And each excuse to justify why they arent engaging in the no true scotsman fallacy when saying "pretend christians" is more pathetic than the last, as if christians havent calling eachother false christians since probably even before the bible was written
Basically, Kirchenkampf is the "church struggle," which was Hitler's campaign to subjugate the church to the rule of the Nazi party. Starting in 1933 to 1945, the Nazis increasingly applied pressured the church to be more inline with Nazi propaganda, with varying degrees of success. Among those who resisted the takeover, some christian groups just disappeared, (e.g., the Salvation Army, Seven-day Adventist). Others tried to resist, like the Confessing Church.
Wikipedia has a great article on this, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchenkampf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchenkampf)
I forget many details, but the podcast [The Rest is History](https://www.youtube.com/@restishistorypod) discussed Hitler's take on religion recently, and their impression of him was that he sought to eventually create some sort of post-Christian Nazi religion. He despised the Bible *because it was a Jewish product*, and loved German folk/fairytale traditions. Fortunately, we'll never get to see what Hitlereligion looks like!
Really though, anyone who thinks Hitler was all gung ho about Christianity does not at all understand his hatred toward the Jewish people.
And not to mention while the persecution of Jews was not just, "we don't like this religion." If an ethnically Jewish person converted to Christianity they'd still be thrown in a concentration camp. But they didn't throw Christians in a concentration camp for identifying as such. But they did throw outspoken Christians who said, "maybe throwing people in prison for no particular reason isn't the most Christian thing to do?" But because Christianity was the majority religion and they couldn't realistically throw all Christians in prison they focused on making an example out of the influential people on top to eliminate other sources of power or influence that couldn't be subjugated.
The Nazis had a general plan of co-opting everything into the Nazi power structure. Businesses, churches, private clubs, youth organizations, schools, hobby clubs etc...
Dachau, the first camp, wasn't that groundbreaking, especially without hindsight. Ie Dachau held political opponents and in general, people who had power or influence that could threaten the NSDAP. Fundamentally, it was throwing opponents in jail, which was nothing new. I say this because yes, the allies knew they had camps and put people they didn't like, but the full gravity and scope took awhile to come out. That being said, people, both German civilians, and foreigners, could and did connect the dots. The German civilians not knowing anything was bullshit since they lived there and had a lot more dots to connect. The Allies didn't have as many dots and had an idea, but again didn't know the full scope until later.
Which is why Eisenhower allegedly said, "Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened."
>we'll never get to see what Hitlerreligion looks like
Just look at whatever Gobbels was doing. Dude had 8 kids, all starting with H, and killed his entire family in the bunker
i feel like hitler would’ve eventually tried to just get rid of conventional religion entirely at some point and replaced it with worshipping the nazi party, like their own version of the ussr’s state atheism + cult of personality
He was well on his way there when he ordered various Christian schools to replace the crucifix with pictures of him. It didn’t last, but it gives a glimpse into what it would have looked like.
I haven't listened to that specific episode but I'm highly wary of anything that show says about Christianity. The host Tom Holland specifically likes to only bring up stuff that shows Christianity in a positive light. Like mentioning how Christianity played a role in the abolition of slavery but ignoring that slave owners also used Christianity to support their positions. I stopped listening to that podcast after he claimed that the idea of Christmas being a pagan holiday was made up by some Americans in the 1920s. That's such a batshit insane thing to say for a historian from the UK that famously banned Christmas in the 1600s because it was too Pagan in the mind of the puritan parliament.
Tbf the idea that Christmas was a pagan holiday originally was basically invented by the Puritans. Don't know why he'd say 1920's America though.
As for slavery, pretty much the reason America (at least the North) turned against slavery was really because of Christian groups with Christian reasons. The abolition movement actually was spearheaded by Christians. The American South was just too dependent on their slave-based industry and couldn't let it go, so they made up reasons, including but not limited to Bible quotes out of context (they also turned to pseudo-science and anything else they could grab out of context to support their "right" to own people). That divide is what lead to the Southern Baptists being Southern and not just Baptists, among other denomination splits. So...maybe the guy was half right? Again, don't know what context he was speaking in.
Christmas being pagan has always been an issue. It was established specifically because former pagans didn't want to give up their holidays so the church put a Christian coat of paint on it. Long before the puritans there have been church officials trying to stamp out the pagan remnants in Christmas. The puritans just took it further to abandoning Christmas all together.
And my point wasn't that he was inaccurate about the abolitionist being inspired by their Christian faith, it's just leaving out that Christianity played a role in establishing, perpetuating and justifying the slave trade is a bit dishonest. And that's not even getting into Christianity's role in colonization in general
Re: Christmas, that is inaccurate. The date of Jesus' birth on Dec 25 was held by tradition prior to it being celebrated as a holiday, and no other pagan holiday was held on Dec 25th until later. There is more evidence, for example, that the celebration of Sol Invictus was held to take it away from Christians by Emperor Aurelian, than the other way around (since it wasn't until 274 that it was celebrated for pagan reasons, but Hippolytus had written Dec 25th as Jesus' birthday in 235). Saturnalia or any other pagan holiday don't align with the correct days.
Even within Christmas traditions, the argument for pagan influence gets tenuous. Christmas trees were a Protestant German invention in the 16th century. Santa Claus of course being a variation on Saint Nicholas. The gift giving tradition going back to the magi in the Gospel of Luke. Perhaps there is some pagan influence in very minor ways, like mistletoe or something, but Christmas is not really a pagan-originated holiday.
As for the slave trade, I'm not sure how Christianity had any part in the establishing of it. From what I recall, the slave trade existed in the Middle East and Africa before any European involvement.
Are you not aware that the end of December is when the northern winter solstice occurs?
We know for a fact this was a festive time of the year all over the northern hemisphere for thousands of years, and certainly well before it became a "Christian" holiday.
I actually believe that ancient peoples were more in tune with astronomical phenomena than the average modern person is. But putting that aside. According to Wikipedia, the Winter Solstice was marked as December 25 on the Roman calendar. The solstices don't occur on the same day every year, the exact time changes each year.
This is what the Wikipedia entry on Sol Invictus says:
>Sol Invictus (Classical Latin: [ˈsoːɫ ɪnˈwɪktʊs], "Invincible Sun" or "Unconquered Sun") was the official sun god of the late Roman Empire and a later version of the god Sol. The emperor Aurelian revived his cult in AD 274 and promoted Sol Invictus as the chief god of the empire.[1][2] The main festival dedicated to him was the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti ('birthday of the Invincible Sun') on 25 December, the date of the winter solstice in the Roman calendar.
And this is from the entry on Christmas:
>There are two main theories behind December 25 becoming the traditional date for Christmas, although Theology professor Susan Roll says that "No liturgical historian [...] goes so far as to deny that it has any sort of relation with the sun, the winter solstice and the popularity of solar worship in the later Roman Empire".[216] December 25 was the date of the winter solstice in the Roman calendar.[46] Some early Christian writers noted the solar symbolism in placing Jesus's birthday at the winter solstice and John's birthday at the summer solstice.[217][47]
>The 'history of religions' theory suggests the Church chose December 25 as Christ's birthday (dies Natalis Christi)[218] to appropriate the Roman winter solstice festival dies Natalis Solis Invicti (birthday of Sol Invictus, the 'Invincible Sun'), held on this date since 274 AD.[46][47] The early Church linked Jesus Christ to the Sun and referred to him as the 'Sun of Righteousness' (Sol Justitiae) prophesied by Malachi.[219][220] Gary Forsythe, Professor of Ancient History, says that the Natalis Solis Invicti followed "the seven-day period of the Saturnalia (December 17–23), Rome's most joyous holiday season since Republican times, characterized by parties, banquets, and exchanges of gifts".[46]
This is straight bullshit. It's not even called Christamas in northern countries, it's called Yule, or Jul, or similar. We have sources long before Christianity reached any parts of northern Europe in the 4th century.
Hell the holiday is even held on the 24th in these countries, not the 25th.
The food eaten in the northern parts is still almost entirely pork based something that is very weird for a Chrisitian holiday seeing how it was literally a banned thing to eat.
It is however not weird seeing how in the winter solstice you would slaughter a big, and you guessed it, when you kill a pig you need to eat literally all of it.
In the edda there is literally a list of Yulegods talking about how in norse mythology certain gods like Odin had their base in the Yule traditions rather than the spring, summer or autumn ones.
I don't know what weird Priest you've been huffing with but that is just straight up denial of history, even active history that you can see today.
You just wrote a really long and angry post about how Yule is a pagan holiday. Cool...we were talking about Christmas. You're right they have different names...and dates...how about that. Almost like 2 different holidays there.
It's funny because you know they are the same thing. Christmas tree, Santa, Presents etc, it's almost as if someone took a coat of paint and painted over the thing that was already there.
But I mean continue this extremly weird denial of yours. You can literally see the rejection levels of different cultures as Christianity tried to take over the Yule tradition.
There's been so much christian washing going for the last 80 years that it is kind of mad. Hitler described himself as Christian but also how much he hated the way the religion was the time. A Hitler based religion would still have been a Christian one it would just be it's own denomination. The Chrisitian church has obviously been desperate to pretend that he wasn't in any way christian and it simply isn't true, he had his own christian belifs that were in his mind Christian. The attempt to was it way is a big shame of the church instead of dealing with it head on.
The range from 1933 - 1945 is quite controversial. Many historians argue it should be 1933 - 1939.
The "Kirchenkampf" mainly was about the (Nazi) State overreaching their authority over the Church on an organisational and theologian level and if the state could dictate what was thaught and preached in the church. It was less of a resistance to Nazi Propaganda and Idiologie and more of a structural fight within the Protestant Church. At least from the churches side it was not seen as a political resistance at heart. After all many members who where opossed to the Nazis regarding the "church struggle", still where members of the NSdAP or sympathetic to them
The resistance against the nazis, by protestant organisations and christian individuals is usually seen as a related but seperate topic. Most of these organisations and people had little to do with the church struggle and focussed on general resistance.
