornwell's "Hitler's Pope"

Uh huh. Let's see. Vatican acknowledges the state, and Hitler says Nazi "NOT HOSTILE" to religion. Nazi "not hostile", so therefore Hitler's a believer!

Here's another you should find particularly interesting. Remember when you tell me to stop bearing false witness? Well, were you endorsing christianity, or giving christianity a backhand slap for not living up to it's own ideals? Read the following:

It would have been more to the point, more honest and more Christian, in past decades not to support those who intentionally destroyed healthy life than to rebel against those who have no other wish than to avoid disease. Moreover, a policy of laissez faire in this sphere is not only cruelty to the individual guiltless victims but also to the nation as a whole.... If the Churches were to declare themselves ready to take over the treatment and care of those suffering from hereditary diseases, we should be quite ready to refrain from sterilizing them.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech on 30 Jan. 1934

Huh. Looks like Hitler is actually blaming the churches for lack of christian charity when teh churches CRITICIZED HIS POLICIES. Hm, looks like it isn't just Dolph baby that's within six degrees of separation!


Do an edit. I don't weigh argument by the pound. Give me proof, if there is any.

[Goblinmonger]

105. You're in favor of it?

I reposted that (I admitted that completely) because you said BMUS was on your ignore list which would mean that you would not have read the quotations by Hitler et al. If that isn't the case, not my fault. You take two out of the whole bunch and misanalyze them. What about the 50 or so others.

Not hostile would mean anything on the spectrum a little past hostile all the way to married. That quotation says that they get along. That's all.

I didn't say Hitler was the church. He can criticize it and still be part of it. I hope you have never critized the church for anything, or your out.

How the hell are those quotations not proof? What do you want? Pictures of the pope and Hitler having sex on an alter? Hitler walking around with a sandwich board that says "Thank god I am a christian?

[beam me up scottie]

106. Inland can't prove that Hitler renounced his christian faith.

Apologist rhetoric and No True Scotsman fallacy aside, what evidence do we have that ANY christian really believes in the christian god?

[Goblinmonger]

109. Apparently

what someone else says about someone's beliefs is what is important. Hitler may have said, a lot, that he was a Christian, but what Inland says is what matters.

Atheists may say that they don't have a belief system about god, but manic says we do, so that must be true.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, goes to the same church as the other ducks, and praises the same god as the other ducks...IT'S A FUCKING DUCK.

[Inland]

111. Hitler went to church? Well, why didn't you say so.

Let me know where he worshipped on Sundays. Or were you just speaking of ducks going to church?

[Goblinmonger]

114. Well

whenever somebody shows you a picture of Hitler coming out of a church, you say that isn't proof. Round and round and round and round and round we go. You say show him going to church, we do that, then you say that isn't proof that he really was a christian--we have to show where he actually declars that he is a christian, but then you say that doesn't prove anything we need to tell you where he went to church. I'm getting dizzy as shit on this crazy christian carnival ride of yours inland--it's enough to make me want to :puke:

How about this. Pick what you want shown and then stick with it. Quit moving the target, asshole.

[Inland]

116. Oh, you meant Hitler went to A church.

Look, don't blame me you picked to believe a fact absolutley BEFORE you had proof of it. I don't set the goalposts.

I take it that you don't have evidence of church attendence.

[beam me up scottie]

117. Does church attendance make one a christian?

Since when?

[Goblinmonger]

119. Not only did you set the goalposts

you put them on wheels and you are moving them all over, especially when we kick the ball right down the pipe.

Since you think you are such a hot shit debater, here we go, I'm affirmative so I go first.

Hitler was a Christian. That is all I am trying to prove. For evidence, I offer each of the quotations by Hitler in post #25 (I won't cut and paste them because you cry about it when I do). You're negative in this little debate. Go nuts.

[Inland]

126. Having shown two of the dump be completely irrelevant,

the entire dump is called into question, as to your own credibility.

If you are unable to say that you have submitted quotes BY hitler ABOUT his beliefs...that is, something even relevant to the subject....you haven't offered "evidence" at all. You've offered a waste of time. You might as well drop the Berlin phonebook in, for it too doesn't require "rebuttal". It merely requires noting that it isn't relevant.

On the other hand, you don't know, although your correpondent who hung you out to dry does, that Hitler's thoughts were taken down verbatim by Martin Borman in private conversations, that is, when the talk didn't have much chance of getting out to various political groups:

When National Socialism has ruled long enough, it will no longer be possible to conceive of a form of life different from ours. In the long run, National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together. … No, it does not mean a war. The ideal solution would be to leave the religions to devour themselves, without persecutions. But in that case we must not replace the Church with something equivalent…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.

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.

Firstly, 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 on 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 view of things, it is conceivable that one could found anything durable on falsehood? When I think of our people's future, I must look further than immediate advantages, even if these advantages were to last three hundred, five hundred 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 her 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.

That's why I've always kept the Party aloof from religious questions. I've thus prevented my Catholic and Protestant supporters from forming groups against one another, and inadvertently knocking each other out with the Bible and the sprinkler. So we never became involved with these Churches' forms of worship. And if that has momentarily made my task a little more difficult, at least I've never run the risk of carrying grist to my opponent's mill. The help we would have provisionally obtained from a concordat would have quickly become a burden on us. In any case, the main thing is to be clever in this matter and not to look for a struggle where it can be avoided.

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 programme. Time will go by 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 advances 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 is 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.

Originally, religion was merely a prop for human communities. It was a means, not an end in itself. It's only gradually that it became transformed in this direction, with the object of maintaining the rule of the priests, who can love only to the detriment of society collectively....

Christianity, of course, has reached the peak of absurdity in this respect. And that's why one day its structure will collapse. Science has already impregnated humanity. Consequently, the more Christianity clings to its dogmas, the quicker it will decline.




NOW THERE'S THE GUY WHO INVADED POLAND! THAT's a guy who coopted all the institutions of Germany to his own will! Fascist, ahoy! No mewling to Jeebus from THAT guy! Does that sound like something Hitler would say in private or what! This concept you have of Hitler almost hiding a christianity gets blown away as entirely inconsistent with a man trying to make a new humanity altogether. Unless, of course, bad means christian.

[Goblinmonger]

128. Interesting that you talk of the "Table Talk" and also criticize context

First of all, Borman was a HUGE Hitler apologist.
Secondly, those transcripts were edited by Hitler. He didn't let them out of the room until he was sure it said what he wanted.
Thirdly, I'll offer some context below.
Finally, stop making references to me "believing something before checking the evidence" like I am some pimple-faced teenager spouting my parent's line. I have read books, I have studied this, and you are not the king shit of all knowledge.

What you fail to point out is that Hitler felt that the ORGANIZED church was the problem. He never talks about denouncing Christ. In fact, he thought Christ was fantastic and a fellow Jew hater. Hitler blames Paul (a Jew) for turning Christ's real message into what became the church. See, Hitler wanted to kill the Jews for killing his savior as much as for diluting his message and turning into something vile.

Here's what he says to Wagener that points out the difference between what the Church has done and what Christ believes.

Socialism is a question of attitude toward life, of the ethical outlook on life of all who live together in a common ethnic or national space. Socialism is a Weltanschauung!

But in actual fact there is nothing new about this Weltanschauung. Whenever I read the New Testament Gospels and the revelations of various of the prophets and imagine myself back in the era of the Roman and late Hellenistic, as well as the Oriental world, I am astonished at all that has been made of the teachings of these divinely inspired men, especially Jesus Christ, which are so clear and unique, heightened to religiosity. They were the ones who created this new worldview which we now call socialism, they established it, they taught it and they lived it! But the communities that called themselves Christian churches did not understand it! Or if they did, they denied Christ and betrayed him! For they transformed the holy idea of Christian socialism into its opposite! They killed it, just as, at the time, the Jews nailed Jesus to the cross; they buried it, just as the body of Christ was buried. But they allowed Christ to be resurrected, instigating the belief that his teachings too, were reborn!

From your same Table Talk bullshit I would offer as proof:

Here he talks about the fact that Christ's message is quite different from what we know it to be during Hitler's time.

Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism the destroyer. Nevertheless, the Galilean, who later was called Christ, intended something quite different. He must be regarded as a popular leader who too up His position against Jewry. Galilee was a colony where the Romans had probably installed Gallic legionaries, and it's certain that Jesus was not a Jew. The Jews, by the way, regarded Him as the son of a whore-- of a whore and a Roman soldier.

Here Hitler talks about how Paul, the dirty Jew, changes Christ's message. He also mentions how Christ was similar to Hitler in his efforts to eliminate the Jews.

The decisive falsification of Jesus's doctrine was the work of St. Paul. He gave himself to this work with subtlety and for purposes of personal exploitation. For the Galiean's object was to liberate His country from Jewish oppression. He set Himself against Jewish capitalism, and that's why the Jews liquidated Him.

Here's one where Hitler even extoles the virtues of Martin Luther. How Christian of him.

Those are the three greatest men that God has given the German people. From Fredrick the Great I have learned bravery, and from Bismarck statecraft. The greatest of the three is Dr. Martin Luther, for he made it possible to bring unity among the German tribes by giving them a common language through his translation of the Bible into German....

And finally, Hitler makes it clear when he calls Christ an Aryan.

Christ was an Aryan, and St. Paul used his doctrine to mobilise the criminal underworld and thus organise a proto-Bolsevism.

Now that we have put the quotations the you have taken OUT of context INTO context of Hitler's views on the Church being bad but the real teachings of Christ being good, it seems that Hitler did consider himself to be a Christian and probably a more true one than you.

And, yes, that does sound like the Hitler that invaded Poland. "Let's get those dirty Jews for killing Christ and for corrupting his message." Yep, that's him.

[Inland]

153. You still don't quote his personal belief, but how religion was used.

You don't learn.

First, as to table talk, if Hitler made sure that they perfectly expressed his thoughts, and you have to admit...they show that he wasn't much of a beliver. You would think that would make the game over. But you can't accept the truth, so you go on.

More irrelevant stuff. Have you actually read, for example, the quote about Martin Luther? Did Hitler praise him as a holy man? (by the way, didn't you argue that HItler was a catholic? I know they all LOOK the same to you, but...)

No, Hitler praised Luther "for he made it possible to bring unity among the German tribes by giving them a common language through his translation of the Bible into German". Note how he puts him with the other unifiers.

Hitler realized that religion unifies a nation. Hatred of other religious groups did too. He was using that sentiment, not believing it. Your quotes, if you read what they say, are entirely consistent with a belief that religion was a useful means, but for dolts.

Then you quote Hitler with calumny about Jews killing Jesus...who, by the way, was a socialist but Paul corrupted all his beliefs. WTF? Of course, you don't know the difference between protestants and catholics, but you can't be so dense as to not recognize a guy trying to pretend Nazism and jew hating into the TRUE teachings of Jesus. In other words, if Hitler believed any of this guff, it was guff that nobody else recognizes as Christianity and is perfectly consistent with his disgust and misuse of chrisitianity as he and everyone else knew it existed. If he didn't, he was working hard to make some dummy think his nazism wasn't inconsistent with Jesus. And you know what? People who really, really wanted to believe it, did. Like you.

Oh, I suppose you can be all impressed that Hitler might have fit a definition of christian THAT HE INVENTED FOR HIMSELF AND HIS OWN PURPOSES, but that would simply mean that a chrisitian is whatever you, and Hitler, want it to mean in order to serve your own purposes at any particular point in time. What a wonderful compliment to the two of you.

So yeah, the guy who publically tried to tie christianity into his warped world view (without ever quite getting around to his own personal beliefs as to god and jesus and stuff) is the same guy who admitted he was publically trying to tie christianity into his warped world view. The difference is that in private he admitted that he was working a fraud and trying to walk a line, and really wasn't christian. Seems that there's a sucker born every minute, and you are one of them. If sucker it is. I'm beginning to think that you know better. Nobody could volunteer to lead with their chin so many times and not think that they weren't simply propagating A Big Lie.

[Goblinmonger]

160. Listen here

you arrogant little prick. I have had enough of your ad hominem attacks (and before you even go there, calling you a prick is not an ad hominem attack because it does not go to disprove the argument--read a book about argumentation before you take that approach).

First it is the "holier than thou" attitude that you are the only person to have ever read anything about Hitler. Now it is the "you are just a stupid atheist and don't understand Christianity so stop talking about it" attitude. Kiss my ass. I was raised strict Catholics. My parents made it very clear to me why the other christian religions were bad and why I should hate them (I am not exaggerating--though I'm sure you will say my parents weren't REAL christians). I attended and graduated high school from a Catholic seminary in Fargo, ND--had plans to be a priest until my senior year. So shut your fucking pie hole. I know the differences between the christian religions--probably better than you do. Do you think it is a surprise that Hitler would like Martin Luther. He was German, he united Germany, and, oh yeah, he was a racist prick just like Hitler. A match made in heavan.

if Hitler made sure that they perfectly expressed his thoughts, and you have to admit...they show that he wasn't much of a beliver.

Did you read what I gave you. He talks about Jesus being great. I know "real" christians who don't praise Jesus that much.

Then you quote Hitler with calumny about Jews killing Jesus...who, by the way, was a socialist but Paul corrupted all his beliefs. WTF?

For somebody who has study sooooooo much about Hitler, why is it you don't understand this. Do you think Jesus wasn't a socialist? Do you not understand that Hitler thought the Jews (i.e. Saul/Paul corrupted the "true" message of Jesus. The same Jesus that he says was an Aryan--you did read the part about Hitler kinda liking the Aryans, right. That is pretty damn big praise coming from Hitler. Hitler is making it clear that the person he worships--Jesus--wasn NOT A JEW. EVER. Why would he go to those links if Jesus wasn't his savior?

if Hitler believed any of this guff, it was guff that nobody else recognizes as Christianity and is perfectly consistent with his disgust and misuse of chrisitianity as he and everyone else knew it existed.

Oh here we go. I wondered how long it would be until we got to the "he's not a REAL christian" meme. You talked about nadirs before. You are there, pal. Who the fuck made you the guardian of all that is REAL christianity. Hitler's brand of christianity seems a lot more consistant with the Inquisition and the Crusades than your brand. Historically, Hitler's brand has been the dominant brand for the vast majority of the time that Christianity has been around. But we all know that you are right because......???????

he was working hard to make some dummy think his nazism wasn't inconsistent with Jesus. And you know what? People who really, really wanted to believe it, did. Like you.

