"Atheism by itself is, of course, not a moral position or a political one of any kind, it simply is the refusal to believe in a supernatural dimension.
To say of Nazism that it was the implementation of the work of Charles Darwin is a filthy slander, undeserving of you and an insult to this audience.
Darwin's thought was not taught in Germany; Darwinism was so derided in Germany along with every other form of unbelief that all the great modern atheists, Darwin, Einstein and Freud were alike despised by the National Socialist regime."
-- Christopher Hitchens
This accusation by religionists doesn't make sense on the face of it.
Evolution - or "Darwinism" - asserts that humans and other species are evolved from common ancestors. That humans share an ancestral line, and variations are minor local adaptations to climate and other forces. That is, there can be no "master race," and there can be no such thing as Aryan purity.
Xians are often offended at the idea they're descended from apes. The classic meme goes something like: "I ain't descended from no apes, I'm descended from a magic dirt man and a rib woman and two waves of incest!"
So, the idea that the Nazis would ever ground their ideology in evolution through natural selection and common ancestry tells us that the claimant hasn't thought very hard about this. Or perhaps, doesn't understand evolution at all. Promoting the ideas of evolution and common ancestry is the absolute last thing the Nazis would ever do.
"We do not know whether Hitler is going to found a new Islam. He is already on the way; he is like Mohammad. The emotion in Germany is Islamic; warlike and Islamic. They are all drunk with wild god. That can be the historic future."
How did the myth that Nazis weren’t religious even begin? Because you never really hear about just how religious the Nazis actually were, even though all of them were very, explicitly clear about the large role that Xianity played in and fueled their extreme, violent antisemitism. Its not even an fucking hidden or uncertain aspect of their ideology in the least!
I honestly don't know. My guess is that Xians realized it was too big for "nOt A tRuE cHrIsTiAn!!1!!" and it went from there.
Well, he couldn't have been a Xian, he must have been an atheist pretending to be a Xian. Yes, that's it. It was all just an act. Ignore his multi-chapter, comprehensive manifesto written in his own words because "yOu'Re tAkInG iT oUt oF cOnTeXt!!!!1!"
“For me, and for all genuine National Socialists, there is only one slogan: People and Fatherland.
What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of our children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland, so that our people may be enabled to fulfil the mission assigned to it by the Creator.”
It seems like, as with the creation of Xianity itself, Xians simply started writing what they wanted to be true. Repeated often enough, it becomes the Truth™.
Here's the thing, though. The point of recognizing that Hitler was a Xian isn't to call other Xians Nazis or that Xianity itself is synonymous with Nazism or anything even remotely similar.
It's to point out that the belief system supports both the "nice" stuff and the truly horrific stuff with equal justification, because there is no one understanding of the Word of God. And if a belief is that malleable, if its "truth" is that opaque, subjective and open to interpretation, then what good is it? It still leaves right and wrong entirely up to the subjective morality, or worse, preferences, of the believer, but now they have divine authority and the pretence of objective morality.
And, of course, to recognize reality itself, and stop allowing believers to act like non-belief leads to atrocities like the Holocaust.
Believers insisting that non-believers have no moral compass, then turning around and insisting Hitler was "nOt A tRuE cHrIsTiAn!!1!!" have committed intellectual seppuku.
==
If you read through the excerpt I posted, he's clearly a nationalist, putting Germany's interests - domination, really - ahead of European cooperation and co-existence. Whatever legitimately "bad" aspects of Jewish history might exist, he ascribes to all Jews (inherited guilt) and attributes Jewish success to an intentional agenda and conspiracy. He clearly presupposes that the Jewish people are the root of the country's problems, and perceives them as astonishingly calculating, powerful, treacherous and duplicitous. He gives them almost mystical powers to manipulate and control the world, casting them as tyrants and oppressors, with the deliberate intention to dehumanize them.
And he lectures extensively about what life is like for the Jews, having never lived as one, what their intent and mission is, based only on his own assumptions, and how they manipulate others into perpetuating their objectives, even against their own interests. He's not open to any other explanation or alternative. He has a grievance and it's what motivates him. And his solution is radical and violent revolution and social upheaval.
So, whatever valid points or observations he may have had - by which I mean about problems faced by German society, not the purported Machiavellian nature of the Jewish people - are completely lost in his profound hatred for the Jews, his desire to lay all the blame on them and his mission to radically snatch away from them all this perceived power and influence.
