The nature of the Almighty

[Irishcop]

Originally Posted by dpmartin

"Of course there is a state of "a little bit dead", look at Larry King!!"

your a ok in my book there Irish, i like that.

You've been officially thanked.

[boagie]

Quotes from Hitler:
Hitler’s speeches and proclamations, even more clearly, reveal his faith and feelings toward a Christianized Germany. Nazism presents an embarrassment to Christianity and demonstrates the danger of their faith So they try to pin him on other theistic views. The following words from Hitler show his disdain for atheism, and pagan cults, and reveal the strength of his Christian feelings:
“National Socialism is not a cult-movement-- a movement for worship; it is exclusively a ‘volkic’ political doctrine based upon racial principles. In its purpose there is no mystic cult, only the care and leadership of a people defined by a common blood-relationship... We will not allow mystically- minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else-- in any case something which has nothing to do with us. At the head of our programme there stand no secret surmisings but clear-cut perception and straightforward profession of belief. But since we set as the central point of this perception and of this profession of belief the maintenance and hence the security for the future of a being formed by God, we thus serve the maintenance of a divine work and fulfill a divine will-- not in the secret twilight of a new house of worship, but openly before the face of the Lord… Our worship is exclusively the cultivation of the natural, and for that reason, because natural, therefore God-willed. Our humility is the unconditional submission before the divine laws of existence so far as they are known to us men.” -Adolf Hitler, in Nuremberg on 6 Sept.1938. [Christians have always accused Hitler of believing in pagan cult mythology. What is written here clearly expresses his stand against cults.]
“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” -Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933 [This statement clearly refutes modern Christians who claim Hitler as favoring atheism. Hitler wanted to form a society in which ALL people worshipped Jesus and considered any questioning of such to be heresy. The Holocaust was like a modern inquisition, killing all who did not accept Jesus. Though more Jews were killed then any other it should be noted that MANY ARYAN pagans and atheists were murdered for their non-belief in Christ.]
Here Hitler uses the Bible and his Christianity in order to attack the Jews and uphold his anti-Semitism:
"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 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 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 my self 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." –Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
"Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition." -Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf (It is quite obvious here that Hitler is referring to destructing the Judaism alters on which Christianity was founded.)
"The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew." -Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf (The idea of the devil and the Jew came out of medieval anti-Jewish beliefs based on interpretations from the Bible. Martin Luther, and teachers after him, continued this “tradition” up until the 20th century.)
"With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people." -Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf (It is common in war for one race to rape another so that they can “defile” the race and assimilate their own. Hitler speaks about this very tactic here.)
“The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present- day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-- and this against their own nation.”–Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
"…the fall of man in paradise has always been followed by his expulsion." -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (See Genesis Chapter 3 where humankind is cast from Eden for their sins. Hitler compares this to the need to exterminate the Jews for their sin against Christ.)
“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.” –Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
“The anti-Semitism of the new movement [Christian Social movement] was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge.” –Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf (This quote is very interesting for it disperses the idea that Hitler raged war due to being an Aryan supremacist. He states quite clearly that he has a problem with Jews for their belief not race. That is why many German Jews died in WW2 regardless of their Aryan nationality.)
“Only in the steady and constant application of force lies the very first prerequisite for success. This persistence, however, can always and only arise from a definite spiritual conviction. Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain.” –Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf (Here Hitler is admitting that his war against the Jews were so successful because of his strong Christian Spirituality.)

Quotes from Other Nazis about Hitler and Religion: "Around 1937, when Hitler heard that at the instigation of the party and the SS vast numbers of his followers had left the church because it was obstinately opposing his plans, he nevertheless ordered his chief associates, above all Goering and Gobbels, to remain members of the church. He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church, he said, although he had no real attachment to it. And in fact he remained in the church until his suicide." (Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer page 95-96)

This should I would think stimulate a discusion of Christianities historical part in genocide, slavery and the general degradation of large segments of the world's population. The forbidden N word was applicable to anywhere christianity played its part in the colonization of peoples of a common humanity. The nature of God is to be found in the psyche of man.

