The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 2)

tommy2bad wrote: »

Then you are wrong. The Nazis were more likely to worship Wodin than Jesus;

From Trevor-Roper, Hugh, ed. (2000). Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944. Trans. Norman Cameron and R. H. Stevens

Then you are wrong, Hitler did order the S.S. to sieze artifacts from Vienna and went to very great lengths to protect them.

You are wrong, unless Hitler was excommunicated then he died a Christian.

You are wrong, anti-Paul is not the same as anti-Jesus.

You are wrong to provide a passage written by a Hitler-hater as evidence against historical facts.

You might already know that Christianity is Paul's conception and that there is no evidence apart from what Paul allowed to stand as evidence that he was anything but anti-Jesus.

How do we know about Saul's conversion? Saul, murderer of Christians told us.

How did Paul manage to usurp the rock, Peter, denier of truth?

Like I said before, it takes a great deal of linguistic and mental gymnastics to make the bible read as some of you wish it would read.

There is no evidence to show that Hitler was not a devout orthodox Christian and plenty to show that he was.

Or do you think it is valid to deny his religious leanings on account of the acts that were committed during his tenure?

I guess that Bush, Blair, Rice, Powell, are lying when they claim to be Christian, huh?

Because Christians wouldn't take part in the wholesale slaughter of humans, would they?

Like it or not, Hitler was a fundamentalist Christian.

Masteroid wrote: »

The only problem with your speculations is that they ignore the fact he was a Christian. Your pasta-eating spaghetti monster is the non-sequitor in this discussion and you have the audacity to ask me what my point is.

Why would a pagan steal and protect Christian artifacts? That was the question. If you can't address it then feel free not to try and obfuscate matters with pasta-gods.

For the same reason that he stole and protected non-Christian artifacts.

I can't believe I've just fed this troll.

PDN wrote: »

For the same reason that he stole and protected non-Christian artifacts.

I can't believe I've just fed this troll.

Well okay, maybe he considered them as possible levers, a kind of insurance policy if you will or a source of great wealth should he be victorious. And maybe he wasn't a Christian. I don't know but I don't see that there is any reason not to suppose that if he had been victorious, he would have set himself up as the right-arm of God.

That he would have made proclamations about how he is in the service of God.

Also, there is no reason not to think that his problems with Christianity surrounded Paul. He might well have become a religious dictater implementing a new gospel that he would attribute as being Jesus' actual intentions before Paul corrupted Peter.

It's not a matter of my being right or wrong, there is insufficient data to say one way or the other.

But pagans saying Hitler was a Christian and Christians saying he was a pagan does nothing to help matters, does it? I can only go on my reading of history, anything else is pure conjecture but you can't comment on historical facts that aren't historical fact and in receipt of such a comment I can only examine the speakers position subjectivity.

I just think that historical facts and subjective interpretation should be kept seperate.

Peregrinus wrote: »

“Christian Fundamentalist” is just about the worst possible term, given that it has a well-established and widely-understood meaning which is radically inconsistent with what you now say you mean by it in this context.

And even what you say you mean by it is not terribly well-supported by the evidence. The evidence that Hitler was a Christian is “the close relationship he had with his mother”, which “might suggest” that “he respected her views”? Really?

You have to admit, this is rather tenuous and unconvincing stuff. You’ll also have to admit that it ignores rather more relevant evidence, which is what Hitler himself said about his religious position.

Hitler was nothing if not verbose. He wrote and spoke at tedious lengthy about what motivated him, about his beliefs and how they were formed. And we have other relevant evidence from his friend and acquaintances.

This evidence suggests that, far from sharing his mother’s religious views or practices, he rejected them in early adolescence and never returned to them. He did in public identify as a Christian and/or a Catholic, but this seems to have been for political advantage; in order to maintain that he was both a Christian and a Nazi he had to insist that Jesus “was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter”, a view of Jesus which it is doubtful that he took seriously, since it cannot be supported either by history or religious tradition. Hitler also professed to believe that Jesus was not a Jew.