Oh, so now I am a nazi, am I. Churchill really riled the Freepers when he made comments like that. At least he had a point. The Catholic church had plenty of people hopping on the Inquisition bandwagon. Tons of Christians burned witches, atheists, and other heritics at the stake or hung them (Early American variety Christians that came to "escape persecution"). Why is Hitler's "nazism" any less compatible with Jesus than the other attrocities done by the religion (or are you an apologist for them too--I guess yes).

Hitler might have fit a definition of christian THAT HE INVENTED FOR HIMSELF AND HIS OWN PURPOSES

Sounds kind of like what a lot of people here are saying that you and your apologistic ilk are doing. Anyone you don't like can't be a TRUE christian. Christianity has a history of doing shitting things. Why not admit it so that it won't happen again. Ignoring history is dooming yourself to repeat it, right?

The difference is that in private he admitted that he was working a fraud and trying to walk a line, and really wasn't christian.

Reread what I gave you. He does not say that he is a fraud. He says he will work with churches to get power, yes. But he feels that the churches are the frauds that are diluting Jesus' real message--my quotations make that clear.

Seems that there's a sucker born every minute, and you are one of them. If sucker it is. I'm beginning to think that you know better. Nobody could volunteer to lead with their chin so many times and not think that they weren't simply propagating A Big Lie.

Oh, see, there it is again. I'm a nazi. I am propogating the Big Lie. Nice one. Too bad it is bullshit. It is things like that that lead me to the freeper conclusion. Look above. When I want to call you a prick, I just do it. You use the underhanded little jabs that you think are funny. Just like the republicans do. Guess what. You are the sucker. Or you are trying to bring more in. Hitler was a Christian and used his views to do shitty things. Just like the Inquisition. Just like the Crusades. Just like it is being done now to gays and women by the Christian churches. Sorry that you don't like that. But it is the truth.

[beam me up scottie]

129. Hitler's thoughts were NOT recorded by Borman.

Either you're incredibly ignorant about this subject or you are trying to revise history.

On the other hand, you don't know, although your correpondent who hung you out to dry does, that Hitler's thoughts were taken down verbatim by Martin Borman in private conversations, that is, when the talk didn't have much chance of getting out to various political groups

That is untrue. They were not recorded by Borman.

All of these quotations (and others like them that you will probably see bandied about on the web) come from a single source: Hitler's Table Talk. This is purportedly a notebook based on the shorthand of two secretaries to Hitler, Heinrich Heim and Henry Picker, instructed by Hitler's right-hand-man Martin Bormann to record for posterity whatever Hitler said in his bunker in Berlin, usually at tea. They recorded official orders as well as things he said off the cuff, and logged entries by date and time of day. Bormann intended to edit the notes and publish them as a definitive party manifesto for the victorious Reich.

***

There are two versions of the original German of Hitler's Table Talk. One version of the notebooks was edited and collated by Martin Bormann, called the Bormann Vermerke ("Bormann Notes"), which until recently existed only in the private collection of Francois Genoud. He bought it in 1948 from an Italian official, who in turn received it from Bormann's wife Gerda, who took the manuscript with her when she fled the Allied invasion in 1945, dying in an Italian detention camp in 1946. This text continues to 1944. The other version is that of Picker, who received his copy from Heim upon replacing him, then added his own entries until Heim's return. This text only reaches to mid-1942, because Picker was then reassigned and no longer had access to Heim's notes. The Bormann Vermerke also contains entries made by Bormann, and presumably Heim, during the period covered by Picker's text, which are inexplicably not found in his copy. There is also supposed to be a third copy, which Bormann forwarded to an office in Münich, but it was lost (most likely destroyed by Allied bombs).4

Picker's edition carries the strongest claim to authenticity. It has the actual German, was the first to be published, and has the support of eyewitness testimony. It also had scholarly backing, "Arranged on behalf of the German Institute for the History of National Socialism, initiated and published by Gerhard Ritter, professor of history at the University of Freiburg" (translated from the title page). Not only was Picker one of the actual stenographers (from 21 March to 2 August 1942), he also acquired Heim's notes directly, bypassing Bormann. Another historian, Walter Mediger, even checked Picker's first edition against these original notes, made corrections in the second edition, and testified to its accuracy.

http://www.harrington-sites.com/Carrier5.htm

[Goblinmonger]

130. Trying to revise history *shock*

only an asshole would do that.

[beam me up scottie]

131. Snort! Only a dumbass would do it in this forum.

We NEVER do our homework here, do we? :rofl:

[Goblinmonger]

132. No, of course not.

I am just spouting off shit that I have never even thought of before. I didn't really know who Hitler even was until your post. And then your post was SOOOOO long with SOOOOOO many words that I just blindly took your word for it. That is how I got my college degrees, too. And how I teach.

I just don't understand the mentality that assumes I know nothing about the topic. That, as an atheist, I would never even have considered the Hitler/Christianity thing. All my time is spent eating the vital organs of the unborn. BTW, did you ever get ahold of that fetus for our ritual or are we going to have to call it off AGAIN?

[beam me up scottie]

133. My source was busted, unfortunately.

I don't care what the republicans say, it's getting harder and harder to find women who get pregnant just so that they can have abortions for fun and profit.

[Inland]

154. What you don't know is evidence.

If you spent more time thinking about what things proved instead of having that precious, kumbaya moment with another true believer congratualing yourselves on being right, you might not look like a person who had never heard of Hitler and was uneducated.

But no, like all true believers, you discuss stuff among yourselves and having bolstered each other with your own self righteousness, are surprised when nobody outside of your own peculiar belief system buys it. It's the trademark of the poster you deal with: by the end of the thread, he's encouraged everyone to trade insults and then he has private chats with fellow believers where they exchange compliments and reinforce each others' world views against the facts, against the vicious outsiders who persecuted you, and steel yourself for a battle. It's a fundamentalism, a fundamentalist form of atheism.

I think I'm done with you. I don't argue against people's religious beliefs, even atheists'. I just call them what they are.

[Goblinmonger]

155. I don't know why you are offended?

I only said that somebody who revises history is an asshole. You have maintained from the beginning that you don't do that. So, you're not an asshole. Yet *freud* you took offense to my comment.

And by the way, I did that on purpose. Worded it that way because I knew you would bust a nut about it. Same way that the wording was for things that I took offense to (actually, a little bit more tame because I had already identified myself as an atheist, whereas you have not identified yourself as a revisor or history) but you said I was being childish.

[Inland]

159. I didn't take offense. I didn't point out the irony of it, either.

In fact, I didn't mention it. It was part and parcel the kumbaya moment of two fundamentalists, where they mutually reinforce their beliefs and the Us vs. Them mentality that drives their perceptions of the world. Got nothing to do with me, or reality.

But if you want to find an excuse to discard the statement as merely "busting a nut", it wouldn't surprise me, just as it didn't surprise me to learn that you did it for the sole sake of offending. You're a fundie. You want the Us vs Them fight on grounds of your own choosing and facts don't matter. Sorry, homie, I don't argue with religious and religion like beliefs. You'll need the other side of the coin for that, the fundie chrisitian. Have fun beating each others brains out.

[Goblinmonger]

162. Yeah, you didn't sound offended at all.

And more with the subtle jabs that I talk about in the other little deal we have go. I'm a "fundie." Bite me. Just because I call bullshit on you doesn't mean I am like the big bad fundie christians. I don't give a shit what you believe. Believe all you want about Jesus. But when you start making comments that apologize for the actions of Christians, that's when YOU start getting dangerous and I need to pipe up. It is beliefs like yours that lead to religion being part of public policy. Like when you said that democracy was invented by christians (Socrates, et al, will be interested in learning that they are christians) last year. That is dangerous shit. Especially when your view of christianity is that it can do no wrong when it obviously has.

You want to worship ant, pink unicorns, Jesus--I don't fucking care. Just stop making it mess with my life, or my female friend's lives, or my gay friend's lives, or my non-christian friend's lives.

[Inland]

156. Sorry I don't play the game you want to play.

You need to offend, and be offended, and to pretend like it's for some greater political reason. Got nothing to do with me, just like you can't help but throw in that I'm messing with your life or apologizing for christians who do.

Clearly, you want to have an argument with somebody who isn't here, as part of the perceptions of the fundie mindset, have it with anyone who isn't sharing your kumbaya moment. It's all too familiar, but you really need somebody who is willing to respond in kind, like the fundie christian, where he can blame you for hurricanes and for the fact that young people are having sex and you can blame him for Hitler. You've been looking for that fight with a christian, any christian, first with the other poster, now with me, and trying to find something that you can take offense at, and are so disappointed nobody is biting. Your anger at being stymied by an inquiry into objective historical facts is palpable.

Sorry, I'm not going to be a foil for your fundie mission. I'm not interested, and no amount of insult is going to bait me. Time to close the curtains and not answer the doorbell.

[Goblinmonger]

168. OK, just remember

that when you are at home stroking your "ego" about how good of a debater you are, that your tactics resorted to taking your football home with you when you were falling behind.

Excellent debate you engaged in. Nice responses to the proofs that were offered to you. I bow to your debating prowess. You really "wiped the floor with me."

:applause: :applause:

[beam me up scottie]

115. He tries to narrowly redefine christianity in order to exclude one man.

The apologists and historical revisionists use the same fallacies and Holocaust deniers use the same reasoning.

Hitler was a christian from childhood and he never renounced his faith.
Instead he reaffirmed it constantly throughout his life.

Until he can provide irrefutable proof that Hitler said he didn't believe in the christian god, Inland's wishful thinking is useless.

[Inland]

107. Yeah, nice try but no dice.

You dump fifty or so quotes from various sources as if they were self explanatory. I picked out two as illustrative of the fact that they are not. Rather than bother to explain how the other forty eight make your case, you just assign me all the work. No, thanks. Either haven't read them once or have read them and have absolutely no clue as to what is evidence of Hitler's belief. That's proven.

Of course, you will assert that my refusal to hold a semester long class on reading comprehension is proof of an aversion to facts. That's why you dumped all that shit in a single post, and why you aren't apologizing for dumping quotes which clearly don't support your proposition.

What would be proof? I dunno, maybe telling me which church Hitler attended. Or his denomination. Or actual quotes from Hitler stating his personal faith in Jesus. Don't blame me that you have a thesis you have no clue how to prove. Just remember that this really is the most biographed man on the planet. Read a book.

[Goblinmonger]

110. I will take you on in a reading comprehension test

any day. And if you want to get into a battle of reading books, again, game on.

So if I take one quotation from the ones I give you that clearly states his belief in Christ (it's in there) you will discuss that one? And you won't just say, "That's only one!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

OK, I don't believe you, but here we go. This took me about 2 seconds to find in that post that you said was too long for you to read and that I haven't read (again, you should just follow me around, because you know so much about what I think that it would make my life a lot easier).

Biographer John Toland explains Hitler's reason for exterminating the Jews:
Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, 'I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so,' he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of God. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of God-- so long as it was done impersonally, without cruelty.

And I swear to your god, if you say this doesn't prove he is christian you are the biggest ass and freeper troll out there. He said he was a CATHOLIC. He even said he always will be. Catholics are Christians.

OK, show me what ridiculous shit your are going to say.

[Inland]

113. Okay, is that it now?

Because first you say there's all this proof, and you think it's a corker, and you're obviously pretty angry at the fact I'm wiping the floor with you, and frankly, I don't think you are up to a serious debate. You seem to have a lot invested in the result.

Because here's the thing: if all you have is one statement from a guy who wrote a thousand pages about his life and personal philosophy, who spoke for hours without notes, then yeah, you failed.

One quote that isn't really clear what he meant. Clearly, being a catholic didn't mean doing any of the things catholics do. Does it mean believing in the things catholics believe, including jesus? Nobody knows. Nobody asked.

One has to wonder why, if this person always was or always will be a catholic, there's ONLY this one statement. I suppose if somebody ever bothered to give the context, we'd know. To whom did he say it, in response to what?

And why did he never, ever, ever ever ever say it twice? Let's see, he was leader from 1933 to 1946........and we know more about the man's balls than see of this supposed catholicism. He was a vegetarian. He didn't drink beer. That's documented.

The guy wasn't some archeological dig of a city three thousand year old where a shard of pottery has to be extrapolated. He's the most biographed man on the planet, ever, from fifty years ago.

And that's all you have?

I suppose your point is going to be that Hitler could never mislead anybody. Or that he forgot.

See, here's your thing. You see what you want to see. For example, you've already got me pegged as a christian, which you assumed because you can't imagine why anyone would stand in the way of your little hitler fantasy except a christian. Of course, you also see a freeper, because you can't imagine someone being a christian except a freeper. Six degrees of separation. Bad equals hitler, hitler equals christian, and on and on.

That's why you did the boneheaded move of repeating the cut and paste of that other guy without really reading it. You just read a guy saying he was not hostile to religion and assumed it meant he was christian. How do you make those types of leaps? You got a perception problem.

[Goblinmonger]

118. You did it

Exactly like I fucking said you would. You are given a lot of quotations and you cry that it is too much and I will mock you for not having a "semester class" in the topic. So I pick one and tell you not to whine that it is only one.

You are mocking my debate tactics? Have you ever debated? I mean really debated? Academic debate? If you did, your coach was useless. I have taught college classes in argumentation and debate and have coached teams that have been in the final round of the national tournament. Whenever you want, game on. As for the shit you are doing. Give me a break. I gave you a quotation and AS I SAID IN THE POST, you whined about it being only one. Now I am back at my original point, defend EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THE FUCKING QUOTATIONS IN BMUS' POST. There is your evidence. Each one is by hitler, or about him from the church. Tell me why each and everyone is dumb. See, that is how you debate. One side presents evidence and the other side needs to refute each and every one or it is deemed to be true. Saying "That doesn't prove your point is not enough." YOu need to acutally EXPLAIN why each and every one is not proof of the point.

[Inland]

121. Dude, you're killing me. You want me to prove it FOR you?

All I wanted was for you to not shovel shit at me and expect me to walk you through it. Yet that's what you demand. No, thanks.

