If you want to read what Hitler used as a manual all you have to do is search for Martin luthers book The Lie.

He wanted the govt. to get rid of the Jews but in his time they would not do it.

He advocated that all jews were less than dogs and anyone not turning them in would basically be a traitor and suffer the same fate as the Jews would.

How did he do this?


The children. Our most precious thing we have.

Hitler seen this as a great advantage to turn the people into spys for himself and the Govt. did many other things also but this was his main theory and it worked.


He got the media to publish that the jews were after the children and everyone needs to keep a look out and turn them in.

A police state ended up over this checking papers where ever u go to see who you were.

The people became his own personal spies and many thought that he was a great man to have such forsight to save the children.


Now lets fast foward 50 years.


Does history repeat itself because we will believe what ever the authorities say and are afraid ourselves now?


Is this Many forms of Extremism and we are the german People. What is a Dictatorship? Shalom...Miles try reading deeply

You are wrong. Hitler WAS NOT a Christian.

To claim he was - shows a serious lack of understanding the meaning of a Christian, in which case - anything you have to say is moot.

I expect you to correct yourself on this.

Sorry, but I wouldn't bring this to light if it were not true. Here are some observations from Hitler's life and reign:

"Hitler’s involvement with the Church:

a) Hitler was baptized as Roman Catholic during infancy in Austria.

b) As Hitler approached boyhood he attended a monastery school. (On his way to school young Adolf daily observed a stone arch which was carved with the monastery’s coat of arms bearing a swastika.)

c) Hitler was a communicant and an altar boy in the Catholic Church.

d) As a young man he was confirmed as a “soldier of Christ.” His most ardent goal at the time was to become a priest. Hitler writes of his love for the church and clergy: “I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal.” -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

e) Hitler was NEVER excommunicated nor condemned by his church. Matter of fact the Church felt he was JUST and “avenging for God” in attacking the Jews for they deemed the Semites the killers of Jesus.

f) Hitler, Franco and Mussolini were given VETO power over whom the pope could appoint as a bishop in Germany, Spain and Italy. In turn they surtaxed the Catholics and gave the money to the Vatican. Hitler wrote a speech in which he talks about this alliance, this is an excerpt: “The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism [Nazism] is hostile to religion is a lie.” Adolf Hitler, 22 July 1933, writing to the Nazi Party

g) Hitler worked CLOSELY with Pope Pius in converting Germanic society and supporting the church. The Church absorbed Nazi ideals and preached them as part of their sermons in turn Hitler placed Catholic teachings in public education. This photo depicts Hitler with Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio in Berlin. It was taken On April 20, 1939, when Orsenigo celebrated Hitler’s birthday. The celebrations were initiated by Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) and became a tradition.

Each April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was to send “warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany with “fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars.” (If you would like to know more about the secret dealings of Hitler and the Pope I recommend you get a book titled: Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, by John Cornwell)

h) Due to Hitler’s involvement with the Church he began enacting doctrines of the Church as law. He outlawed all abortion, raged a death war on all homosexuals, and demanded corporal punishment in schools and home. Many times Hitler addressed the church and promised that Germany would implement its teachings: “The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today.” –Adolf Hitler, on 26 June 1934, to Catholic bishops to assure them that he would take action against the new pagan propaganda “Providence has caused me to be Catholic, and I know therefore how to handle this Church.” -Adolf Hitler, reportedly to have said in Berlin in 1936 on the enmity of the Catholic Church to National Socialism

How Christianity was the catalyst of the Holocaust:

Hitler’s anti-Semitism grew out of his Christian education. Austria and Germany were majorly Christian during his time and they held the belief that Jews were an inferior status to Aryan Christians. The Christians blamed the Jews for the killing of Jesus. Jewish hatred did not actually spring from Hitler, it came from the preaching of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers throughout Germany for hundreds of years. The Protestant leader, Martin Luther, himself, held a livid hatred for Jews and their Jewish religion. In his book, “On the Jews and their Lies,” Luther set the standard for Jewish hatred in Protestant Germany up until World War 2. Hitler expressed a great admiration for Martin Luther constantly quoting his works and beliefs.