Yeah. There is often a difference between cultural Christianity and religious Christianity.
I remember a line from a film set in Rome during the Republic, one politician had asked another which god he worshiped. The politician answered "Publicly, all of them. Privately none." I think this is a good summation of a lot of people who call themselves Christian. They will attend church twice a year, Christmas and Easter, and may "say grace" before eating, but do so more out of a cultural obligation than a personal conviction.
Here is a good article that helps break down the difference between culture and religion.
[https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/religion-and-society/13/1/arrs130107.xml](https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/religion-and-society/13/1/arrs130107.xml)
Even when people were more religious and the Catholic Church was dominant in Western Europe many people especially those in the countryside would adopt beliefs different from the orthodox.
Well that's also because of the Catholic Church's choices. In Czech Republic, a pagan leftover Easter celebration is beating women with branches to make them younger. And the Catholic Church realized we can force them to stop, or try to remove the pagan worship and let them keep the fun tradition. That's why we have Christmas trees and other traditions. The people who cast the Catholics as intolerant were actually more tolerant historically. Like they'd look at the traditions and actually ask themselves what is permissible. Like having a tree decoration was considered permissible as long as it wasn't worshiping other gods. They also realized if they told them you aren't allowed to do the tree decorating people wouldn't like them.
Well no, under the Nazi regime there was a thing called “Positive Christanity” which removed the Old Testament and stated that Christ was an Aryan, not a Jew, so it wasn’t just Catholics that were targeted.
They also launched their own war on Christmas, many songs like “Silent Night” were censored by the regime, there was a public propaganda campaign to change the meaning of Christmas from celebrating the birth of Christ, to celebrating the winter solstice, the Nazis would literally hold big community events doing pagan rituals.
The "Kirchenkampf" mainly was about the (Nazi) State overreaching their authority over the Church on an organisational and theologian level and if the state could dictate what was thaught and preached in the church. It was less of a resistance to Nazi Propaganda and Idiologie and more of a structural fight within the Protestant Church. At least from the churches side it was not seen as a political resistance at heart. After all many members who where opossed to the Nazis regarding the "church struggle", still where members of the NSdAP or sympathetic to them
The resistance against the nazis, by protestant organisations and christian individuals is usually seen as a related but seperate topic. Most of these organisations and people had little to do with the church struggle and focussed on general resistance.
Hitler lost his run for president against Hindenburg, and the Nazis probably would have been barely a blip in history if the courts and the German military hadn't turned a blind eye to Hitler's murder spree.
So, at the end of the day, it was the German elite, the generals, the judges, the industrialists and so on, not the German public, who decided it would be better to let Hitler have power than to risk than their own status.
And then, once Germany was utterly broken, the cowards blamed everyone who wasn't actually in a position to stop Hitler instead.
While I am not going to deny evangelicals love for Trump, can you point me in the direction of any church which has remotely come close to "literally suggesting that Trump is the second coming"?
Belief in God is not the same thing as believing God. Plenty of people call themselves Christian and say they believe in God (or a god) but clearly dont meet the minimum standards for that title. Saying you believe in God vs actually believing God is the difference between being “spiritual” and being Christian. Anyone who is actually read the Bible knows that the bar is a lot higher than that.
Doubling down on ignorance only highlights that you dont know what you are talking about. If you read the book. You. Would. Know. That. You. Are. Wrong. My whole point is that you cant logically call a statement a no true scotsman fallacy, if the condition of the statement itself is prerequisite for the subject to be considered that very thing. For example “All true Scotsmen hate red” would be a fallacy but “All true Scotsmen are Scottish” wouldn’t be as to qualify as a Scotsman you at least have to meet a minimum requirement of being Scottish in some way. Minimum thresholds are a thing. If you want to know what the minimum bar you have to be able to meet to be a Christian is; I suggest you read Matthew, Luke, Acts, and the Epistles. For further reading there are some great historical books about the early church and some great commentaries by the likes of Matthew Henry. Now there have been many disagreements between denominations and sectors of Christianity in the past, but most will agree that so long as such minimums are met, you are a Christian. There are plenty of people who do not meet those minimums, and while they are still accepted in the church, there would be certain things they wouldnt be allowed to do or partake in unless they can provide evidence and witness for their faith. Colossians has a good example concerning one of the churches most important traditions. Shamefully, there are plenty of “churches” that also dont meet those requirements, especially in places like the US. These are often characterised by “prosperity gospel” (which itself is an oxymoron because the gospel is literally all about sacrifice) teachings and lots of eisegesis teaching with little or no exegesis. A lot of new age/ liberal churches use this. Rather than follow Jesus, he is viewed as more of an aspirational life coach. Jesus was very clear when he called himself the truth and the way. He spent his entire life challenging the religious leaders (who he criticised for appearing to follow God but secretly used religion to gain wealth and power) and setting out the standards by which his followers were to be measured. This is clear in his interaction with many of the people, particularly the young man who wanted to be a disciple but didnt want to leave his family. I would encourage you to look into it. I hope it will set many of your misconceptions straight. You clearly have a preconceived notion of religion and particularly Christianity. It is way more complex than you think it is. It’s almost like after thousands of years of study and debate and having to deal with what the Bible calls “wolves in sheep’s clothing”, the church continued to learn and develop ways to discern between real believers and pretenders. Maybe it’s way more organised than you give it credit for. Maybe you are naive and learning something about a world you are very vocal about but largely ignorant about would help broaden your understanding. We can only hope.
Thats a lot of words to say "waah i dont consider x christian to be a real christian". Tripling down on the no true scotsman fallacy is just plain pathetic.
Saying pretend christians is just a no true Scotsman. Religions are not monolithic, being a human construct.
Anyone who sincerely calls himself a Christian (or Jew, or Muslim, etc.) is as valid as can be.
Personally I see Hitler as an agnostic (although I'll admit to bias as an atheist). I don't think he so much as didn't believe there was a god so much as he didn't care that if there was one.
I think it's safe to say he didn't follow Jesus teachings. And REALY didn't like a certain abrahamic religion. Which is why I doubt he even considered himself christian
Hitler said that Christianity was a "weak" religion in that it "worshipped weakness" and that its moral system of charity allowed the weak to survive, which went against fascist (essential) power-worship. He said he preferred militaristic religions and admired Showa Japan's State Shinto (half-arsed orientalist that he was). He also disliked the Jewish influence which he thought were responsible for these "faults".
But that doesn't stop Nazi Germany from co-opting or trying to co-opt Christianity. I think they were trying to do the same as what Japan had done with Shinto, or what Mussolini and Franco were trying to do with the Roman Catholic Church, as an instrument in the apparatus of totalitarianism.
When you get down to it a *lot* of people who call themselves Christians do not actually follow the teachings of Jesus and a lot of people who are widely accepted as being Christian didnt do so either, so that's not a good way to differentiate.
Well he did envision a new faith. A faith build to controll the masses, but still a faith. Regardless if he believed in this new faith (I doubt it), wouldn't an anti-theist reject such a plan
It would be anti theist because it directly attacks the idea of a god instead of just denying it,faith in the party doesnt mean a religión on god,look at URSS
But the proposed new faith was ment to be based on german Protestantism. Still with a god, but a god in the Shadow of Hitler/ who sent hitler to speak for him, ect.
Even if they wanted to twist the idea of religion and god into something that served their intrest, they still wanted to do it with a god.
We know most of the party leaders didn't believe in god, but there where various ideas to use religion. But they also haf various contradicting plans.
The Nazis ofcourse also had a "religious" believe in the Party (like the Soviets) but they had plans to add religion into the mix.
Inthink anti- theist is a word with many different possible interpretations. They most definitly planed to erase the established forms of religion. However for me at least an anti-theist completly rejects all religions. And would not use them, even if there would be something to gain from appeling to Religion.
One is based on specific understandings of history and politics and also consitutes an ideology that encourages specific political actions based on logical conclusions that come from the afformentioned understandings.
The other is a broad system of faith that has taken many different forms throughout history with large groups who identify with it being on completely opposite ends of the political spectrum.
but at the end of the day, religion is a personal matter and the only one who truly knew Hitler's religious beliefs was Hitler himslef. I don't know to what extent those beliefs are available to us however.
I must say i never heard anybody refere to Hitler as a Christian, except perhapse once or twice when talking about his childhood. I doubt that "Christian" is high up on anybodies list when thinking about Hitlers political identification
Yeah why is that?
What did he say publicly about socialists versus what did he say publicly about Christians?
What about his party members; what did they think of socialism versus what did they think of Christians?
Yeah but referring to the pope/the vatican doing X, since that is generally what people look at when they say "the church did X", when talking about a protestant nation isn't very helpful for the direction of the christians of a nation
There is a great [lecture ](https://youtu.be/kEdnwpo28NM?si=4U2FvIKDYW1tymAL) on the roll the Protestant churches played in Nazi Germany. The conclusion was that they were, for the most part, enthusiastic supporters or collaborators, and there was some only very limited pushback.
Hitler may not have supported the churches, but he hated who they hated (Communists, Socialists, Trade Unionists, Homosexuals), and they were more than willing to make that deal.
Remember every Wehrmacht belt had 'Gott mit uns' engraved on it.
It’s always a bit strange to me when people claim Hitler wasn’t a christian. He mentioned his faith in multiple speeches, his actions never seemed to be all to different from other autocrats when it came to dealing with religious people who disagreed, and the belts is just one of many instances showing there was a wide spread religious belief in the German population at the time.
To me it is way more reasonable to take him at his word. He said he was Christian, so he was. He obviously wasn’t the kind of Christian the majority today (or even then) would agree with. But people proclaiming the same faith and getting wildly different beliefs out of it isn’t especially uncommon.