Some of the stuff in your dump was so obviously irrelevant that a) you should have been ashamed and b) you should separate out the clear BS yourself.

Nobody told you to limit yourself to anything except to something that could possibly prove Hitler's own belief. If that's what you've got, I'm duly unimpressed.

What ever happened to all that duck walking you were talking about? Do you really think Hitler's walking, talking like a true believer? Or are you picking out a questionable statement out of the life of the most public man in history without context? So far, all I see is the latter.

[Goblinmonger]

124. How much context do you need?

That sounds like an infinitely regressive statement to me. Do I need a couple sentences on each side? Do I need everything he said that day? Do I need the whole week's talking? Month? Maybe I need the entire transcript of everything he said in his life? Ever? Do you see how you are revving your engines getting ready to move those goalposts. Tell me what I need to prove it and we will start there. I don't trust you anymore, speedy.

[Inland]

127. How much would you expect?

I mean, is it too much to ask that you find something consistent with the most biographed human on the planet?

You've taken it upon yourself to prove walking and talking like a duck, and you want to know how many feathers he has to have. Make your case. You aren't complaining about goalposts moving, you are complaining that there are markers at all.

But I guess you really never thought about it before, having believed it first and wondered about evidence later.

[Goblinmonger]

120. OK

are you a christian? I called you a freeper because you come across very clearly as a Christian apologist. That is a tactic/trait of freepers.

And how the hell do you know that I didn't read the post?

I know many christians that aren't freepers. Many on DU, too.

And I'm still laughing about "That's all you have."

[Inland]

122. It's all you'll point out.

If you've got something else, you can either hide it in a dump and pretend it's there for those who want to sort through what is clearly bullshit, or you can bring it up. Your choice.

I'm an apologist for truth. I don't like bad history, bad arguments, and I don't like seeing the same used to beat up on liberal democrats. Other than that, you folks can fight between yourselves over all the angels on the head of a pin stuff.

[beam me up scottie]

123. There's no such thing as an "apologist for truth".

The only time I've ever seen that term used is when it was done to defend the piss poor reasoning of christian apologists.


You refuse to accept historical records that document Hitler's claims maintaining his christian faith and instead rely on your "beliefs" about Hitler.


Sorry, Inland, but your beliefs are not the "truth" and you don't get to redefine christianity in order to exclude Hitler.

[Goblinmonger]

125. OK, go to this website

http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm

Interesting that you use a phrase from one very intolerant, very heinous christian experience. The inquisition. Don't "pin" that one on me. I would have been burned at the stake during those "head on a pin" days.

[Goblinmonger]

165. Nice response to the link to pictures I gave you

That's what I thought you'd have to say.

[beam me up scottie]

112. So calling himself a CHRISTIAN isn't proof?

According to you, we can't believe anyone who claims to be a christian if they don't attend church or label themselves a particular denomination.

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. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow my self to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows . For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people." –Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

[Inland]

108. Yeah, nice try but no dice.

You dump fifty or so quotes from various sources as if they were self explanatory. I picked out two as illustrative of the fact that they are not. Rather than bother to explain how the other forty eight make your case, you just assign me all the work. No, thanks. Either haven't read them once or have read them and have absolutely no clue as to what is evidence of Hitler's belief. That's proven.

Of course, you will assert that my refusal to hold a semester long class on reading comprehension is proof of an aversion to facts. That's why you dumped all that shit in a single post, and why you aren't apologizing for dumping quotes which clearly don't support your proposition.

What would be proof? I dunno, maybe telling me which church Hitler attended. Or his denomination. Or actual quotes from Hitler stating his personal faith in Jesus. Don't blame me that you have a thesis you have no clue how to prove. Just remember that this really is the most biographed man on the planet. Read a book.

[beam me up scottie]

93. Hurt his feelings?

:rofl:I did more than that, I torched his straw fort of anecdotal evidence with irrefutable facts and defiled his wishful thinking with verifiable quotes directly from the annals of history.

Let's see...I think his parting shot after being presented with numerous quotes from Hitler (like the ones in post 25) professing his faith in christianity, went something like this:

Even as taking Hitler at his word (!), he discounts almost all statements.

Even if one is dumb enough to take Hitler at "at his word" with respect to belief, it's clear from the information that you have provided that Hitler's statements professing a faith in christianity number about ONE, from 1920.

All the other statements cited by the proponents of Hitler's belief in christianity do not indicate a personal belief (eg, statements about what is important in german society), or are actually the statements of someone else (party platforms), or are the equivalent of saying "gesundheit".

One would have to wonder about someone who takes a single statement of any politician in a christian country about faith at face value. One has to doubly wonder about someone saying we have to believe Hitler because there's no proof he would ever lie about anything.

But when a person chooses to believe only one of the statements of Hitler, and not any to the contrary, for no reason whatsoever, and further says we can't look at actions at all....one has to conclude that the person trying to limit the inquiry and declare entire categories of empirical evidence off limits doesn't have much interest in the reality of the situation, and has simply an article of faith that causes him to prejudge bad people as christian and vice versa because he's got some sort of cosmic bee.

See, this is nothing new for Inland.

This is hardly the first time he showed his preference for revisionist history by refusing to believe the evidence in front of him.

He still claims that I have only provided him with one quote even after this reply to him in that long ago thread:

Dumb? You're the one who can't count.

Here's ten I pulled just from this thread:

I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."
— Adolf Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941.

"... I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work." Mein Kampf

"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator." Mein Kampf

"We want honestly to earn the resurrection of our people through our industry, our perseverance, our will. We ask not of the Almighty 'Lord, make us free'!-- we want to be active, to work, to agree together as brothers, to strive in rivalry with one another to bring about the hour when we can come before Him and when we may ask of Him: 'Lord, Thou seest that we have transformed ourselves, the German people is not longer the people of dishonour, of shame, of war within itself, of faintheartedness and little faith: no, Lord, the German people has become strong again in spirit, strong in will, strong in endurance, strong to bear all sacrifices.' 'Lord, we will not let Thee go: bless now our fight for our freedom; the fight we wage for our German people and Fatherland.'"
-Adolf Hitler, giving prayer in a speech on May Day 1933


"I believe that Providence would never have allowed us to see the victory of the Movement if it had the intention after all to destroy us at the end."
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech to old members of the Party at Munich on 8 Nov. 1933

"What we are we have become not against, but with, the will of Providence. And so long as we are true and honourable and of good courage in fight, so long as we believe in our great work and do not capitulate, we shall continue to enjoy in the future the blessing of Providence."
-Adolf Hitler, at Rosenheim in Bavaria, 11 Aug. 1935

"In this world him who does not abandon himself the Almighty will not desert. Him who helps himself will the Almighty always also help; He will show him the way by which he can gain his rights, his freedom, and therefore his future."
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech at Hamburg on 20 March 1936

"I believe in Providence and I believe Providence to be just. Therefore I believe that Providence always rewards the strong, the industrious, and the upright."
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech to National Socialist women at the Nuremberg Parteitag of 1936 <11 Sept. 1936>

"If we pursue this way, if we are decent, industrious, and honest, if we so loyally and truly fulfill our duty, then it is my conviction that in the future as in the past the Lord God will always help us. In the long run He never leaves decent folk in the lurch. Often He may test them, He may send trials upon them, but in the long run He always lets His sun shine upon them once more and at the end He gives them His blessing."

-Adolf Hitler, at the Harvest Thanksgiving Festival on the Buckeburg held on 3 Oct. 1937

"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. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow my self to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows . For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people." –Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

And as far as taking a christian at their word, we believe you, don't we?

I guess for some people, putting your fingers in your ears and screaming

"la la la la la la la la - I CAN'T HEAR YOU - la la la la la la la la !!!"
never goes out of style.:evilgrin:

[Dorian Gray]

177. I think that maybe we can come up with a good analogy...

Some people claim that Hitler was as Christian as China today is Communist. There may have been some lip service towards those ideals, and they were both "born" into their condition. But neither of them fufills the average lay person's definition of either. Hitler was a murdering despot who worshipped himself and Germany/Austria (the mother and fatherland) while China is a Capitalistic babe with Socialistic policies. No amount of braying about whether Hitler is Christian or not will change who he was as a person: an evil, murdering monster.

[Goblinmonger]

178. Murdering despot, hmmmm

certainly no place for that in Christianity. Oh wait, the Crusades. And the Inquisition. Bzzzzt, sorry, gonna have to come up with something else that seperates Hitler from Christianity. He said he was a christian. He claimed Christ as a fellow Aryan. He felt that Christ, like himself, was trying to overthrow the ruling Jewish empire of the time (there is even a picture of Hitler with a whip talking about how he liked the destroying the temple story because it was a good metaphor for Christ trying to bring down the Jews). Oh sure, I will say from the get go that it is kind of a fucked up view of the world, but no more fucked up than the Crusades or the Inquisition.

Let's not discount China as Communist unless we want to discount the US as capitalistic. The way of the world right now is that 100% of any economic system will not work. They are still pretty communistic. Don't believe the hype that GHWBush brought communism to it's knees.

Plus I like the "braying" word choice. See that means that I am a jackass without coming out and saying it. Clever.

[Dorian Gray]

193. I didn't say whether he was a Christian or not.

I didn't argue for him not being Christian. I don't think it matters. He was a monster. There are monsters of all stripes. (Christian/Athiest/Jewish/Muslim/Satanist/Wiccan/New-Agist/etc.) My point was that it doesn't matter what he claims himself to be. The only thing he ACTUALLY was was a murderous monster. It has nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with his psyche and his love for the motherland.

[Goblinmonger]

195. But to some extent it does matter

He was a murderous monster because of his religion. He thought he was doing the right things for his savior, Jesus (like the Inquisition and the Crusades). The problem I have with apologists who want to paint Hitler as NOT a Christian is that they do nothing to solve the problem and stop future monsters from doing the same thing in the name of their religion. Which is why we had the Crusades, and then the Inquisition, and then Hitler. What fun is next?

[beam me up scottie]

207. Some christians disagree with you.

They want to posthumously evict him from their faith because they're embarrassed by him.

How many times do you think I had to hear him called an atheist by christian bigots before I got pissed off enough to do some research?

Bad christians aren't atheists.

They're just bad christians.

[jonnyblitz]

279. check out these pics i found of hitler, nazi's and catholic clergy

and other catholic types having a grand old time !!!





interesting site:

The Pictures Tell the Tale: The Vatican and Nazism in Germany and Croatia
http://www.tenc.net/vatican/cpix.htm

[beam me up scottie]

284. I'm sure the resident revisionists will come up with an explanation.

And if they can't come up with one, they'll attack you for posting anti-catholic rhetoric.

[Dorian Gray]

293. I would never claim otherwise...

I think that the offense comes into play when you try to prove that Christianity is bad becuse Hitler claimed he was a Christian. (Personally, from the bit that I've studied of him, he was born into a Catholic family. He later on embraced the Occult, concurrently with some sort of state-sanctioned Lutheran/Catholic hybrid of Christianity. But, he put more love and faith into his Pater-land than his God.

I think it's important that while discussing someone like Hitler (or Stalin), it is not their faith (or lack of) that drives them to jail and murder people of different ethnic backgrounds. They may use faith or God in a way to unite their land (Stalin used denial of God to so), and anybody who was different (in both cases, the Jews) were rounded up, placed in work camps, and murdered.

I think it's really futile to keep arguing about whether Hitler was a Christian/Catholic/Occultist (I don't believe he was an athiest), nor do I think anybody else does. It's about the evils he unleashed into this world. That's the type of evil that we should learn from, but our society is so dense that we keep making the same mistakes that our fathers and mothers made before us.

I can't speak for anybody else other than myself. But, it seems pretty simple. There are monsters in every stripe. I understand the impetus to deny Hitler's Christianity. I, myself, would venture to say that he is no Christian. (Not by what I understand by the idea of Christian.) He had corrupted Christian belief to construct his own religion. One that focused on the superiority of Germanic Aryans as God's chosen people. That, alone, contradicted Biblical teaching. But, I do believe he had some ingrained beliefs in God and in Christ, and corrupted those beliefs to influence his people.

It's what the "bad guys" have been doing to religion since the beginning of time.

[beam me up scottie]

296. And who made that argument? Are you trying to say I did? SHOW ME WHERE

I've just about had it with posters who choose to misrepresent my words and intent because they cannot revise or explain history.


Apologists and revisionists created this issue by lying and distorting the facts, cry me a fucking river if you can't handle the response such actions generate.

[beam me up scottie]

301. Christians who claim inherent moral superiority and try to disown

any christian who might embarrass them are bigots.

As far as I'm concerned, claims of faith don't mean a fucking thing when it comes to morality.

We should all be judged by our actions.

And I resent the hell out of the actions of a few christian bigots who try to claim that bush, Hitler, Fred Phelps or the mechanic down the street who ripped them off aren't good enough to be christian.

Christian is just a fucking LABEL and if some of the so called "liberal" ones on this forum could get past their ignorance and realize what an intolerant viewpoint it is to believe that christians are morally superior to non-christians, I wouldn't have to make this an issue, now would I?

[unschooler]

72. I have no need to prove Hitler was a Christian. The question

arose as part of a discussion about how people are saved under orthodox Christian theology. The point is that the traditional view is that one is saved by belief and damned by unbelief, rather than being saved or damned by good or evil works. If Hitler was a professing (and genuine) Christian, he could be saved, according to this belief system.

Someone suggested that Hitler was in fact a neo-pagan whose beliefs were somehow rooted in Darwinism, and I was responding to that. I did not raise the issue in an effort to demonize Christians. Most of my friends and family are Christians.

As with many politicians, it is difficult to know what Hitler truly believed. What is certain is that he exploited Christianity to legitimize his regime (sound familiar?), and many church leaders and members, both Protestant and Catholic, supported him.

[Inland]

81. Which belief system? You set up a straw man.

Most christians DON'T believe that belief in christianity is a precondition to salavation. The catholics just reaffirmed such last week with the declaration against the concept of limbo.

The discussion goes like this:

Tolerance is good, generally.

But christians think that I am going to hell

And therefore they think I am a bad person

So they started it and I am going to let them have it.

