Final Question

[Whitney]

Was Hitler operating under a set of secular morals or religious ones?

I think with Hitler the real issue as far as religion is concerned is that the masses bought into the God with Us mentality....that said, not much different than conservative Americans backing practically every military action the US does saying God Bless the USA.  The holocaust just stands out as especially horrible because the crimes were known (unlike the US secretly torturing people), in high number, and were against whole races of people.

When one person has dangerous views that seem to have religious influence they can be simply viewed as criminally insane; when they get a lot of followers it starts to look more like cult mentality where the masses are reaching out for any form of salvation from whatever is wrong with their lives even if the beliefs associated with that salvation are harmful.

So I agree that we can't get to the bottom of what caused Hitler to believe what he believed (although from my readings I personally have reached the view that he was influenced by faith even if it was one of his own making); but I do think that religion is a good tool to get the masses to fall in line like puppets.  Not that religion is the only way to achieve that sort of compliance; I'm sure pure fear would work quite well too (ie support for the "war on terror" was pushed just as much by fear as it was the general populations existing distrust of Islam).  That said, I think religion is more often used over fear because brainwashing has much more lasting effects than scaring the hell out of people (oppressed people tend to revolt).

Anyway...I think this is part of why you said earlier that you make a distinction between religion and spirituality; the ritual authority of religions tends create a leader that misleads their followers in some way even if they didn't knowingly mislead (usually minor, such as the church splitting off into denominations over if people should be allowed to dance or not and other petty things).

[John_Silver]

Whitney and Alp:

Understood. I do want to reply more in-depth but I am heading into the studio to lay finally down some vocals on a song we've been struggling with for an eternity.  

I shall return!

John