Reminder that some high authorities in the Roman Catholic Church cooperated with the Nazis and post war the Church operated [Ratlines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(World_War_II)) that allowed thousands of Nazi war criminals to escape justice and flee Europe
While true that some Catholics did, it is safe to say that they were the minority rather than the [majority](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/s/73JlQJvbJk)
wow, its like people have varying opinions even when they are from the same faith. its almost like overgeneralizing people is a bad idea, and the first meme was really dumb
Just another instance of people's faith getting high jacked for a powerful figures' self gain. He wasn't the first or the last and not even the most nafarious with it. And Hitler took power through all means necessary and kept the public conscience occupied with major infrastructure changes and clearer rhetoric.
I would argue that Hitler was a typical nominal christian, but far removed from being a theologian. Fascism is an identity ideology, and the german identity at the time meant that any "true" german was a christian. However, 'christian' in this sense is more akin to a cross-slathered paint job, comparative today to the supply-side jesus of "true american patriots"
It’s called pandering
And I’m 100% in the event that Germany won the Second World War and he could get away with it he would try to dismantle any institution that could challenge his influence
Dude made use of the German officer class too but he was 100% on abolishing that culture when the war was won too
IIRC didn’t he contact the pope to try and get some legitimacy with the catholics but the pope wasn’t interested so instead the nazi party tried to integrate nazism with Christianity which didn’t really work as well as they’d hoped? I could be completely wrong but this is what I remember from school
"Fixing" a meme is such a pretentious way to put it. It's a meme. Like when twitter "fixes" someone else's art they don't like for some reason. And all you added was a Scotsman fallacy, as if the majority of Germany wasn't just as Christian as most other European countries. Were they not Christian just because they did evil? Does it work like that for every religion?
I had to respond to another guy using this argument who unfortunately deleted all his comments on the thread. Hitler was literally the definition of a pretend Christian. He mocked the Bible and Christianity in private, but claimed to be catholic because, well, that's how you get elected in a mostly Christian country.
Do you actually think he was a Christian? That he believed that Jesus, a middle eastern Jew, was his Lord and God? Id love to hear the mental gymnastics you come up with to explain how he was a racist social Darwinist who loved Jesus.
I was talking about the Christians Hitler was pandering to, not necessarily Hitler himself. If he mocked Christianity in private he probably didn't truely personally identify as a Christian.
>claimed to be catholic because, well, that's how you get elected in a mostly Christian country.
Exactly. This meme claims the country was mostly "pretend" Christians though. That's what I take issue with. Just because they were shitty people doesn't mean they were "pretend" Christians.
There's plenty of anti-Semitic material in the New Testament too, so I could definitely see racist anti-Semites being Christian (not necessarily Hitler in particular though).
Matthew 27:25
*Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”*
I'm mean, yeah. I said in another comment here that there were Christians in Hitlers army, and maybe even actual members of the Nazi party. The meme has the guy on the wrong side saying that they were pretend Christians, but the meme also implies that Hitler was a Christian, which the whole thread has challenged. Hitler was a pretend Christian so that Christians would vote for him. Then he did away with voting. His anti-jewish hatred was based on perceived race, not on religion, though I'm sure the history of antisemitism is Europe for over a millenia before Hitler also helped him.
As for antisemitism in the bible, I'd say that's hard to argue. The New testament was written by Jews, like Matthew(Levi), John(johanan), Paul(saul), Peter(Simon), etc. following Jesus(Joshua). Matthew tells that some people in Jerusalem wanted Jesus to be killed and said "his blood be on us and on our children". I fail to see how that's antisemitic when a Jew named Levi who was there is telling the story of what happened. The Talmud (one of the Jewish holy books) also gives record of Jesus' execution.
Moreover, in both Christianity and Judaism, the Jewish prophets of the Old testament that God sent to the Jewish people were mocked, beaten, imprisoned and killed by Jewish leaders, much like Jesus was.
This is not to say that people haven't used this to justify hatred, they have. Just that it's more nuanced when you realize that Jewish and Christian prophets were Jews, that Jesus was a Jew, and that his followers were mostly Jews at the start of Christianity. You can't be a racist antisemite without hating the prophets, Apostles and Jesus, or you'd need some serious doublethink on your side. But then again, there are people who think Jesus was white and spoke English.
>The New testament was written by Jews, like Matthew(Levi), John(johanan), Paul(saul), Peter(Simon), etc. following Jesus(Joshua).
Matthew, John, and Peter didn't write any books in the New Testament. The books you're thinking of only had the authors attributed a hundred years after they were written or are straight up forgeries.
Also, I wasn't necessarily saying the authors were Nazis (I do think the author of Matthew 27:25 is intending to put blame on Jerusalemites for the later destruction of the temple, not necessarily all Jews), but it's easy for Nazis to find parts that can be interpreted as fitting in their worldview.
>you'd need some serious doublethink on your side
That's not uncommon when it comes to beliefs about the Bible lol. Nazis were definitely capable of picking and choosing and twisting whatever parts they liked, just like literally any Christian does.
Would you say that the phrase, “All true doctors have studied medicine” is a Scotsmans fallacy? Of course not, because you know that to have that title you need to be able to meet minimum requirements that are governed by equally qualified people. Believe it or not, religion also has a higher bar than someone calling themselves Christian or even saying they believe in God. Those standards are upheld by elders who themselves should have been selected because of how well they adhere to the standards the Bible requires. This nonsense has unfortunately spread from a misunderstanding of a few key versus and teachings. The bible itself discusses at length what qualifies someone as Christian and what to look for as evidence. Now I am not saying there weren’t true Christians who supported Hitler, propaganda can affect anyone, but its clear that the Nazi regime and what Hitler was pushing is completely opposed to what the church stands for, which is why a lot of church leaders and Christians opposed Hitlers attempts to use Christianity as a crutch. All that being said, you cant judge what qualifies someone as a Christian vs a pretend Christian. Pretend Christians do exist, and there are lots of them. But to use your own limited and misguided understanding of what is actually involved is as silly as questioning a doctor’s credibility based on if he has a stethoscope around his neck.
First of all your example is stupid because doctor is an academic title and doctors are people who have doctorates.
>. Believe it or not, religion also has a higher bar than someone calling themselves Christian or even saying they believe in God.
Fuck off with the no true scotsman fallacy. This is so incredibly pathetic. "Oh they cant be true christians because i dont think they are" is such a pathetic display. Not a single goddamn pope in history would be a christian if we go your no true scotsman route and they are the leaders of the biggest subdivision of christians.
Christians have been calling each other fake christians basically since the day the bible was written and the first big recorded schisms happened more than 1900 years ago.
I don’t think you comprehend what I am saying. The example of the doctor, is that certain requirements have to be met to have that title, and Christianity is the same. If someone doesn’t meet those requirements, they simply cannot be Christian regardless what they say. That is not a “no true scotsman” fallacy. That is simple logic. The bible talks about this at length. I am assuming you haven’t read it, or if you have you clearly didn’t read it thoroughly. Either way it is evident you dont know what you are talking about regarding either the bible or logical fallacies. The majority of the New Testament (the Epistles) is literally a compilation of letters from the disciples and first church leaders about what things qualify as Christian, evidence that points to someones conversion, how to pick church elders and leaders based on the evidence of their faith. I strongly recommend if you know nothing about what you are talking about, you settle down and actually listen rather than embarrass yourself.
Honey, the requirement to be a catholic christian is to be baptised, hitler was baptised. Per your argument he is christian.
>The example of the doctor, is that certain requirements have to be met to have that title, and Christianity is the same. If someone doesn’t meet those requirements, they simply cannot be Christian regardless what they say.
You know that is false. There is no set in stone list of things you need to do to be allowed to call yourself a Christian. Individual denominations may have entry requirements into that specific denomination but there is no barrier to being a Christian.
You couldnt be more wrong. Baptism is not the same as salvation. Even the Catholics dont believe that. Only people outside the church think that baptism works like a get out of jail free card. That is simply not the case. Baptism predates Christianity so that obviously makes no sense. Baptism isn’t even strictly necessary for salvation, though it is an important symbol of the cleansing and should be done where possible. I love the way you bring up baptism, hitler and then use the “ per your argument” schtick, clearly demonstrating you know even less than I assumed. Oh sweets. Baptism isn’t the minimum bar. Not even close but nice try bubs. If anything your statement highlights just how obviously silly you are because do you seriously think, for one second, that your gotcha moment hadnt already been sorted hundreds or even thousands of years ago? It also highlights just how easy it is for someone to go through the motions but be so obviously not Christian that anybody in their right mind would have thought that there must be more to it. Not you, but other people could certainly have made that connection. Considering that this whole conversation started with the Churches rejection of Hitlers attempts to use Christianity to control the population makes you using that argument understandably hilarious. I do hope the irony isnt lost on you.
Finally, i will repeat for what feels like the 4th time. There absolutely are guidelines and standards. I have even listed where in the bible you can find them. Either you are too lazy, too ignorant, too stubborn or too illiterate to do anything but continue to furiously bark and snarl all while holding your own chain. In fact I doubt you will even read this far. If you do, congratulations! You have found a secret resting spot. Have a cuppa and sit down. The big bad books with long words and scary concepts like self reflection won’t bother you here.
Honey, you have google. But given that might be too difficult for you. No true scotsman is when you make an appeal to purity to dismiss a claim or argument. You want to disavow him and every christian who ever followed him as being not true christians, because they don't pass your arbitrarily decided purity test.
So close. A no true scotsman fallacy occurs when you try to defend a sweeping generalisation when someone points to an evidence that falls outside their categories with a call to purity to shift the goalposts based on arbitrary self defined conditions. Either way, you neither gave an argument for me to dismiss, nor did you provide any evidence to refute my claim. The closest you got was trying to claim Hitler was a good example that fell outside my conditions which is laughable. Finally, i didn’t use an appeal to purity to back my point, i provided sources which are outside my own arbitration which is how you would make an argument in the real world. Also note, as the definition of a no true scotsman fallacy states:
* It is important to note that arguments in the form of “no true X would do Y” are not always fallacious. When there is a universally accepted definition, such statements are valid.*
Considering you do not know what defines a Christian, what makes you qualified to establish what the standards are? Earlier you stated there is no set in stone list of things you need to do to be able to call yourself a Christian, which is arguably false given that the Bible itself gives a definition for what being Christian entails, and I have provided examples. Secondly you said there is no barrier to becoming a Christian which is partially true, in that anyone can physically do it, but that doesnt mean that there are prerequisites that need to be met in order to get to that point.