A number of atheists on the board use the fundamentalist tactic of taking offense as the reason why they get a few shots. In the case here, it is the concept that they have been consigned to hell, to which you (maybe inadvertantly) added the additional inflammatory remark that Hitler is not, or may be not. You further add Hitler may be a genuine Christian and imply that his evil works would not damn him under orthodox christianity. Holey fucking moley, if any of that is half true then christianity must be as evil as nazi philosophy and based ENTIRELY on the hatred of atheism. Hitler is saved and can kill millions, the atheist is damned anyway.

In sum, while you may not have sought to demonize christians, you provided the ammunition.
From a couple of theological missteps, a whole world of calumny appears.

[beam me up scottie]

96. What straw man? A christian IN THIS VERY FUCKING THREAD believes that.

Did you just skip over half the posts in this thread on purpose or is it reading comprehension that you have trouble with?

[Zebedeo]

21. Of course

Anyone can. See my post above for instructions.

[beam me up scottie]

26. How can an ATHEIST go to heaven when you said we have to accept god?

2. As I understand it, it is not that God is "willing to send lots of people to eternal torment." God wants every human to love Him and to come to Him. But he gives us each a choice. Unfortunately, lots of people will condemn themselves to the pit.

Now if we were to "love Him and to come to Him", we wouldn't be atheists anymore, would we?

Make up your mind, either we're going to "the pit" or we're not.

[Zebedeo]

36. An atheist CAN go to Heaven

I would suppose that lots of them have. That does not mean that they were still atheistic at the time that they went to Heaven. In fact, the concept of someone having atheistic beliefs while in Heaven doesn't even make sense to me. I don't think that it is going far out on a limb to say that the citizens of Heaven believe in God.

Besides, if a person doesn't even believe Heaven exists, why should s/he care whether s/he goes there or not? :shrug:

[trotsky]

27. That doesn't answer my question.

I'm asking if an ATHEIST can go to heaven.

[Zebedeo]

31. Yes.

All it takes is a change of heart.

[trotsky]

32. Then your answer is no. Quit lying.

An atheist cannot go to heaven, but an atheist who becomes a Christian can.

At least according to you, that is.

[Zebedeo]

33. What do you want?

You want to get into Heaven without following God's plan of salvation? OK, you can try, but you'll have to figure out your own way to get there. Got any ideas?

[trotsky]

35. I just want you to admit your true stance.

That anyone who doesn't believe pretty much as you do, will burn in hell.

[Zebedeo]

37. I have stated my "true stance"

ANY human on the planet Earth (a group which includes all atheists) has the opportunity to accept God's gift of eternal life.

Now, you seem to want to REJECT the gift, yet still RECEIVE the gift. What sense does that make? :shrug:

How can an atheist say to God: "I don't believe You exist, but I want into your Heaven nevertheless. I want to simultaneously (1) persist in disbelieving in You; and (2) receive boundless blessings from You." :banghead:

It just isn't reasonable.

[trotsky]

38. You're mincing words.

Because you don't want to admit exactly what your beliefs state, and that is precisely:

Anyone who doesn't believe pretty much just like you do, is condemned to an eternity of punishment.

You're desperately trying to avoid looking like a judgmental asshole, by pushing responsibility onto the victims - "if only they had CHOSEN to ACCEPT this wonderful gift!"

I'm disgusted.

[Zebedeo]

39. No mincing here

What's really happening is that you are trying to bait me, so that if I say what you want me to say, you can go around saying what a judgmental jerk Zebedeo is. Why do you care so much what I believe? What's it to you? According to you, we are all just worm food, so you should not care a whit what I believe happens when we die.

Besides, I think your claimed beliefs are pretty disgusting, too. Correct me if I am wrong, but don't you believe each of the following?

1. Humans are in their essence no different from animals -- just a little more "evolved."
2. There is no such thing as an objective good or evil.
3. When a person dies, s/he is utterly extinguished, and has no soul or spirit that lives on in any way whatsoever.
4. There is no God.
5. Religion is for saps.

[InaneAnanity]

40. I believe all 5

Proudly. I don't need to pump myself up with false promises. I live in the real world, buddy.

[Zebedeo]

41. Everyone thinks what they believe is true

That's why they believe it. You are no exception.

As for theists "pumping themselves up with false promises," one could as easily say that atheists are falsely promising themselves that they will not be held accountable for what they do in this life.

You think my world-view is a delusion. I think your world-view is a delusion. Where does that get us?

[unschooler]

45. Zeb, I don't agree with you, but I have to say you are unflappable.

I used to believe exactly as you do, so I understand where you are coming from, and I know you aren't trying to be a judgmental jerk. (A terrific person but not yet enlightened is my take if you want to know the truth.)

I think you're wrong, but I like you! :headbang:

[Zebedeo]

53. Thanks

I like you too. :toast:

[funflower]

78. But some world-views are based on evidence, and some are based on

stories that are accepted despite the absence of evidence. How can one be delusional for NOT believing in something that is not observable and for which there is no concrete evidence? And how can a just God hold people accountable (indeed, torture them for eternity!) for not believing in this non-observable thing for which there is no evidence?

[trotsky]

47. Baiting? No, just trying to get you to admit the truth.

You believe I'm going to hell. You believe all atheists are going to hell. You believe that Hindus, Muslims, and Jews are going to hell. But the liberal in you doesn't want to confront that directly, so instead you have to parse that belief into this "choice" that we all have, as if A) we were all as convinced as you of the need to make this choice, and B) we could see why this choice would make one iota of difference. If you can blame the victim for "choosing" their horrible fate, then you don't have to confront the idea that your god actively punishes them. For eternity.

Other people don't see the world as you do, Zeb. Other people take a look at this god you believe in and it runs counter to every moral fiber in their body. Even if you could convince me that your god exists, AND that the rules work that way, I could never believe in what I see to be a horribly evil entity.

No finite human being deserves infinite punishment. Not even Dick Cheney. There is a point at which punishment ceases to be penance, and instead becomes cruelty. With an infinite sentence, you're guaranteed to reach that point.

I will fight your concept of god as long as I live.

[MikeH]

49. Well said, and to the point

I myself am not an atheist, but I reject the belief that anybody who, for whatever reason, does not acquire a particular faith in this lifetime is going to go to hell for all eternity. I will not believe that Hindus, Muslims, and Jews are going to hell for all eternity because they happen to adhere to the wrong religion. I.e. they simply guess wrong.

No finite human being deserves infinite punishment. Not even Dick Cheney. There is a point at which punishment ceases to be penance, and instead becomes cruelty. With an infinite sentence, you're guaranteed to reach that point.

I fully agree. I do believe in accountability, but not in eternal torment. A God who would send people to be tormented for all eternity has a character like that of Adolf Hitler.

I find it interesting to note that Hitler was concerned with racial purity, and the fundamentalist Christian God is concerned about purity from sin. Both are offended by impurity.

[MikeH]

52. I want to add

I do want to add that I personally do not accept or believe the 5 points mentioned by Zebedeo that atheists would believe. Or at least for right now. They might possibly be true anyway, whether I like it or not, but I have problems accepting them.

Actually I am not certain if the difference between animals and humans is a fundamental difference or just one of degree. The jury is out for me about that. However I have do trouble with the others. Or at least I do personally. And, as I said above, I am not an atheist.

Otherwise I feel as I posted above.

[Zebedeo]

55. God stooped down

to help all of us up. He got Himself dirty to cleanse us of our filthy, rotten sins. And you complain that He is "concerned about purity from sin"?:wow:

You compare God to Hitler? That's cold, man. Seriously.

God has no sadistic desires. God wants everybody to be saved. But if He made salvation automatic for everyone, then there would be no spiritual free will. God could have made us all automatons, programmed not to sin. But then all He would have living with Him for all eternity in His House would be a bunch of robots. He would be, in every meaningful sense, alone.

So He made mankind in His own image. This does not mean that there is a physical resemblance; it means that we are free actors, just like He is. We are free, individual spirits, who can choose to accept God's gift or reject it. We each have a whole lifetime to make our choice.

[Silent3]

71. I see, only an Eternal Lake of Fire ensures free will. Yup.

That makes sense!

Let's see. I truly believe that I'm making a choice between eternal paradise and eternal torment. Do this accept Jesus thing, get paradise. Don't do it, be tortured forever. Ah, yes... the stunning "freedom of choice" there makes me feel all tingly with love. All the freedom of having a gun pointed at your head, and more!

So the world is filled with masochists of such an extreme nature that they're freely choosing eternal torment, because, gosh darn it, that must be deep down what they really want! I know, I know, it's very puzzling behavior to you why so many people don't go for the paradise option, but, like Rummy says, free people are free to do bad things. :eyes:

[unschooler]

73. How do you know what it means to be created "in God's image"?

So He made mankind in His own image. This does not mean that there is a physical resemblance; it means that we are free actors, just like He is. We are free, individual spirits, who can choose to accept God's gift or reject it. We each have a whole lifetime to make our choice.

This was one of those questions that bugged me when I was a Christian, and it still bugs me. "In His image" is one of those phrases that everyone seems to feel free to interpret to me whatever works at the moment. There is no basis, scriptural or otherwise, for interpreting in any specific way whatsoever.

[Zebedeo]

166. Good question

I believe that "in His image" refers to humans having free will to make moral choices, including the ability to obey or disobey God (which, for me, means to behave morally or immorally). Why do I interpret "in His image" this way?

Well, I don't think "in His image" could mean a physical resemblance, because the Bible says that God created both man and woman "in His image." Plus, there are so many different appearances of humans. Also, God would have no need for many of the body parts that we have, so it doesn't make sense to me that God is a corporeal, physical organism who looks like a man. (although I do believe that Jesus lived on Earth as a man, and that He was and is God the Son - fully and completely God, and fully and completely man). John 4:24 says that "God is spirit."

I also believe that "in His image" refers to mankind's ability to make moral choices, because mankind is the only creature that has this ability. This, to me, is obvious, and I am fascinated by Goblinmonger's contrary view, which holds that animals, including penguins, can behave morally or immorally.

So the aspect of man that sets man fundamentally apart from all other creatures is, to me, the ability to obey or disobey God. I, for example, do not believe that a housecat is behaving immorally when it plays with a mouse for an hour before killing it, or that a pack of wolves is immoral when they single out the old, sick and weak for killing. To me, these are preposterous notions. The reason they are preposterous is that an animal lacks the ability to obey or disobey God. They have no concept of God, and they simply act in accordance with their nature. Thus, they are neither moral nor immoral.

What do you think "in His image" means? I would be interested in knowing how others interpret this passage, and why.

[Crunchy Frog]

185. You're basing your opinion of what a biblical passage means

on what "makes sense" to you, rather than what the literal word of God is? You think that you're free to interpret passages according to your own human judgement instead of simply trusting the whole thing as the divine, revealed word of God?

You do realize that there are people who would condemn you to an eternity in Hell for that. They would say the you are choosing to reject God and are in turn choosing Hell for yourself. Are they right? Will God condemn you to Hell simply for failing to believe the right things? If so, who is it who knows exactly what it is that you have to believe in order to get into Heaven, and how is it that they know?

[Zebedeo]

189. I do trust the Bible as the Word of God

But the phrase "in His image" is ambiguous in its meaning. Therefore, it requires interpretation. "Image" can mean many things.

Interpretation of Scripture is a field of study to which some people devote their entire lives. There are some basic principles, such as "Scripture interprets Scripture." I do not claim to be an expert on interpretation of Scripture. I am open to being persuaded that the phrase "in His image" means something else than what I believe.

who is it who knows exactly what it is that you have to believe in order to get into Heaven, and how is it that they know?

There are three persons who know:

1. The Father,
2. The Son, and
3. The Holy Spirit.

Beyond those three, it is hard to say who "knows." All us humans can really say is what we believe, and why we believe it.

[Goblinmonger]

192. So a question for you

Somewhat serious, though not something I haven't thought about.

If the Bible is the word of God, and God wants us to follow his word lest we be cast into the eternal fire, why the hell (ha: pun) didn't he make it more clear want we needed to do? Why did he leave so much "open to interpretation?" Why did he have people write things that so clearly lead A LOT of people to the persecution of gays, women, non-believers, etc. Unless that is what "he" wanted?

[MikeH]

74. You did not answer one of my objections

I note that you did not say anything about what I and trotsky said about people of other religions. I get the impression that you believe that people of other religions will go to hell for all eternity, because they happen to guess wrong. If trotsky and I were mistaken about that I would think you would have wanted to correct us on the matter. So correct us if we are wrong.

And if we are not mistaken, then it seems like you believe that somebody who happens to adhere to the wrong religion is choosing to reject God's gift. And somebody who in this life never hears of Jesus Christ chooses to reject God's gift.

And whatever you say, I still believe that eternal, never ending torment (as opposed to annihilation) is sadistic. The Bible writers were fallible just like everybody else, and I understand that people still had some barbaric ideas about justice at the time. I am not going to believe that something has to be true just because the Bible says it (and the Bible is God's infallible word and must not be questioned or challenged).

[Zebedeo]

169. I don't want to be rude or to hurt anyone's feelings

I do believe that salvation comes through Jesus Christ. I also believe that rejecting that way, provided by God's supreme sacrifice, in order to try to "earn" one's way into heaven by one's own merit is folly -- dangerous folly.

Many Christians today, and throughout history, have become missionaries, and have given their lives in an attempt to bring the Gospel to, as you put it, "somebody who in this life never hears of Jesus Christ."

I have a number of relatives, friends and acquaintances who are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and atheist. I pray for their salvation.

As I have said elsewhere in this thread, it is up to God who is admitted into His Heaven. I do not presume to substitute my own independent judgment for His. I am merely stating what was stated by Jesus Christ Himself: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

To me, this is a statement of Truth, and I will not contradict that Truth just to be ecumenical. It is either true or false, and I believe with all my heart that it is true.

[trotsky]

170. In other words,

"I'm not judging you, Jesus is judging you. I'm just telling you what Jesus thinks, because I've interpreted the bible correctly and you haven't."

I can really feel the love of Christ dripping from your posts, Zeb. :sarcasm:

[MikeH]

97. I see that I scored

And you complain that He is "concerned about purity from sin"?

Not so much complain as to get in a little dig. And by your reaction I obviously scored.:P

[Zebedeo]

54. Interesting pop psychoanalysis!

I guess you've got me all figured out. :sarcasm:

Other people don't see the world as you do, Zeb.

