why do skeptics insist that hitler was christian?

Question

I am a skeptic myself but it has dissappointed me to see that some try to portray him as one. It's quite obvious, not even counting the testomonies of those who knew him and would offer that he was not a christian, that he was only using christianity for it's utility to accomplish his nationalistic goals.

And for christians, why do you point at hitler's rule and the holocaust as objective proof that atheism is from satan?
sure, no one would deny that nihilism and/or brutal utilitarianism can be a consequence of atheism, but it does not give any more merit to a supposedly false faith, right?

some of you STILL want to say he was christian. this is sad.
Look,
if you want to rub in your reign in the high moral ground, it would be better to highlight that, while hitler himself was an atheist who was only using religion for its utility, there was a nation of germans who really did follow and believe christianity as earnestly an any American christian does today, and yet they still felt justified in their acts as being from god.

to v_dezzled: germany was NOT predominantly athiest. very funny of you to say that, only because you wish it were so. Germany was abolutely, positively predominantly christian. Shame on you.

Answer 1

Shockingly, Hitler wasn't the most trustworthy person who ever lived. He lied. At times he said things that implied he was a Catholic, and at times he said things that implied he was an atheist. To try and find the truth now would be more or less impossible.
And in any case it's a matter of no consequence. We all know that there are good and bad theists and atheists. And to use such an abnormal figure to define either group would be stupid. Plenty of more 'typical' Nazis were certainly Christians, and that serves to illustrate that religion does not prevent acts of supreme immorality.

Answer 2

I don't believe in Atheism or Christianity either , however there is definitely a thing called evil and whether Hitler was born from a Religious family or an Atheistic family one thing holds true he was the instrument of evil . I am by some accounts considered an Atheist but that kind of overly simplified characterization falls way short of who and what I
am . If you ever get a chance to look at quantum psychology
it is very informative as to the natural pitfalls of standard english as an obstacle to higher thought along with several other failings that most of us should have learned in high school. good luck with your discussion and search for understanding and have a peaceful life.

Answer 3

i will agree with you 100%. hitler may have claimed he was christian, but if he did, it was only to gain support from the german people. in fact, besides being terribly sinful to murder ANYONE, it also states in the book of genesis that anyone who curses the jews will be cursed. (genesis 12:3)

as a christian, i never thought of hitler's rule OR the holocaust as having to do anything with atheism. if you have ever watched the history channel (aka ''the hitler channel'') or cracked open a book, you would know that hitler believed in the ancient norse gods. sorry, pagans. lol. he recieved his ''wisdom'' from an occultist, and he believed that all white people came to earth from a fallen ice moon. that's hardly atheism.

edit:
wow, v dezzed, you really have your history mixed up. germany was, at least at that time, predominantly christian. there was no communism in germany until AFTER WWII, and even then, it was forced on the country. the nazi party, even in all their evil, was very much opposed to communism.

edit #2:
since everybody and their mother is pointing to the fact that hitler went to a catholic school, i feel like i have to say this:
marilyn manson attended catholic school and was baptized during his infancy. he also had an album called ''antichrist superstar.'' does he still qualify as a christian? do i need to post that as a question?

Answer 4

There are photos of Hitler praying in public.

Comparing King David's role in life to his words in Psalms 69, I think it's possible that political leaders tend to have lots of enemies and might even feel like they're drowning. I know that Hitler seems to have had some ways of coping with this that were proud (and the Bible condemns pride) but you don't know what it's like for anybody else. Proverbs 14:10 says: "Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy."

The illusion of control is that people have an effect over other people's actions. I agree that this is an illusion because you can't hypnotise anybody else. You can only hypnotise yourself. Is being a ruler an essentially more safe occupation in life than any other? Hitler apparently liked the camaraderie of the army, so he went for the top job, or something like that. The imagination is what the Bible condemns. That's what got Adam and Eve into trouble in the first place, although the apostle Paul does say that Eve was deceived. The natural authority structure of age, rank and first-in-best-dressed was apparently used against Eve to tell her that she was playing a supporting role. The archaic meaning of the word "deceit" is "to while away the time." Eve's time was being wasted doing support tasks that possibly didn't really need doing.

As for your arguments about atheism, I don't understand them.

Answer 5

“Who says I am not under the special protection of God?”

"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 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.

“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 was raised a Catholic and went to a monastery school. It was thanks to his Christian upbringing that he developed such powerful anti-semitic views--those views were already being preached by the churches long before Hitler came on the scene. Without their support in the early part of his reign, he would never have got as far as he did.

