Was Hitler a Christian(And why clarity is important on this issue)

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

Hitler’s own methods of propaganda and manipulation are still being used in all countries to justify hate crimes. On the part of the KKK, the Aryan Nation, and others more and less subtle, people are being twisted and exploited in much the same manner as they were in 1933.

It is, in my experiences as an inpatient at 2 mental institutions (yes, I said inpatient, I’m schizoaffective), my experiences tutoring and mentoring D., an at risk 4th grader with juvenile conduct disorder and an IQ of 126, and my reasoning, that it is much easier for a sociopath to control people by exploiting IDEAS THAT THEY ALREADY HAVE.

The Bible is a common thread throughout western culture, and until the Gospel comes around, it is heavily bigoted. Ironically, the bigotry resumes after the gospel, with Pauls letters. It is relatively easy to see how the gradual emphasis of the hate of the Yaweh war god of the Old Testament, and the de-emphasis of the tolerance taught when Yaweh turned the other cheek with Jesus, could be used to control an already desperate populace.

It is in our nature to blame.

In high school AP European History, I did a survey. I asked people to volutarily and anonymously write their religious views and asked them if they had read any of the Holy Books attached to any religion. I come from a small conservative town in Ohio, so it is not surprising that I had 24 of 26 people write “Christian” as their religious preference. 20 Christians said they had read less than 25% of the Bible, and none had read so much as the Wiccan Rede beyond that. The two atheists had both read 50-75% of the Bible, one had read the Qu’ran cover to cover and studied Taoism, the other had spent time as a Buddhist, and then decided it wasn’t right for him. Here’s the kicker, 3 of the Christians wrote that they were forbidden by their parents to study other religions.

My point is that people need to study religion intensely if it is to be a safe tool for thought and moral decision making.

Mein Kampf illustrates either a manipulative evil man or a psychotic who believed every word of what he was writing.

If one takes the former stance, the problem is dispelling the rumors surrounding his Christian views without damaging secularism and without imposing theocracy to prevent another crazy atheist to kill 6 million Jews, as this would probably lead to genocide as well.

Think that sounds hard?

If one takes the latter stance, the question becomes even more difficult. There are a far greater number of fundamentalist Christians in the industrialized west than there are any other religion. Hitler was just one guy, with an extraodinarary amout of charisma, an addiction to methamphetamine, and quite possibly a heartfelt belief that he and others like him were really “God’s Chosen.”

It would take very little for a de facto Nazi to gain power in either of these scenarios, and the only solution I can see is EDUCATION.

Education, among other things, gives us the means to develop conclusions based on past events and logical inference. If one understands the intent of religion as a means to unite people and as a moral standard, then one can tolerate all faiths. The same goes for science as a means to defeat racism, and social science as a means to stop homophobia.

Agree/Disagree? Why/Why not?

I’m happy to hear all sides.

Link to Staff Report: Was Hitler a Christian? – CKDH

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I cannot disagree with your thesis (or is it theses?) and I want to say that I have yet to read a more stunning post on this board. The clarity and precision of your presentation is amazing. An inspiring and well-thought-out exposition of a tantalizing subject.

I hope others will express their own views with the same degree of clarity.

If it will help in your analysis of the issues, I consider myself an “agnostic Christian” in the sense that I admire the Christian morality and reject the Divinity aspect of what Jesus is alleged to have said and taught. I prefer to think that the trappings of Christianity as an organized religion have obscured what could be a universal guide to advancing humanity and civilization.

As it stands, however, the willingness of extremists in all camps, Christian and anti-Christian alike, to come down hard on the pre-Christian and (as you so cleverly point out) post-Christian bigotry that the Bible presents to the casual reader, stands squarely in the way of any progress for our species.

I don’t have many well-thought-out additions to your basic premise to provide, but I’m anxious to follow further comments you have to make.

By the way, welcome to the boards. Does Lamont Cranston mean anything to you?

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Welcome to SDMB. If this is a response to a Straight Dope staff report, you should have included a link to that report in your post.

I get the impression that you think you have some idea about a link between Christianity and Hitler, and the importance of that link, but I don’t think you managed to get it into words. You have not supported the assertions that you have made, either.

As an example, you wrote:

You start with a false dichotomy. Manipulative evil man or psychotic true believer? No other options? Why is there a problem concerning rumors about his Christian views, if any? What do his Christian views, if any, have to do with what he did? How about what Stalin did? Does it require a theocracy to prevent people like this? If you think so, support the idea.