Yes, I know that. When did I ever say that they did?

Other people take a look at this god you believe in and it runs counter to every moral fiber in their body.

Where do you think those "moral fibers" come from? Hint: It starts with "G" and ends in "d."

I could never believe in what I see to be a horribly evil entity.

Evil as judged by what standard? I thought you didn't believe that there was such a thing as "good" and "evil."

I will fight your concept of god as long as I live.

Well, fight the good fight, brother. It seems like tilting at windmills to me, but we all have free will. That's part of the plan. :)

[trotsky]

59. Actually, you're pretty easy to pin down.

Self-righteous attitude, holier-than-thou approach, yeah, all the signs are there.

I do hold out some hope for you, if you're really a liberal and not just poking around over here trying to save poor misguided liberal souls. Because if you stick around DU long enough, and read enough posts outside of the Religion & Theology forum, you might just pick up a little bit of tolerance. And maybe, just maybe, recognize the flaws in the line of thinking that says "Anyone who doesn't believe just like me is choosing to be punished forever in hell."

Good luck, Zeb.

[funflower]

79. A lot of people who are more moral than the God of the Bible.

Where do you think those "moral fibers" come from? Hint: It starts with "G" and ends in "d."

Here's some of that excellent moral fiber for ya.


http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%207:17-23%20;&version=31;

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2019:24;&version=31;

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2022:2-13;&version=31;

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus%2012:12;&version=31;

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus%2021:17;&version=31;

Do I need to go on?

[Zebedeo]

164. You seem to be hung up on God's wrath

You view God's wrath as evil. I do not.

By the way, do you believe that an objective "good" and an objective "evil" exist?

If not, how can you even say that God's wrath is "evil"? How can you say that anything is evil? If good and evil are merely subjective feelings of each individual person, then each person's POV would be as valid as any other person's.

If you do believe in an objective "good" and "evil," please disclose the objective source for them.

[Goblinmonger]

50. I, too, believe in all 5

here are some of my specific thoughts.

1. "evolved?" Why the quotation marks? Are you an ID person? The concept of us being a "little more 'evolved'" encompasses a lot, though, as it relates to thought processes.
2. where is your "objective" good/evil coming from? The bible? That book is so full of contradictions it should be making your head spin. Your church leaders? Look at how many church leaders are complete assholes.
3. though I agree, I would say that the memory we leave behind in some way could be construed as a "spirit" though not in "Oooooohhhh, I'm a ghost" sort of way or in the "where does my soul go now" sort of way. We can make the world a better place during our lifetime. That legacy lives on. When I bit it, my kids will carry on the person I was, and their kids as well (in some small part). Bush's kids are assholes because he is an asshole. My kids rock because I rock.
4. I got nothing here. Speaks for itself.
5. I would not call you a "sap," yet. Though, yes, I do think it is something we create to try and make our lives easier and take control out of our hands. Additionally, it is often used to control people, so the sap thing works there.

If I'm wrong about all this (which I'm not), I hope the devil is the devil from Paradise Lost cause that guy kicks ass. I could party with him.

[Zebedeo]

56. Oh, man, I have so much to say

and so little time.

Are you an ID person?

Yes. And on the issue of the difference between humans and animals, I think there is a HUGE fundamental difference. Animals are not capable of being "good" or "evil," "moral or "immoral." Humans are. Animals are programmed to do what comes naturally. They don't make moral choices. Humans are way special. We kill animals and eat them. We don't do that to humans; it's unthinkable. Why do you suppose that is? These are the first things that pop into my mind about the fundamental differences between humans and animals. I could go on and on.

where is your "objective" good/evil coming from?

From God.

My kids rock because I rock.

Well, it is true that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, most of the time. But I don't think that we can call that a universal truth. I saw Jeffrey Dahmer's mom interviewed on TV, and she seemed pretty normal. She has no idea why Jeff became a monster. But I get your point here, and I think it is true a lot of the time.

I got nothing here.

So true. That's the sad part. :(

would not call you a "sap," yet.

Thanks. I appreciate that.

If I'm wrong about all this (which I'm not), I hope the devil is the devil from Paradise Lost cause that guy kicks ass. I could party with him.

Oh, nooooooo! Do not be deceived. Milton was a devout Protestant. He made Satan look cool in order to cause people to be revulsed at their own admiration of him. Satan is a tempter, and a liar of the first order. That's why he is called the "Father of Lies." Satan will lead you to believe that Hell would not be so bad. Don't believe him. It's a trick.

[Goblinmonger]

60. I'll try to keep this organized to your pattern

1. Humans are animals. Period. We have a more developed (read: evolved) brain which allows us to have meta-cognition. Other than that, we ain't such hot shit.

"Animals are programmed to do what comes naturally."
a. Remember this is under the "humans are animals" answer.
b. And human animals are not programmed in such a manner? We don't have instincts? We have to think about the basic mechanics of sex? We don't blink if something is flying toward our eyes? We don't have the fight or flight mechanism? Again, we have meta-cognition which makes us a little more capable of controlling our base insticts.

"Animals are not capable of being "good" or "evil," "moral or "immoral.""
a. Again, we are animals.
b. Have you not observed higher primates. Watch the discovery channel sometime; there is great stuff about the social order of gorillas and other primates.
c. Watch March of the Penguins. When a penguin loses a baby, they will sometimes try to steal one from another mother. The group will protect the baby from being stolen and physically remove the penguin trying to do the stealing. Sounds pretty "good" and "moral" to me.

"Humans are way special. We kill animals and eat them."
a. We are special because we kill other animals and eat them. Yippee.
b. Speak for yourself--I am a vegetarian (though this goes against the old testatment because we are told that god put animals on earth for us to eat).

"We don't do that to humans; it's unthinkable."
a. There are cannibals in the world.
b. Most non-human animal species also have a taboo against cannibalism.

2. How do you know what is "objectively good?" Where do you get the information? Does God talk to you? If so, record it sometime, I'd like to hear his voice. I always imagine it is like James Earl Jones (though I secretly hope it is like PeeWee Herman). If it is from the Bible, I return you to my original point which is that the Bible is so full of contradictions about what is good that your head should be spinning.

3. Jeffrey Dahmer is the way he is because his brain is wired a different way than the rest of us. Ironically, he provides a good counter-example to the "we don't eat other people" bit above. Why would god design a brain that could go so damned hay-wired as Dahmer's?

4. Don't feel sad for me and my statement that there is no god. I am a very happy person, and, I believe, I am much more "moral" and "good" than a lot of people I know that are Christian and believe in heaven and hell. If your god is real and is going to take those assholes (and I'm not just talking about fundies) into heaven and not me just because I did not "praise" him and "recognize" him on a daily basis, then he is a jealous, vindictive prick, and I would not want anything to do with him even if he did exist.

5. I'm not fooled by Satan. Why? Because he's not real. He is just a story. (I also think I could hang out with the South Park satan, though.) And don't be so sure about your interpretation of Milton. He makes god look like a pretty big asshole in Paradise Lost if he is just trying to make a point.

[Zebedeo]

62. Your beliefs about animal morality/immorality are interesting

Watch March of the Penguins. When a penguin loses a baby, they will sometimes try to steal one from another mother. The group will protect the baby from being stolen and physically remove the penguin trying to do the stealing. Sounds pretty "good" and "moral" to me.

So, the penguin that tries to "steal" a baby from another penguin is "immoral," and the group protecting the baby is "moral"?

Why aren't all of the penguins "immoral," since they all kill and eat fish? Some of those fish that are being eaten are baby fish!

I guess all predators would be "immoral," as well as all animal parasites, because they "steal" and kill. How about the diabolical ant lion, that sets traps for its prey, and lies in wait to commit murder with malice aforethought!

And don't even get me started on spiders! Evil, evil, evil! Immoral!

For that matter, how about the strangler fig? I guess it is an "immoral" plant, because it "steals" nutrients from its host tree, then kills the host tree.

strangler fig

Deplorable!

The truth is, animals are incapable of being moral or immoral. So are plants. The reason is that morality is obedience to God, and immorality is disobedience. Animals and plants have no conception of God, and are unable to obey or disobey Him. That's what sets us apart from the animals.

[Goblinmonger]

64. Are you deliberately being obtuse?

I mean seriously. Substitute "human" for "penguin" in the quotation you take from me and tell me that the "stealing" mother isn't immoral and the "protecting" mothers aren't good and moral. Hell, that story would be a movie of the week for your god's sake. Those protective mothers would be on every damn talk show out there. Katie Curic would fawn over them and talk about how they represent all that is good in humanity, but you dismiss those same actions without a second look just because it involves non-human animals who can't praise your power-hungry god. Take the blinders off and see the wonderful world that has evolved into existance around you.

Secondly, you must then be immoral by your logic because you kill and eat animals. It is survival. I was talking about the actions of animals within their own community and how it is similar to that of human animals. Humans are not the only animals capable of doing good.

Finally, I still want to know where you get the rule book for your "obedience to God," cause if it is the bible (and I seriously don't know what the hell else it could be) you have SERIOUS problems. You have never answered the question of how you get around all the contraditions in the bible. What about all the horrible shit it says it is ok to do? I can hate (and even kill) gays and I am A-OK by the bible. I can sell my daughter into slavery and the bible says "atta way big guy." I can make my wife shut up and serve me (by abuse if need be) and god still loves me cause the bible tells me so.

And one last thing. Thanks for calling ME immoral. I am sure that you will not be chastised by the mods for that like I would if I said it about a theist, but at least you still can't escape that judgmental side of your religion as much of an apologist as you try to be. And in case you are sputtering and wondering when you ever said that, here it is: "morality is obedience to God, and immorality is disobedience" Just because I don't believe in and worship your god, I am defacto, prima facia immoral. Nice set of rules you got there. Don't you see that there is no difference what you say about me being immoral and condemned to hell than the fundies say about you because you don't engage in their particular brand name of christianity. You are just as judgemental as they are. You will deny it, but I hope many others see it to be true.

[CarbonDate]

69. Said it better than I could....

...mostly because I haven't the patience to write out anything long. There's beer to drink.

+4

[Zebedeo]

70. Well, you are taking this off on a tangent

You still haven't answered my question:

"Why aren't all of the penguins "immoral," since they all kill and eat fish? Some of those fish that are being eaten are baby fish!"

If you think animals are capable of being moral or immoral actors, you have a lot of explaining to do.

Is a cat "immoral" if it chases, catches, and plays with a mouse before killing it?
I'm sure you would say that a person was immoral for doing the same to another person. Wouldn't you?

Is a wolfpack immoral because it targets the old, the young and the sick for brutal killing?
I'm sure you would say that a group of humans was immoral for doing the same to another person. Wouldn't you?

How about a Mynah bird, who steals the eggs of other birds?
I'm sure you would say that a person was immoral for stealing the offspring of another person. Wouldn't you?

You say that it is only intraspecies actions that can be classified as "moral" or "immoral"?

OK, then I guess some baby birds are immoral because when they hatch, they try to push their siblings out of the nest.

And males of many species try to kill each other over territory or access to females. Is this murder?

If you think so, you should be out there trying to stop the carnage!

Truly, this is a ridiculous notion, that animals are moral or immoral actors.

But if you really think so, please address the above examples.

Now, to your tangent:

You are offended because I define morality as obedience to God. Well, there is an objective standard, because otherwise any moral rules would be no better than any other moral rules. Surely you don't believe that. That would mean that those who said that torture, rape and murder are "good" would be objectively no less moral than those who said that helping the poor is good.

So we know that there is an objective standard of morality. And there is only one possible source for the objective standard - by definition, since any standard thought up by humans for themselves would be subjective. The only conclusion is that the true standard of morality comes from God.

As I see it, if you are making up your own moral rules as you go along, what are the chances that they are right?

You ask how I know what God says is moral? From reading His Word, from letting His Spirit indwell me, and from accepting Christ into my heart.

What about all the horrible shit it says it is ok to do?

Horrible as judged by what standard? Where did you get that standard?

I can hate (and even kill) gays and I am A-OK by the bible.

No, you can't. Jesus said "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

I know of only one person in the entire world who claims to be a Christian and yet seems to hate gays - the awful Fred Phelps. And I think he is mentally ill, and/or perhaps internally tormented over his own sexual desires.

I have attended Christian churches since 2001, and have never heard the pastor or any congregant say anything remotely indicating that they hate gays.

Thanks for calling ME immoral.

As you know, I didn't call you immoral. If you do not murder, you are obeying God's law. If you do not steal, you are obeying God's law. If you do not covet, you are obeying God's law. If you do not bear false witness, you are obeying God's law.

So you can be "moral" by obeying God's law, even if you don't believe in Him.

You might be a pretty moral person - I have no way of knowing. So I wouldn't call you immoral.

I do, however, believe that we are all sinners. We have all disobeyed God at one time or another.

You are just as judgemental as they are.

Making that statement is itself judgmental, don't you see?

I try not to judge, because the Word tells me "Judge not, lest ye be judged." I do not consider myself to be in a position to judge you or other atheists. It is for God to judge, not me.

[Goblinmonger]

88. If you could take the logical leaps you make and translate

that into the long jump, you would, undoubtably, win a gold medal at the olympics in 2008.

First of all the animal thing. I have said from the beginning that we are different than non-human animals (I don't understand why you continually deny that we are animals--what the hell are we then?). It is called meta-cognition. Somebody else here called it our ability to storytell. He and I are talking about the same thing. We have the ability to discuss our actions, ponder them, and make decisions about them. My point has soley been that there are a lot of actions in the non-human animal kingdom that are clearly what you would consider moral and good in humans. Speaking of not answering, why don't you talk about substituting "human" for "penguin" in my example? All of those things that you list as immoral in non-human animals, humans do as well. Playing with prey, targeting the old prey, stealing "eggs," hurting siblings, male dominence--they all occur. We just have the metacognition to talk about them. Do you think all of those things happen in the non-human animal kingdom without repercussion? Don't others try to stop the stealing of eggs, the dominance of males, the stealing of baby penguins? Isn't that moral?

