The Viral "Sinner" Mentality

If there's anything that really iritates me about religious people is their "sinner" mentality. It goes something like this. Everyone in the planet are sinners. We are all horrible people that must be thrown into hell. We must repent and say "I accept Jesus", so that we can continue being bad people, killing, raping and pillaging, but go to heaven in the end.

What nonsense! They justify their own selfish and terrible actions by saying that everyone is bad and then say that they are going to heaven, even though they CONTINUE to sin, because they said something. Sooooo stupid and unproductive.

Another thing that bugs me about this is that it is simply not true that people are "bad". Most people are good people with good intentions towards everyone and the planet. And the ones that are not "good" people were simply harmed by someone in the past. Nobody is truly a "bad" person that can't possibly changed. And by believing that everyone is bad, they not only hold themselves completely unaccountable for their actions, but they also spread this virus and holds everyone unaccountable by their actions. Such behaviour can only destroy our civilization.

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Well, it's worth mentioning that when you refer to "bad" people, they do not specifically mean murderers or those that 'normal' folk might consider "bad".. No, they refer to people that are simply different than they are - atheists, homosexuals etc etc..

We are simply bad because we do not agree with them.

 

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Dig this, if your a Catholic you can murder people yet still go to heaven if

you get a priest to give you absolution!

 

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Maybe your understanding of "religious people" is a little narrow.
Just a suggestion.

Jan.

 

makes you wonder why god
(IF it made ALL)
didnt create everyone good with free will and unable to sin in first place?
probably b/c he doesnt exist!

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the vedas hold that the only eternal quality of the living entity is "goodness", which finds its foundation in a service attitude towards god - IOW we are all eternally servants of god.

The problem of material association is that we still have the same service attitude but we include god to a lesser or non existent role - IOW we focus in serving our family, friends, people or nation (or in material religious circles, they throw a god coloured cloth over their service attitude towards family, friends, nation etc) - from this foundation of service all material faults arise, simply because the foundation is not eternal. Thus materially "good" acts towards family, nation etc can quickly turn into materially "bad acts

Needless to say, the only means of (re) entering the eternal abode of god is through reviving one's eternal position as a servant of god and not through materially designated religious princples

 

Its funny because when you look at the majority of wars in human history, what were they all based on? Religion.

Religion accounts for more deaths in the history of the known world than ANY other mass catastrophy. More people have been murdered from religious differences than all hurricanes, tornado's, earthquakes, war's started for political reasons, street crimes, tsunami's, animal attacks, drownings, suicides, plagues, cancer, AIDS, and drunk drivers COMBINED in the history of the world.

People are so quick to state its ok to kill others because they believe God is on thier side and that its "God's will".

If you don't go to thier church and believe in thier interpretation of God, then somehow that automatically makes you "wrong".

We're willing to kill eachother over who has the better imaginary friend.

Humans are so f****ing stupid as a species.

 

That is not how Christianity works. Christians see God as being perfect and good. There is no human who can ever be as good and perfect as God. No matter how good and perfect a person is, he/she is still inherently sinful in God's eyes. But the wages of sin are death, and the Christ paid for those sins with his torture and crucification. When a Christian is saved, through that gift and grace of God, God forgives the sinner provided the sinner truly repents sins, asks for forgiveness, and builds a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit dwells within the Christian, and a Christian can feel this presence. A Christian will reject sin and strive to be as Christ-like in his behavior as possible. The Holy Spirit helps to guide the Christian's life with an awareness of sin. A Christian detests sin, feels very guilty when he sins, avoids sin and tries to act as Christ would want him to.

No one is perfect; everyone sins. But someone who claims to be a Christian but who continually rapes, murders, pillages, is not a Christian. The Holy Spirit does not dwell within such a person.

 

Oh god. Another religious nut has joined our ranks.

Look, "sin" is nothing but man-made rules on what to do and what not to do in order to control people. Its as simple as that. I am not Christian, nor do I need someone telling me what is right and wrong in order to live a good and rewarding life. I am able to determine that for myself as are most humans.

