Hitler, The Atheist.

Discussion in 'Agnosticism and Atheism' started by relaxxx, Dec 9, 2014.

  1. relaxxx

    relaxxx Senior Member

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    http://youtu.be/YP_iNCGH9kY
     
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  2. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    when someone causes harm, the harm they cause, is not made more nor less, by what they call themselves, claim to believe or disbelieve, or anything else.
     
  3. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    Perhaps from a view of hindsight, however identifying with a particular organization which promotes harm can lead to more harm. ISIS could be a good contemporary example. Unless you are suggesting our existence is completely deterministic.

    Though concerning Hitler, he seemed to have a melting pot of philosophies, both by theists and atheist alike, which he distorted to commit his manical atrocities.
     
  4. TheGhost

    TheGhost Auuhhhhmm ...

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    As do all the fanatics. They all make up some bullshit they claim to be the one "truth" and commit atrocities in order to get everyone to fall in line.

    Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, ISIS, CIA, NSA ..... different organisations, different beliefs, same bullshit.
     
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  5. Deranged

    Deranged Senor Member

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    Didnt watch video but didnt hitler have a fascination with the occult
     
  6. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    He was privy to Alien technology as well according to Ancient Aliens.
     
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  7. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    That was mainly Himmler, who was deeply into pagan Teutonic mysticism. Hitler's religious views are as difficult to discern as those of any politician.
     
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  8. RooRshack

    RooRshack On Sabbatical

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    Short answer:

    No, hitler had no interest in the occult and he was not influenced one bit by atheism.

    Remember that most tv exists to sell itself - the current history channel is a bunch of intellectually and morally bankrupt shysters.
     
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  9. SnakeOilWilly

    SnakeOilWilly Members

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    Hitler wasn't an atheist. I don't think any one knows for sure his exact religious beliefs but a lot of nazis were actually Christians.
     
  10. relaxxx

    relaxxx Senior Member

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    Yes, the Nazi party was very much a right wing Christian party. It's possible Hitler was an atheist and just a very good actor but I doubt it. If you want to start an extreme fascist organization then pandering to peoples religious beliefs is a smart starting point. Religion is after all, an organized ignorance. I think Hitler's Christian passions were genuine. Not so much mastermind as falling in line with a pre-existing organized ignorance with a history of "divinely" justified genocidal warmongering.
     
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  11. extreme-duality

    extreme-duality Members

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    he was an 'alienist' not an 'atheist'
     
  12. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    Nazism was a romantic movement, based at least as much on emotion and will as on science. And Himmler was deeply into Teutonic mysticism. They thought with their blood. Religion for them was irrelevant.
     
  13. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    yes, religion, any religion, in any real sense was irrelevant. however, they were still what i would call christothemic, by which i mean not understanding or giving a dam about christianity itself, but still identifying with it, in the sense of rejecting out of hand, everything else, as being somehow even less valid. (much the same as the average american, brit, or european today) with the possible exception a similar shallow association with norse mythology as mentioned.
     
  14. relaxxx

    relaxxx Senior Member

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    Christianity, like all religions, is whatever the believers want to make of it.
    What Christians TRULY follow the teachings of Jesus Christ?

    - Love your enemies... but damn anyone who does not follow you to eternal hell fire. That's some love huh?
    - Hate your family... to follow Jesus, your love for him must be so great that everything else is like hate in comparison.
    - Sell everything you own and give it all to the poor... Lots of Christians follow that one right?
    - Gouge your eyes out if you ever look lustfully at a woman, cut your hands off for masturbating.. etc...

    Jesus did call for the annihilation of the Jewish people so really in that way, Hitler was more Christian than most.
     
