SPLIT: From The terrifying afterlife thread

[DJAkuma]

I think christians tend to refuse to acknowledge that hitler was catholic because they don't want to be lumped into the same group, makes it a bit harder to hide their intolerance and hate.

[Achronos]

That's a lovely assertion. But can you prove it?  There's a reason it's called the No True Scotsman Fallacy.
Here's a new outlandish assertion: Stalin lied about being an atheist. He was actually a Christian.
Apparently I can just make anything up about any mass murderer by claiming they lied. Or maybe it applies to anyone. How are your claims any more supported than by those who claim Barrack Obama is a muslim?

Actually, according to Islamic law, he is.

You are the one with the No True Scotsman fetish: you claim no true atheist would have "God with us" on his army's belt buckles.

And as I said, he did not simply claim to be a "cultural Catholic." He directly alludes to "the Lord" and being a "fighter" for his "Savior". No where does he claim to be some sort of Catholic atheist. He outlawed the German Freethinkers League.

He also outlawed the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Freemasons (who don't admit atheists). In the camps the JWs wore these

The U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has devoted a section to the Nazi persecution of Freemasonry....In order to illustrate these fears, a film monitor shows photographs of an anti-Masonic exhibition that was organized by the Nazis. In a number of popular public exhibitions, the Nazis created mock Lodge rooms complete with skeletons of lodge officers.

http://www.masonicinfo.com/nazism.htm

Again, you are really doing some gymnastics here. This is all hypothetical with zero proof.

You remind me of the communist French minister, when faced with a successful social program based on capitalism, who demanded in exasperation "Yes, I see it works in reality, but how does it work in theory?!"

No gymnastics on my part, though I agree with you that the atheists are doing some rather artifully (that includes the Muslim atheists who argued the Muslim position on the miracle of the Quran. Many of them were also ashamed to admit that they couldn't bring themseles to eat pork. Iqbal once said that he didn't care if Allah existed, as long as Muhammad existed). Those people were not hypostheses. They were flesh and blood, and since they professed atheism, grey matter you would say as well.

That long list of quotes doesn't qualify as any sort of proof for you?

No. Lord willling, I will return to that.

Would you like more?

I don't encourage plagiarism.

Why did Hitler demonize atheists and associate them with "the Communist enemy"?

Same reason he coopted the deicide charge:propoganda purposes. The same reason the Communists allowed the Russian Orthodox Church to reconstitute its hieararchy and began restoring Churches.

"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."

"For eight months we have been waging a heroic battle against the Communist threat to our Volk, the decomposition of our culture, the subversion of our art, and the poisoning of our public morality. We have put an end to denial of God and abuse of religion. We owe Providence humble gratitude for not allowing us to lose our battle against the misery of unemployment and for the salvation of the German peasant."

Again the plagiarism.

That's interesting.... don't all atheists deny God?

Since, as I already posted, the Early Christian Martyrs were executed on the charge of atheism, no.

I never claimed he wrote it. But as the leader of a political party and the nation he would not have had it on those belts if he were against it.

A mind reader too. My, you are talented.

Such examples of atheists not acting according to your orthodoxy can, and have, been multiplied. Had he come up with it, or even if he had put it on SS uniforms, it might have meant something. But letting a time honored tradition of the imperial past he was trying to coopt continue (and not used on the institutions he was inventing), no, nothing.

It is a curious thing that an atheist would outlaw atheist groups but not get rid of a religious motto plastered on uniform.

In the grand scheme of things, not curious at all. Not a jot more curious than the atheist Mussolini granting the Vatican sovereignty, nor the atheist Stalin restoring the Russian Orthodox patriarchate. Nor, by the way, the claims of the Muslim Ottomans and the Muslim Secular Turkish republic over the Orthodox Christian Ecumenical Patriarchate.

[Achronos]

EDIT: For good measure, here's a list of some of Hitler's extremely atheistic quotes:
Taken from here:
http://issuepedia.org/Adolf_Hitler/religion

...Historian Paul Johnson wrote that Hitler hated Christianity with a passion, adding that shortly after assuming power in 1933, Hitler told Hermann Rauschnig that he intended "to stamp out Christianity root and branch."