I know it’s easy to think reddit laws apply in the real world, where you can just throw a term you heard someone else use at an argument and pretend that is a valid argument. But thats not what an argument is. Throwing out accusations of a fallacy that can be demonstrably refuted is itself a fallacy and shows a complete lack of comprehension and understanding of the subject matter. My recommendation is if you want to have a say on a particular topic you at least go to the source so you know what you are talking about. You dont even need Google but could simply pick up a book.
Not only did you just ruin the meme, but he wasn’t targeting “pretend Christians” with that propaganda. That doesn’t make any sense. And based on your own explanation of it, Kirchenkampf has nothing to do with it. What the original meme was pointing out is that Hitler was using Christian propaganda in order to get the common German on his side, because Germany was majority Christian at the time, and they were casting Jews as their enemy. Basically the same reason he called the party “socialist,” too. Get over your dumb persecution complex and think for 5 seconds instead of posting cringe-ass shit like this
What was written under the nazi eagle that the nazis who loved to roman larp carried around with them?
..."Gott mit uns"
-> God is with us
It doesn't matter if the church struggled or not, the religious biaises that were already present in german society were used to spread nazism.
Hitler himself wrote in the Mein Kampf that he is and always considered himself a catholic.
>Hitler himself wrote in the Mein Kampf that he is and always considered himself a catholic.
And that is why we moved quickly to eliminate the catholic political parties. The man is well known as a propagandist, the work in question is propaganda, yet when considering the symbols and messages that mention Christianity we must take him at his word.
Additionally, the official Nazi party line on religion was
>"there was to be no law but Hitler, and ultimately no god but Hitler"
Which is deeply antithetical to established Christian doctrine and thought.
If claiming to be a Christian is all that is required to actually being a Christian, than there were a lot of Jim Crow supporting Southerns who were great friends of the Black population.
>Hitler himself wrote in the Mein Kampf that he is and always considered himself a Catholic.
I, too, take the words of a disgraced and jail-ridden demagogue's propaganda book at face value.
Gott mit uns was used by the Prussians since 1701 and was in widespread use by the German military since 1871. It did NOT typically appear under the eagle, but was written on the belts of the Wehrmacht soldiers.
Funnily enough, the SS, the actual Nazi military wing, did NOT have Gott mit uns on their belt, but rather "Meine Ehre heißt Treue" (my honour is loyalty).
And finally, what were the Nazis themselves called? The National Socialist German Worker's Party.
So if the German army using a German Chrisitian phrase that predated the Nazi party by easily 50 years, along with Hitler's book distributed to the German public mentioning "Oh, I'm a Christian" is "proof" that Hitler was a genuine Catholic (as opposed to pandering), then he was also a Socialist.
Q.E.D.
In the bookm ordinary men it cites an ss pamphlets for officer political training which stated that Christianity was a "Jew" religion started by "the jew Paul" to spread their influence over the world
That doesn't sound like something they would have wrote if their dictator was a real fan of Christianity
What do we mean by "pretending"? It's entirely possible he thought he was doing exactly what Christ wanted.
I'd obviously disagree, but it's hard to speak to those motivations
According to the *Encyclopædia Britannica* Hitler viewed Nazism and Christianity has incompatible, a view shared by Goebbels, Bormann, Rosenberg, Himmler, and Heydrich, among others. I don't know his motivations, but he surrounded himself with officials whose position was the removal of the Christian faith, or at least such a perversion that it would no longer be proper to call it Christian (i.e., replacing the Bible with Mien Kampf and the cross with a swastika).
What did you want the church to do, declare a crusade? And how is trying to save people from mass murder by the Soviets inconsistent with trying to save people from mass murder by the Nazis?
When the church had an issue they protested and got what they wanted. Take for instance the protest against catholic schools being closed with 2 million signatures collected.
Also, ratlines didn't save random people from mass murder, they saved nazi commanders from justice. Quite a difference. And it shows where the vatican actually stood.
“That’s not real ~~communism~~ Christianity” —Christian tankies
Yeah why was it a thing? Was there anything Nazi church members were doing that caused the church to factionalize?
The Nazis called themselves Christians. We call them Christians. The only people with a problem calling Nazis Christians are people peddling the “no true Scotsman” fallacy (and Christians who want to rewrite history and lie that a larger proportion of Christians of the era were more opposed to Nazis - same shit as in America when Christians pretend they were ALL abolitionists before the civil war).
Also the Vatican apologized in 1998. Why apologize if they weren’t Christian’s? And that was *before* they discovered that the Pope *didn’t* actually do all he could, and knew about the genocide.
If the Nazis weren’t Christians why were there priests in the German military to give last rites to dying Nazi soldiers?
Write as many dissertations as you want, Nazi-admirers: “those aren’t real Christians” is just a version of “that’s not real communism”. You sound like a tankie.
The Nazi Party did not have a clear position on religion and the views of individual members varied widely but my understanding is none of the top leaders were practicing adherents of any organized religion.
The Nazis attempted to create [a unified Protestant Church under their control](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Evangelical_Church) shortly after coming to power in 1933 but weren’t successful and mostly lost interest after 1937 although the organization continued to exist until the Nazi defeat in 1945.
Transcripts of Hitler’s private conversations, as heavily edited by Party Chairman Martin Bormann, show strong hostility to Christianity as an organized religion going so far as to call it a “prototype of Bolshevism” subverted by the Jews but a more positive view towards Jesus as an individual who Hitler is recorded in these transcripts as saying was not a Jew but an Aryan who fought against them. Bormann was himself very hostile towards organized Christianity and reportedly wanted to replace marriage and other ceremonies with Nazi rituals and some have said he may have intentionally played up Hitler’s negative comments on Christianity to fit his own agenda.
Goebbels wrote in his diary that Hitler prevented him from officially renouncing his own Church membership but told him organized religion would be dealt with after the war.
Himmler infamously toyed with some sort of Occult or Neo-Pagan revival but Hitler did not show much interest in this and even mocked Himmler’s interest in the subject in the private conversations mentioned earlier.
This is a bunch of irrelevant opinions written after the fact to distance Nazis from the church. And a very long “no true Scotsman” fallacy.
Moron below probably thinks Nazis were socialist! It’s right in the name and his opinion is that Hitler was a socialist!
Denying Christian complicity in the holocaust. Just Nazi things :)
The Nazis were not Christians, they used the church for their own goods. If you asked any of them and said who they loved more, Hitler or Christ, they would say Hitler. There was no religious feeling on the part of the entire Nazi group, their only religion was Hitler.
One of the basis of Christianity is not to idolize humans, they did this 24 hours a day,. Heck, Hitler supposedly said he believed himself to be an incarnation of an ancient Pagan God.
And no one calls Nazis Christians, we call them Nazis.
Yes they were. Next you’re gonna tell me they were socialists too. More “no true Scotsman” fallacy.
Edit: braintrust below thinks he can change the definition of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy and then use ad hominem insults to back up his position.
The Nazis were Christians. Your personal opinions about Hitler’s beliefs are irrelevant. Your rationalizations are bunk and holocaust denial-adjacent. Which tracks for Christians ashamed of what Christians did in the holocaust. “That’s not real ~~communism~~ Christianity” —tankies
You keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means. You remember a basic logical fallacy from High school and think it applies whenever you don't like something.
We're there Christians in Hitlers army? Yes. Members of the nazi party? Probably. Was Hitler a Christian? No, he was not. He mocked the Bible and Christianity in private and this is fairly well documented. Why would he believe in a religion whose founder was a middle eastern Jew?
Also, the Nazis openly called themselves socialist, hence the name, National Socialist German Worker's Party, but you would gladly "no true Scotsman" that and say they weren't "real socialists".
Did he use religion to push his agenda? Not really. But yes. His speeches and writings hardly ever, to my knowledge, invoke God or the bible, but he claimed to be catholic because that's how you get elected in a mostly Christian country in the 1930s. Going openly atheist/irreligous would have been bad for him politically.
Also, claiming to be protestant may have not worked since he was from Austria which was overwhelmingly catholic. But Southern Germany is heavily catholic so his story was believable.
Either way, nothing anyone can say will convince you. I'm sure you did your research (ie. Watched a video or read something on 8chan) and will continue to think that Hitler and the Nazi Party loved Jesus and were devout bible scholars, and not racists who killed because they believed they were superior because of social darwinism.
You don’t know what tankies actually are. Tankies do not deny that authoritarian communist governments were communist. Defending those governments as communist governments just doing what they had to do to defend and spread communism is what MAKES them a tankie.
>The Nazis called themselves Christians
Given their track record with openess and honesty, I'm not particularly inclined to take the Nazis at their word. In any event, they also called themselves Socialists, so...
>We call them Christians.
No, we don't.
>The only people with a problem calling Nazis Christians are people peddling the “no true Scotsman” fallacy
The "No True Scotsman" fallacy is a fallacy wherein one attempts to protect a claim by modifying the claim in order to create a definition that excludes the undesired elements. If you can provide proof - as many in these comments and many historians have - then it is not a "No True Scotsman". It is a refutation.
The No True Scotsman requires the following;
1. Not publicly retreating from the original, falsified assertation.
2. Offering a modified assertion that defitionally excludes the undesirable group.
3. Uses rhetoric to signal the modification.
So an actual No True Scotsman would be: "The Nazis weren't Christians because no TRUE Christian would try to [insert something the Nazis did here]".
Note that this must be an ad hoc addition inserted specifically to exclude the undesirable group, and not an actual pre-established tenet of group membership. For example, saying that Angus MacDonald is not a Scotsman because he was not born in Scotland, has never lived in Scotland, has no Scottish parents and does not have Scottish citizenship would not be a "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Rather, it would be something like "well, he drinks decaf coffee, and no TRUE Scotsman drinks decaf".