 

How do you come to the conclusion that most war and killing in history is based on religion? Ever try listing the great killers of history to see if they are killing because God told them to?

The great mass murders in history are usually atheists. Hitler’s Nazi’s despised Christians: the Nazi’s became Gods. Stalin, Lenin, both atheists responsible for the murders of tens of millions. Mao was a communist not a Christian, allowed more tens of millions to die. Cambodia – not Christian, 3 million deaths. The various genocidal regimes in Africa – not Christian. Sudan where some 200,000 people have died in the last 5 years – Muslim. Nowhere will one find such evil at the hands of Christians.

Even the Crusades were defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression, an effort to defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands. Muslims were gunning for Christians to wipe them out. The Christians of 11th century Europe were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims were and still are. Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed's death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt-once the most heavily Christian areas in the world-quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul.

From the perspective of medieval Christians, Muslims were the enemies of Christ and His Church. It was the Crusaders' task to defeat and defend against them.

By the 1500’s the Protestant Reformation, which rejected the papacy and the doctrine of indulgence, made Crusades unthinkable for many Europeans, thus leaving the fighting to the Catholics. The Protestant Reformation enabled the Renaissance which led to great economic growth and new science and engineering – by Christians: the Muslim lands had no such Renaissance, leaving ultimate defeat of Islam due to economic power not military power.

I do grant you that TODAY, most killing is based on religion. The Islamic religion to be precise. This is the only religion where a God Allah has given his believers carte-blanche to kill non-believers, at least as many Muslims interpret the Qu'ran. But in my view, Islam is a cult, not a religion.

 

Yep, and rapists and murderers determine that for themselves, too. Are you suggesting that we all be permitted to make those determinations for ourselves? ...murderers and rapists, too?

Baron Max

 

actually it appears to be commerce, or more specifically industry

while atheists have previously tried to argue that WW1 & 2 were religious, it certainly requires a stretch of the use of the word "religious"

what comes first though?
the religious justification by hindsight or the economic need that greases the wheels of war?

I think you would be hard pressed to name a war that was actually drawn up over religious issues - even with all the (anti) religious hype that surrounds the US invasion of iraq, any fool can see that the driving force is oil

 

Try again

Generally speaking, in most of the following cases, religion is both
the stated cause of the killing and the only substantive difference
between the two opposing groups. Obviously, there would be many
additional conflicts where religion is just one of several divisions.
Albigensian Crusade, 1208-49
Algeria, 1992-
Baha'is, 1848-54
Bosnia, 1992-95
Boxer Rebellion, 1899-1901
Christian Romans, 30-313 CE
Croatia, 1991-92
Early Christian doctrinal disputes
English Civil War, 1642-46
Holocaust, 1938-45
Huguenot Wars, 1562-1598
India, 1992-2002
India: Suttee & Thugs
Indo-Pakistani Partition, 1947
Iran, Islamic Republic, 1979-
Iraq, Shiites, 1991-92
Jews, 1348
Jonestown, 1978
Lebanon
1860
1975-92
Martyrs, generally
Molucca Is., 1999-
Mongolia, 1937-39
Northern Ireland, 1974-98
Responsibility generally (Is religion responsible for more deaths than ...?)
Christian culpabiltiy
Russian pogroms:
1905-06
1917-22
St. Bartholemew Massacre, 1572
Shang China, ca. 1300-1050 BCE
Shimabara Revolt, Japan 1637-38
Sikh uprising, India, 1984-91
Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1834
Taiping Rebellion, 1850-64
Thirty Years War, 1618-48
Tudor England
Vietnam, 1800s
Witch Hunts, 1400-1800
Xhosa, 1857
In addition, here are a few noteworthy conflicts where dissimilar
ethnic groups fought for primarily religious reasons:
Arab Outbreak, 7th Century CE
Arab-Israeli Wars, 1948-
Al Qaeda, 1993-
Crusades, 1095-1291
Dutch Revolt, 1566-1609
Nigeria, 1990s, 2000s

That by themselves is 809,215,000 deaths.

Oh and by the way, I strongly suggest you do a bit more reading on History.