Answer 6

Critics often use Hitler (a well known evil man) to dismiss the claims of Christianity or to avoid engaging at the teachings level. They somehow think that by pointing to some circumstantial evidences they can turn Hitler into a devout Christian and thus write off Christianity. I am glad that you belong to the more discerning stream of skeptics.

As for the Christian's use of Hitler's philosophy, we are simply pointing out that what he did was consistent with the Darwinian beliefs he held to. Darwinian evolution is the "scientific" way to deny the existence of God (think Richard Dawkins). Since evolution is true (so the argument goes) the universe was not created and thus there was no Creator. So if there is no God, there is no cosmic lawgiver to tell us what's right and wrong. We make up our own, and might makes right aka survival of the fittest. In fact, right and wrong are queer terms for evolutionists as it presuppose some moral standards. But how does naturalism account for moral standards?

Answer 7

I'm glad you called that right. A true Christian would never have committed the atrocities against human life as Hitler did. His actions spoke louder than words that he was equal in ideology to Mao Tse Tung; Joseph Stalin; Fidel Castro, Genghis Khan and other ruthless tyrants.

A tyrant by any other name is still a tyrant. And Hitler was definitely one of the worst of them.

Answer 8

I don't know what Christians you're talking to but I personally consider him a paranoid schizophrenic who committed mass murder and give no thought to atheism whatsoever.

Also, religion has been used as a political tool for centuries so why is Hitler any different?

Answer 9

popes have consistently refused to excommunicate the worst of war criminals, even when fellow Catholics have appealed for such action to be taken. For example, the Catholic Telegraph-Register of Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A., under the heading “Reared as Catholic but Violates Faith Says Cable to Pope,” reported: “An appeal has been made to Pius XII that Reichsfuehrer Adolph Hitler be excommunicated. . . . ‘Adolph Hitler,’ [the cable] read in part, ‘was born of Catholic parents, was baptized a Catholic, and was reared and educated as such.’” Yet Hitler was never excommunicated.

“Hitler . . . had a Catholic as Vice-Chancellor and from practically the first day of the régime Franz von Papen became the drummer to attract the Catholic factions to a support of the new Reich. In every part of the Reich von Papen was to be heard exhorting the faithful to blind obedience to Adolf Hitler.”

“In early 1933 the following official announcement was made by the body corporate of Catholic action and thought in Germany, then led by [Franz] von Papen: ‘We German Catholics will stand, with all our soul and our full convictions, behind Adolf Hitler and his Government. We wonder at his love for fatherland, his energy and his statesmanly wisdom. . . . German Catholicism . . . must take an active part in the building-up of the Third Reich.’”

One historian writes: “The Concordat [with the Vatican] was a great victory for Hitler. It gave him the first moral support he had received from the outer world, and this from the most exalted source.” During the celebrations at the Vatican, Pacelli conferred on von Papen the high papal decoration of the Grand Cross of the Order of Pius. Winston Churchill, in his book The Gathering Storm, published in 1948, tells how von Papen further used “his reputation as a good Catholic” to gain church support for the Nazi takeover of Austria. In 1938, in honor of Hitler’s birthday, Cardinal Innitzer ordered that all Austrian churches fly the swastika flag, ring their bells, and pray for the Nazi dictator.

A terrible bloodguilt therefore rests on the Vatican! As a leading part of Babylon the Great, it helped significantly in putting Hitler into power and in giving him “moral” support. The Vatican went further in tacitly consenting to Hitler’s atrocities. During the long decade of Nazi terror, the Roman pontiff kept quiet while hundreds of thousands of Catholic soldiers were fighting and dying for the glory of the Nazi regime and while millions of other unfortunates were being liquidated in Hitler’s gas chambers.

If there had been no love affair between the Vatican and the Nazis, the world might have been spared the agony of having scores of millions of soldiers and civilians killed in the war, of six million Jews murdered for being non-Aryan.

Catholic Adolf Hitler found readier support among Protestants than among Catholics. Predominantly Protestant districts gave him 20 percent of their votes in the 1930 elections, Catholic districts only 14 percent. And the first absolute majority for the Nazi Party in state elections was in 1932 in Oldenburg, a district 75 percent Protestant. YES "ADOLF HITLER" was a "CATHOLIC"

Answer 10

Hitler was a Christian having been baptized as one. But we need to realize there are both "good" and "bad" Christians.

Skeptics try to "insist" by generalizing Christianity and trying to paint that it is a faulted doctrine because of Christians like Hitler. They missed the point that the doctrine of faith not only applies on baptism but on how one practices his faith.