"The only true standard of morality comes from God." That is your amazing gold-medal winning leap of logic. That WAAAAYYYYYY begs the question. It's "obvious" it comes from god. Holy crap. What about before the bible? Were people killing each other willy-nilly? Did we have no clue about what holds us together? What about those cultures that existed without your god? How the hell did the native americans possibly survive long enough without your moral standard (so clearly :sarcasm: given by your god) long enough to be genocided by Christians? They should have killed each other off long before God-fearing Americans brought them small pox blankets. How about the Chinese. Biggest fucking country in the world. Absolutely no morals. :sarcasm:

You don't think there are Christians that hate gays. Come out of your room Pollyanna and take a fucking look around. See all the gay marriages? See all the people that aren't afraid to declare their homosexuality for fear that some christain redneck will beat the shit out of them? NO YOU DON'T because our Christain nation holds them down.

Yeah, you're not judgemental. That's a good one. There is still a tear running down my cheek from laughing so hard. You tell me I am going to hell because I am an atheist, but you don't judge. Nice one, Shecky.

On edit: I can be judgemental, I'm not a christain. :evilgrin:

[Inland]

84. I don't get the pissed off part. You are only "immoral " under his rules.

You don't accept the rules, and therefore you don't accept the conclusion. So?

I could see somebody getting angry if they were being told that they are immoral in some sort of personal attack, but he isn't even being rude enough to put the conclusion to you directly, you have to go looking for it. I'm not even sure he sees atheists as going to hell, necessarily. Maybe you can draw it as the inescapable conclusion, but don't thank him for calling you immoral as if he threw it in your face and you now get to give it some in return.

The posts in this thread said that there is a distinction between an attack on the belief and an attack on the believer, and another post that said it's a distincition without a difference. Here's a pretty clear example of that, in that the poster can't possibly have a system of ethics that makes everone moral, and therefore somebody gets left out. Ethics and morality can't give everyone and everything a trophy.

The key difference is whether somebody is looking for a reason to be insulted and an excuse to be outraged, and give a goodly number of insults. You looked pretty damn hard.

And the penguins are just penguins.

[trotsky]

85. How neat.

Given the choice of confronting an intolerant Christian or an insulted atheist, you of course bash the atheist.

[Goblinmonger]

87. Well how about this one?

Christianity is the root of so many shitty things in this world. Anyone who believes in Christ or claims to be a Christian is supporting an institution that is bent on evil and destruction of those that will not give their support and money to them.

Pretty shitty thing to say, huh? If I started a thread like that, I would be tombstoned in a heartbeat. Yet, never once did I call anybody out specifically on this board. Yet the person you are defending said that every atheist is going to hell unless they, well, um, are not longer an atheist. And nothing happens to that person. So can you see why this is insulting to me? I get your point. There is not hell, so I really don't care. And I don't. Really, I just file this away under "religious nuttiness" and not change anything in my lifestyle. But the point is that somebody on a progressive web site feels that regardless of anything else, I am immoral and doomed to swim in the lake of fire for no other reason than my "religious" affiliation or lack thereof. Sounds a lot like my hypothetical at the top. Sounds a lot like the right-wing fundies we mock so easily.

And watch March of the Penguins and tell me penguins are just penguins.

[Inland]

91. Actually, I don't see how it is insulting to you.

You are being judged inadequate on a belief system that you supposed don't give a fig about. Other religions have you going to hell for eating pork, or not being washed in a certain river.

Now, the person I am defending, if telling the truth is defending, isn't consigning you to hell for atheism, but what if he were? In fact, limiting the reasons why you are damned to the one thing that you feel confident is not immoral, be it belief or pork or not going to church on Easter, SHOULD bother you the least. It's not that someone is calling you generally immoral, or even throwing it in your face.

By the way, posts like the ones your describe are a dime a dozen. But in the posts you got, you had to work pretty hard to read a condemnation made out special for you.

And I saw the movie, and they are still just penguins.

[Goblinmonger]

98. Wow

It is insulting to me because I am being judged by someone solely on the basis of my lack of a belief system. Not who I am, not what I do. That is intolerance. If I started a thread that said "All christains suck" or "Muslims are assholes" the thread, rightfully, would be locked and I would hope that the user would be tombstoned. But, say the same thing about atheists and you get all kinds of apologists like you.

OK liar liar pants on fire. You show me the links to posts that said exactly what I said. It's time to put up or shut up. Now.

[Inland]

99. Bad analogies. And making shit up.

You aren't being judged in any manner except a belief system, which, last I knew from all the posts about how the gloves should come off for christians, was still okay.

Therefore nobody is saying you suck, or that you are an asshole. Or I guess you could post a link to the traumatizing event. What they are saying is, at most, that your lack of belief, your eating of pork, and your failure to wash in the Ganges is bad.

If you want to extrapolate that into some sort of vicious insult as the natural conclusion, and then further want to pretend that I'm apologizing for an insult that never occurred and would not if it had, well, you have venturned into the land of believing what you want and expecting your feelings to be given validity because you feel them strongly. I think that's where you wanted to be in the first place: pretending offense. I call bullshit.

[Goblinmonger]

100. Logical fallacies falling out your ass. And being an obtuse prick.

Just watch. My post will get probably get deleted for that while your almost identical subject line will still be around.

You can tell me atheism is a stupid world view. I will argue with you all day about that. I have no problems with that. You can tell me there are atheists in the world that are pricks (as long as they are REALLY atheists and not the people on this forum that say Hitler was an atheist) and I will argue your point or accept the fact.

Tell me that I am going to be doomed to an eternity in a lake of fire (or that I am immoral, or that I should shut about about seperation of church and state) with little demons poking me just because I don't worship your god (and for no other reason) and that is being an emormous judgemental son-of-a-bitch. If you don't see that, then pull our head out of your ass. The post did not say that it was "bad" to be an atheist. That I would have just rolled my eyes at. It said an eternity of heinous torture (funny that the punishment that Christians want to dole out is something we are fighting against). Again if you don't see the difference between "bad" and "torture" then I am sorry for arguing with you, you were obviously dropped on your head as a child.

I am offended. I am offended at you for not recognizing that a fellow christian was a bastard. Instead, you twist your logic in all kinds of "ungodly" shapes to claim he wasn't "REALLY A TRUE" Christian. There are Christians that are bastards. Get over it. I suppose Falwell, Frist, Santorum, Alito are all not REALLY Christians. Until you learn to deal with the evil in your midst, I don't know how you can deal with anything else as a religion.

And you're calling bullshit? Listen Hector Projector, I told you to post a link to the specific entries that say that all christians are assholes. You even told me that they are a dime a dozen. Yet you haven't given me jack. Stop calling bullshit on me (about MY reasons for being offended, by the way, not what I said others said) until you deal with your own issues of bearing false witness.

[Inland]

102. Working so hard to be offended. Now its me.

This isn't Oprah, so nobody is going to validate your feelings just because you keep turning them up a notch, and making up more shit doesn't make the previous shit anything more than it was, and Frist and Santorum and evil in my midst as people deserve your anger has nothing to do with me. Or the poster.

[Goblinmonger]

104. What am I making up?

My feelings of being offended? Let me check...........nope, I say that I am offended; I wasn't making shit up.

But you know what? You still haven't shown me one post where the same thing was said about Christains. That needs to be the next thing you do. Otherwise, cork it.

[Goblinmonger]

157. Since you corked it

in response to my post, I will assume that you have no such posts of anyone saying that about Christians. Funny that you said they were



Too bad you couldn't find one.

[Zebedeo]

158. I guess I am the "bastard" to whom you are referring

I am offended at you for not recognizing that a fellow christian was a bastard.

Oh, and I almost forgot:

an emormous judgemental son-of-a-bitch.

And the reason you call me a "bastard" and a "son-of-a-bitch is that I called you "immoral." Only I never did call you "immoral." In fact, just the opposite occurred. I said that I would NOT call you immoral, because for me, morality is obedience to God's laws, and for all I know, you do obey many of God's laws, even if you do not acknowledge that He exists.

Frankly, I would rather get back to discussing the interesting question you raised about animal morality/immorality. It is much more likely to lead to a productive discussion than name-calling is. Name-calling never accomplishes anything. At best, it is a waste of time; at worst, it reinforces hatred and leads to personal destruction.

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1

[Goblinmonger]

163. Let me clarify

The bastard I was referring to was Hitler, not you.

The son-of-a-bitch I was referring to was a juiced-up hypothetical of you, but not you.

I have no problems with you. I think your views are a little scary, but you seem like a good person. Please don't think that my rhetoric was aimed at you, it was clearly for Inland.

Have you seen March of the Penguins? You should. We can talk about it when you do. Let me know when you do and I will start a thread about animal morality in here so that we don't have to wade through all of this stuff.

[hunter]

65. It's sort of a good dog, bad dog thing right?

My dog knows very well when she is being disobedient...

I frankly don't see much difference between human social behaviors and animal social behaviors. Humans are very much like penguins, or dolphins, or wolves, or any other moderately intelligent social animal.

The thing that "sets us apart from the animals" is our storytelling, most especially our written stories. (Do dolphins or other animals tell stories? We don't really know.)

You can define your own morality as "obedience to God," but it's wildly inappropriate to apply this definition of morality to other people, especially those who don't believe in your God. The implication that people who do not believe in your God are somehow more likely to be immoral is offensive.

Personally I do not accept authoritarian models of morality. It seems to me that such models are dangeroulsy fragile. After all, who is telling you how to be obedient to God? Do they have any higher standing with God than you do? How do you judge for yourself what is true and untrue, and is this process of judgement within your religion any different than similar secular processes?

As a religious person you may seek the moral guidance of leaders within your church, or you may short-circuit this process and say you are being directly obedient to God in a rational process that takes into account your human social instincts, your life experiences, and your intuition. In both cases the morality you attribute to your "God" may be functionally very similar to the morality of another person who does not believe in your God.

Simply believing in God does not increase one's moral standing. Historically and in current events such beliefs have actually caused people to behave in immoral ways.

It is my own faith that God is True, and that God is Just. If I am to understand God, I do it by exploring what it means to be true and what it means to be just. A belief in my God is not required to explore truth and justice, and it's very possible for people who do not believe in my God to have a more highly developed and robust morality than I do.

[unschooler]

75. Animals do not generally kill and eat their their own kind.

We kill animals and eat them. We don't do that to humans; it's unthinkable. Why do you suppose that is? These are the first things that pop into my mind about the fundamental differences between humans and animals. I could go on and on.

FYI, with the exception of infanticide, animals generally do not kill and eat members of their own species, while carnivores do kill and eat members of other species. In that sense, their "morality" is very similar to our own.

[Silent3]

42. An atheist doesn't say anything of the sort

An atheist does not entreat imaginary beings for imaginary blessings.

An atheist says, "I don't believe in your God. But why do you insist that the price for my lack of belief is some place of internal torment which you imagine is my deserved fate for not believing as you do? How do define this as love and justice from your supposedly 'merciful' God?"

An atheist questions the lumping together of believing in a gift, and being able to receive gift. If you thought television was impossible, I could still give you a television.

An atheist questions the lack of distinction between "accepting Jesus as your Personal Savior" and being in Heaven. Are they both the same thing? If so, why aren't you in Heaven now? If they aren't exactly and precisely the same thing, why must they go together? Them's just the rules?

An atheist questions why the mere lack of a blessing equates to eternal torment. Is the elaborate set-up of an ever-burning literal Lake of Fire which somehow doesn't consume bodies, but does make them suffer horribly forever, the basic underpinning of the Universe, just sort of the way things "have to be" without The Blessing of the Lord to cancel that basic foundational nastiness out?

An atheist questions why you'd want to believe in a God, supposedly all-powerful, who could have constructed the Universe in any way he liked, including the parts where is "blessing" does not pervade, who decides to build a sadistic place of eternal torment, rather than, say, something just a little bit less nice than what the Believers get.

An atheist questions how you can call such a God "loving" and "just", instead of, oh, "psychopathic sadistic tyrant", and dance a semantical dance until the words "love" and "justice" are devoid of meaning to make it all work out for you.

[carl_pwccaman]

77. I reject Hell. Gifts unnecessary.

I think that's more the issue.

To be free from torture, is simply a human right.

I do not desire anything unearned. I have not earned Hell. I do accept gifts that are unearned, and I am grateful.

In no case is belief a requirement for rejecting hell and accepting unearned gifts.

What is good may give freely, without thought of strings attached, or merit. What is good does not inflict torture in Hell. What is good might refrain from giving an unmerited gift, but it would not punish someone in wrath to a sadistic unnatural state that is at odds with the nature/character/what seems natural to a being (Hell)

Without certain notions of Hell, the issue of Heaven or Paradise becomes on of special glory or beauty beyond one's natural state. Such rewards are desirable, if real. An atheist does not think there is any reason to say they are real. In no way would it make any sense to say that an atheist loose what is natural to his being, and in keeping with his own character/essence, simply by doubt, etc., in his own life or in an alleged afterlife. To miss out on something extra, special, and unaturally glorious/beautiful for a mere human being, is to miss out on something, but the loss is not harrowing torture, is not some unaturally depraved existence or anything like that.

What does belief earn? Does correct doctrine about Jesus EARN salvation? If no work of thought/intellect/heart EARNS the reward of Heaven/Paradise, then why would there be such a RESULT for such a state, given that such states of thought/intellect/heart seem to involve works of the thought/intellect/heart, as reported by believers and unbelievers both?

[nemo137]

147. What about the verse where Jesus says

and I'm paraphrasing here:
"Not all those who say to me 'Lord, Lord!' will enter heaven, and some who claim to have never seen me will, for the fed the sick, gave water to the thirsty, visited those in prison, and clothed the naked."

Honestly, that sounds more like the requirement to gain heaven is living a life of pure, altruisitic love than any mere profession of faith to me.

[Zebedeo]

171. The faith has to be genuine

One has to believe it in one's heart, not just profess it with one's mouth.

"For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." Romans 10:10

Not all who say "Lord, Lord" to Jesus really believe on Him in their heart.

[Goblinmonger]

179. How about

Blessed are the poor in spirit for the kingdom of heaven will be their's

[WoodrowFan]

149. sure

I expect (If I go to heaven) to meet Hindus, Moslims, Jews, Buddists, Mormons, etc, and some really surprised atheists..... I simply don't believe in a God that would send pretty much everybody who's not a believer in a specific doctrine to hell. Jesus emphasized that we all need to love our neighbors. I don't recall him adding any conditions to that like the fine print you see on TV ads....