Hitler was Christian...

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited."

-Adolf Hitler, in his speech in Munich on 12 April 1922

And that is just one quote out of the dozens he's made referring to his Christianity as the driving force behind his actions.

 

you should be clear whether you are talking about wars caused by religion or wars involving the religious

as for hitler, to get a more complete picture of his christianity perhaps you could also examine his persecution of organized religion about a dozen years later ....

 

Providence shows no mercy to weak nations, but recognizes the right of existence-only of sound and strong nations....

This Jewish bolshevist annihilation of nations and its western European and American procurers can be met only in one way: by using every ounce of strength with the extreme fanaticism and stubborn steadfastness that merciful God gives to men in hard times for the defense of their own lives....

We have suffered so much that it only steels us to fanatical resolve to hate Our enemies a thousand times more and to regard them for what they are destroyers of an eternal culture and annihilators of humanity. Out of this bate a holy will is born to oppose these destroyers of our existence with all the strength that God has given us and to crush them in the end. During its 2,000-year history our people has survived so many terrible times that we have no doubt that we will also master our present plight.

-Adolf Hitler, in a recorded radio address, 24 Feb. 1945




God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence we are defending His work....

Only He can relieve me of this duty Who called me to it. It was in the hand of Providence to snuff me out by the bomb that exploded only one and a half meters from me on July 20, and thus to terminate my life's work. That the Almighty protected me on that day I consider a renewed affirmation of the task entrusted to me....

Therefore, it is all the more necessary on this twelfth anniversary of the rise to power to strengthen the heart more than ever before and to steel ourselves in the holy determination to wield the sword, no-matter where and under what circumstances, until final victory crowns our efforts....

In the years to come I shall continue on this road, uncompromisingly safeguarding my people's interests, oblivious to all misery and danger, and filled with the holy conviction that God the Almighty will not abandon him who, during all his life, had no desire but to save his people from a fate it had never deserved, neither by virtue of its number nor by way of its importance....

In vowing ourselves to one another, we are entitled to stand before the Almighty and ask Him for His grace and His blessing. No people can do more than that everybody who can fight, fights, and that everybody who can work, works, and that they all sacrifice in common, filled with but one thought: to safeguard freedom and national honor and thus the future of life.

-Adolf Hitler, in a radio address, 30 Jan. 1945



The bomb which was planted by Colonel von Stauffenberg exploded two meters to my right. It seriously injured a number of my colleagues who are very dear to me; one has died. I myself am completely unhurt apart from a few minor skin abrasions, bruises and burns. I interpret this as confirmation that Providence wishes me to continue my life's mission as I have in the past.

Few people can begin to imagine the fate which would have overtaken Germany had the assassination attempt succeeded. I myself thank Providence and my Creator not for preserving me - my life consists only of worry and work for my People - I thank him only for allowing me to continue to bear this burden of worry, and to carry on my work to the best of my ability.

Once again I take this opportunity, my old comrades in arms, to greet you, joyful that I have once again been spared a fate which, while it held no terror for me personally, would have had terrible consequences for the German People. I interpret this as a sign from Providence that I must continue my work, and therefore I shall continue it.

-Adolf Hitler, speaking about the attempt to kill him, in a radio broadcast on 20 July 1944



If positive Christianity means love of one's neighbour, i.e. the tending of the sick, the clothing of the poor, the feeding of the hungry, the giving of drink to those who are thirsty, then it is we who are the more positive Christians. For in these spheres the community of the people of National Socialist Germany has accomplished a prodigious work.

-Adolf Hitler, in his speech to the "Old Guard" at Munich on 24 Feb. 1939


Hmmmm... sounds pretty religious to me, even a dozen years later.

 

better to judge a person, particularly a politician, by their acts rather than their words

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Although Hitler did not attend church regularly and later criticized the Church for their rejection of his reformation of a unified German Church, at no time did Hitler criticize God or Jesus. He always maintained an honor and belief in Jesus. This alone put him as a Christian believer. But Hitler went beyond just belief in Jesus; he devoted his entire political life to deeds aimed at creating a race of people in the pure image of God.