“Nature, the eternal, takes merciless vengeance on those who defy her laws. Therefore, I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In resisting the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord.”
Isn't that the same thing we're hearing from The Elect, the same ideas playing out in real-time today? Change the nouns in Hitler's polemic against the Jews and you've got modern Intersectional activism, which blames everything on systemic "isms" and nefarious yet nebulous power structures that certain groups have supposedly conspired to weave into society, to convince everyone to unquestioning accept the superiority of those groups and perpetuate their power... evenwhenrealitysaysotherwise. To make it okay to hate and blame the people the ideology has decided it’s okay to hate and blame.
Dehumanizing and stereotyping in the name of Intersectionality, as Hitler did in the name of the Fatherland. It’s not just acceptable, but required to hate and vilify the selected category of human, and talk enthusiastically about your hope for their destruction, and how much better life would be if you could obliterate them all. They are the same mentality.
I can't help wondering how, in 5, 10, 20 years, followers of the underlying theories and ideologies will go about the process of disavowing the current moment.
How religious were the Nazis, if they were religious at all, that is? I have heard/read both that they were not religious at all and that they were very into occultism/Christian theology from sources that I have found to be very trustworthy in other research, and I was wondering if I could get your own two cents on this question as well.
I mean, Xianity is inherently, by definition occulty.
occult | əˈkəlt |
noun (the occult)
supernatural, mystical, or magical beliefs, practices, or phenomena: a secret society to study alchemy and the occult.
adjective
1 of, involving, or relating to supernatural, mystical, or magical powers or phenomena: a follower of occult practices similar to voodoo.
• beyond the range of ordinary knowledge or experience; mysterious: a weird occult sensation of having experienced the identical situation before.
• communicated only to the initiated; esoteric: the typically occult language of the time.
Everything from nothing with a spell, Lot's wife, virgin birth, water to wine, cursed fig tree, walking on water, instant healing, resurrection, flying up into the sky, the Devil, heaven, hell, souls, afterlife, transubstantiation in Catholicism, mysterious ways, unique special knowledge held by the faithful...
Xians like to pretend they don't believe in magic and are opposed to the occult, but really that's exactly what their own belief system is.
--
If you want to understand the basis for the Nazi party, religious or otherwise, one need go no further than Mein Kampf (download English translation).
“The Jews have always been a people of a definite racial character and never merely the adherents of a religion.
At a very early date, urged on by the desire to make their way in the world, they began to cast about for a means whereby they might distract such attention as might prove inconvenient for them.
What could be more effective, and at the same time above suspicion, than to borrow and utilise the idea of the religious community?
Here also everything is copied, or rather stolen, for the Jew could not possess any religious institution which had developed out of his own consciousness, seeing that he lacks every kind of idealism, which means that belief in a life beyond this terrestrial existence is foreign to him.
In the Aryan mind no religion can ever be imagined unless it embodies the conviction that life in some form of other will continue after death.
As a matter of fact, the Talmud is not a book that lays down principles according to which the individual should prepare for the life to come. It only furnishes rules for a practical and convenient life in this world.
The religious teaching of the Jews is principally a collection of instructions for maintaining the Jewish blood pure and for regulating intercourse between Jew and Jew and between Jews and the rest of the world, that is to say non-Jews.
The Jewish religious teaching is not concerned with moral problems. It is concerned rather with economic problems, and very petty ones at that.
In regard to the moral value of the religious teaching of the Jews there exist, and always have existed, exhaustive studies (not from the Jewish side, for whatever the Jews have written on this question has naturally always been of a tendentious character), which show up the kind of religion that the Jews have in a light which makes it look very uncanny to the Aryan mind.
The Jew himself is the best example of the kind of product which this religious training evolves. His life is of this world only and his mentality is as foreign to the true spirit of Christianity, as his character was foreign to the great Founder of the new creed two thousand years ago.
The Founder of Christianity made no secret of His estimation of the Jewish people; when He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God, because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests.
At that time Christ was nailed to the Cross for his attitude towards the Jews, whereas our modern Christians enter into party politics, and when elections are being held they debase themselves to beg for Jewish votes.
They even enter into political intrigues with the atheistic Jewish parties against the interests of their own Christian nation.”
