Come on, JK, some of what you claim as laughable or completely off point, is the result of misunderstandings caused by the disjointed nature of the medium. It is difficult to have a completely flowing conversation given the time delays, etc. I also think that there is some unwillingness to concede any points on your part that makes for willful misunderstanding on your own part. That is ok, I assume you are human. I know I often don’t want to hear what displeases me or challenges my sensibility, but that is sometimes what learning is all about.
I also am willing to learn from you…believe it or not…if you show me that what you are asserting is anything more than a personal, unique view of both history and the facts. So far, I fear we are at an impasse…no quarters given.
Let me take a stab at addressing some of the points you’ve raised, though I am not sure I can respond to them all.
1.There has been no information provided countering my opinion that Hitler was an atheist. Not one iota.
You should qualify this. There has been a great deal, rather it is information that you either don’t know, or refuse to acknowledge as either possible or legitimate. The later is an understandable position, but you lack critical ability here.
Specifically, let me posit an example. Nova has consistently used the Table Talk to illuminate Hitler’s attitudes. You’ve dismissed the source as fabricated to cover-up Hitler’s true intent. When it is pointed out that the tone and content of the Table Talk appear to be consistent with all of Hitler’s known writings, speeches and statements regarding religion, you have dismissed them all as propaganda. Finally, the question was posed, and left unanswered, that one way to know a man is to look at what they’ve said and written. Again, you’ve dismissed it, asserted that we know Hitler to be an atheist by his actions.
First, you assert that his statements and words are lies. Fine. Yet his statements and words are both consistent with his actions and they also are consistent with the assertion that Hitler was in some form or fashion a deist/theist. Also, in some respects his words are the only thing we have – so, while taking them with an appropriate grain of salt, they must be given some credence (a position you refuse). You offer no alternative, save action. You point to nothing where Hitler says: “I am an atheist, I do not believe in God…” (and, given your position, why would you believe it anyway?).
In addition, I have shown that the actions that you believe to be so hard and cold a reflection of Hitler’s atheism are completely understandable and in keeping with over a thousand years of German History in general and anti-Semitism in particular. So, the actions, themselves, speak of nothing more than better, more efficient technology of killing and say nothing about atheism, per se. Also, as I have pointed out repeatedly, the program of killing Jews for being Jews makes no sense in any understanding of atheism, while it is perfectly understandable in a warped Euro-Christian historical anti-Semitism.
2.) That "Hitler" didn't know "Nietzsche" because "Nietzsche" died when "Hitler" was 11 years old.
I believe this was a misunderstanding among a couple of posts, don’t blow it out of proportion
3) That the question I asked about what happened in the final days in Berlin that the whole city knew about was answered with "Nietzsche" wasn't "alive" then lol.
Again, I think this was a misunderstanding…give the players the benefit of the doubt.
4) That for dozens of posts after I defined my position on atheism people keep asking me for a definition of it.
Possibly true. However, it suggests to me that most of us do not understand this definition. Unfortunately, Girl6 is right, you may have to repeat it from time to time…
More importantly, the definition, such as I understand it, seems to change – and I am not talking about whether atheism is a “religion” or “worshipped”.
For instance, I admit confusion – it maybe because I am not the brightest light in the tower – over how you arrive at your distinction. For, instance, you’ve claimed repeatedly that not only was Hitler an atheist, but that obviously the German people were godless atheists to the extent that they followed Hitler. Now, you’ve a theory that is based on the influence of not only Nietzsche and Hegel, but also flows from the Reformation and Humanism (Luther through Marx/Lenin), as the root and cultural cause of this alleged atheism. Fine, even interesting.
However, I would posit for most people on this board, limited though our (mine, at least) reading in Nietzsche and Hegel is, your assertions don’t make a lot of sense. For most of us, atheism is expressed and defined by an individual state ting in one form or another: I do not believe there is any God…OR…I see no proof for the existence of God(s).
From that assertion may flow a philosophy that enables or powers evil – a’la Stalin – but it such is not the necessary or inevitable result (I think you would argue differently).
However, in the case of Hitler, you’ve shown nothing and dismissed all contrary statements. And, in the case of the German people, you have again shown nothing. Specifically, many Germans – many who followed the Nazi’s were, if not Christian as you understand it, but believers in a god. They professed that God existed, that Jesus was their savior, they went to churches and schools that taught that they existed under the authority of god, etc. So, they may not have believed in god in the way you have, but they did believe in god(s)…ergo, they weren’t atheists. They might not have been particularly good Christians, they may have failed the critical moral test of our time, but you have offered no evidence that they didn’t believe in god.
Nor, have you offered any evidence regarding the clergy. You’ve claimed they were weak and bullied. Clearly, there is some history for that assertion. However, it is also a part of the case that much of the Clergy, both Catholic and Protestant, signed on and didn’t resist Hitler BECAUSE THEY AGREED WITH HITLER on many issues…anti-bolshevism, anti-Semitisms, etc. And, as I have shown, that Anti-Semitism was an inherent part of the religion that they had been practicing for over a thousand years (pre-dating the Lutheran reformation).
It just doesn’t make sense. In short, even if Hitler was a atheist – a contention that you’ve gotten no where historically in proving (though, I will grant you there is a philosophical, if extremist, position for the assertion) – Nazis and Germans need not have been to have joined happily into the Evil. Indeed, as Goldhagen (sp?), has shown, religious Germans did so and were willing participants (as were Poles, etc.). The point is, they believed, and thought that they could justify it in terms of their religious philosophy (and, also political expediency).