Goebbels considered that Hitler was entirely anti-Christian, and Speer (who considered himself Hitler’s closest friend) said that he had no real attachment to the church, saw a formal attachment as politically useful, but privately considered that Christianity was “the wrong religion” for Germany.

Mein Kampf contains a number of religious statements, most of them theistic but few of them identifiably Christian.

All in all, Hitler’s stated views on Christianity are confused, contradictory, inconsistent and (in some cases) probably insincere. This makes it difficult to categorise him either as thoroughly Christian or thoroughly not Christian (unless we are willing to cherry-pick quotes in support of one or other of these positions, in which case it makes it very easy). What it really points to, I suggest, is that he wasn’t terribly interested in the question, and never took the trouble, or felt the need, to arrive at a settled position. What really motivated him was not God but Germany; what he really hated was not the Jew Jesus but Jews in general; what he really worshipped was not truth but power. And he was happy to adopt any position or series of positions on Christianity which might seem at the time to serve these ends.

Again, I can't really disagree except on a subjective basis.

But you don't have to believe in the Hebrew God to be a religious leader do you? Being a madman does not preclude one from being a Christian. Being a murderous megalomaniac does not preclude Paul from being one of the most venerated religious figures in history. Were the popes who sanctioned the Crusades really Christians?

Was Richard the Lionheart and his band of marauders doing God's work as they hacked women and children to death in Medina?

When or where did Hitler deny that Jesus was the son of God? When did he say he was a pagan?

Historically, Christians have persecuted Jews as a matter of course, much more than the Romans or Muslims ever did.

If Hitler had won the war I think history would have recorded him as being the greatest Christian ever.

People only cherry-pick evidence on account of confirmational bias. I'm not biassed and I'm not cherry-picking. You admit that Hitler identified himself as a Christian publicly and you have to speculate on his private views in order to conclude 'it is doubtful' that he took those views seriously. The Germans took his views seriously and they were there.

Furthermore, the evidence shows that Hitler was heavily manipulated by those around him and his contribution to Germany during WW1 betrayed him as a weak man with powerful friends. It was after WW1 when he developed his loathing of the Jews. In his early adulthood Hitler had no issue with the Jews, he even gave some of them important positions in his club.

So a weak man who is easily manipulated, a man who wishes to believe his own press, a man who went from being friendly with Jews to despising them for some reason must not be a Christian?

Weak and gullible men can be Christians just as much as strong, ambitious men.

And again, there is no evidence to say he was not a Christian except in the sense that he did not accept Paul's interpretation of the words of Jesus which he could have only heard from Peter et al.

Also, if we are to be fair, Jesus' attack on the money-lenders does suggest that Jesus was opposed to the Jews. He refused to join Barabus because Barabus was fighting the Romans. Jesus wasn't preaching to romans, He was preaching to the Jews.

But Paul rebranded Jesus and sold Him to the Jews while Peter was distracted by preaching to the gentiles.

And look at the results of the Catholic interpretation of Jesus. If they heard their Lord say 'Live in peace and love thy neighbour' and 'He who lives by the sword...' then how did they come to believe that a program of genocide against the Muslims was in order?

How could a pope conclude that this is what Jesus would want?

You admit that Hitler identified himself publicly as a Christian, so did the old popes and George Bush identified as a Methodist, they all claim to be in the service of God and they have all presided over some of the greatest human atrocities - which of these are the most un-Christian?

I don't have to hate anyone to come to these conclusions I just have to look at written historical accounts. Christianity simply can't distance itself from Hitler on the basis that he was not a very nice man.

Was Brendan Smyth, the paedophile priest a Christian? Does being a Christian mean 'not doing bad things' or does it mean 'accept Jesus as your saviour and you will be saved no matter what sins you have committed'?