God: Benevolent or Malevolent?

Did you bother to even skim/Google on this?

I did not suggest a holocaust of Christians, but a systematic dismantlement of Christianity after the war. It was already starting - just read the Wikipedia link on Positive Christianity. Hitler did not want to spend the energy to be as overt as Stalin in shutting down or changing the churches.

I've given you a fair amount of links, etc to read for them to be dismissed out of hand.

 

It started on this thread as a joke about reductio ad Hitler, then my reply he was neither Christian, secular, but a god unto himself.

 

While Hitler's post-war plans are disputed, there are several sources pointing to his desire to change the religious landscape.

 

On the contrary: it seems to be you who haven't read your own links and are dismissing some rather fundamental points that are raised in them. One major aspect being the objective of Positive Christianity:

The Positive Christian movement might have been intolerant towards Catholics, but they considered themselves to be Christian. You're dismissing some fundamental facts to make a stance that Nazis wanted to do away with Christianity.

 

^ They deleted the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible as sacred scriptures - absolutely a twisting of the Christian faith, esp. Protestants.

It's just as much an undermining of authentic Christianity as saying Judaism does not need the the entire Torah.

I missed an opportunity months ago to save dozens of links, but neither did I think anyone would suggest Hitler was somewhat Christian-friendly.

 

I thought Spiderman was invoking Godwin's Law and waving the white flag.

And I was going to ask something else, but given this climate, forget it.

 

Pretty sad when anything you say is zealously twisted into things you DID NOT MEAN.

Yet it has been going on for years.

 

I was just asking if I could... sheezz what a tough crowd.

 

I'm going to restate again, since you seem to be missing the point still. The Positive Christain movement might have twisted other Christian religions, but at the core, they believed themselves to BE CHRISTIAN.

I did not think anyone would dismiss Christian Germans as not being Christain because they didn't adhere to their ideal of Christainity. It's that mindset that continues claims of Hitler being Athiest or Christian and that being a motivator for the Holocaust. Hitler was too busy being an egomaniac to be concerned with religion. Even moreso: the Nazi party wanted one unified Christian Protestant religion, and they did not try to convert the 94 percent of Christian Germans away from Christianity nor opress them. History also makes it evident that Hitler didn't try to oppress Christians as a whole: the main religion that he tried to eradicate was Judiasm.

 

People believe all kinds of things.

They might have believed themselves to be Christian, but this Nazified incaration deleted some essential parts. They definitely did not believe "Love thy neighbor"

 

It was simply numbers - you can oppress/eradicate a minority, but not most of a nation. Hitler simply courted Christians (practicing or not) for their support while gradually undermining them with institutions like Positive Christianity that were evolving towards a cult of Hitler.

 

Yes they do, and one of the reasons why there's many forms of Christainity. I know some Baptists who have a true dislike for Catholics...but they all accept these groups are Christians. So even today, there are Christians who don't take "Love thy neighbor" seriously There are some good virtues of Christianity, but since everyone has their own beliefs, there's very different interpretations and practices of Christianity.

 

I have never, EVER EVER argued that the violent and vicious cruelty of Christians and other religious zealots was reason for believing there is no god.

The non-existence of god(s) is evident to me from the lack of evidence for a god, and the preponderance of evidence that explains by natural means everything that religions invoke god(s) to explain.

What the cruelty of religious institutions tells us is not that there is no god, but rather than religion, as an institution, is a failure, unless its sole purpose is to enrich and empower the priest class.

You mean the way you accused me of making an argument that I have never, even once, made in my entire life?

 

^ it gets a bit cumbersome to parse "Daniel said this, Airport Kid said that....."

Even if I was the most brilliant lawyer around, sourcing the exact post in the exact context, making exceptions until my posts were an unmanageable novel length, the endless bickering would continue.

But the fact remains, people have argued against the existence of God simply because there have been bad/evil adherents that often should not even be considered religious.

That was a pretty emotional reply, BTW.

 

Pretty disingenuous, since when I first joined you and/or burritos were blaming religion for virtually all wars, persecutions, etc....those posts were before the vBullitin upgrade so it's impossible to bring them up. Hey, Dawkins also blamed religion for just about everything as well.

It's not that you don't remember, it's you don't own up to it happening here.

 

I was not the one bringing him jokingly up in post #52, but I just quipped he was the ultimate bad adherent using religion to suit his own ends...did not fall in that trap of comparing anyone in this thread to him.

Looks like you are desperate to argue about something, although after at least six years I doubt you will be found wanting.