  15. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    [/QUOTE]Once again, we get fundamentalism--the religious viewpoint atheists would like to think is the only one in town. You say "Christianity, like all religions, is whatever the believers want to make of it". I'd substitute "judge" for "want". It's a matter of judgment based on the materials taken as a whole.Jesus spoke in metaphors, and what we know of Jesus is filtered through a variety of writings dating decades after his death. I use a methodology similar to that of the Jesus Seminar to separate the wheat from the chaff. I place more stock in the earlier accounts, the ones multiply sourced, and the ones that meet various standard rules of thumb used by scholars in the field, like coherence, consistency, dissimilarity, historical context, etc. To me, the big picture is Love for God and neighbor, including society's rejects. That seems to me to be a compelling truth, running thru the Sermon on the Mount, the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the statements to the Pharisees. The part about eyeball plucking is from only one source, Matthew, and I don't recall Jesus saying a word about masturbation. Hell fire seems to be the favorite of Matthew, who says lots of things that are questionable. The advice on giving everything to the poor was given to a rich man who was asking what he could do to be perfect. Jesus knew that he was looking for a way to earn his salvation on his own terms. Jesus set a requirement that tested the rich young man’s core value of materialism. As for the annihilation of the Jewish people, I don't recall that one. Can you cite for us the passage? Jesus, of course, was Jewish. Former Pope Benedict XVI argues that the "Jews" were not responsible for Jesus' death, that passages referring to "the Jews" were actually referring to the Temple hierarchy, and that the famous blood curse in Matthew (uttered not by Jesus but by "the Jews", obviously a group of Jews who were present at the time) cannot be taken as a blanket curse on all Jews. For how, asks Benedict, could a group of people a couple of centuries ago, condemn future generations of innocent people? .Matthew and John, the most anti-Semitic of the gospels, were written in the heat of battle between mainstream Judaism and the new sect following Jesus. Some scholars suggest that "Ioudaioi" would better be translated "Judaeans" than "Jews". There an underlying regional conflict between Judaeans and Galilelans like Jesus, whom the former regarded as backward. Jesus gave us a useful criterion for telling true prophets from false ones: we know them by their fruits. The interpretations that you give us would bear bitter fruit.
     
  16. relaxxx

    relaxxx Senior Member

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    There is a very clear and undeniable message repeated in the Christian bible, that Jesus Christ is the only path to salvation. Everyone who doesn't follow Jesus will burn in hell.

    Matthew 8:12-
    "the subjects of the kingdom (Jews) will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

    This is the same basic message repeated again, Jesus threatening hell and torture to any Jews who do not convert to his flock. If he did not outright call for their annihilation it is clearly implied that Jews along with anyone else who is not on board the Jesus train will surely burn in hell.

    http://youtu.be/x-slAgzJmdU
     
  17. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    Hell is a bad attitude, for which Lake of Fire is an appropriate metaphor. For a sensible view on the subject, see God's Final Victory: A Comparative Philosophical Case for Universalism. by John Kronen and Eric Reitan. Most of the references to hell in the New Testament are found in Matthew and Revelation. I think the views attributed to Jesus in these books might be words put in his mouth by these authors. As I mentioned in a previous post, Matthew contains stuff I find dubious that aren't found in any other source. Revelation is an angry screed written by someone who must have tried the brown acid. Apart from these, we have the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke, which is just that--a parable--and does not necessarily teach a doctrine of eternal hell fire.http://www.helltruth.com/q-a/the-rich-man-and-lazarus . Did Jesus preach hell fire and damnation? The Jesus Seminar thinks not, but they could be wrong. If He did, hell would be a part of His teachings I don't share. As for Christian exclusivity, for which John 14:6 is often cited, John was speaking of Jesus as the Logos which can be equated with the fundamental ethical truths of all religions and I think sincere ethical atheism.
    .
     
  18. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    The video makes the argument that Christianity teaches that all people must follow the commands of Jesus or go to hell. These commands are listed as:(1) Love your enemies; (2) sell everything you own and give it to the poor; (3) abandon your family; (4) cut off your hand; and (5) drink poison. Christians who do not follow these commands are depicted as hypocrites, because in their hearts they know Jesus was wrong. There is also the aside reference: "Why won't God heal amputees." What's wrong with this picture?