Some claim that Hitler lied when promoting religion, for political reasons (without citing a shred of evidence), but nothing in the historical record indicates this, nor would there appear any reason for him to do so. Even if he lied in Mein Kampf, why would he continue to consider himself a Christian after he held absolute German power? Why spend so much valuable resources to rid Germany of Jews if not from some profound justification? Hate of Jews alone cannot explain it. The hate must stem from some source and the historical record shows that anti-Judaism had long lived in the minds of Christians ever since Paul separated his community of believers from the law and people of Judaism.
Just as revealingly, not only did Hitler present his religious beliefs in his speeches, but his own private notes reveal the influence of the Bible, long before he came into power. In one of his notes, he describes the Bible as the monumental history of mankind and used the old testament race laws as the foundation for his views against the Jews, which later turned into the Nazi Nuremberg race laws [Maser, p.282]

Many Christians have attempted to destroy Hitler's claimed Christianity by pointing out that his actions did not appear Christian-like (whatever that means). Therefore, so the hypothesis goes, no "true" Christian would cause "evil" deeds. But again, the Bible does not define Christianity in terms of deeds regardless of how good or evil they seem. Yet it came through his very deeds that Hitler confessed his work for the Lord:Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.

-Hitler (Mein Kampf)



Hitler's work of the Lord only agrees with Biblical scripture:And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

-Colossians 3:17



Hitler not only believed in Jesus (which alone made him a Christian) but his work against the Jews came straight from Christian theological reasoning just as had many Christian saints of the past. His Christian expressions of "Lord God," "Living Christ," and "Lord and Savior" indicates his acknowledgement of Jesus as God and his acceptance of a resurrected Christ (for what else can "Living" and "Savior" mean except from a resurrected state?). Hitler also believed in the supernatural concept of life after death. In Mein Kampf he wrote, "a religion in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction of survival after death in some form."

Another indication of Hitler's beliefs about religion comes from his private library of numerous books. Although most of Hitler's books came as gifts from writers and publishers, those where he penciled and underlined sections reveal, not only the books that he read, but also those that he commented on and had an interest in. Timothy W. Ryback, who examined Hitler's books, found more than 130 books devoted to spirituality and religion including the teachings of Jesus Christ. Some of the titles included, Sunday Meditations; On Prayer; A Primer for Religious Questions, Large and Small; Large Truths About Mankind, the World and God; a German translation of E. Stanley Jones's 1931 best seller, The Christ of the Mount; and a 500-page work on the life and teachings of Jesus, published in 1935 under the title The Son: The Evangelical Sources and Pronouncements of Jesus of Nazareth in Their Original Form and With the Jewish Influences. Ryback also found a leather-bound tome -- with WORTE CHRISTI, or "Words of Christ," embossed in gold on the cover -- According to Ryback, it "was well worn, the silky, supple leather peeling upward in gentle curls along the edges. Human hands had obviously spent a lot of time with this book.... I scanned the book for marginalia that might suggest a close study of the text. A white-silk bookmark, preserved in its original perfection between pages 22 and 23 (only the portion exposed to the air had deteriorated), lay across a description of the Last Supper as related by Saint John. A series of pages that followed contained only a single aphorism each: 'Believe in God' (page 31), 'Have no fear, just believe' (page 52), 'If you believe, anything is possible' (page 53), and so on, all the way to page 95, which offers the solemn wisdom 'Many are called but few are chosen.'" [Ryback]

After reading Hitler's book and his speeches, one cannot help but realize that Hitler believed in fate and the guiding hand of Providence. Like many powerful religious people, he thought of himself as a sort of messiah, chosen by God. In 1943, while the war still raged on, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA) commissioned the psychoanalyst, Walter Langer, to develop a "psychological profile" of Adolf Hitler. Langer looked at all the, then, available material about Hitler, including Mein Kampf, his speeches, and interviews with former Hitler associates. Langer concluded:

A survey of all the evidence forces us to conclude that Hitler believes himself destined to become an Immortal Hitler, chosen by God to be the New Deliverer of Germany and the Founder of a new social order for the world. He firmly believes this and is certain that in spite of all the trials and tribulations through which he must pass he will finally attain that goal. The one condition is that he follow the dictates of the inner voice that have guided and protected him in the past.