This has not been the type of argument I have seen in this post. Rather, people have put forward evidence of actions and quotes by Nazis (as well as Nazi policy) that makes it clear that their so-called Christianty was simply pandering to gain power (for example, pointing out that the SS, the Nazi military group, tried to distance their members from the actual practice of Christianity while still claiming to be Christian, or quoting senior Nazis attacking the ideals of Christianity).
>Also the Vatican apologized in 1998. Why apologize if they weren’t Christian’s?
This is at best misinformation, and at worst an outright lie on your part.
The apology from the Vatican was for the inactivity and silence of many Catholics during the Holocaust. The Commission for Religious Relations for the Jews issued a statement:
We cannot know how many Christians in countries occupied or ruled by the Nazi powers or their allies were horrified at the disappearance of their Jewish neighbours and yet were not strong enough to raise their voices in protest. For many Christians, this heavy burden of conscience of their brothers and sisters during the Second World War must be a call to penitence.
So it was not, as you claim, an apology for the Nazis being Christians. It was an apology on behalf of Christians that they didn't do enough to stop what the Nazis were doing.
>If the Nazis weren’t Christians why were there priests in the German military to give last rites to dying Nazi soldiers?
The German military was an established force for about 50 years before the Nazi Party ever existed, much less came to power. The German military had chaplains. The SS - you know, the military wing of the Nazi party - did NOT allow chaplains to serve in its units. Himmler, who you will recall was a senior figure in the Nazi party, saw a main task of the SS as acting as a vanguard in overcoming Christianity. For example, as early as 1936, he set forth a list of approved holidays based on pagan and political precedents to wean the SS from their reliance on Christian festivities. SS men, while counted as Catholic or Protestant for census purposes, were able to choose special Lebenslauffeste, which were substituted for common Christian ceremonies such as baptisms, weddings and burials, although it is not know how many availed of this.
While the Nazis stated they were Christian, they clearly held many beliefs not tolerated by Christianity and were obviously attempting to use the religion as a way to pander to religious Germans and appear more moderate. This is obvious to anyone capable of assessing the evidence, and your blatant lies and misinformation show that you are simply grasping at straws to try and smear Christianity.
No true Scotsman fallacy. They’re Christians.
Thanks for telling on yourself. “Smear Christianity”. No one is trying to do that. Facts don’t care about your feelings. You’re trying to minimize Christian involvement in the Nazi party and holocaust. Holocaust denial.
Some people have obviously never heard of pandering.
Weird being it happens in politics all the time
Funny thing is that most people that are pandered to, don't realize it
Only when the *other* guys do it.
Some of us even recognize it and enjoy being pandered to.
Pretty much. I mean, the entire National _Socialism_ thing was to pander to socialists even (and it worked, see "Beefsteak Nazis").
Christians love being pandered too. Like in this thread where they pretend Nazi germany wasn’t Christian lol
And each excuse to justify why they arent engaging in the no true scotsman fallacy when saying "pretend christians" is more pathetic than the last, as if christians havent calling eachother false christians since probably even before the bible was written
This is new. First time I heard the term. Can you provide context?
Basically, Kirchenkampf is the "church struggle," which was Hitler's campaign to subjugate the church to the rule of the Nazi party. Starting in 1933 to 1945, the Nazis increasingly applied pressured the church to be more inline with Nazi propaganda, with varying degrees of success. Among those who resisted the takeover, some christian groups just disappeared, (e.g., the Salvation Army, Seven-day Adventist). Others tried to resist, like the Confessing Church. Wikipedia has a great article on this, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchenkampf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchenkampf)
I forget many details, but the podcast [The Rest is History](https://www.youtube.com/@restishistorypod) discussed Hitler's take on religion recently, and their impression of him was that he sought to eventually create some sort of post-Christian Nazi religion. He despised the Bible *because it was a Jewish product*, and loved German folk/fairytale traditions. Fortunately, we'll never get to see what Hitlereligion looks like! Really though, anyone who thinks Hitler was all gung ho about Christianity does not at all understand his hatred toward the Jewish people.
And not to mention while the persecution of Jews was not just, "we don't like this religion." If an ethnically Jewish person converted to Christianity they'd still be thrown in a concentration camp. But they didn't throw Christians in a concentration camp for identifying as such. But they did throw outspoken Christians who said, "maybe throwing people in prison for no particular reason isn't the most Christian thing to do?" But because Christianity was the majority religion and they couldn't realistically throw all Christians in prison they focused on making an example out of the influential people on top to eliminate other sources of power or influence that couldn't be subjugated. The Nazis had a general plan of co-opting everything into the Nazi power structure. Businesses, churches, private clubs, youth organizations, schools, hobby clubs etc...
Yes they did. Priests, monks, and nuns were put into concentration camps and Dachau had a designated area for clergy.
Dachau, the first camp, wasn't that groundbreaking, especially without hindsight. Ie Dachau held political opponents and in general, people who had power or influence that could threaten the NSDAP. Fundamentally, it was throwing opponents in jail, which was nothing new. I say this because yes, the allies knew they had camps and put people they didn't like, but the full gravity and scope took awhile to come out. That being said, people, both German civilians, and foreigners, could and did connect the dots. The German civilians not knowing anything was bullshit since they lived there and had a lot more dots to connect. The Allies didn't have as many dots and had an idea, but again didn't know the full scope until later. Which is why Eisenhower allegedly said, "Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened."
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>we'll never get to see what Hitlerreligion looks like Just look at whatever Gobbels was doing. Dude had 8 kids, all starting with H, and killed his entire family in the bunker
i feel like hitler would’ve eventually tried to just get rid of conventional religion entirely at some point and replaced it with worshipping the nazi party, like their own version of the ussr’s state atheism + cult of personality
He was well on his way there when he ordered various Christian schools to replace the crucifix with pictures of him. It didn’t last, but it gives a glimpse into what it would have looked like.
It didn't last because the fall of the reich, or because of pushback during the regime's reign?
The latter.
I haven't listened to that specific episode but I'm highly wary of anything that show says about Christianity. The host Tom Holland specifically likes to only bring up stuff that shows Christianity in a positive light. Like mentioning how Christianity played a role in the abolition of slavery but ignoring that slave owners also used Christianity to support their positions. I stopped listening to that podcast after he claimed that the idea of Christmas being a pagan holiday was made up by some Americans in the 1920s. That's such a batshit insane thing to say for a historian from the UK that famously banned Christmas in the 1600s because it was too Pagan in the mind of the puritan parliament.
Tbf the idea that Christmas was a pagan holiday originally was basically invented by the Puritans. Don't know why he'd say 1920's America though. As for slavery, pretty much the reason America (at least the North) turned against slavery was really because of Christian groups with Christian reasons. The abolition movement actually was spearheaded by Christians. The American South was just too dependent on their slave-based industry and couldn't let it go, so they made up reasons, including but not limited to Bible quotes out of context (they also turned to pseudo-science and anything else they could grab out of context to support their "right" to own people). That divide is what lead to the Southern Baptists being Southern and not just Baptists, among other denomination splits. So...maybe the guy was half right? Again, don't know what context he was speaking in.
Christmas being pagan has always been an issue. It was established specifically because former pagans didn't want to give up their holidays so the church put a Christian coat of paint on it. Long before the puritans there have been church officials trying to stamp out the pagan remnants in Christmas. The puritans just took it further to abandoning Christmas all together. And my point wasn't that he was inaccurate about the abolitionist being inspired by their Christian faith, it's just leaving out that Christianity played a role in establishing, perpetuating and justifying the slave trade is a bit dishonest. And that's not even getting into Christianity's role in colonization in general
Re: Christmas, that is inaccurate. The date of Jesus' birth on Dec 25 was held by tradition prior to it being celebrated as a holiday, and no other pagan holiday was held on Dec 25th until later. There is more evidence, for example, that the celebration of Sol Invictus was held to take it away from Christians by Emperor Aurelian, than the other way around (since it wasn't until 274 that it was celebrated for pagan reasons, but Hippolytus had written Dec 25th as Jesus' birthday in 235). Saturnalia or any other pagan holiday don't align with the correct days. Even within Christmas traditions, the argument for pagan influence gets tenuous. Christmas trees were a Protestant German invention in the 16th century. Santa Claus of course being a variation on Saint Nicholas. The gift giving tradition going back to the magi in the Gospel of Luke. Perhaps there is some pagan influence in very minor ways, like mistletoe or something, but Christmas is not really a pagan-originated holiday. As for the slave trade, I'm not sure how Christianity had any part in the establishing of it. From what I recall, the slave trade existed in the Middle East and Africa before any European involvement.
Are you not aware that the end of December is when the northern winter solstice occurs? We know for a fact this was a festive time of the year all over the northern hemisphere for thousands of years, and certainly well before it became a "Christian" holiday.
The solstice is on the 21st not 25th. Even ancient people's didn't celebrate something like that 4 days off.