[Aedes]

I have a bit of a problem with the above. The SS killed roughly 15 million people, of whom 3 million were catholic Poles and over 5 million were Russian POWs, most of whom were Russian Orthodox. While the Jewish Holocaust was the most comprehensive effort at an extermination program (i.e. 75% of all European Jews and 90% of all Polish Jews were killed), they overall were only a relative majority (i.e. not absolute majority) of the total noncombatant victims of the Nazi extermination programs.

Furthermore, someone was defined as Jewish and subject to the same persecution (i.e. death camps) if they had more than one Jewish grandparent, even if they were worshipping Christians. The Holocaust and Hitler's policies were NOT because of any religious priority. Like the Spanish Inquisition, the issue was about racial "Jewry" and not Jewish religion.

The Nazi rhetoric was very mixed on the subject of religious worship, but they were very anti-Catholic, and many of them (especially mystical people like Heinrich Himmler) were very suspicious about Christianity in general. Naziism had self-consciously strong pagan overtones, and it just can't be argued that Jesus had much to do with their policies.

Furthermore, irrespective of Hitler's quotes and beliefs, the planning and execution of the Nazi racial programs, including their camps and ghettos and transportation systems and censuses, etc, happened far beyond even Hitler's own penchant for micromanagement. Bar none the architects of the Holocaust were Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich (at least until his assassination in 1942). At a local level it was the governers general in occupied territories (like Hans Frank) and the Einsatzgruppen (in the occupied USSR) who carried out their own interpretation of the racial policy. And there's essentially no evidence that I know of that there was any kind of Christian motivation, except perhaps among the locals whom the SS employed to round up Jews for them.

Most of the rhetoric had to do with the threat the Jewish "race" posed towards Germany -- and it was never spoken of in Christian terms. And again, if you do some reading about Nazi mysticism and occultism (there are wikipedia articles about this), you'll find that there was a good amount of rejection of Christianity among the Nazis.

Of course the main reason that the Holocaust was self-perpetuating (despite overall being a huge resource drain) was that it provided the Nazis with slave labor. And while this was not ideological per se, the ideology in large part became a rationalization for the Nazi need for slave labor to support a total war. The Holocaust didn't really get going until Operation Barbarossa, i.e. when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, and that's with good reason -- they didn't have the slave labor needs until they committed themselves to that hopeless war.

[boagie]

Aedes,

I do not doubt you are much more well informed on the topic of the Holocaust, my point is that the history of genocide, slavery, subjugation and colonization was very much under the influence of Christianity. As a Jew you must realize that the Holocaust was not the sole responsibility of any small group, it was the generalized failure of humanity in a Christian nation, and internationally a failure of humanity of mainly Christian countries. Christianity wants now to separate itself taking no responsiablity for the horrors of the past, Christianity was an integal part of most wide spread inhumanity to man and that is history. I would not intentionally disrespect the Jewish people, but I believe the Jewish people understand that their plight during this time rests on the inhumanity of an indifferent Christian world, perhaps the world in general, but certainly the Christian world. The strength of Israel today I would venture is built upon the above realization----NEVER AGAIN!! The qualities of ones God/s are to be found in the human psyche.

[Aedes]

Yes, I agree with that. The basic phenomenon of antisemitism in Europe was a Christian phenomenon going back centuries and centuries. It exploded in Nazi Germany in a context that was not philosophically Christian, but the heredity of that antisemitic undercurrent certainly was.

Ironic, though, is that in the generations before WWII antisemitism was FAR worse elsewhere in Europe, especially Russia and Poland. Germany was somewhat of a respite for Jews until Hitler came along.

The other irony, however, is that Jews in Germany even during the Holocaust fared overall better than Jews in Poland and Russia. Germans tended to protect German Jews, so overall a greater proportion survived. In Poland and the USSR (incl Ukraine, Belarus, etc), the Jewish populations were completely overrun and decimated, though. It bespeaks the general German feeling towards Eastern Europeans overall, of which the Jews bore the worst brunt.