Langer hypothesized the most likely scenario if Hitler faced defeat where, in a "prescient moment," Hitler's belief in divine protection would compel him to fight to the bitter end, "drag[ging] a world with us -- a world in flames," and ultimately, he would take his own life. [Ryback]

Fortunately Hitler did not drag us with him in a world of flames but Langer pegged Hitler's profile.

Puzzling as it may seem, some Christians want to see a suicidal Hitler as "evidence" for his alleged apostasy because, according to Catholic doctrine, the act of suicide results in "mortal sin." But these same accusers don't seem to realize that Hitler's suicide occurred well after his preemptive war and the Jewish holocaust. Ironically by using the mortal-sin argument, they have placed Hitler into Christianity as a pre-Christian, the very Christianized Hitler that did the damage in the first place! Of course none of this matters because, according to Christian beliefs (Protestant or Catholic), regardless of how sinful one lives, sin alone cannot excuse a person from Christianity, even though it may keep you from Heaven (whatever that means).

Unfortunately, either through ignorance, subterfuge or sheer self-deceit, modern Christians will adhere to anything to escape a religious Hitler. Christians love to point out that Hitler imprisoned priests and nuns, some of them dying in concentration camps; therefore he must have had anti-Christian feelings, so the reasoning goes. But the Nazis imprisoned people of many faiths, including a few Nazis who stood in Hitler's way. But the Nazis condemned these people for their political views against the NSDAP government, never for their Christian religious beliefs.

Although Hitler may have deluded and blinded himself by belief, he appeared brutally honest in his fanaticism and beliefs. Nowhere do we find him denouncing Jesus; nothing in the record shows him expressing hatred toward Christians for their beliefs; not at anytime does he destroy Christian churches or attempt to eliminate the Christian religion. Even though Hitler had political problems with the hierarchy of the churches, he spent inordinate amount of time attempting to unite the Churches into one German Reich Church and spoke for establishing what he called real Christianity. His reach for uniting Christianity brought conflict within the denominations and created political divisions. It came from this that Hitler sometimes spoke against Christianity as a power structure, but never against Christianity as a belief system. (Note that many prominent Christians, throughout history, had spoken against their own religions, or other competing Christian religions). Although the historical record does show that, along with Jews and gypsies, a number of Christians did die in extermination camps, these death sentences resulted from their political views against Nazism, not because of their religion, faith in God, or because Hitler hated Christians. His religious reasoning for killing people aimed at Jews, not Christians and this included Jews who converted to Christianity.

If imprisoning or killing Christians constituted a condition for determining anti-Christianity, then we would have to consider virtually all governments or leaders of society who called for death sentences against Christians, as anti-Christian as well. Note that the majority of criminals in U.S. prisons, as well as those we execute, live and die as Christians. Does that make our prosecutors anti Christian? Should we consider George W. Bush anti-Christian just because his Texas agenda for the death penalty put many Christian criminals to death? Of course not, and neither can one use this reasoning as an argument against Hitler's Christianity. If, indeed, Hitler imprisoned priests or Christians for religious reasons, then where does this evidence exist? What proclamation or religious belief does Hitler cite to justify this hearsay belief?

Hitler makes his position clearly known about priests violating state concerns when he said:

So long as they concern themselves with their religious problems the State does not concern itself with them. But so soon as they attempt by any means whatsoever-- by letters, Encyclica, or otherwise-- to arrogate to themselves rights which belong to the State alone we shall force them back into their proper spiritual, pastoral activity.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech delivered in Berlin on the May Day festival, 1937 [Baynes]



Hitler fully realized that his political enemies were making accusations against him and although he didn't have to, he explicitly makes his position known about his feelings for religion:

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 (Einstellung), nor will anyone in the future be so persecuted....

The Churches are the greatest landed proprietors after the State... Further, the Church in the National Socialist State is in many ways favoured in regard to taxation, and for gifts, legacies, &c., it enjoys immunity from taxation.