As Hitler grew in power, he made other anti-Christian statements. For example, he was quoted in Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, by Allan Bullock, as saying: "I'll make these damned parsons feel the power of the state in a way they would have never believed possible. For the moment, I am just keeping my eye upon them: if I ever have the slightest suspicion that they are getting dangerous, I will shoot the lot of them. This filthy reptile raises its head whenever there is a sign of weakness in the State, and therefore it must be stamped on. We have no sort of use for a fairy story invented by the Jews."...

I could probably find more speeches in which Hitler claims himself to be a Christian, but I think the point has been made. He said it. Now, what did it mean?

It seems Hitler, like many modern-day politicians, spoke out of both sides of his mouth. And when he didn't, his lackeys did. It may have been political pandering, just like many of our current politicians who invoke God's name to gain support.

Also, it seems probable that Hitler, being the great manipulator, knew that he couldn't fight the Christian churches and their members right off the bat. So he made statements to put the church at ease and may have patronized religion as a way to prevent having to fight the Christian-based church.

In fact, Anton Gil notes in his book, An Honourable Defeat: A History of German Resistance to Hitler, 1933-1945: "For his part, Hitler naturally wanted to bring the church into line with everything else in his scheme of things. He knew he dare not simply eradicate it: that would not have been possible with such an international organisation, and he would have lost many Christian supporters had he tried to. His principal aim was to unify the German Evangelical Church under a pro-Nazi banner, and to come to an accommodation with the Catholics."

In other words, while he was certainly evil, he also usually knew which wars he could win (at least until 1941) and only fought those. He knew he could beat the Polish, French, and British armies and he allegedly counseled the Japanese against attacking the U.S.; he also requested that they open up a front against Russia. He couldn't beat the church in open warfare--so he took control and then attacked them piecemeal while making statements to put them at ease. Think about it--how many other times did Hitler break his word or ignore a treaty? He said whatever would make things easiest, and then ignored it later.

Author Doug Krueger notes that "so many Germans were religious believers that Hitler, if not religious himself, at least had to pretend to be a believer in order to gain support." He adds, "If the [Christian] message won converts, it would seem that most Nazis were probably [Christians] too. After all, would appeal to divine mandate win more theists or atheists to the cause?" He also points out that "Even if Hitler was not a [Christian], he could still have been a theist. Or a deist" (http://www.infidels.org/library /modern/doug_krueger/copin.html).   Remember that being a non-Christian is not equal to being an atheist.....

An interesting side note: Two of my sources, both of whom are well-versed in WWII history, said something to the effect that Hitler acted as if he had a messianic complex and perhaps believed himself to essentially be a god or the messiah. As one put it, you could certainly make the argument that he was a firm believer in God, if by "God" you mean "Adolf Hitler."....

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... -christian

EDIT: More
http://www.doxa.ws/social/Hitler.html

Hitler said some Christian sounding things in his campaign speeches, of course he did. He would have been a fool to say "I am evil and i want to destroy society and launch us into a two front war we can't win, vote for me." Atheists naively assume we can trust his campaign speeches just as we would a personal diary, but most of us know you can't trust anything a politician says in a camping! In the 1930's voters in major Western countries expected Christian candidates even more than they do now.

The book Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944 published by Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc.first edition, 1953, contains definitive proof of Hitler's real views. The book was published in Britain under the title, _Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944, which title was used for the Oxford University Press paperback edition in the United States.

All of these are quotes from Adolf Hitler:

Night of 11th-12th July, 1941:

National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (p 6 & 7)

10th October, 1941, midday:

Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (p 43)

14th October, 1941, midday:

The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. (p 49-52)

19th October, 1941, night:

The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.

21st October, 1941, midday:

Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer.... The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation.... Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, 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.... .... 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 yearse will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold ." (p 278)

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

Hitler's Lies in action

From Webstie Adolf Hitler, Christian, Atheist, or Neither?

"As an example of Hitler's honesty, consider the following from a letter by Hitler to the French fascist Hervé and published in the Nazi Völkischer Beobachter on October 26, 1930 (Heiden, Der Fuehrer, p. 414)" :
"I think I can assure you that there is no one in Germany who will not with all his heart approve any honest attempt at an improvement of relations between Germany and France. My own feelings force me to take the same attitude... The German people has the solemn intention of living in peace and friendship with all civilized nations and powers... And I regard the maintenance of peace in Europe as especially desirable and at the same time secured, if France and Germany, on the basis of equal sharing of natural human rights, arrive at a real inner understanding... The young Germany, that is led by me and that finds its expression in the National Socialist Movement, has only the most heartfelt desire for an understanding with other European nations."