Now, you must remember before Hitler rose to Chancellor of Germany the country was in a deep economic depression due to the Versailles treaty. The Versailles treaty demanded that Germans made financial reparations for the previous war and Germany simply was not self sufficient enough in order to pay the debt. Hitler was the leader that raised Germany out of the depression and brought them back to a world recognized power. Due to his annulment of the financial woes of the Germanic people he became their redeemer and they anointed him as the leader of the German Reich Christian Church in 1933. This placed him in power of the German Christian Socialist movement which legislates their political and religious agendas. It united all denominations, mainly the Protestant/Catholic and Lutheran people to instill faith in a national Christianity.



How the Nazi Regime converted the people:

a) In the 1920s, Hitler’s German Workers’ Party (pre Nazi term) adopted a “Programme” with twenty-five points (the Nazi version of a constitution). In point twenty-four, their intent clearly demonstrates, from the very beginning, their stand in favor of a “positive” Christianity: “We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the morality and moral sense of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession...”

b) The Nazi regime started a youth movement which preached its agenda to impressionable children. Hitler backed up the notion that all people need faith and religious education: “By helping to raise man above the level of bestial vegetation, faith contributes in reality to the securing and safeguarding of his existence. Take away from present-day mankind its education-based, religious- dogmatic principles-- or, practically speaking, ethical-moral principles-- by abolishing this religious education, but without replacing it by an equivalent, and the result will be a grave shock to the foundations of their existence.” – Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

c) The Nazi regime began to control schools insisting that Christianity was taught.

d) The Nazi regime included anti-Semitic Christian writings in textbooks and they were not removed from Christian doctrines until 1961.

e) The Nazi regime having full blown power over the people began to forcibly convert all its military.

f) The Nazi regime forced the German soldiers to wear religious symbols such as the swastika and they placed religious sayings on military gear. An example here is this German army belt buckle (I believe my Opa had one) which reads “Gott Mit Uns”. For those of you who do not speak German it is translated as “God With Us”.

g) The German troops were often forced to get sprinkled with holy water and listen to a sermon by a Catholic priest before going out on a maneuver.

h) The Nazis created a secret service called the “SS Reich” that would act as spies on the dealings of other citizens. If anyone was suspected of heresy (Going not only against the Socialist party but CHURCH DOCTRINE) they would be prosecuted

Quotes from Hitler:

More, a lot more.....at

http://www.evilbible.com/hitler_was_christian.htm

Not that again Eljay?!?!?!

Hitler was baptized and raised in the most thorough of Christian tradition and faith.

Like you Eljay, he developed his own interpretation of what a GOOD CHRISTIAN was, and devoted his whole life to it. What he ended up concluding was that the catholic church failed him and his people, protestants only deserved his utmost contempt, and JESUS counted on him to deliver the real fight!!!

Hitler showed every sign of a devout christian youth, turned christian militant, turned fundamentalist, and the rest is history.

Was Hiltler sane and balanced in his view of christianity, Jesus, Jews, himself, his nation, etc.???

Like all fundamentalists, he started out posting a mildly paranoid neurotiuc behavior. For just the right number of fundamentalists (the leaders), when this behavior not only goes unchecked, but is instead encouraged by a shared mass neurosis, the dormant neurosis turns rapidly into a a dangerous phychosis.

So if it will make you happy Eljay, Hitler progressively became, in hte last quarter of his lifetime, a dangerously psychotic fundamentlist christian of a church of one.

But a christian he sure was. Your personal meaning and interpretation of christian, however true it may for you, is totally irrelevant.

The point 'middleearthing' is making, is one worth discussing and mastering: 'fundamentally :), FUNDAMENTALISM IS LATENTLY DANGEROUS, whether in the hands of religious, political, social or individual entities.

Okay, I admit I just skimmed the evidence presented - but the first half dozen statements intended to support the idea that Hitler was a Christian were so irrelevant to my mind that I lost interest in the remainder.

If most of the claims made are true, then its obvious that he was subject to the influence of Christianity, and, most likely, influenced by it. It also looks like he shrewdly made use of the Church. Maybe i'm cynical, but I would expect someone in a position like his to posture however is convenient for the advancement of his personal goals... I would not expect his actions to reflect his personal beliefs the way they would for a person of integrity. (ie, not a political leader...)