It is therefore, to put mildly-- effrontery when especially foreign politicians make bold to speak of hostility to religion in the Third Reich....

I would allow myself only one question: what contributions during the same period have France, England, or the United States made through the State from the public funds?

3. The National Socialist State has not closed a church, nor has it prevented the holding of a religious service, nor has it ever exercised any influence upon the form of a religious service. It has not exercised any pressure upon the doctrine nor on the profession of faith of any of the Confessions. In the National Socialist State anyone is free to seek his blessedness after his own fashion....

There are ten thousands and ten thousands of priests of all the Christian Confessions who perform their ecclesiastical duties just as well as or probably better than the political agitators without ever coming into conflict with the laws of the State....

This State has only once intervened in the internal regulation of the Churches, that is when I myself in 1933 endeavoured to unite the weak and divided Protestant Churches of the different States into one great and powerful Evangelical Church of the Reich. That attempt failed through the opposition of the bishops of some States; it was therefore abandoned. For it is in the last resort not our task to defend or even to strengthen the Evangelical Church through violence against its own representatives....

But on one point it is well that there should be no uncertainty: the German priest as servant of God we shall protect, the priest as political enemy of the German State we shall destroy.

-Adolf Hitler, a speech in the Reichstag on 30 Jan. 1939 [Baynes]



Hitler emphasized that he attached the greatest importance to cooperation with the Catholic church and spoke of himself as a Catholic:

I am absolutely convinced of the great power and the deep significance of the Christian religion, and consequently will not permit any other founders of religion (Religionsstifter). Therefore I have turned against Ludendoriff and separated myself from him; therefore I reject Rosenberg's book. That book is written by a Protestant. It is not a party book. It is not written by him as a member of the party. The Protestants can settle matters with him.

My desire is that no confessional conflict arise. I must act correctly to both confessions. I will not tolerate a Kulturkampf.... I stand by my word. I will protect the rights and freedom of the church and will not permit them to be touched. You need have no apprehensions concerning the freedom of the church.

-Hitler [quoted from Helmreich, p.241]

As for schools, it was a matter of utmost importance to the Catholic hierarchy, and agreed to by the Reich Concordat between the Nazis and the Vatican. Hitler went on in this chilling observation:

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith. from our point of view as representatives of the state, we need believing people. A dark cloud threatens from Poland. We have need of soldiers, believing solders. Believing solders are the most valuable ones. They give their all. Therefore we will maintain the confessional schools in order to train believing people through the schools, but this depends upon having truly believing teachers, not by chance Marxists who do not stand fully by their religious faith, as teachers.

-Hitler, [quoted from Helmreich, p.241]



Notice how Hitler spoke of the schools in the way Right Wing Christians do today in their attempt to take control of public and private schools.

Although there did occur secret anti-Church actions carried out (mostly by Bormann and Roesnburg), such as requiring the resignations of the priests from the party, but when Hitler found out about this, Hitler ruled that forced resignations and expulsions of the clergy from the party should stop. Hitler himself ordered his chief associates, Göring and Goebbels to retain their church membership as did he too remain a member until his death.

Although Hitler officially held Catholic status, his actual religious views resembled that of Protestantism. He rejected many of the political Catholic teachings and moved toward a Protestant view of Christianity. After all, Germany gave birth to Protestantism which reflected a more Aryan view compatible to Hitler's "positive" view of Christianity. Hitler had confessed to Albert Speer, "Through me the Protestant Church could become the established church, as in England." [from Richard Steigmann-Gall's The Holy Reich] This Protestant view, no doubt, gave fuel to the modern (and ignorant) idea that Hitler opposed Christianity. Of course Catholics had, up to that time, always opposed Protestantism as a form of True Christianity, but they never accused Hitler of Christian apostasy. Today, however, the Catholic propaganda uses Hitler's favoritism toward Protestantism as a bases to make him look anti-Christian (while never mentioning his Protestant views) when in reality Hitler opposed political Catholicism when it conflicted with the Nazi state.