Obviously he was lying, here's an even bigger lie.

Ibid


In a similar vein, consider this, from a speech in the Reichstag on 30 Jan. 1939: "Amongst the accusations which are directed against Germany in the so called democracies is the charge that the National Socialist State is hostile to religion. In answer to that charge I should like to make before the German people the following solemn declaration: 1. No one in Germany has in the past been persecuted because of his religious views, nor will anyone in the future be so persecuted..."


No one is going to persecuted for his/her religious views in Germany? Its' well documented that Hitler persecuted any many groups for their religious views, including Protestants, and Catholics(more on that latter)

Hitler youth song:

No evil priest can prevent us from feeling that we are the children of Hitler / We follow not Christ but Horst Wessel / Away with incense and holy water / The Church can go hang for all we care

Horst Wessel was an early Nazi party Sturmabteilung street-fighter murdered by communists and turned into a martyr by propaganda chief Josef Goebbels. He had written the song "Die Fahne hoch" the national anthem with "Deutchsland uber Alles" during the Nazi regime. His group, the stormtroopers, also had a lovely song which said "Stormtrooper comrades hang the Jew and put the priest against the wall."
"Among Stormtroopers...anti-Catholicism was so pervassive that it seemed at times to have been almost as fervid as anti-Semiticism...once the war began, the party bannned radio transmission of religious broadcasts, seized church bells for scrap, and, pleading shortage of newsprint, shut down the Catholic press."
The Last Jews in Berlin By Leonard Gross
http://books.google.com/books?id=MeTRXb ... ng&f=false

[Sophus]

Actually, according to Islamic law, he is.

Are you a Churcher?

..Historian Paul Johnson wrote that Hitler hated Christianity with a passion

A Roman Catholic arguing that Hitler wasn't a Roman Catholic? Didn't see that coming.

I could probably find more speeches in which Hitler claims himself to be a Christian, but I think the point has been made. He said it. Now, what did it mean?

It means he actually said it, for starters, instead of relying on hearsay and translators. You're also quote mining the Table Talks because Hitler also said:

We don't want to educate anyone in atheism. Table-Talk [p. 6]

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)... Table-Talk [p. 59]

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 [p. 9]

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 [Table-Talk, p. 76]
Christ was an Aryan, and St. Paul used his doctrine to mobilise the criminal underworld and thus organise a proto-Bolsevism.
-Hitler [Table-Talk, p. 143]

Obviously the Table Talks are no silver bullet in his faith since this is included in them. Whatever he was at this point in his life he certainly wasn't an atheist (see first two lines in bold) which is what you asserted he was.

[Recusant]

Actually, according to Islamic law, he [President Obama] is. [Muslim]

I'm sure you won't mind providing a source for this assertion.  If you're basing it on Edward Luttwak's New York Times column, I suggest you find yourself a better reference.  Luttwak's unfounded and apparently ignorant assertion that Obama is Muslim according to Islamic law was thoroughly debunked by Ali Eterez in an article for The Huffington Post.  The whole article is well worth a read, but I'll quote one particularly telling section:

Luttwack and the other fake experts promoting this new smear do not understand Islam. Religion is not hereditary as it is in Judaism. Islam is not a race. Just because a child has a Muslim father -- which, again, Obama didn't -- doesn't mean anything unless the child is being raised as a Muslim. At the time of birth, Muslims engage in a symbolic act -- of saying the Call to Prayer in the child's ear -- that renders a child Muslim. If Obama's father was agnostic/atheist, then he wouldn't have done such a thing.

No call to prayer in the ear, not raised as a Muslim, born to an atheist father, and then abandoned to a Christian mother both by father and his family, equals not Muslim. Obama is right to say he had no religion until he became a Christian.

[Whitney]

This is a warning regarding the following post made by you: viewtopic.php?f=2&p=94457#p94457 .

It's not plagiarism to quote someone using quotes...quit being uncivil.

also, this huge derail will be split off into it's own thread at some point when I have time to find the start of it...if anyone can give me a post to start the split from that would be helpful.