And I'm not splitting hairs on 'true christians' versus 'excessively hypocritical christians' or anything like that... to address the question, I'd be curious about his personal writings or statements to close friends about his own beliefs.

I would agree with you 'massagetrade': the fact that he was a christian is irrelevant. It is rather that he was 'psychotic' and 'delusional', which is at the heart of this thread as I see it. Fundamentalism and extremism are the typical behavioral profiles of psychotics.

And I believe 'MiddleEarthing's point might be that when the fanatcism, fudamentalism and extremism aspects of any religion, christianity or any other, mixes with an advanced state of neurosis or worse, psychotis, it makes for a dangerous cocktail which religions, among other influencers, seem to have the secret recipe.

An example:
Some posters on these very forums, insist on spreading a church line, that such and such a public figure (guess who???) is a baby killer!!! ... all resting on the poster's personal faith based interpretation of one's position on abortion.

When confronted with the fact that this inflammatory language could be potentially dangerous concepts to spreads, if it were to reach the mental logic of a christian psychotic
(yes there are psychotics out there, and given that the US is largely christians, a lot of them are christian psychotics),
... our infamous posters go on to state that they would never bring harm to others, but '... god has his ways you know...' they would end up telling me.

Well this has nothing to do with god. It has everything to do with 'mass madness', fueled by religious beliefs and dogma, gone totally wrong in the words and actions of people sharing similar beliefs and dogma!!!

Psychotics, as Hitler, don't bother with the nuances of second degree concepts. They are no longer able to see the difference.

Neither would our christian psychotic with the 'baby killer' concept. He would take action against such 'killer'.

Is religious fundamentalism potentially dangerous???
History has thought us without any hesitation that it is.

That is why 'middleearthing' goes straight to '... religious extremism (fundamentalism) is dangerous...'. The potential has materialized too often to ignore it.

Oh, to be clear, when I said that certain statements were irrelevant, I was responding the longer, enumerated (eletterated??) post which seemed (?) to be giving 'reasons we know Hitler was Christian'...to my mind, none of those points prove that he really was, thats the irrelevancy I was referring to. I also didn't mean to say that the whole question is irrelevant. Now I am very curious - during his adult life, did hitler sincerely have christian beliefs such as 'bible as word of god' or 'jesus as savior' and such? How do we know?




Funny, I just finished one of the Dune books.

everything ME's said is true, however i have to disagree that religion played any part of the so called hollocaust other than the fact the church bank rolled it. The jews were people of trade meaning they had skills useful to the germans and used them as cheap labor. many arrived to camps diseased ridden due to the conditions and yes they were cruel being cramped into cars. it was these that were infected that was gasses..not because they were simply jews otherwise why so many kept alive for so long??
people were gunned down for being dissenters and rabble rousers or for simply trying to flee..many christians were murdered too. this boo hoo me jew game being used for sympathy is for pure personal gain based on lies. i have to agree that catholics are some of the biggest jew haters for simply being jewish which in their defense jews do hate non jewish ppl i mean its in their talmud to do so, but still we muslims only hate israelis for taking our homes we don't actually hate someone simply for being jewish and at the end of the day id rather live next to a jew than a catholic

religion is a structure of society that seek ways to control that society and is no different than Democracy or Socialism except that a supposed God is the one that makes the laws ...

this is why in religion or in a religious society as long as a follower is compliating to the laws of their God there is no such thing as Extremists, Fundamentalists, delusion or psychotics,

in a religious society all this is acceptable behavior in fact such behavior is encourage and that is why a belief can not become a religion unless or until the government in which that belief is practice has deem it can be a religion that way the government can control the religion and deem what extremism is

this is why Hitler being a Christian or being involved in Christianity is very revelant because Hitler became the government and all he had to do was utter the word "faith" and magically what he do or everything he has done becomes God's Will ...

