Nice straw man.
That is indeed an interesting question, but one that’s irrelevant to the issue of whether Hitler himself was a Christian. In other words, it amounts to moving the goalposts.
As others have said, the fact that Hitler quoted Scripture says little about whether he was actually a Christian or not. Heck, the whole point of the original Straight Dope staff report in question is that Hitler appeared to act like a typical politician, pandering to various parties as suited his needs. Claiming that he must be Christian because he cited some scriptures is a shaky foundation, to put it mildly.
That’s not a straw man. If anyone came close to a straw man, you did, when you asked if he was asserting that politicians never lie.
Okay, let’s have a look. The first quote attributed to the Nazi Party’s program is this:
“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. It combats the Jewish-materialist spirit within and without us, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent health from within only on the principle: the common interest before self-interest.”
As usual for atheist web sites, there’s no reference where I can verify that this quote is real. However, I did go to google and search for that quote. As you can see, the results don’t give much reason to believe that the quote is genuine. Seems like that first one is a fake.
But maybe that’s an outlier. Let me try another one: "“Providence has caused me to be Catholic, and I know therefore how to handle this Church.” No source as usual, so I searched on Google. Once again, no reliable website comes up, but only a bunch of atheist hate sites repeating the same thing without any firsthand source. (Also, incidentally, rense.com, which jrodefeld was promoting.)
Looks like you’ve been suckered by a webpage full of fake quotes. Maybe next time, before you try lecturing me about “truth”, you should first check whether the atheist website that you’re copying from is at all reliable.
You have to be careful when searching for quotes of translations.
I found it rendered as:
For the second quote, all I can find by way of cite is “reportedly to have said in Berlin in 1936 on the enmity of the Catholic Church to National Socialism”, which makes it little better than gossip. However, it should be noted that that is the same level as many of the anti-christian quotes of hitler that have been described in this thread.
“Providence has caused me to be Catholic” is almost as funny as “Thank God I’m an atheist!” but perhaps it’s not as funny in German, depending on the word translated as “Providence”.
That first quote is definitely article 24 of the 25-point NSDAP programme, probably jointly drafted by Drexler and Hitler, originally announced in 1920 and theoretically at least the party’s manifesto thereafter. In practice, the programme was something the party always hailed back to as a symbol, even as the details were ignored.
(If one doesn’t trust a webpage, the most widely used English translation of the programme these days is item 3 in volume 1 of Noakes and Pridham, Nazism 1919-1945: A Documentary Reader.)
Be honest ITR ,you have a position that you “believe” in, that Hitler was not a Christian. He was very familiar with the bible and quoted it often. But you will label any cite as “atheist” making the assumption they are being dishonest. Yet you have a slant equivalent to what you claim they have. Should I assume everything you say is a lie? Or do you want to deal with the info honestly?
Why do you think lies are the purview of atheists? This board should have dismissed that notion long ago.
Mien Kampf
The folkish minded man ,in particular has the sacred duty ,each to his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of Gods will, and actually fulfill god’s will and not let god’s word be desecrated. For God’s will gave men their form. their essence, and their abilities. Anyone who destroys his work is declaring war on god;'s creation, the divine will.
Sounds kinda religious and Christian to me.
Erm, the whole point is, yes Hitler gave his speeches in a way that would appeal to Christians and others, but does he actually belive it himself?
Does he actually put christian princples into practise? Not mention the earlier posts in this thread shwoing bashing Christianity.
And what, he got the approval of the Vatican? And? The vatican is really more of a political clique that wears a relgious mask. If Jesis was around today he’d be saying most of the stuff he said about the Pharisess to the Vatican.
Hitler’s public word’s might cast him a christan but his private words and his actions do not.
His actions are irrelevant. Seriously.
There are plenty of people who apparently believe and yet seem to act in a way patently opposite to what most of us think of as christian.
There are a number of reasons for this. The feeling that the ends justify the means, the feeling that sins will be forgiven if forgiveness is asked, and, heck, the fact that the whole bible is subject to interpretation and people tend to interpret the bible in a way that fits their world view.
As for Hitler’s private words, as pointed out, some of his private words were allegedly pro-christian also.
How about the preacher with a wife and kids who promotes “family values” and opposes gay rights.
Does that make him heterosexual ?