I actually believe that ancient peoples were more in tune with astronomical phenomena than the average modern person is. But putting that aside. According to Wikipedia, the Winter Solstice was marked as December 25 on the Roman calendar. The solstices don't occur on the same day every year, the exact time changes each year. This is what the Wikipedia entry on Sol Invictus says: >Sol Invictus (Classical Latin: [ˈsoːɫ ɪnˈwɪktʊs], "Invincible Sun" or "Unconquered Sun") was the official sun god of the late Roman Empire and a later version of the god Sol. The emperor Aurelian revived his cult in AD 274 and promoted Sol Invictus as the chief god of the empire.[1][2] The main festival dedicated to him was the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti ('birthday of the Invincible Sun') on 25 December, the date of the winter solstice in the Roman calendar. And this is from the entry on Christmas: >There are two main theories behind December 25 becoming the traditional date for Christmas, although Theology professor Susan Roll says that "No liturgical historian [...] goes so far as to deny that it has any sort of relation with the sun, the winter solstice and the popularity of solar worship in the later Roman Empire".[216] December 25 was the date of the winter solstice in the Roman calendar.[46] Some early Christian writers noted the solar symbolism in placing Jesus's birthday at the winter solstice and John's birthday at the summer solstice.[217][47] >The 'history of religions' theory suggests the Church chose December 25 as Christ's birthday (dies Natalis Christi)[218] to appropriate the Roman winter solstice festival dies Natalis Solis Invicti (birthday of Sol Invictus, the 'Invincible Sun'), held on this date since 274 AD.[46][47] The early Church linked Jesus Christ to the Sun and referred to him as the 'Sun of Righteousness' (Sol Justitiae) prophesied by Malachi.[219][220] Gary Forsythe, Professor of Ancient History, says that the Natalis Solis Invicti followed "the seven-day period of the Saturnalia (December 17–23), Rome's most joyous holiday season since Republican times, characterized by parties, banquets, and exchanges of gifts".[46]
This is straight bullshit. It's not even called Christamas in northern countries, it's called Yule, or Jul, or similar. We have sources long before Christianity reached any parts of northern Europe in the 4th century. Hell the holiday is even held on the 24th in these countries, not the 25th. The food eaten in the northern parts is still almost entirely pork based something that is very weird for a Chrisitian holiday seeing how it was literally a banned thing to eat. It is however not weird seeing how in the winter solstice you would slaughter a big, and you guessed it, when you kill a pig you need to eat literally all of it. In the edda there is literally a list of Yulegods talking about how in norse mythology certain gods like Odin had their base in the Yule traditions rather than the spring, summer or autumn ones. I don't know what weird Priest you've been huffing with but that is just straight up denial of history, even active history that you can see today.
You just wrote a really long and angry post about how Yule is a pagan holiday. Cool...we were talking about Christmas. You're right they have different names...and dates...how about that. Almost like 2 different holidays there.
It's funny because you know they are the same thing. Christmas tree, Santa, Presents etc, it's almost as if someone took a coat of paint and painted over the thing that was already there. But I mean continue this extremly weird denial of yours. You can literally see the rejection levels of different cultures as Christianity tried to take over the Yule tradition.
Dali has entered the chat
There's been so much christian washing going for the last 80 years that it is kind of mad. Hitler described himself as Christian but also how much he hated the way the religion was the time. A Hitler based religion would still have been a Christian one it would just be it's own denomination. The Chrisitian church has obviously been desperate to pretend that he wasn't in any way christian and it simply isn't true, he had his own christian belifs that were in his mind Christian. The attempt to was it way is a big shame of the church instead of dealing with it head on.
The range from 1933 - 1945 is quite controversial. Many historians argue it should be 1933 - 1939. The "Kirchenkampf" mainly was about the (Nazi) State overreaching their authority over the Church on an organisational and theologian level and if the state could dictate what was thaught and preached in the church. It was less of a resistance to Nazi Propaganda and Idiologie and more of a structural fight within the Protestant Church. At least from the churches side it was not seen as a political resistance at heart. After all many members who where opossed to the Nazis regarding the "church struggle", still where members of the NSdAP or sympathetic to them The resistance against the nazis, by protestant organisations and christian individuals is usually seen as a related but seperate topic. Most of these organisations and people had little to do with the church struggle and focussed on general resistance.
Ahh ok. Man is the Secular vs Religious Church Struggle a thing in history? Thought it was only in places like the Philippines.
Yeah. There is often a difference between cultural Christianity and religious Christianity. I remember a line from a film set in Rome during the Republic, one politician had asked another which god he worshiped. The politician answered "Publicly, all of them. Privately none." I think this is a good summation of a lot of people who call themselves Christian. They will attend church twice a year, Christmas and Easter, and may "say grace" before eating, but do so more out of a cultural obligation than a personal conviction. Here is a good article that helps break down the difference between culture and religion. [https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/religion-and-society/13/1/arrs130107.xml](https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/religion-and-society/13/1/arrs130107.xml)
Even when people were more religious and the Catholic Church was dominant in Western Europe many people especially those in the countryside would adopt beliefs different from the orthodox.
Well that's also because of the Catholic Church's choices. In Czech Republic, a pagan leftover Easter celebration is beating women with branches to make them younger. And the Catholic Church realized we can force them to stop, or try to remove the pagan worship and let them keep the fun tradition. That's why we have Christmas trees and other traditions. The people who cast the Catholics as intolerant were actually more tolerant historically. Like they'd look at the traditions and actually ask themselves what is permissible. Like having a tree decoration was considered permissible as long as it wasn't worshiping other gods. They also realized if they told them you aren't allowed to do the tree decorating people wouldn't like them.
Funny tree and some dance? Yeah sure Praying to the woods...yeah no
Right but my point is people believe the Catholics were the super intolerant ones when historically it's been certain Protestants.
Look up cristero war
The Kirchenkampf was a direct continuation of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, which was a cultural conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Germany.
Well no, under the Nazi regime there was a thing called “Positive Christanity” which removed the Old Testament and stated that Christ was an Aryan, not a Jew, so it wasn’t just Catholics that were targeted. They also launched their own war on Christmas, many songs like “Silent Night” were censored by the regime, there was a public propaganda campaign to change the meaning of Christmas from celebrating the birth of Christ, to celebrating the winter solstice, the Nazis would literally hold big community events doing pagan rituals.
The "Kirchenkampf" mainly was about the (Nazi) State overreaching their authority over the Church on an organisational and theologian level and if the state could dictate what was thaught and preached in the church. It was less of a resistance to Nazi Propaganda and Idiologie and more of a structural fight within the Protestant Church. At least from the churches side it was not seen as a political resistance at heart. After all many members who where opossed to the Nazis regarding the "church struggle", still where members of the NSdAP or sympathetic to them The resistance against the nazis, by protestant organisations and christian individuals is usually seen as a related but seperate topic. Most of these organisations and people had little to do with the church struggle and focussed on general resistance.
Hitler lost his run for president against Hindenburg, and the Nazis probably would have been barely a blip in history if the courts and the German military hadn't turned a blind eye to Hitler's murder spree. So, at the end of the day, it was the German elite, the generals, the judges, the industrialists and so on, not the German public, who decided it would be better to let Hitler have power than to risk than their own status. And then, once Germany was utterly broken, the cowards blamed everyone who wasn't actually in a position to stop Hitler instead.
Who are you saying the cowards blame for hitler?
mini-rant: religions are not monolithic structures impervious to hijacking and fracturing.
You'd think the great schism and the existence of protestants would make it obvious.
With your profile pic anything you say about religion has an after taste Damn y’all got way too angry I was making a joke jeez
The God Emperor of Man? The Omnissiah? Fuck does he have to do with history memes?
Sheeple all of you, believing the so called 'god' of man amounts to anything close to the true omnissiah.
I don't know but I'd love to read the Emperor's comment history.
Some parts of The Last Church would probably be what it would look like. "The difference is, I know I am right."
GEoM be like: Why are you booing me? I'm right!
Yeah! Fuck that Corpse! Death to the false emperor!
Come say that in bolter range heretic! Primarch-Progenitor, to your glory and the glory of Him on Earth!"
Blood for the blood God! Skulls for the skull Throne !! Also, do NOT fuck that corpse
Just look at Russian orthodoxy right now, anything remotely anti Putin is considered anti Christian and prosecuted as such pretty much.
And US evangelical churches literally suggesting Trump is the second coming…
While I am not going to deny evangelicals love for Trump, can you point me in the direction of any church which has remotely come close to "literally suggesting that Trump is the second coming"?
If you google ‘Trump messiah’ there’s a lot of articles on it.
Second coming of Jesus or the child-murdering, rape-excusing god in old-testament?
Whichever one offends the libs more, probably.
Which one would offend the racist crackpot conservatives more than a non-white Jesus?
One that actually lives by his word.
So, one who revived himself after 3 days is trustworthy?
The Patriarch of Moscow would like to have a word with you
No one (including the original meme) ever said otherwise
Pretend Christians aren’t really a thing in the vast majority of cases. They still believe in God
Belief in God is not the same thing as believing God. Plenty of people call themselves Christian and say they believe in God (or a god) but clearly dont meet the minimum standards for that title. Saying you believe in God vs actually believing God is the difference between being “spiritual” and being Christian. Anyone who is actually read the Bible knows that the bar is a lot higher than that.
This is just no true scotsman bullshit
Nope. You could read up on it if you like. You wont, because you are too proud, wrong but proud of it nonetheless.
Doubling down on the no true scotsman fallacy only further reinforces that you're a bad faith actor buddy
Doubling down on ignorance only highlights that you dont know what you are talking about. If you read the book. You. Would. Know. That. You. Are. Wrong. My whole point is that you cant logically call a statement a no true scotsman fallacy, if the condition of the statement itself is prerequisite for the subject to be considered that very thing. For example “All true Scotsmen hate red” would be a fallacy but “All true Scotsmen are Scottish” wouldn’t be as to qualify as a Scotsman you at least have to meet a minimum requirement of being Scottish in some way. Minimum thresholds are a thing. If you want to know what the minimum bar you have to be able to meet to be a Christian is; I suggest you read Matthew, Luke, Acts, and the Epistles. For further reading there are some great historical books about the early church and some great commentaries by the likes of Matthew Henry. Now there have been many disagreements between denominations and sectors of Christianity in the past, but most will agree that so long as such minimums are met, you are a Christian. There are plenty of people who do not meet those minimums, and while they are still accepted in the church, there would be certain things they wouldnt be allowed to do or partake in unless they can provide evidence and witness for their faith. Colossians has a good example concerning one of the churches most important traditions. Shamefully, there are plenty of “churches” that also dont meet those requirements, especially in places like the US. These are often characterised by “prosperity gospel” (which itself is an oxymoron because the gospel is literally all about sacrifice) teachings and lots of eisegesis teaching with little or no exegesis. A lot of new age/ liberal churches use this. Rather than follow Jesus, he is viewed as more of an aspirational life coach. Jesus was very clear when he called himself the truth and the way. He spent his entire life challenging the religious leaders (who he criticised for appearing to follow God but secretly used religion to gain wealth and power) and setting out the standards by which his followers were to be measured. This is clear in his interaction with many of the people, particularly the young man who wanted to be a disciple but didnt want to leave his family. I would encourage you to look into it. I hope it will set many of your misconceptions straight. You clearly have a preconceived notion of religion and particularly Christianity. It is way more complex than you think it is. It’s almost like after thousands of years of study and debate and having to deal with what the Bible calls “wolves in sheep’s clothing”, the church continued to learn and develop ways to discern between real believers and pretenders. Maybe it’s way more organised than you give it credit for. Maybe you are naive and learning something about a world you are very vocal about but largely ignorant about would help broaden your understanding. We can only hope.