There are more fundamentalist Christians in the west than any other religion? Please provide a citation for that assertion, which I believe is wrong. My understanding is that there are far more Roman Catholics than there are Protestant Christians, and fundamentalists are a subset of protestants.

Education is your solution to whatever problems you are attempting to posit? Were Germans uneducated in the 1930s? How would education prevent the rise of another Hitler? How would ignorance about religion promote such a rise?

Your sentences are put together reasonably well, but you haven’t said anything coherent or supported anything you’ve said.

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Hitler paid the occasional lip service about christianity, but that’s all. What he actually did, ran agaisnt everything Jesus stood for.

I have a quote or two, but they are at work.

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Well he was raised Christian-Catholic, IIRC. But I think the Nazis had their own sort of pagan-smorgasboard type of religion going on. They believed all kinds of wacky things-it’s hard to pin down exactly WHAT Hitler himself believed.

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Welcome to the SDMB, thshdw. The clarity of your thinking is much appreciated.

I don’t know what Hitler’s religious background was or what excuses he made for himself. Certainly Christians were involved in the persecution and death camps. Christians were also targets of the persecution and death camps – especially those who helped to protect those who were targets themselves.

We Christians have a way of not letting the truth get in the way of whatever we want to believe.

I’m not certain that that is accurate. In the United States, 25% of the people identify themselves as “evangelical” Christians. I don’t know if all fundamentalist Christians would refer to themselves as evangelical or not.

In the South (where I live) and the mid-West we are somewhat overwhelmed. The fundamentalists in this country and very vocal and their vote is being exploited (and funded) especially by the GOP.

Cite: PBS: NOW: God’s Country? 4/28/06

The PBS program as it aired is stunning.

Of particular interest to me is the Republican Primary in the Gubenatorial race tomorrow in Ohio. One candidate has been solidly (and perhaps illegally) backed by a very large evangelical church and its minister.

The notion that our founding fathers intended no separation of church and state is chilling to me and I am a Christian. I can’t imagine how agnostics, atheists and people of other faiths must feel.

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I’m Catholic (not a christian, according to SOME loonies), and I’m dead set against a commingling of church and state. The constitution, as I understand it to be written, says you go to your church and I will go to mine (or none at all if you choose). I take the Nonestablishment Clause as it is written. The government will make no blah blah blah respecting the establishment of blah blah blah. It takes them OUT of the religion business.

Or, as Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”. That sounds like keeping government and church at a respectful distance, if you look at it a certain way. I know, he was really answering a question about Roman taxes, but still the question had been couched in a political vs religious either/or sort of way.

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They borrowed and twisted a lot of things. They invoked christianity when it suited them. They invoked the Norse gods when it suited them. They “appropriated” Wagnerian opera when it suited them. Whatever “worked”, they used. Hitler was raised Catholic, but there were plenty of other Catholics that wanted to smoke him.

As far as education, the Germans were educated. They were right at the top in the sciences and the arts. They gave us Einstein, von Braun, and plenty of other geniuses. They had the first operational jet fighters, and even rocket planes. Their tanks were justly feared. They were working on nuclear science (the Bomb). But, intelligence, technology, or book smarts is no guarantee against evil or complacency.

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Without being too simplistic, it seems to me like Hitler believed in Nazism above all other things. Enough for it to be his religion, if he had one.

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Many people on this Board have made the point that Hitler and Stalin and other totalitarian leaders created what was essentially a state religion - with official “holy” texts, icons, regular belief meetings, leaders with special dress, etc - to replace other established religions. The attempt to create a single mass religion was something that had happened many times with Christians during Europe’s unruly history (Henry VIII’s suppression of the Catholic Church; the expulsion of the Huguenots in France) with as little long-term success. All these incidents have in common the leader’s perception that people appear to need to identify with something larger than themselves, and that control over this force helps to control the public. (Religion is the opiate of, and all that.)

If this argument is true, and I supported it long before I encountered here at the SDMB, then education about religion or religions is of limited value. It would not cure belief nor would it supplant the creation of a force larger than the mere individual. Religion is but a manifestation of a more encompassing psychological need. We can see similar effects in everything from Hubbard’s Dianetics to Lucas’ Force. The less stable the culture, the more perilous the times, the stronger the enemy, the more powerful the need for belief becomes.