If you doubt the sincerity of non-Christians to make claims about Hitler's belief in God, or from Hitler himself, then on whose authority could you possibly derive the evidence? I submit that the majority of believing German Christians believed wholeheartedly in Hitler's sincerity toward God. If one cannot take the word from fellow believers, the what does that say about Christian beliefs? Moreover, Catholic and Protestant leaders felt convinced of Hitler's belief. As an example, the Catholic Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich visited Hitler at his mountain retreat at Obersalzburg in November 1936. Faulhaber observed:

Without doubt the chancellor lives in faith in God. He recognizes Christianity as the foundation of Western culture.

-Cardinal Faulhaber



And if you think that the Church hierarchy did not feel convinced of Hitler's belief in God and Christianity, then why oh why would Pope Pius XII in 1939 instruct Cardinal Bertram to send a birthday message to Hitler: "warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany" which was added, "fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars."? These greetings became a tradition and were sent every April 20th.

If you cannot take the word of Hitler's own words in his claim of Christianity, or contemporary Christian believers, or bishops, or cardinals or Popes, then what other Christian authority could you possibly turn to?

The rest of the following text aims to show that, not only did Hitler's actions compare with the actions of the alleged Jesus, but that his deeds appeared similar to God-like actions in the Bible. Indeed Hitler's beliefs and deeds resemble the actions of many acknowledged prominent Christians of the past and present. The comparisons to God and Jesus come from the Bible and the comparison to past Christian deeds, comes from the history of Christians themselves.

 

all your copy pasting indicates is a political version of christianity

if you think that christianity has no authority outside of political definitions, you are working with a definition of christianity so broad that it extends outside of theistic definitions

 

My point is this. If some calls themselves Christian, who are you as another Christian to tell them that they're not? You cannot pick and pull the good parts of religion and seperate them from the bad and only accept the good, stating that the bad is not really Christian. There are good points and bad of every religion and its histories. Accept that your religion is not perfect instead of trying to refine it, at the exclusion of certain peoples and events.

 

I recommend you get off highly biased and inaccurate anti-Christian web sites and read some books. You have a list of conflicts either contains Islamic violence – and we both agree Islam is militant, or mainly conflicts that involve religious people, but where religion is not the cause of the conflicts.

Believing Hitler was a Christian or that Nazi’s expressed Christian values is false and ridiculous regardless of that particular quote. It is well understood that Nazis hated and mocked Christianity. Most particularly, Nazis loathed the ideas that faith, not race, was critical and that Christians had a duty to love all people, including Jews. Christian clergymen were harassed, dismissed, arrested, tortured and murdered for defending these beliefs. I can give some examples but entire history books have been written analyzing this.

Thesis 15 of the 25 Nazi theses states: "The Ethic of the German Religion condemns all belief in inherited sin, as well as the Jewish-Christian teaching of a fallen world. Such a teaching is not only non-Germanic and non-German, it is immoral and nonreligious. Whoever preaches this menaces the morality of the people."

Hitler also said: "Christianity was incapable of uniting the Germans, and that only an entirely new world-theory was capable of doing so."

Weimar Germany largely had abandoned Christianity and increasingly was embracing hedonism, Marxism and paganism. The decline of Christianity in Germany led directly to the rise of Nazism. History shows Nazi Germany had a profound anti-Christian sentiment.

Nordland, a Nazi magazine, called the Sermon on the Mount "the first Bolshevist manifesto." Himmler banned all Church seminaries and instruction and he closed all private religious schools in 1939.

Karl Haushoffer, the mentor of many early Nazi leaders, preached non-Christian beliefs, and Nazi metaphysics included organizations like the Thule Society whose members greatly admired the Japanese Black Dragon Society. The Thule Society practiced occultism, alchemy and Islamic mysticism. Perhaps the best example of absolute repudiation of Christianity, even nominal Christianity contorted into something grotesquely different than any professed Christianity, comes from the mouth of Julius Streicher, a notorious defamer of Jews. He said that "It is only on one or two exceptional points that Christ and Hitler stand comparison, for Hitler is far too big a man to be compared with one so petty."