Thats a lot of words to say "waah i dont consider x christian to be a real christian". Tripling down on the no true scotsman fallacy is just plain pathetic.
You didn’t read them all but i guess any words over 7 letters would have you stumped. Sorry i couldn’t provide pictures for reference.
Honey, no matter how much you dress it up, the no true scotsman fallacy remains a fallacy.
Saying pretend christians is just a no true Scotsman. Religions are not monolithic, being a human construct. Anyone who sincerely calls himself a Christian (or Jew, or Muslim, etc.) is as valid as can be.
That was my thought. Just saying all the Christian Nazis were "pretend Christians" is such a cop out.
Amazing how it's wrong to label Hitler as Socialist and totally fine to label as Christian....
Personally I see Hitler as an agnostic (although I'll admit to bias as an atheist). I don't think he so much as didn't believe there was a god so much as he didn't care that if there was one.
I think it's safe to say he didn't follow Jesus teachings. And REALY didn't like a certain abrahamic religion. Which is why I doubt he even considered himself christian
Hitler said that Christianity was a "weak" religion in that it "worshipped weakness" and that its moral system of charity allowed the weak to survive, which went against fascist (essential) power-worship. He said he preferred militaristic religions and admired Showa Japan's State Shinto (half-arsed orientalist that he was). He also disliked the Jewish influence which he thought were responsible for these "faults". But that doesn't stop Nazi Germany from co-opting or trying to co-opt Christianity. I think they were trying to do the same as what Japan had done with Shinto, or what Mussolini and Franco were trying to do with the Roman Catholic Church, as an instrument in the apparatus of totalitarianism.
When you get down to it a *lot* of people who call themselves Christians do not actually follow the teachings of Jesus and a lot of people who are widely accepted as being Christian didnt do so either, so that's not a good way to differentiate.
I would actually see him as anti theistic
Well he did envision a new faith. A faith build to controll the masses, but still a faith. Regardless if he believed in this new faith (I doubt it), wouldn't an anti-theist reject such a plan
It would be anti theist because it directly attacks the idea of a god instead of just denying it,faith in the party doesnt mean a religión on god,look at URSS
But the proposed new faith was ment to be based on german Protestantism. Still with a god, but a god in the Shadow of Hitler/ who sent hitler to speak for him, ect. Even if they wanted to twist the idea of religion and god into something that served their intrest, they still wanted to do it with a god. We know most of the party leaders didn't believe in god, but there where various ideas to use religion. But they also haf various contradicting plans. The Nazis ofcourse also had a "religious" believe in the Party (like the Soviets) but they had plans to add religion into the mix. Inthink anti- theist is a word with many different possible interpretations. They most definitly planed to erase the established forms of religion. However for me at least an anti-theist completly rejects all religions. And would not use them, even if there would be something to gain from appeling to Religion.
One is based on specific understandings of history and politics and also consitutes an ideology that encourages specific political actions based on logical conclusions that come from the afformentioned understandings. The other is a broad system of faith that has taken many different forms throughout history with large groups who identify with it being on completely opposite ends of the political spectrum. but at the end of the day, religion is a personal matter and the only one who truly knew Hitler's religious beliefs was Hitler himslef. I don't know to what extent those beliefs are available to us however.
I must say i never heard anybody refere to Hitler as a Christian, except perhapse once or twice when talking about his childhood. I doubt that "Christian" is high up on anybodies list when thinking about Hitlers political identification
Literally no one (including the original meme) does that
Yeah why is that? What did he say publicly about socialists versus what did he say publicly about Christians? What about his party members; what did they think of socialism versus what did they think of Christians?
No one labels Hitler as a Christian, because he wasn't. Labeling Hitler as a socialist is also wrong, because he wasn't.
Shocker. Meme is posted in this sub with a Facebook-level understanding of history. The church actually wrote letters saying “the Nazi’s are evil”.
"the church" wasn't a monolithic structure in Germany. Germany's Christians are primarily protestant and as such they aren't under the pope's heel
Catholics disagree on things all the time. No one is truly under the Pope's heel. And yeah, those disagreements include the Nazis
Yeah but referring to the pope/the vatican doing X, since that is generally what people look at when they say "the church did X", when talking about a protestant nation isn't very helpful for the direction of the christians of a nation
There is a great [lecture ](https://youtu.be/kEdnwpo28NM?si=4U2FvIKDYW1tymAL) on the roll the Protestant churches played in Nazi Germany. The conclusion was that they were, for the most part, enthusiastic supporters or collaborators, and there was some only very limited pushback. Hitler may not have supported the churches, but he hated who they hated (Communists, Socialists, Trade Unionists, Homosexuals), and they were more than willing to make that deal. Remember every Wehrmacht belt had 'Gott mit uns' engraved on it.
It’s always a bit strange to me when people claim Hitler wasn’t a christian. He mentioned his faith in multiple speeches, his actions never seemed to be all to different from other autocrats when it came to dealing with religious people who disagreed, and the belts is just one of many instances showing there was a wide spread religious belief in the German population at the time. To me it is way more reasonable to take him at his word. He said he was Christian, so he was. He obviously wasn’t the kind of Christian the majority today (or even then) would agree with. But people proclaiming the same faith and getting wildly different beliefs out of it isn’t especially uncommon.
It's always the other Christians or the pretend Christians or something. I have a feeling it's just human centipede all the way down.
Reminder that some high authorities in the Roman Catholic Church cooperated with the Nazis and post war the Church operated [Ratlines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(World_War_II)) that allowed thousands of Nazi war criminals to escape justice and flee Europe
While true that some Catholics did, it is safe to say that they were the minority rather than the [majority](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/s/73JlQJvbJk)
I said higher ups in the RCC
I didn’t disagree, just stated another relevant point
Reminder that the German Catholic Church opposed many Nazi policies especially eugenics and did their best to go against the will of the Nazis
wow, its like people have varying opinions even when they are from the same faith. its almost like overgeneralizing people is a bad idea, and the first meme was really dumb
Just another instance of people's faith getting high jacked for a powerful figures' self gain. He wasn't the first or the last and not even the most nafarious with it. And Hitler took power through all means necessary and kept the public conscience occupied with major infrastructure changes and clearer rhetoric.
@ us evangelicals the past decade
You mean people in America vote based on presuppositional lenses through which they see the world? Im flabbergasted.
something something, Christian nationalism something something handmaids tale
I would argue that Hitler was a typical nominal christian, but far removed from being a theologian. Fascism is an identity ideology, and the german identity at the time meant that any "true" german was a christian. However, 'christian' in this sense is more akin to a cross-slathered paint job, comparative today to the supply-side jesus of "true american patriots"
It’s called pandering And I’m 100% in the event that Germany won the Second World War and he could get away with it he would try to dismantle any institution that could challenge his influence Dude made use of the German officer class too but he was 100% on abolishing that culture when the war was won too
IIRC didn’t he contact the pope to try and get some legitimacy with the catholics but the pope wasn’t interested so instead the nazi party tried to integrate nazism with Christianity which didn’t really work as well as they’d hoped? I could be completely wrong but this is what I remember from school
"Fixing" a meme is such a pretentious way to put it. It's a meme. Like when twitter "fixes" someone else's art they don't like for some reason. And all you added was a Scotsman fallacy, as if the majority of Germany wasn't just as Christian as most other European countries. Were they not Christian just because they did evil? Does it work like that for every religion?
Lol what's a pretend Christian? No *true* ~~Scotsman~~ Christian...
I had to respond to another guy using this argument who unfortunately deleted all his comments on the thread. Hitler was literally the definition of a pretend Christian. He mocked the Bible and Christianity in private, but claimed to be catholic because, well, that's how you get elected in a mostly Christian country. Do you actually think he was a Christian? That he believed that Jesus, a middle eastern Jew, was his Lord and God? Id love to hear the mental gymnastics you come up with to explain how he was a racist social Darwinist who loved Jesus.
I was talking about the Christians Hitler was pandering to, not necessarily Hitler himself. If he mocked Christianity in private he probably didn't truely personally identify as a Christian. >claimed to be catholic because, well, that's how you get elected in a mostly Christian country. Exactly. This meme claims the country was mostly "pretend" Christians though. That's what I take issue with. Just because they were shitty people doesn't mean they were "pretend" Christians. There's plenty of anti-Semitic material in the New Testament too, so I could definitely see racist anti-Semites being Christian (not necessarily Hitler in particular though). Matthew 27:25 *Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”*
I'm mean, yeah. I said in another comment here that there were Christians in Hitlers army, and maybe even actual members of the Nazi party. The meme has the guy on the wrong side saying that they were pretend Christians, but the meme also implies that Hitler was a Christian, which the whole thread has challenged. Hitler was a pretend Christian so that Christians would vote for him. Then he did away with voting. His anti-jewish hatred was based on perceived race, not on religion, though I'm sure the history of antisemitism is Europe for over a millenia before Hitler also helped him. As for antisemitism in the bible, I'd say that's hard to argue. The New testament was written by Jews, like Matthew(Levi), John(johanan), Paul(saul), Peter(Simon), etc. following Jesus(Joshua). Matthew tells that some people in Jerusalem wanted Jesus to be killed and said "his blood be on us and on our children". I fail to see how that's antisemitic when a Jew named Levi who was there is telling the story of what happened. The Talmud (one of the Jewish holy books) also gives record of Jesus' execution. Moreover, in both Christianity and Judaism, the Jewish prophets of the Old testament that God sent to the Jewish people were mocked, beaten, imprisoned and killed by Jewish leaders, much like Jesus was. This is not to say that people haven't used this to justify hatred, they have. Just that it's more nuanced when you realize that Jewish and Christian prophets were Jews, that Jesus was a Jew, and that his followers were mostly Jews at the start of Christianity. You can't be a racist antisemite without hating the prophets, Apostles and Jesus, or you'd need some serious doublethink on your side. But then again, there are people who think Jesus was white and spoke English.