[LegendarySandwich]

Submission is the relationship.  Allah is Master, Muslim is slave.

You're forgetting about free-will which is the hallmark of a genuine relationship.  In Islam, if you leave - you die.  Does that sound like a relationship?  If so, then you might wish to read up on co-dependency.

In Christianity, if you leave, you go to Hell to be infinitely tortured for all of eternity. Does that sound like a relationship? If so, then you might wish to read up on codependency.

[AnimatedDirt]

Submission is the relationship.  Allah is Master, Muslim is slave.

You're forgetting about free-will which is the hallmark of a genuine relationship.  In Islam, if you leave - you die.  Does that sound like a relationship?  If so, then you might wish to read up on co-dependency.

In Christianity, if you leave, you go to Hell to be infinitely tortured for all of eternity. Does that sound like a relationship? If so, then you might wish to read up on codependency.

It certainly is one idea of hell.  However the message of the Bible is plain.  The wages of sin is death, not perpetual buring and suffering in hell.

[Achronos]

In Christianity, if you leave, you go to Hell to be infinitely tortured for all of eternity. Does that sound like a relationship? If so, then you might wish to read up on codependency.

We don't hold to that particular dogma of Heaven and Hell, I will say that the concept of "torture" is alien to the Orthodox Church. I am more inclined to believe that we are all saved by Christ, whether we choose to believe or not and depending on how well we have trained our nous (heart or noetical faculty) depends upon the degree of heaven and hell when we experience the "vision" of God. You might bring up John 3:16 which contradicts this, however it's not just saying "Oh I believe in Christ" and get a free ticket into heaven (if that is even a literal place itself) but it more encompasses becoming more like Christ so we can experience more of the 'life' God has in store for us. We choose to either have Hell or Heaven, we make that choice.

If someone like Gandhi was denied into  'heaven' just because he didn't accept 'Christ' that would seem hardly fair in my opinion, however God's justice is not like mine and I wouldn't dare try to instigate what God's judgment actually would be (Another problem I have with the protestant Christian view who takes Christianity as a courtroom and condemns people to Hell, which isn't the case at all. Christ came to give us eternal life, has trampled over death itself. He didn't come on this Earth to condemn anyone of that.).

Just know that we cannot hold a particular dogma of Heaven and Hell, because simply we just do not know.

[Heretical Rants]

Hitler was an atheist and Stalin was a Christian. Happy?

[Wilson]

Is there any way to change the title of this thread?  Because it sure has nothing to do with the nothingness of death.

[McQ]

Is there any way to change the title of this thread?  Because it sure has nothing to do with the nothingness of death.

That's why it's been split, because it veered off track too much. I wanted to leave the title so people wouldn't be confused by where it went, but if you have an idea for it, I'm game.

[Achronos]

I also wanted to say LS that people judge God because of hell's very existence. The particular and final judgments exist because of free will. It is not for me to edit the teachings of the Church, whether they relate to dogma or are theological opinions taught by the saints, simply because they do not square with our own opinions of how we think things are or should be. Rather, we need to show some humility before the Church, my mother and teacher, and if there is something we cannot grasp or understand, instead or rebelling against it or calling it stupid, we should remind ourselves that we, by ourselves, do not have all the answers, and to us it is not given to comprehend all of the mysteries of God.

[hismikeness]

...and to us it is not given to comprehend all of the mysteries of God.

Isn't that goddamn convenient? I've always been bothered by the "God Logic" b.s. and how God's ways are above man's ways blah blah. It's always brought up right around the point that the circular argument has come full.   Seems like a cop out to me.

[LegendarySandwich]

I also wanted to say LS that people judge God because of hell's very existence. The particular and final judgments exist because of free will. It is not for me to edit the teachings of the Church, whether they relate to dogma or are theological opinions taught by the saints, simply because they do not square with our own opinions of how we think things are or should be. Rather, we need to show some humility before the Church, my mother and teacher, and if there is something we cannot grasp or understand, instead or rebelling against it or calling it stupid, we should remind ourselves that we, by ourselves, do not have all the answers, and to us it is not given to comprehend all of the mysteries of God.

Trust yourself above all else, and do not let anyone else do your thinking for you.