Nazi redefinitions of Christianity and Evolution

Post of the Month: April 2008

by

Subject:    | Yes, the Nazis, were bible-believing Christians.
Date:       | 17 Apr 2008
Message-ID: | 8854f30e-f1b3-4618-9aed-2b21cfeda11e@d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com

J. J. Lodder wrote:
>>> Whatever their unit name,
>>> they had 'GOTT MIT UNS'
>>> on their belt buckles,

Ray Martinez wrote:
>> Educated persons know that the Nazis defined "God" to mean Darwinian
>> laws of nature and were not implicating belief in a real supernatural
>> Being.

Glenn Sheldon wrote:
> Well you certainly have support in that. Here's just one source:

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism_and_Religion

> "When we [National Socialists] speak of belief in God, we do not mean,
> like the naive Christians and their spiritual exploiters, a man-like
> being sitting around somewhere in the universe. The force governed by
> natural law by which all these countless planets move in the universe,
> we call omnipotence or God. The assertion that this universal force
> can trouble itself about the destiny of each individual being, every
> smallest earthly bacillus, can be influenced by so-called prayers or
> other surprising things, depends upon a requisite dose of naivety or
> else upon shameless professional self-interest"

> Hitler's Church is pretty damning evidence of that being an ideology
> of the Nazis, as well, and I agree to your use of "Darwinian". God is
> taken out of the picture, and man is left to believe he is just
> another animal, with evolved traits that arose as a result of
> "natural" selection, and that existing traits will continue to be
> further molded by this same natural force and those existing traits,
> in a continuing earthly "struggle for existence".

Howard Hershey wrote:
You mean the source that *also* says:

"Nazism claimed to adhere to Positive Christianity which attempted to replace traditional Christian beliefs with those agreeable with Nazism, which many German Christians accepted.[1] Even in the later years of the Third Reich, many Protestant and Catholic clergy within Germany persisted in believing that Nazism was in its essence in accordance with Christian precepts.[1]"

After a discussion of how *some* Protestant denominations (particularly the Jehovah Witnesses and Confessional Churches) were anti-Nazi, it was observed that

"Yet Lutherans voted for Hitler more than Catholics."

"Methodist Bishop John L. Nelsen toured the U.S. on Hitler's behalf to protect his church, but in private letters indicated that he feared or hated Nazism, and so retired to Switzerland. Methodist Bishop F. H. Otto Melle took a far more collaborationist position that included apparently sincere support for Nazism. He felt that serving the Reich was both a patriotic duty and a means of advancement. To show his gratitude, Hitler made a gift of 10,000 marks in 1939 to a Methodist congregation to purchase an organ.[8]"

"The leader of pro-Nazi segment of Baptists was Paul Schmidt. Hitler also led to the unification of Pro-Nazi Protestants in the Protestant Reich Church which was led by Ludwig M�ller. The idea of such a "national church" was possible in the history of mainstream German Protestantism, but National Churches devoted primarily to the state were generally forbidden among the Anabaptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and in Catholicism."

"Before Hitler rose to power, many Catholic priests and leaders vociferously opposed Nazism on the grounds of its incompatibility with Christian morals. Nazi Party membership was forbidden until the takeover and a policy reversal. At his trial Franz von Papen said that until 1936 the Catholic Church hoped for a Christian alignment to the beneficial aspects he said they saw in national socialism. (This statement came after Pope Pius XII ended Von Papen's appointment as Papal chamberlain and ambassador to the Holy See, but before his restoration under Pope John XXIII.) With the Church's strong view against Communism and its cooperation with Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy, some in the Church looked at the Nazi party as an ally at first."

The Nazis, above all, were statists. They opposed the churches only to the extent that the churches did not cooperate with and bend to the will of the Nazis. *Eventually*, if they had won, I have no doubt that they would have forced the German church to bend even more fully to the will of the party and would have ruthlessly killed and controlled those Christians who would not do so.

I also have no doubt that they would have eventually killed and controlled science that disagreed with their racist ideology. And that *includes* modern evolutionary theory and modern genetics because those theories have learned that all humans have a common origin, are essentially identical, and that there is more difference within what are called races than between them.

There were Christians who opposed Hitler *and* Christians who went along with Hitler willingly. There were scientists who opposed Hitler *and* those that went along with them willingly. I fundamentally do not find proclaimed Christians, be they laity or clergy, to be more (or less) moral than other humans. I am more than happy to point out examples (both good and bad, sometimes in the same person). Nor do I find scientists to be more (or less) moral than other humans. I am more than happy to point out examples (both good and bad, sometimes in the same person). I do find those who claim otherwise, who think that *all* Christians are and have to be good and *all* atheists/humanists or scientists to be evil to be generally deluded, pompous, self- serving, and arrogant without having any reason for being so.

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