Utopia, therefore, would be godless. If you want to eliminate religion, that’s the only route to take.

However, this discussion belongs in Great Debates.

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No. With some of the personalities we have here, it would go to The Pit, and fast.

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Didn’t all those personalities just let their memberships lapse? :smiley:

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The OP appears to be addressing this Staff Report.

thshdw, in future, please include a link to the column you refer to. This can be as simple as copying the link from your browser and pasting it into your post. Thanks.

14

I hope you stay here for a long, long time, thshdw.

Count me in with the camp that says that each modern dictator’s flavor of totalitarianism is its own religion, which may incorporate aspects of other, more established religions but is too selective regarding those religions’ belief systems to be truly considered faithful (heh) to those religions.

Even when one established religion is clearly dominant in the worldview of a dictator’s people–as in the most recent Islam-based dictatorships–I’ve always felt that the religion was used selectively to justify the dictator’s primary goals. The Qu’ran has its share of nastiness and violence (I’ve read small parts of it, and must admit I haven’t devoted much time to it), but so does the Old Testament, and no Jewish dictatorship exists–Israel may appear at times to be a relatively hawkish democracy, but it’s a democracy through and through, and even as a classic bleeding-heart liberal I would argue that it’s hawkish by necessity. What’s different about Islam? I don’t really know, but I suspect it’s more the secular motivations of the people at the top of the chain, than it is the religion itself.

IMO Christianity’s most vocal participants miss its point the most. Modern white-power groups may burn crosses and read Bibles, but they don’t need a Holy Spirit as much as they need a cause; I concur that the selection of Christianity by the religious elements of the movement is based on its convenience as a widely-known and widely-believed system which provides a useful framework for strong, one-sided decisions.

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I would first like to say welcome to thshdw and say I hope you give some serious thought to becoming a member here. We like thoughtful posts like yours.

To the religion of Hitler, IIRC he was raised in the RCC and even spent some time as a choirboy, if you can see that. I don’t know, however, if he considered himself to be RC in his adulthood. I rather agree with the thoughts above saying he made his own religion with himself at it’s center. I recall hearing the oath of loyalty taken by the soldiers of the German Army were oaths to Hitler himself, not to Germany.

Also stated above is the level of education in Germany in the late 1930’s. I think the opportunity for a Hitler-type to rise to power was heavily swayed by the conditions in Germany at this time following WWI due to terms imposed as punitive measures by the Allies. The poverty and hopelessness in the country made the people willing to listen to anyone that could promise a better future and point out those he portrayed as responsible for their lot. I think the knowledge of history is vital and a well-rounded knowledge of religion(s) is healthy as well. I’m not sure of the added leverage he may or may not have gained through religious manipulation. Even with the Jews, ISTM he played on fears of them as money-handlers and power brokers, as a race, more than the actual beliefs held as a religion.
I think he was the right man for the Dictator job at the right time. I will follow this thread with interest.
Again, welcome.

16

I go to a Baptist church, where’s my cool uniform? Do I get to wear a dagger on formal occasions?

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Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, thshdw, we’re glad to have you with us.

It’s helpful to other readers if you provide a link to the Staff Report under consideration when you start a thread: saves a lot of search time and the like. No biggie, you’ll know for next time; I’ve added the link at the bottom of your opening post. And I repeat, welcome!

18

I may have misunderstood you, but Hitler’s Jew baiting was not mere cynical propaganda. He believed what he said. He believed the Jews were powerful and dangerous, and constituted a threat not only to Germany and Europe, but to the entire world. Strange though it may seem to us, Hitler considered it plain and obvious that Jews around the world were more or less united in a semi-secret scheme to dominate and control every society in which they had a significant presence. He believed Roosevelt was a tool of the Jews, and he believed that Germany lost the First World War because the Jews, together with the radical left, stabbed Germany in the back. He wasn’t just telling lies to bamboozle the yokels. He quite seriously believed all this stuff. But again, I may have misunderstood you.

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Not saying I don’t believe you, but I’d be interested to hear why you think that.

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Hitler also believed that Christianity was just another part of the Great Jewish Plot to Unman Aryans. That notwithstanding he was just as aware as the Bush gang is that the word “Christian” has a high brand-name value, so he saved his more explicitly anti-Christian beliefs for the inner circle.