    The article assumes that everything in the New Testament must be taken as literally true, and that we know Jesus taught all this stuff. I tend to agree with the Jesus Seminar that Jesus said and did less than 20% of the things attributed to him. Are these among the less than 20%? To decide, I prefer to use what I think is our most precious gift from God, our reason. We can't know for sure what Jesus said, but we can use reason to make a reasonable guess. Two assumptions used by scholars to judge authenticity are the age of the sayings and the number of sources attesting to the same thing. Applying these:

    1. Love your enemies. it does seem that Jesus taught us to love our enemies, which I think is good therapy. In one of my fellowship groups, we say the "Resentment prayer", in which we pray for happiness for our enemies. This is actually for our own benefit in getting rid of unproductive grudges and helping us get on with our lives. It helps us to empathize with our enemies, possibly to get to the root of our problem with them and to heal them. But while we're told to turn the other cheek, we aren't told to submit to deadly force or serious bodily harm, nor to allow innocent people to be victimized. Because the real commandment is love others as ourselves for the love of God. So it's not inconsistent with the norm to have a military organization for national defense.

    2. Sell everything. This statement, found only in Matthew, doesn't seem to be a general commandment for everyone. Jesus knew that the rich young man was looking for a way to earn his salvation on his own terms. Jesus set a requirement that tested the man’s core value of materialism. We are expected to avoid obscene luxury while others suffer in poverty. Ayn Rand was wrong.

    3. Abandon your family. There are sayings (Mark 3;31-5, Matthew 10:34-37, and Luke 14: 26) that seem to support this, but they must be put in historical context. Jesus was writing during a period of political unrest, after the uprisings of the Jews under Judas of Galilee and later under Theudas. Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher and expected times of trouble and tribulation in which it would be brother against brother. And he was right. The Jewish wars and the destruction of the Temple followed within less than half a decade. I do think these passage sound suspiciously like a cult. Are we compelled to follow this today? I don't think so.

    4. Cut off your hand. The only source for this is Matthew, who tends toward hyperbole. Only religious nut cases take it literally.

    5. Drink poison. This one Jesus probably never said at all. The source is Mark 16: 9-20 that many scholars think is a spurious addition to Mark. http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fischer/120601

    As for not healing amputees, I think Jesus' healings were probably similar to those of present-day faith healers. They work best with hysterics and psychosomatic disorders. They didn't always work, especially in his own home town where people knew Him.

    The early followers of Jesus thought the Kingdom of God was imminent. Christians centuries later have adapted to an environment where this seems less likely. I think this is a rational development, but it doesn't require us to throw Baby Jesus out with the bathwater.
     
  19. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    Love thy neighbor... Yah to an extent, except for that fuckhead in 3b who plays Beastie Boys until 4 o' clock in the morning.

    Doug Stanhope "You make your own christianity": http://youtu.be/uS5DaTIF1a0
     
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  20. relaxxx

    relaxxx Senior Member

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    Okie, I'm glad that you have enough sense and morals to only accept the message of love from the Bible. Unfortunately the fact is religion destroys as many lives as it bonds. Since because a good chunk of humans are simply fucking nuts and can't decode the bible like you can. The thing is, if the message you've extracted was not encapsulated in hateful threats then it probably wouldn't have made it to you. Those threats ensured the "good word" would be passes on through the centuries to you. Since Jesus saw fit to only prove his return to just a handful of crazy sand people 2 thousand years ago.

    I have to confess something to you now. I believe in Jesus and I believe in Santa Claus. Seriously I do, not in a literal sense but that the spirit of good and giving exists in all of us. And not spirit in a magical sense but simply the nature of our humanity. The true morals of caring and empathy that have evolved within our child rearing, social dependent species. It is this very morality that is your key to decoding and extracting the good that YOU WANT to see out of the Bible. You will believe what you want to believe, but you had the message inside you before you ever opened a bible or stepped foot in a church.
     

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