Hey, if I'm right and I see you and BMUS in heaven you can buy me a beer. (if there's no beer, it ain't heaven).

[beam me up scottie]

208. Why thanks, WF.

If there's a heaven, beer will be free.:evilgrin:

[Silent3]

29. No, it's even worse

the theology specifically says that bad people go to Hell and good people go to Heaven

That is NOT what traditional Christianity teaches. Where did you get that, from the movies? That is just not at all what Christians believe.

I think the "faith not deeds" concept is even worse. Of course, what the other poster said is still true if you define...

good = Accept Jesus as your personal Savior
bad = Don't accept Jesus as your personal Savior

A neat, tidy little system where the Infinitely Loving and Just God has set it up so that everything comes down to one little decision, quite apart from how well or how poorly you've treated your fellow humans during your life, whether or not you live in Eternal Paradise or Eternal Sadistic Torment. Seems a little harsh? Well, hey buddy, God gives you your chance, and if you f*ck it up it's not His fault! You were warned, so no whining about the outcome!

Yes, I can see how you'd be upset when people get this wrong. I'd like for everyone to be perfectly clear on how Christianity works too.

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. There's your problem, K4K, you're "thinking"

It's not up to you to "think" this concept is worse. That's been done for you; all you have to do is accept it. If it's good enough for Calvin, it's good enough for everyone, OK?

[Goblinmonger]

51. LOL

I love trotting out Calvin, too. He was such an ass; and the xians have to live with it. I wish I could get all of the humor of the xians that are assholes (note: I didn't say ALL xians are assholes--gotta cover my butt in these testy times) without all the heinous, vile shit that comes with it--like Alito for instance (that's right, I blame theists for him).

[unschooler]

76. I always thought the "salvation" system stopped Christians' spiritual

growth way too soon.

good = Accept Jesus as your personal Savior
bad = Don't accept Jesus as your personal Savior

You go forward, kneel at the alter, accept Jesus as your personal savior, and you're good to go. Sure, you have the option of growing a bit beyond that point, reading the Bible and such. But you can't really look at moral or theological questions with an open mind, because the answers might be too dangerous, since they might threaten your beliefs and hence your ticket out of the lake of fire. You never grow to the point where you are willing to consider the morality of the whole system. Just accepting Jesus as your Savior is way too easy to foster real growth.

[CarbonDate]

67. Oh, right.

We're all bad people in need of "saving". I understand that this is what the Christian theology teaches. You apparently fail to grasp the gap between the Christian theology and what lay-people in the church believe. Ask any lay-person whether a baby who dies before being baptised is going to Hell because he's a wretch who hasn't been saved. Although this is what Christianity teaches, most Christians don't believe this. Most Christians believe that good people go to Heaven and bad people go to Hell.

[sweetheart]

10. Isn't it really a question of truth?

Perhaps its the intent to know the truth, no matter what, no matter if
it means the ending of the world as we know it.

When a zen student approaches the zen master, the master can be quite
intolerant of adharma. But that likely be framed with compassion over
the suffering of another, and criticism dealt out with koan-like
precision and humour.

Most religions suggest not to hang out with the lowlife, in so many
words. Lowlife is usually defined as those who don't realize that
everything in their life is spiritually important. And without that
relization, pearls are grubbed up by swine who see no value in them.
So most religions i've encountered have a way for spiritual persons
to gently excuse themselves. In some religions, it is by judging the
heathens and then trying to convert them. In others, it is just
realizing that suffering is the state of unenlightened life, and no
spiritual remedy will work unless the person themselves realizes the
value. And until then, a million people can pray for someone to
find jesus christ, but that has no power whatsoever to the person
themselves asking for absolution in the lineage of jesus of nazareth.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

12. It's not an either/or thing

Some criticism is intolerance. Not all intolerance is criticism.

I think a better way of phrasing the question is "how far should or shouldn't one go in criticising or being intolerant of beliefs one disagrees with and their holders".

[Goldensilence]

13. perhaps

an example would be better of what you mean by "Some criticism is intolerance. Not all intolerance is criticism.". I'd like an idea of that fuzzy border in your eyes.

I'd really like both sides, believers and athiests, to weigh in on this matter.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

14. Examples:

Saying "All members of group X suck, for theses reasons" is both criticism and intolerance

Refusing to give someone a job is intolerance which is not criticism.

I think what the OP was interested in was justifiable and unjustifiable forms of criticism and disagreement, but I don't think criticism vs intolerance is a good distinction - not all criticism is acceptable, not all intolerance is unacceptable, and it's possible for something to be both or neither.

Essentially, I'm just playing with semantics, rather than saying anything of substance, but in my defence phrasing the question better often helps obtain an answer.

[Goldensilence]

15. I can see these points

Saying "All members of group X suck, for theses reasons" is both criticism and intolerance

I think when it is a personal attack instead of criticism you are right in the meaning of intolerance.

Refusing to give someone a job is intolerance which is not criticism.

I would've liked this better if you extended this to add onto your first statement. Refusing to give a person a job because they are a member of group x is intolerance. With your example it is too broad.

I do agree sometimes whne we are not getting answerssometimes it is best ot rephrase the question :) thanks!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

16. Simple:

Criticism is when I badmouth you beliefs.

Intolerance is when you badmouth my beliefs.

:sarcasm:

[toddaa]

23. Tolerance - I'll buy you a beer but your still a frickin' looney

If you believe in God, you are a frickin' looney. Some God beliefs are loonier than others, but they are all frickin' looney. Anything requiring faith is basically the same as taking an ice pick and jamming it into your brain to short circuit your reasoning. Why anyone would do this is a mystery to me. On the other hand, most people were mentally short circuited by their parents, so I tend to give them a break. Generational abuse is the only reason that religious belief remains popular, so enjoy your parental mindfuck if you must.

Apart from that, if you're down on your luck, I'll buy you a beer. That's tolerance. (Just stay away from my kids. ;))

Hope this helps.

[unschooler]

46. Can I put that on a bumper sticker?

:rofl: :woohoo: :rofl: :woohoo: :rofl: :woohoo: :rofl: :woohoo:

[Inland]

83. Helps me decide to say no thanks to your beer.

Remembering that this is a political site with a aim to the democratic party, and that people really did vote for Bush because they felt that they could better have a beer with an alcoholic than Kerry, your post has plenty of implications.

And stay away from my parents. Regardless of their attempt to mentally short circuit us, they are good people who did a fine job and all their kids love dearly, and I'd rather they not meet anyone who might actually accuse them of child abuse or a parental mindfuck. Just saying.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. Here's how I see it

Criticism: "Belief X makes no sense to me." "Practice X strikes me as being psychologically unhealthy." "Event X was a shameful event in the history of your religion."

Intolerance: "You're a bunch of morons for believing in fairy tales." "You religious people are responsible for all the evil in the world." "How can you stand to be associated with the religion that was responsible for the Crusades?"

[nemo137]

57. Does the second one ever become intolerance?

I can see where saying "Practice X strikes me as being psychologically unhealthy" is not intolerant, but does it cross the line to say "Belief X is psychologically unhealthy?"

[salvorhardin]

58. Where I see that crossing the line

All believers of 'X' are psychologically unhealthy.

[Inland]

82. The difference the the statements are twofold:

One difference goes to beliefs and practices rather than the believer and practitioner, and the other difference is the use of inflammatory language on something personal.

That's why the statement "Those beliefs are stupid" isn't civil, even if technically tolerant. It's the equivalent of "your wife is ugly". It's not calling the husband ugly. It's just calling something he values and thinks is pretty ugly, and not minding your own business.

There's a lot of effort going into convincing people that the beauty of someone else's wife has huge import for them and requires both barrels.

[Silent3]

28. I posted this in another thread, but it fits better here...

...than in a thread about Biblical bears eating children. :)

What is important to me about tolerance is respecting the right to believe as one wishes. It doesn't necessarily follow that I have to respect one's beliefs themselves.

Certainly very few of us restrain ourselves from being strongly critical of political beliefs we oppose. Such criticism is hardly ever constrained by a compulsion to voice all disagreement in the most polite, cautious, and delicate manner. Political debate would be hamstrung by such a tepid approach. Humor, satire, and outright mockery can be completely valid rhetorical methods in a political debate. Such techniques are very useful in pointing out hypocrisy and inconsistency in a strong and emotionally accessible way.

If can accept this much as true in politics, then why do so many act as if we have to have a kid glove approach to religion?

I don't believe that religion occupies any special place in the marketplace of ideas. I believe in freedom of religion, but I also believe equally in freedom of political and philosophical beliefs and practices, such that all of these things should be as free as possible, to the greatest degree that all can enjoy an equal degree of freedom.

As long as I respect the civil liberties of all people, regardless of faith, what's the problem with voicing disrespect for the ideas themselves which some of these people profess? In fact, given that many religious practitioners haven't the slightest qualm about criticizing my lack of religious belief, or about criticizing my political beliefs, in the fiercest and most derogatory terms (How much more disrespectful can you be of another person's beliefs than to claim those who disagree with one's own views deserve eternal torment?), why should I be limited in any way in my rhetorical responses?

Walking on eggshells when it comes to criticism of religion gives religion a special privileged and protected place in the marketplace of ideas which I don't think it deserves, and which can only come at the expense of my own philosophical positions in the realm of public debate. I'd venture to guess that one big reason why religion is so strong in the US is that nonbelievers have been far too timid about forcefully promoting their own ideas, over-cautiously respecting the sensibilities of believers at the expense of their own positions.

[dmallind]

48. Let's put it this way

If we question where the difference between criticism and intolerance lies from a political angle perhaps it will make more sense, since there should at least be shared understanding of politics here.

Why is it that fully half of all voters would not vote for a member of their party who agreed with them on all issues but who was also an atheist?

Why is that 50% greater than any other "would not vote for in any event" category? (gays are the distant second somewhere in the low 30s) Why is it orders of magnitude greater than those who would dismiss outright any of the traditionally despised groups - Jews, Catholics, Blacks, Women, Mormons?

Let me give you a clue - it sure as heck ain't "criticism".

And don't tell me that 50% is all Republican and the enlightened Dems would happily vote for an atheist! Why is there not ONE single open atheist in national office? I have never heard of one in statewide office either although it's possible one may exist. Why not one nominee? If Dems were the "tolerant" half it wouldn't matter whether the Reps were the intolerant half since they would not vote for the nominee atheist or not, and in a Dem friendly district the open atheist would still win. The fact that none have done so shows there's plenty of intolerance on the Dem side too.

Let's not compare tolerance and criticism here when all atheists I know are willing to vote for (usually Dem) Christians and Jews but there is such overwhelming antipathy toward an atheist nominee of any kind at any meaningful level.

[sweetheart]

66. sacredness

Debating has frames, as the honourable gentleman points out, that we can
challenge and discuss without being personal or rude. Religion is not
a political forum per se, and then the language in religion is quieter
and less rude, as it gives people the opportunity to reflect without being
assaulted by street debasement.

In life, i never discuss religion, i live it. It is my daily life, and
not really something i can convey in words, as much as pornography
is a poor replacement for sex, love and grace are mere shadows in words,
to be lost when words turn to rudeness, myself a thicker skinned animal,
most are driven away when assaulted by rude inquiry.

I am really shocked at the rudeness and the ad hominem approaches taken
in the religion/theology forum, as it denies the ability to invite sensitive
religious persons to freely discuss amongst a public of bloodlusting barracudas.
To do so, and to put down all defense mechanisms, to not retaliate, is really
a test of my religious inspirations, and for other persons, they simply
walk away.

There is another group called "independent paths" if i recall, and people
are posting there because this forum has become rude. Perhaps if the
distinguished gentlemen would consider a more civil approach, then more
of "the enemy" will speak up, and you will get to see why most ameircans
believe in god... but only if people are free to speak without being
attacked personally like its GD or LBN.

Were we all more eloquent, i would only wish that writers
turned their politeness knob up a few notches, becoming a bit more
aware that you are promoting your own religion endemically in
your behaviour.

[Inland]

86. Without arguing any of the other points,

all I can say about "walking on eggshells" is:

1) a lot of the criticism about the criticism has nothing to do with eggshells. Statements about believers being clinically insane, for example, aren't just untrue, but beyond the pale of fair debate on any topic.

2) A lot of criticism about the criticism is from the fact that liberal christians on this board get unfairly associated with the conservative christians ( I think 90% of the "argument" over the validity of religion comes from making associations).

3) And related to the first two, christians get disinvited to a political party, and while a marketplace of ideas, taking off the gloves, voicing disrepect and all those other things are fun, neither I nor anyone else who believes in the future of democrats is going to let you or anyone else let a completely collateral argument chase people who believe in all the things that matter politically into the arms of the republicans. Because I too believe in something. It's that the debate among and about religion isn't going to be settled in a million years and that the debate on politics can't wait for that.

[sweetheart]

90. On your third point

Perhaps it is the human condition that, over a lifetime, one settles the issue of
religion for ones self. It is clearly a process, as the religion of the teenager is
not that of the dying man, and never will be. We will never settle matters religion
until we come to see all the processes of experience within the allegory of "one" god.

It be a central tenent of process theology, that god's big picture view sees all levels
of process as part of a complex human life, gifted to every free citizen as their right
in a free society where they have absolute freedom of religion. When the absoluteness
of free religion is encroached on, and when the democrats won't stand with jesus christ,
even when he stands against evil of far greater physical numbers....

Each religion reaches the political firewall and contemplates the fate of religious
leaders who have opposed political tyranny throughout history. To contemplate becoming
one of christ's 12, you must be willing to be killed early, wrongly, branded a heratic.
How many christians would make the mistake of betraying christ, like his famous disciple,
.. peter who denied christ.

I have seen christ and i cannot deny, call me what you will I have seen love, pure love
and i have nothing but love in reply. When your heart is melted and your soul in the joy of
its benefactor. Liberal christianity, in some theologyical circles, has christ the allegory
for oneneness, or forgiving the absence of consciousness of oneness, and the icon is common
across religions across cultures, escpet judeo crhistianity has a certain "guilt"/"forgiveness"
complex very not like oriental allegories for unity with god.