In a speech delivered in front of a Nazi audience in April 1922, Hitler made a more explicit reference to Christianity, referring to Jesus as “the true God.” He made it plain that he regarded Christ’s struggle as direct inspiration for his own. For Hitler, Jesus was not just one archetype among others, but “our greatest Aryan leader. ” While emphasizing Jesus’ human qualities, Hitler in these instances also alluded to his divinity. At a Christmas celebration given by the Munich branch of the NSDAP in December 1926, Hitler maintained that the movement’s goal was to “translate the ideals of Christ into deeds.” The movement would complete “the work which Christ had begun but could not finish.” On another occasion, this time behind closed doors and to fellow Nazis only, Hitler again proclaimed the centrality of Christ’s teachings for his movement: “We are the first to exhume these teachings! Through us alone, and not until now, do these teachings celebrate their resurrection! Mary and Magdalene stood at the empty tomb. For they were seeking the dead man. But we intend to raise the treasures of the living Christ!” In a nearly evangelical tone, Hitler declares that the “true message” of Christianity is to be found only with Nazism. He claims that, where the churches failed in their mission to instill a Christian ethic in secular society, his movement would take up the task. Hitler not only reads the New Testament, but professes - in private - to be inspired by it.
While it's hard to pinpoint a particular denomination, he was certainly Xian. motivated by what he believed Xianity should have been and was supposed to do.
He bemoans the Catholic Church and Protestantism not promoting German interests as fervently as he wishes, with the Catholic Church's authority being located outside Germany, and dismissive or even hostile to German interests and demands, and the Protestants promoting German morality, but being too dogmatically tolerant of the Jews. He then envisions remedying this with the "German Catholic."
“The only way to remedy the evil of which I have been speaking is to train the Germans from youth upwards to an absolute recognition of the rights of their own people, instead of poisoning their minds, while they are still children, with the virus of this cursed ‘objectivity,’ even in matters concerning the very preservation of our own existence.
The result of this would be that the Catholic in Germany, just as in Ireland, Poland or France, will be a German first and foremost, but this presupposes the establishment of a radical national government.”
My impression overall is that he would have been what we might call Nationalistic Catholicism, where he wanted Catholicism, but with its authority based in Germany, not the Vatican, and working 100% to promote and advance German interests.
==
Despite this, any post on the subject by a Xian will inevitably cite books by Xian authors, quoting acquaintances of Hitler's, who claim, anecdotally, that he was not a believer, and it was all just some big act to gain favor from the Church. (Even if that was true, and we have no reason to think it is, it’s kind of irrelevant, since this “act” included penning a multiple-hundred page manifesto - the EPUB edition is over 1800 pages - that successfully formulated the “movement” on the basis of that purported “act’.)
That is, they prefer unverified second-hand rumors of people with an agenda, published years later over a direct, firsthand account.
In a speech delivered in front of a Nazi audience in April 1922, Hitler made a more explicit reference to Christianity, referring to Jesus as "the true God." He made it plain that he regarded Christ's struggle as direct inspiration for his own. For Hitler, Jesus was not just one archetype among others, but "our greatest Aryan leader. " While emphasizing Jesus' human qualities, Hitler in these instances also alluded to his divinity. At a Christmas celebration given by the Munich branch of the NSDAP in December 1926, Hitler maintained that the movement's goal was to "translate the ideals of Christ into deeds." The movement would complete "the work which Christ had begun but could not finish." On another occasion, this time behind closed doors and to fellow Nazis only, Hitler again proclaimed the centrality of Christ's teachings for his movement: "We are the first to exhume these teachings! Through us alone, and not until now, do these teachings celebrate their resurrection! Mary and Magdalene stood at the empty tomb. For they were seeking the dead man. But we intend to raise the treasures of the living Christ!" In a nearly evangelical tone, Hitler declares that the "true message" of Christianity is to be found only with Nazism. He claims that, where the churches failed in their mission to instill a Christian ethic in secular society, his movement would take up the task. Hitler not only reads the New Testament, but professes - in private - to be inspired by it.
For the record, no, I’m not claiming Hitler did it in the name of Christianity. He did it because he was a vile, despicable genocidal cunt, and for German nationalism. And while there’s a parallel I could make to your god, the point is that claiming he definitively was an atheist, and/or suggesting his motivations were atheistic - and therefore atheism is tantamount to lack of morality - are both outright dishonest.
The evidence simply does not support you. And you know we atheists likes our evidence. So just knock it the fuck off because you’re only embarrassing yourself.
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