In all the Hitler christianity quotes I’ve read, the sense I get is that he sees christianity as a useful tool for his purposes.
Had he once said “I believe Jesus Christ died for our sins and was resurrected”, I might believe he was a Christian.
Hitler grew up a Christian. But, he like a lot of fundamentalist preachers in America ,used religion to conceal his agendas and justify their actions… The preachers want your money and want to control their flocks politically
Hitler used the bible to explain his plans should be acceptable to Christians. But he had to have plenty of religious training and familiarity with the bible in order to do it.
Bush claimed to be a "born again Christian, and he launched 2 wars and gutted programs that helped the needy. How religious was that? Does that disqualify him as a Christian?
Is a TV preacher that gets rich off the poor who watch him on TV while he enjoys gay sex or consorts with whores, still a Christian? Does hypocrisy make you lose your Christian credentials?
Did those who launched crusades into the middle east, lose their right to call themselves Christians?
There is a movement in the armed forces to push fundamentalism on the American soldiers ,who are thousands of miles from home killing people for reasons, they really don’t understand. Fundie generals and leaders are using religion to justify what they are ordering soldiers to do. Are they still Christians? Were they ever?
I see the same arguments to tag Hitler as a Christian as I see in the arguments to tag Thomas Jefferson as a Christian.
If you agree that both are Christian, then I have no argument. The debate is simply a matter of settling on a definition.
And I would agree that neither were anti-Christian .
FromEvilbible.com
“He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church, he said, although he had no real attachment to it.”
Consider the implication of that statement.
Belief is usually considered the most important criterion for being Christian.
Most dictionaries define it thus. And put it this way: atheists are not considered christian, regardless of their actions, because the label is based on beliefs.
Redefining christian to make deeds the most important criterion smacks of “true scotsman”: all christians behave well, and if you find one that doesn’t, well, that’s not a christian then.
He had fellow human beings killed = not a Christian. A devil. A murderer. A sociopath. Even the word “asshole” would be a compliment. I hope to meet him in hell. It would be “rock and roll” with a whole new definition.
Thanks
Quasi
You referring to Hitler or Bush? Both raised Catholic and confirmed. Both quoted the bible.
Bush was never a Catholic.
In respone to what you said about Hitler: Ok “religous” people can do immoral things, but Hitler doesn’t seem to make any show of faith outside of the public, or talk about god (aside from saying religon was choking germany) except when trying to manipulate. Ergo it appears he isn’t religous.
And as for bush… well frankly I wonder if hes like Hitler, in regards to that “Make a big show of being Christian in public, don’t bother about it in private”. But thats another debate, and one that tends to go nowhere.
Yes, I believe that Hitler was not a Christian for the reasons that are already stated. Foremost of those, Hitler had an enormous number of people murdered because they were Christians. (Cites already provided.) If, as you claim, Hitler was a Christian, how do explain this? Then, as mentioned in the Straight Dope column that started this thread, Hitler took a great many actions indicating that he’s not a Christian, from banning crucifixes in school and abolishing religious education to replacing Christian holidays with holidays of his own making. If, as you claim, Hitler was a Christian how do you explain these things? And then there are claims that Hitler was a Catholic–you haven’t said this but you’ve linked to web pages that have. Hitler was not a Catholic, didn’t attend church, did go to mass, didn’t give confessions, didn’t do fasts or penances, or at least there’s no record that he did throughout his adult life. So what’s the explanation for all this?
The only thing you provide is a small number of instances of Hitler quoting the Bible. The only response to this is the one others have already given you: so what? I’d bet that in your life you’ve referred to a ‘David and Goliath’ battle or told someone to ‘eat, drink, and be merry’ or that ‘for everything there is a season’ or used some of the hundreds of other common phrases that come from the Bible. Clearly quoting the Bible establishes nothing about a person’s beliefs. Quoting it doesn’t prove that “Hitler had plenty of religious training and familiarity with the bible”. In fact, as he only quoted a few tiny bits from the best-known sections, it’s more suggests that he didn’t have much familiarity with it.
All I’ve said is that web pages set up by atheists should not be trusted when they can’t provide firsthand material or their logic is blatantly flawed. I’d say the same for a web page set up by anybody. However, it’s been my observation that on topics like this the ‘Hitler was a Christian’ advocates have to rely on anonymous web pages because all the real history books are against them.