Oriental ones presume the oneness of mankind with god, the prescience of the garden of eden
if you will, like a perfect universe of C++ object forms of all existance metaframed in a
giant intelligennt n-meta-datbase of life. Tables of tables of tables of... and a finger moves.
What drives the query.

[Goldensilence]

141. hmmm the OP steps in for a minute

From my readings and understanding of the dharma the question of god is best put as inconcievable. At least in our present understanding of reality and our perception of relative truth and absolute truth. The question doesn't neccesarily become the driving force of the query because then that gets into who created god then? If you say well he is the begining and the end, The alpha and the omega. The universe itself can not be the same? If god is the universe then...why would there need to be a begining? A starting point if you will. Even in that point the alpha and the omega suggests a begining and an end. So much for eternal.

I've never really like the jumps that people make on the teaching of christ and the fundamentals of eastern philosophy. Like water and vinegar to me. The dharma is much different. One could make the allegory of judeo christian life being a test whereas buddhism it is a path.

Oriental ones presume the oneness of mankind with god, the prescience of the garden of eden
if you will, like a perfect universe of C++ object forms of all existance metaframed in a
giant intelligennt n-meta-datbase of life. Tables of tables of tables of... and a finger moves.
What drives the query.

heh no offense but this reduces something older then christianity to a matrix reference. Again though the idea of God in buddhism is more or less irrelevant. Even if god does exist what makes you think in any way god cares what you do in the same manner as you walk by an ant hill? Sometimes I think we are nothing more then apes with ego trips. There is the universe and there is the understanding of it in empirical and spiritual ways. The more you know about one the more you know about the other. In the end every stream flows in to a river and every river into the sea and I'm sure we'll all see each other there again before we start another journey.

[sweetheart]

146. that mysterious undefined

America's framers were much closer to Deists than modern Christians, and if one uses the
word "god" in the frame of the older deist paradigm, it could be said to reflect more the
"dharma" overtone. The human mind anthropromophizes (sp!), makes "it" in to a personality
so we can comprehend it. Then the word "god" is an allegory not unlike a Thanka of Manjushri.
Both postulate an intelligence and a wisdom far beyond any human comprehension, yet somehow
packaged in bio-box with ears, that apparently understand human mutterings.

Surely we'd be better off to put a big black box on the alter, one that defies definition,
and attempts to define, that we reserve mystery and respect for what we cannot know. For
every contemplative knowing, to extrapolate "that" to human cognition is an error,
to reduce such things to manmade language like C++ or simplistic databases like SQL ones,
however complex, to write *anything* of such an abstract... folly indeed.

God would be created in the cognitive frame of considering the absolute, and any beginnings
however eschatologically removed in time they appear, are part of a fragment of the universe
realizing the god-like power to create the entire universe in its image in every moment,
over and over again as if it were the dharma.

The Gospel of Thomas has Jesus sounding an aweful lot like an eastern teacher, and as this
one gospel was NOT edited by the Catholic church, it leads much credence to the theory that
jesus was trained in buddhist enlightenment in ladakh/western tibet in his lost years. And
perhaps there is no difference between the buddhist and christian allegory at all, not one
difference, or if a difference be, only in the minds of men.

[Goldensilence]

161. it looks good but still has some of that...

bible weirdness http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html

53. His disciples said to him, "Is circumcision useful or not?"

He said to them, "If it were useful, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect."

55. Jesus said, "Whoever does not hate father and mother cannot be my disciple, and whoever does not hate brothers and sisters, and carry the cross as I do, will not be worthy of me."

Having never read it before some parts did sound Eastern but still moments of WTF?! This again all assumes Jesus ever walked the earth.

[sweetheart]

187. The ontology of our revisionism

Given one can simply meditate and be no mind, to instantiate any theological object,
much like a software object, and why not the unity. I can't read greek or hebrew,
so i'm not sure what the original thing says. If he had the powers, as the tales
describe, those powers, everything from disappearing to healing incurable things.
If he did achieve sahadga samadhi, and he is given the benefit of the doubt, then
we can move on and call the man a bodhisattva and get on with life. I don't see
any difference between christians and buddhists except that some fundamentalists
have grossly misinterpreted unity and the goodwill of enlightenment.

Enlightenment be awakening, no matter the beliefs, and as buddhists do not concern
the beliefs, no mind having no beliefs, what the matter christians are in the tent.
It seems rather a false dualism is been created by theological ontologists. And this
fallen hell/heaven thinking has been the bane of a millenium.

Why make room in the closet for a misleading ontology that leads to suffering.
no mind, if it must speak, surely can be progressive by embracing all the gurus as
lineages that are genuine for their devotees, and betray the very principal of dhamma/
oneness/nirvana/god/nirguna brahman/saguna brahman/satori/clear light/allah/jehova/whatever/
the present momentwithout any baggage of self/blessedness - ala carte - pick an allegory.
Its like by accepting the divisive theology that we are all in very different
irreconcilable universes by accepting its frame. Isn't framing with love inclusive?

[Goldensilence]

190. no it is still the underpinnings of his words

christianity simply deals with salvation of mankind. Period. There is nothing more important than man. Period.

If Jesus was a bodhisattva his intention would be towards ALL sentient beings. That is what is important to the bodhisattva is attainment of wisdom and knowledge and enlightenment for the gain of all sentient beings. Christian salvation is meant for mankind alone. I mean the animal and plants are here for our amusement, food, and to name for us by the bible correct?

If you see no difference between buddhist thought and christian philosphy I cannot help you there. Jesus spoke for the OT god. I don't see much union with that god. Not much oneness in that god.

The reason why this buddhist is nervous...maybe even fringe not wanting to allow christians in the tent is because every other tent christians enter it ends up burned down.

[sweetheart]

191. That's not true of liberal christianity

Here is a website on christian process theology, that is very similar, if not
fuzzily identical to buddhism. Second link is "in" the first page as "process
and faith".
http://www.cst.edu/current_students/affiliated_centers.php
http://www.ctr4process.org/pandf//

I've met many ministers years back at the claremont school of theology where
process theology, and all branches of religion were training in the process
school(s)... hindu, sikh, lutheran, methodist.

Someone else alludes to this in this thread, but i can't go back to find who,
right now, to the point that the criticism is against literalist noisy
fundamentalists, and not at a more mature liberal christian mindset.

Buddhist compassion can't see the difference between a sentient being suffering
and a christian. Just they button their lips in my ashram, where silence is
communion, and talking not. And then wouldn't the quakers be christians as well,
and their silent communion is so buddhist, no mind to think a belief system.

Buddhist no mind is at odds with no person or religion, being formless has no
border to violate. Must we make one.

[Goldensilence]

312. not impressed really

both the links seemed to be current schools of theology hard for buddhism to be theological. From what i read looks more like how to reach out and convert. I bet there are some some native americans turning in their respective graves over the National United Methodist Native American Center (NUMNAC). Joining the very sect that massacred their people and shattered their way of life.

Process theology sounds more like the theological equivalent of Intelligent design. Western Theology mixed with some Eastern thought. Disguise it however you like. In the end it all leads back to your idea of god bottom line.

I agree with Kerry4Kerry on making a one size fits all religion. That seems to be the point. What else has christianty envolped in it's path in the past two millenia? Making one simple point again...our way is the right and ONLY way. The quakers are a bit of a leap and that is taking one aspect and comparing it to the entirety of buddhist philosophy.

[Silent3]

194. I never realized...

...solopsism could be turned into such an elaborate construct.

Could I be suffering from a lack of belief in the belief that beliefs do not matter? Perhaps I am the suffering which leads away from suffering, ontologically speaking. True dualism or false dualism? Ah, but both are of oneness. Even the closet can be progressive, and all you need is love... bum bu bu bu buuh.

[sweetheart]

199. ecumenism

Accepting that, and needing to add nor subtract anything, realizing that,
is not solipcism, it is faith in a different religion than yours. My life
has been very socially engaging with many people around the world, my family,
career, sangha, dogs, business and published work. What makes what i discuss
not solipcism is the endemic frame of how i live it. We are discussing
unity and self realization on a public forum read by thousands. It is hardly
solipcistic to be so isolated! You can't tell the difference between
solipcism and ecumenism.

You've taken a theological point personally, that human "thoughts" are at all relevant,
and it offends you this belief system, as it makes your ego unimportant.
And now you make it a personal score to demean a the speaker of a belief
system that demeans your ego. I see your post as action/reaction by the
ego in seeking to supress information of its nonexistance. It is elaborate,
and you don't exist, except as an abstract phantom, a demon of self, that this is called,
in my religion, "Chod". By stapling your tongue to the ghost, there is unity, and
in the complex tantra of reconciling opposites, is awakening.

[Silent3]

303. My tongue...

...is not stapled but velcroed to the ghost, thank you very much. This way I can tell when death is near, and avoid it, when I start to hear that pulling-apart sound. Or maybe it's the approach of apoplexy. Whatever. I'd really like to know how things which don't exist manage to put up such a fuss. Silly me, I always though of non-existence as more, well, passive than that.

I call the tangled verbiage you're spinning solipsism because this forum, and the world at large and all the people in it, might as just be playthings of your own personal fantasy of Enlightenment for all those others matter. You reduce beliefs and modes and methods of worship to play-acting, not anything really important -- even if the believers belief so, poor undeveloped souls -- just a whatever-works-for-you game of arbitrary symbols and ideas leading one to the Holy Grail of Enlightenment. One size fits all, please meet all sizes fit The One. You have no external references for validation -- in fact, a lot of word play and mind games to pooh pooh such stodgy ideas all away (ah, yes, I'm sure "external/internal" is just a false dualism blocking realization of The Oneness, or some such wankification) -- and are left with nothing more than self-referential, self-congratulatory "wisdom", backed by nothing more than the feelings which arise from abused poetic concepts.

[beam me up scottie]

95. You have a lot of nerve mentioning tolerance in party politics.

Considering you couldn't seem to find any for homosexuals.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=39390&mesg_id=39800

I could feel the love.

[jonnyblitz]

143. self-delete oops

i misread something which made my comment moot. :hi:

[beam me up scottie]

145. Hi Jonny!

Always nice to see your oops!

[trotsky]

150. I'll tell you what the association is.

Liberal Christians and consertive Christians get their faith from the same book, the same people, the same historical background. They just put a different spin on it. The non-believer looks at both and really doesn't see how either is any more "valid" or grounded than the other. They're both supported on air, from our point of view. Basing political policy and/or decisions on liberal faith is no better than doing it on conservative faith.

Now it's nice to have liberal "people of faith" fighting for a lot of the issues we hold dear, but then there's quite a few, like you, who are hostile towards non-believers, homosexuals, and anyone else who might have an issue or two that you don't think is "popular" enough to deserve support.

[WoodrowFan]

151. How I decided

Trotsky: I thought (and prayed) long and hard about whether or not homosexuality was a sin. (I never supported denying rights to Gays, but on grounds of civil law). After much thought I decided that whether or not it is a sin simply isn't up to me as the same OT books that say it's a sin also say things like wearing cloth with more than one fabrics is a sin, ie not relevant.* But the thing that struck me was that hate is NEVER Godly, and given the amount of hatred I see on the part of the "pro-family" anti-Gay side, that what they are doing can't possibly be right, or just, or Christian.


BTW, we don't all get our faith from the exact same place. As I'm sure you've noticed, RW Xtains tend to emphasize the Old Testament, and liberal Christians tend to favor the gospels.



* and yes, that opens a whole messy can of worms I haven't even begun to deal with yet.

[trotsky]

152. Yes, good point about the OT/NT.

A lot of people don't understand that the books of the bible were never written to be part of one big compilation. Many Christians aren't even aware of the history of selecting just what was and wasn't part of the bible! If there's one good message to be taken out of most religions, it's what I would call the Red Green principle: "I'm pullin' for you - we're all in this together."

[sweetheart]

148. complete zealousness

One pointedness is intolerant of idyll,
being single minded, acting with libertarian abandon,
reserving private mind as ones own dominion and the
right of no other... is not the social norm, no.
Norm is to be imposed on, to have unconsciously surrendered
dominion over one's own relationship with god.
If discussing what you really believe in this forum,
to discussing in open conversation matters always kept in secret religious towers,
and of course we will differ,
no where in that need any of the esteemed gentlepersons present lose decorum,
be forgiving of one pointed love and
its uncaring abandon in matters of the world.

If religion and theology are inner and outer, then
surely we commune outwardly, but the sentiments expressed
here are "inner", people conversing, not reciting in a bloody school,
but the verbal and the sincere who wish to speak up are free to at any
time, forgiving the folly of speech if silence be thy grace,
and yet why not cut to core issues in matters religious, and hold no punches,
if one feels compelled to compose the words.

Example: <endemic belief is that silence and listening is god.> Every moment
of the day, god is all things. I actively turn off radios, televisions,
unplug telephones and all electronic gadgets in my life. I am intolerant of
abuse of god's silence. God's silence respects all things, and in my noisy
animal bleatings, i do not, begging forgiveness of the living silence.

The conflict is daily life in all religions, which dhamma?
Without the outer teaching, the devotee does not have the means to pursue the
inner teaching. The outer teaching, by its very nature, instantiated in to
the world, "the church" and the lineage of "enlightenment" is prone to attack
by political-churches the world over that represent cults, for what is a
political country but an identity cult, truth be told.

To discuss religion is to dispel completely the fallacy that there is any
nationality, any race or sex that is different, for we are all equal in the
DU editor window. Then for our equality, what identity cult are we? Framed

Criticism then is radical, depending on the boundary condition of ones endemic
view, ones subjective comprehension. If i believe that all tomatos are god,
and worship tomatos on my window sill, i am abhorred that people eat my god
and kill it!!!! what evil. What if a radical tomato cult started blowingitself
up with suicide vests ? Is that intolerance, and should we criticize? Probably.
Who is providing the explosive and the vests? Critisize materially.

[greyl]

345. Focus! I'm begging you. nt

[Crunchy Frog]

186. Tolerance is...

"I like you and think you're a nice person, but when you die, I believe that you will be cast into a pit of Hellfire and tormented for all eternity because you don't accept a particular interpretation of a particular holy book of a particular religion."

Hows that?

[greyl]

343. Whatever, but ACCEPTANCE is totally out of the question.

I'm sure we all agree on that. ;)

[unhappycamper]

362. Locking

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