Hitler did nothing that Moses or Jesus wasn't expected to do ...all they did they did for God

Same can be said for nationalism or patriotism or any other ideals that are important to people but it would not reason to conclude having those ideals is what CAUSES people to be psychotic or extreme or that having ideals is the equivalent of any horrific human trait that history has seen

Well, we've already established that religious extremisms are a majority of the problems...(76% or all wars were fought over religion, I gave you the Harvard study results) and trying to blame patriotism or other "isms" on equal ground as harmful as religiosity is a failure to accept historical fact...so are we doomed to repeat it if enough people don't wake up to reality?

~~~

Another area people here seem to ignore here are the Dippic's years of using relgion to justify wars that have killed a million people of Islam...the "God on our Side" mentality..look where THAT got us.

My apology, but the site you posted was to a paper written that has a disclaimer in the beginning about it representing HARVARD views, it is that authors views. Secondly, she notates throughout the paper that the statistics are about civil wars between 1940 and 2000...not ALL wars in human history. It would be impossible to even know them all let alone come up with statistics regarding their motivation.

nationalism and patriotism are based on laws or rules merged with that of Man ...religion have rules and laws based soley on that which is unseen incomprehensible to the human senses and can't be prove to exist beyond the mind and or faith ....it is structure around delusion

I read this whole thread and I still dont see any difference between it and what it is claiming of Christians

still just people who disaprove of other people's lives and wanting to tell em how to live

I agree, whatever motivates people or whatever their beliefs,,it makes noone better or more enlightened than anyone else, just makes us different. I fail to see how a christians love for GOD is any different than a patriots love of country or a capitalists love of profit,,,etc,,,, We all have different ideals...

Good enough for me...unless you have a study that shows an opposing view...

"Monica Duffy Toft is Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School at Harvard
University. She holds a PhD and MA from the University of Chicago and a BA in political
science and Slavic languages and literatures from the University of California, Santa
Barbara. She was a research intern at the RAND Corporation and served in the U.S. Army in
southern Germany as a Russian voice interceptor. Her research interests include international
security, nationalism, religion and ethnic violence, civil and interstate wars, the relationship
between demography and national security, and military and strategic planning. She is the author
of two book manuscripts; a monograph, The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests,
and Territory; and an edited volume, The Fog of Peace: Strategic and Military Planning Under
Uncertainty. She is finishing a manuscript on the durable settlement of civil wars, Peace through
Security: The Durable Settlement of Civil Wars, and starting a book on religion and global
politics."

AND the study references other time periods in it's determinations:

"Taken together, aspects of religion as they relate to violence chip away at bargaining and
self-preservation, two key pillars of the state system established in the Treaty of Westphalia of
1648.11 A rational person (or state) is expected to assess the tangible costs and benefits of action
or inaction, and then maximize his or her utility by choosing the course of action that will result
in the highest likelihood of benefit with the lowest risk or cost.12 But religious zealots will often
act differently, choosing instead to sacrifice tangible benefits for intangible ones, even to the
point of sacrificing their own lives.13 Thus a secular actor (or state) can be coerced or deterred
by the threat of destruction; whereas a zealot (or theocracy) may be impossible to coerce or deter
in the same way."

Not to discredit Ms Duffy at all or here credentials, but her paper was not in reference to All wars in human history as your post implied earlier. That was the only point I was making.

It is much too broad a generalization to blame religion for ALL wars(or a specific percentage of ALL wars) ever...its hard to expect that anyone would even know all the wars let alone all the reasons for them.

msharmony you wrote:



'middleearthing' wrote,
in the last paragraph of his latest post, quoting Monica Duffy Toft:



msharmony, you are a what I would consider to be a moderate, open-minded, intelligent, and well balanced person. Someone whom shows respect for others and deserves that respect be shown in return.

You happen to be a devout christian, and obviously, you apply FOR YOURSELF, and in your life, the principles that you hold dear.

It shows in the manner that you present yourself in these forums, and in the respectful, yet true to self manner that you interact with others in the different discussions in which you chose to partake.

What I find interesting in this particular exchange, is that the point middleearthing is trying to establish with this thread, dealing with religious extremism, does not apply to you in the least, and yet, because it touches on your religion, you appear, consciously or not, to defend or show a rather complacent attitude about 'religious extremism'.