4) That the "Table Talks" were a propaganda document well known by historians for Hitler's posterity when global conquest was completed and yet it is spewed here as fact.
Have to disagree with your contention. No one, and certainly not Nova, has spewed the Table Talk as fact. It clearly is propaganda. However, the burden is on you, making the contention that Hitler was an atheist, that the propaganda is directly contradicted by other, more important facts. This you’ve not done.
In other words, Propaganda it may be, but it might also be true (there is propaganda that is true). In short, why lie? It may be smoothed over, but why lie? And, if Hitler were trying to build an atheistic state…a state that would remember him as its god-like founder and savior of mankind (as defined by the Aryan race) in a thousand years, why muddle your greatness by talking about god and nature, etc. No, Hitler doesn’t appear to be a Christian (nothing about the Table Talk suggest it). However, given your assertion that the Table Talk is all lies and is for distribution to confuse and soften the masses, why not lie outright and claim to be, as most of the masses thought of themselves as Christian? Wouldn’t that have been more effective? No, Hitler, pretty well dismisses Christianity and claims a higher power and authority for himself and his mission. He does so in the name of both nature and a higher deity. Further, he dismisses atheism.
Bottom line, I don’t believe that you can either ignore it or dismiss it without showing specifically the lie.
5) That the "superman" theory that Hitler and his henchmen latched onto could only occur when God was removed by the state, and yet there are uninformed claims that the "superman" theory did not evolve from Nietzsche.
Not being much of a Nietzsche scholar, I don’t know about this. However, I would suggest that ideals of German superiority had begun to appear before Nietzsche.
Further, you don’t need to have Nietzsche and atheism to have a “Superman” theory of government. Out of my ignorance, I would propose that ancient Sparta (a pan-theistic not atheistic society) strove for the Superman as well.
6) That the German people were not a "Godless" people (atheist state), and yet no evidence was ever provided by anyone on the forum proving it was a population walking hand in hand with God. I asked for one example where any Christian authority was given power in the German state and not one example was provided. (Because there never was any, historically).
It seems to me that that this assertion entails two points. First, before getting to it, you asserted (or seem to assert) that the German’s and those who embraced Nazism were godless. It falls on you, it seems to me, to prove that point. Churches functioned, military units had chaplains, seminaries functioned, and Priests gave mass. Religious symbols abounded, etc. People, when asked, would have identified themselves not only as religious but also as Christian. The regime stated repeatedly that it was defending civilization in general and Christian civilization in particular from the eastern hoards, the commies and the Jewish Spawn of Satan.
The Leadership in both Catholic and Protestant churches blessed the regime. They may have been wrong. They may have been weak, they may have failed not only your moral test, but also every reasonable moral test, but they certainly appear to be a people of faith. Now, to dismiss that faith, the burden falls on you. You can say, you don’t believe them. But, that is not based on fact or history; it is based upon your own personal belief about what it is that makes a person a Christian.
Further, and I repeat, the initial argument was Hitler was an atheist. The Nazis need not have been Christian for them to be Atheists. It isn’t a clean dichotomy Christian or Atheist. If the Germans weren’t Christian as you uniquely define the term, they certainly weren’t an atheistic society nor were they overtly trying to build an atheistic society (a’la well known and openly proclaimed atheists like Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao).
Second, you have consistently ignored the proof I’ve offered that shows that the anti-Semitism that was rampant in Nazism has its roots in how Christianity developed in Europe in general and Germany in Particular.
Third, so, the church would have to have had authority for it to fight Hitler and prove that it wasn’t the captive of Atheism? That’s BS. First, not only have examples been provided of where evils like anti-Semitism ran rampant when the “church” had authority (which gets to your whole definition of atheism, that no one else seems to hold) – a’la the Inquisition, and the Ghettoization of Jews in the Papal State. But, in this particular case, the Churches went along with the Nazi’s because they recognized it and its philosophy as being consistent with its own. That is why most Protestants and Catholic didn’t say “no”. That is why the Pope today is apologizing for thousands of years of Anti-Semitism.
In the end, the Pope was more concerned about the evils of Bolshevism (a Jewish plot?) than the fate of the Jews. That’s why he signed the concordant…oh, btw, the Concordant gave the Catholic Church a number of privileges in the Nazi society Hitler was building, the other reason the Pope signed it (rightly or wrongly, he thought he was carving out a special place for the church in that society).
7) That the concentration camps that were operated and run by Hitler's efficient fascist bureaucracy where 60% of the German population knew about it, and yet that godless population is supposed to be "Christian".
How to respond to this? Because you don’t want them to be Christian, doesn’t mean that isn’t how they defined themselves. Why do you get to call who is a Christian or not? Or, for that matter, who is a believer in a God(s). Christians, like their brothers in other religions, have been standing aside and watching butchery and evil for some time, there is nothing new in that. That is, among other reasons, the Pope feels he has to apologize to the Jews.
Methinks, your definitions demand a perfection that doesn’t exist in the world.
8) That Hitler forced the Vatican to sign a surrender treaty, and yet he is claimed by participants here to be a "Christian".
All I can say is that isn’t the perception that comes across in a number of books on this topic. The most recent one I read was Hitler’s Pope, It suggests that Pius thought he was getting a fair deal for Catholicism out of the treaty and thought that Hitler would be a wonderful bulwark against his hated bolshevism.
9) That Hitler was a "Protestant", and yet the headquarters of the "Protestant" religion and its leaders in London met the most destructive attacks by Hitler during the war.
What? No one has claimed, that I recall, that Hitler was a “Protestant”, it has been noted repeatedly that he was raised a Catholic. London is where the leaders of Protestantism are? What are you talking about?
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