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OK, so it seems Hitler was not atheist. I did have my doubts about him. I still suspect he was not a true Christian though. In all his public speeches (rantings?) he never mentions Jesus or Christ. It's only God. Or have I missed something? I have an expression for the type of public speeches he gave and that's bovex. It's a new word I invented. Bovine .... etc. I tune out of those.
It depends on what one means by a true Christian. Positive Christianity believed:
Christianity should serve the state,
the original teachings of Jesus had been corrupted, and these false Christianities should be abandoned,
Paul corrupted the teachings of Jesus by using Jewish ideas to create Catholicism,
Jesus was an Aryan arguing against the Jews, this is why he was martyred,
his teachings lead to salvation both now and after death,
true Christianity agreed with Nordic religious ideas,
following nature was understanding God’s will.
Positive Christianity was unitarian.
Hitler talked positively about the teachings of Jesus, especially anything against the Jews. He was a creationist, and probably an annihilationist. Hitler's views agreed with those of Positive Christianity, and he believed he had been chosen by the biblical god to do it's work.
I don't understand why you keep asking me this which is very untrue. That incident (walking out of church) happened in late 2018 while I was still agnostic about religion. But it was towards the end of that phase because it was the first time that I had entered that kind of church in years. It marked the beginning of my journey back into faith.
For several years *before* that I was posting a lot of things challenging organized religion.
Then in early 2018 I began challenging a lot of atheists, and I eventually stopped posting in the atheist/agnostic forum. That incident happened later. The atheists helped push me back into the church.
That certainly isn't the way I remember it, but believe it as you like. It certainly doesn't make atheism wrong, nor Hitler an atheist - which is more the thread -topic.
I think politicians can be deceptive, especially those that are evil dictators. So whatever they say about their beliefs in public might not be real.
We must remember that Hitler in the 1920s-1945 was living in a land that was outright vast majority Christian with different sense of diversity and toleration than we have today in 2020.
An unfortunate poll from this very year in the US shows that 40% of Americans won't vote for an atheist, 34% won't vote for a Muslim, and 20% won't vote for an evangelical Christian. This same poll shows that those numbers were much worse in previous years. We can safely assume that those numbers of religious prejudice would be significantly worse in the 1920s and 1930s of Germany as they would be in the 1920s and 1930s of the US.
Anything Hitler says publicly in a speech while worrying about votes before he has total power or retaining support after he has power must be through the lens of what is acceptable to the German people that long ago. Hitler had to give Christianity some positive lip service and couldn't say the same kinds of things about Christianity that he did in private.
Many atheists say that they feel discriminated against living in a majority Christian nation today, if so, you should completely understand my argument that Hitler was bound to not outright attacking Christianity as he wanted to do in a far more religiously prejudiced society of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. Hitler's inner circle all said that he wanted to attack Christianity outright, but publicly couldn't do so at the moment.
Everyone universally from Hitler's inner-circle that has spoken on his religion has said that he was antagonistic towards Christianity and was not a Christian. We see it in their diaries and private correspondence before WWII that weren't meant to be made public not just the post-WWII talk. As Speer points out, his main supporters and SS members left Christianity in support of Hitler, but Hitler told his highest leaders to remain in the church for appearances.
Therefore, it isn't a stretch to say that we must give more merit to all of the private evidence of everyone who knew him personally as an adult saying he wasn't a Christian over the public speeches of a politician living the political reality of a prejudiced public in favor of Christianity that he had to appease just enough.
-800 Protestant German Pastors were sent to concentration camps.
-400 Catholic German priests were sent to concentration camps.
-Hitler banned Christian schools and Christian newspapers.
-Hitler attempted to ban the Old Testament.
-Hitler banned churches using the symbol of the crucifix.
They also say:
#1 It is quite clear that no one can say that Hitler was attempting to follow Jesus' example, especially as he sent millions to concentration camps to be worked and murdered.
#2 It is quite clear that Hitler's inner circle all says he was not a Christian and was antagonistic towards Christianity.
Public speeches by a politician to a prejudiced Christian audience don't hold as much weight as numbers 1 and 2 above.
Thank you for the consideration of my argument.
Explained in my rebuttal. Thank you for not considering my argument.