I don't wish for you to take that as an attack on you personally, for there is no intention on my part to attack you personally.

I will admit that you and I don't share the same beliefs. I would suspect highly that you and middlehearting don't share the same beliefs either.
But interestingly, I would suspect that the three of us, and we could include numerous others, share similar values.

Our difference in religious or non-religious beliefs should not matter at all here. It will only divide us. Besides, why focus on that which divides us when there appears much that we share?

I reposted the last paragraph of middleearthing latest post. It establishes a direct link between 'RELIGIOUS ZEALOTS', and extreme actions, where reason is no longer at play.

If you have a problem with the statement 'all the wars', let's just reduce it to the current very contemporary wars that confronts us all today: the Israelo-palestinian conflict, the Iraqi invasion, and the near escalation towards open armed conflict with Iran under Bush, which was significantly deflated since Obama took office.

I think you will agree that there is no greater or more boiling world conflict than the one opposing the Israelis and Palestinians, fighting 'TO THE DEATH' over a piece of land promised to both of them by their respective gods!!! and some zealot christians siding with the Israelis, because THEIR god told them that Jesus was COMING BACK to the Jewish land to pick the 'chosens'!!!

As for the other current conflicts, I don't need to remind you of Bush administration's language to illustrate the religious zealot undertones: 'Axis of evil', 'You're with us or you're against us', 'We shall win the just war against terrorism'.

There cannot be better examples to support middleearthing's point and Monica Duffy Toft's findings about religious ZEALOTS and the potential extreme actions that can be taken as a consequence of such 'out-of-control' religious zealousness.

AGAIN, from Monica Duffy Toft:

"... Thus a secular actor (or state) can be coerced or deterred
by the threat of destruction; whereas a zealot (or theocracy) may be impossible to coerce or deter in the same way...".

Unless you are taking the position that your religion is pure, unblemished and without fault, and thus holds no responsibility whatsoever for the horrible things done in its name, (I don't think you would subscribe to such)

... you might admit that when religious ideology reaches zealousness, and religious right leaders are fueling it through political action, THAT A LINE IS BEING CROSSED!!! And that YOU msharmony, and all those like you, whom do not give into fanaticism, must speak up WITHIN YOUR RELIGIOUS RANKS, AND denounce this human insanity.

The distinction is :

You are clearly of
'... the group of PEOPLE CONTROLLING THEIR RELIGION...'

VS

this other group of religious zealots whom insist that RELIGION BE USED TO CONTROL PEOPLE, ALL THE PEOPLE!!!

If a dialogue along these lines cannot be had between you 'msharmony', a moderate and well balanced individual of the christian faith, and 'middlehearthing', another well balanced individual whom doesn't necessarily shares the same faith,

... then I would regret to admit, religion would truly not right for the human race!!!

I do want COMPLETE separation of church and state - chuch in all
its manifestations only serves to create wedge issues in politics
and divide society.

Some of what you listed are not matters of church at all - they are matters of institutionalized (meaning government)propaganda induced NATIONALISM.

As long as PEOPLE of faith (in this country Christians)
are led to believe that their government supports their views -
THEY (the Christians) can be more easily led through the
stupid propaganda of Nationalism which "directly appeals" to Christians.

What does that mean? A good Christian president, backed by
a good Christian legislature can involk properties of
Christian morality, and doctrine to establish a following
for ANY CAUSE - including unfounded WAR and the right to
demand the same power the Federal Government already weilds
- the right to 'legally' discriminate.

Its a no win situation when religion and politics are mixed.

I wrote my post before this one prior to reading all the replies.

My last post support much of the view Miles has presented - not completely, but well enough to have a good common ground.

We ARE constantly torn apart by our governments, all governments.
Our 'perceived' differences are powerful tools for those in
power to use against us.

For this reason we need to take those tools out of the hands of
those with power. One of the greatest tools governments use
for manipulation is Religion because the nature of religion
predisposes religious populations to extremism.

If you live in a very religious society - and you want that
society to gather round the flag of nationalism and support
a war - claim it's in the name of religion. In other words
"those terrorists who believe .... want to corrupt your
childrens minds..."

Oh yea - time for war. Come on people - faith, beliefs, and the
good things that can come from them are being destroyed by
extremism and most people can't even see the most obvious cases.