It depends on what one means by a true Christian. Positive Christianity believed:
Christianity should serve the state,
the original teachings of Jesus had been corrupted, and these false Christianities should be abandoned,
Paul corrupted the teachings of Jesus by using Jewish ideas to create Catholicism,
Jesus was an Aryan arguing against the Jews, this is why he was martyred,
his teachings lead to salvation both now and after death,
true Christianity agreed with Nordic religious ideas,
following nature was understanding God’s will.
Positive Christianity was unitarian.
Hitler talked positively about the teachings of Jesus, especially anything against the Jews. He was a creationist, and probably an annihilationist. Hitler's views agreed with those of Positive Christianity, and he believed he had been chosen by the biblical god to do it's work.
Hitler was definitely not an atheist.
He was certainly willing to turn the anti Jewish sentiments and utterances of the NT to his own purposes, just as he was willing to chum up with the Catholic church as an ally against communism. It doesn't mean that he liked them, he even found it convenient to be pals with Stalin at one point.
In then end, He and the Party were supreme in his eyes and religions as a rival would go in the end. But a God - believer is what he sounds like all the time, even if I agree that Christianity itself is off the Nazi -hook.
Christianity is pretty much the opposite of the kind of ancient Nordic/pagan religious myths that Hitler identified which. To be honest, I hear a lot Atheists (TODAY) who seem to find favor with those same kind of ideas.
Can you see the connection now?
Many of those identifying wirh the old Nordic myths are white supremists like the Sons of Odin who are similar in beliefs like the KKK which are Christian.
I took can make very loose connections to make our silly biases appear better supported.
By the way atheists do not believe in any of the pagaon Gods either and Hitler bastardized the Nordic and Germanic myths to mean whatever he wanted them to.
IMHO Hitler being an atheists was a poorly conceived strategy made up by a few Christians who thought they had something to shut atheists up. The unfortunate aspect of this strategy was that some other Christians believed this non sense. After the Great War the allies layer Germany bared and humiliated, Hitler took advantage of this opportunity by the use of both force and scapegoating took power and did what he did. Probably only a handful of either atheists or Christians at the time would have b thought to do what he did, however the political and economical improvement b Hitler had brought to the country seemed sufficient for the citizens to follow.
I have to wonder what the purpose of considering Hitler a Christian might be given that his actions (fruits) bear no resemblance to those of Christ.
Just pretend for a moment he was a poster in the Christianity forum and claimed he was a Christian? You would have to accept him as a Christian under those rules, if you accept those rules as valid?
It also appears that a good many other Christians are in no way Christians under you claims in regards to Christ. Do you get to define who is a Christian?
There is also no reason to believe Hitler was an atheist either. It seems that more Christians claim Hitler was an atheist than the other way around. Does your God or Christ dispute atheists as much as you? You speak some about Christ but do you bear any of his fruits?
Just pretend for a moment he was a poster in the Christianity forum and claimed he was a Christian? You would have to accept him as a Christian under those rules, if you accept those rules as valid?
It also appears that a good many other Christians are in no way Christians under you claims in regards to Christ. Do you get to define who is a Christian?
There is also no reason to believe Hitler was an atheist either. It seems that more Christians claim Hitler was an atheist than the other way around. Does your God or Christ dispute atheists as much as you? You speak some about Christ but do you bear any of his fruits?
I don't know what Hitler believed or not, and neither does anyone here, really, but I think it's safe to say that the main tenet of all types of Christianity is "Love thy neighbor", and sending your neighbors off to be gassed isn't very loving, so there's that.
Just pretend for a moment he was a poster in the Christianity forum and claimed he was a Christian? You would have to accept him as a Christian under those rules, if you accept those rules as valid?
It also appears that a good many other Christians are in no way Christians under you claims in regards to Christ. Do you get to define who is a Christian?
There is also no reason to believe Hitler was an atheist either. It seems that more Christians claim Hitler was an atheist than the other way around. Does your God or Christ dispute atheists as much as you? You speak some about Christ but do you bear any of his fruits?
Christ specified how to know His followers - their love of God and each other. I don't know very many people who would identify Hitler using those criteria.
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Hitler was not a Christian