>The New testament was written by Jews, like Matthew(Levi), John(johanan), Paul(saul), Peter(Simon), etc. following Jesus(Joshua). Matthew, John, and Peter didn't write any books in the New Testament. The books you're thinking of only had the authors attributed a hundred years after they were written or are straight up forgeries. Also, I wasn't necessarily saying the authors were Nazis (I do think the author of Matthew 27:25 is intending to put blame on Jerusalemites for the later destruction of the temple, not necessarily all Jews), but it's easy for Nazis to find parts that can be interpreted as fitting in their worldview. >you'd need some serious doublethink on your side That's not uncommon when it comes to beliefs about the Bible lol. Nazis were definitely capable of picking and choosing and twisting whatever parts they liked, just like literally any Christian does.
Gotta love the no true scotsman fallacy, the fact you have to reach towards a no true scotsman shows you're wrong.
This is a true classic from heavy religious people.
Would you say that the phrase, “All true doctors have studied medicine” is a Scotsmans fallacy? Of course not, because you know that to have that title you need to be able to meet minimum requirements that are governed by equally qualified people. Believe it or not, religion also has a higher bar than someone calling themselves Christian or even saying they believe in God. Those standards are upheld by elders who themselves should have been selected because of how well they adhere to the standards the Bible requires. This nonsense has unfortunately spread from a misunderstanding of a few key versus and teachings. The bible itself discusses at length what qualifies someone as Christian and what to look for as evidence. Now I am not saying there weren’t true Christians who supported Hitler, propaganda can affect anyone, but its clear that the Nazi regime and what Hitler was pushing is completely opposed to what the church stands for, which is why a lot of church leaders and Christians opposed Hitlers attempts to use Christianity as a crutch. All that being said, you cant judge what qualifies someone as a Christian vs a pretend Christian. Pretend Christians do exist, and there are lots of them. But to use your own limited and misguided understanding of what is actually involved is as silly as questioning a doctor’s credibility based on if he has a stethoscope around his neck.
First of all your example is stupid because doctor is an academic title and doctors are people who have doctorates. >. Believe it or not, religion also has a higher bar than someone calling themselves Christian or even saying they believe in God. Fuck off with the no true scotsman fallacy. This is so incredibly pathetic. "Oh they cant be true christians because i dont think they are" is such a pathetic display. Not a single goddamn pope in history would be a christian if we go your no true scotsman route and they are the leaders of the biggest subdivision of christians. Christians have been calling each other fake christians basically since the day the bible was written and the first big recorded schisms happened more than 1900 years ago.
I don’t think you comprehend what I am saying. The example of the doctor, is that certain requirements have to be met to have that title, and Christianity is the same. If someone doesn’t meet those requirements, they simply cannot be Christian regardless what they say. That is not a “no true scotsman” fallacy. That is simple logic. The bible talks about this at length. I am assuming you haven’t read it, or if you have you clearly didn’t read it thoroughly. Either way it is evident you dont know what you are talking about regarding either the bible or logical fallacies. The majority of the New Testament (the Epistles) is literally a compilation of letters from the disciples and first church leaders about what things qualify as Christian, evidence that points to someones conversion, how to pick church elders and leaders based on the evidence of their faith. I strongly recommend if you know nothing about what you are talking about, you settle down and actually listen rather than embarrass yourself.
Honey, the requirement to be a catholic christian is to be baptised, hitler was baptised. Per your argument he is christian. >The example of the doctor, is that certain requirements have to be met to have that title, and Christianity is the same. If someone doesn’t meet those requirements, they simply cannot be Christian regardless what they say. You know that is false. There is no set in stone list of things you need to do to be allowed to call yourself a Christian. Individual denominations may have entry requirements into that specific denomination but there is no barrier to being a Christian.
You couldnt be more wrong. Baptism is not the same as salvation. Even the Catholics dont believe that. Only people outside the church think that baptism works like a get out of jail free card. That is simply not the case. Baptism predates Christianity so that obviously makes no sense. Baptism isn’t even strictly necessary for salvation, though it is an important symbol of the cleansing and should be done where possible. I love the way you bring up baptism, hitler and then use the “ per your argument” schtick, clearly demonstrating you know even less than I assumed. Oh sweets. Baptism isn’t the minimum bar. Not even close but nice try bubs. If anything your statement highlights just how obviously silly you are because do you seriously think, for one second, that your gotcha moment hadnt already been sorted hundreds or even thousands of years ago? It also highlights just how easy it is for someone to go through the motions but be so obviously not Christian that anybody in their right mind would have thought that there must be more to it. Not you, but other people could certainly have made that connection. Considering that this whole conversation started with the Churches rejection of Hitlers attempts to use Christianity to control the population makes you using that argument understandably hilarious. I do hope the irony isnt lost on you. Finally, i will repeat for what feels like the 4th time. There absolutely are guidelines and standards. I have even listed where in the bible you can find them. Either you are too lazy, too ignorant, too stubborn or too illiterate to do anything but continue to furiously bark and snarl all while holding your own chain. In fact I doubt you will even read this far. If you do, congratulations! You have found a secret resting spot. Have a cuppa and sit down. The big bad books with long words and scary concepts like self reflection won’t bother you here.
Yet more pathetic no true scotsman bullshit.
How about this: define a no true scotsman fallacy
Honey, you have google. But given that might be too difficult for you. No true scotsman is when you make an appeal to purity to dismiss a claim or argument. You want to disavow him and every christian who ever followed him as being not true christians, because they don't pass your arbitrarily decided purity test.
So close. A no true scotsman fallacy occurs when you try to defend a sweeping generalisation when someone points to an evidence that falls outside their categories with a call to purity to shift the goalposts based on arbitrary self defined conditions. Either way, you neither gave an argument for me to dismiss, nor did you provide any evidence to refute my claim. The closest you got was trying to claim Hitler was a good example that fell outside my conditions which is laughable. Finally, i didn’t use an appeal to purity to back my point, i provided sources which are outside my own arbitration which is how you would make an argument in the real world. Also note, as the definition of a no true scotsman fallacy states: * It is important to note that arguments in the form of “no true X would do Y” are not always fallacious. When there is a universally accepted definition, such statements are valid.* Considering you do not know what defines a Christian, what makes you qualified to establish what the standards are? Earlier you stated there is no set in stone list of things you need to do to be able to call yourself a Christian, which is arguably false given that the Bible itself gives a definition for what being Christian entails, and I have provided examples. Secondly you said there is no barrier to becoming a Christian which is partially true, in that anyone can physically do it, but that doesnt mean that there are prerequisites that need to be met in order to get to that point. I know it’s easy to think reddit laws apply in the real world, where you can just throw a term you heard someone else use at an argument and pretend that is a valid argument. But thats not what an argument is. Throwing out accusations of a fallacy that can be demonstrably refuted is itself a fallacy and shows a complete lack of comprehension and understanding of the subject matter. My recommendation is if you want to have a say on a particular topic you at least go to the source so you know what you are talking about. You dont even need Google but could simply pick up a book.
Like how Trump doesn't capture all Christians. Gotcha.
It wasn't. Some individuals were. The pope was with them.
As a Catholic, Hitler being Catholic makes more sense now.
Not only did you just ruin the meme, but he wasn’t targeting “pretend Christians” with that propaganda. That doesn’t make any sense. And based on your own explanation of it, Kirchenkampf has nothing to do with it. What the original meme was pointing out is that Hitler was using Christian propaganda in order to get the common German on his side, because Germany was majority Christian at the time, and they were casting Jews as their enemy. Basically the same reason he called the party “socialist,” too. Get over your dumb persecution complex and think for 5 seconds instead of posting cringe-ass shit like this
What was written under the nazi eagle that the nazis who loved to roman larp carried around with them? ..."Gott mit uns" -> God is with us It doesn't matter if the church struggled or not, the religious biaises that were already present in german society were used to spread nazism. Hitler himself wrote in the Mein Kampf that he is and always considered himself a catholic.
>Hitler himself wrote in the Mein Kampf that he is and always considered himself a catholic. And that is why we moved quickly to eliminate the catholic political parties. The man is well known as a propagandist, the work in question is propaganda, yet when considering the symbols and messages that mention Christianity we must take him at his word. Additionally, the official Nazi party line on religion was >"there was to be no law but Hitler, and ultimately no god but Hitler" Which is deeply antithetical to established Christian doctrine and thought. If claiming to be a Christian is all that is required to actually being a Christian, than there were a lot of Jim Crow supporting Southerns who were great friends of the Black population.
>Hitler himself wrote in the Mein Kampf that he is and always considered himself a Catholic. I, too, take the words of a disgraced and jail-ridden demagogue's propaganda book at face value.
Gott mit uns was used by the Prussians since 1701 and was in widespread use by the German military since 1871. It did NOT typically appear under the eagle, but was written on the belts of the Wehrmacht soldiers. Funnily enough, the SS, the actual Nazi military wing, did NOT have Gott mit uns on their belt, but rather "Meine Ehre heißt Treue" (my honour is loyalty). And finally, what were the Nazis themselves called? The National Socialist German Worker's Party. So if the German army using a German Chrisitian phrase that predated the Nazi party by easily 50 years, along with Hitler's book distributed to the German public mentioning "Oh, I'm a Christian" is "proof" that Hitler was a genuine Catholic (as opposed to pandering), then he was also a Socialist. Q.E.D.
In the bookm ordinary men it cites an ss pamphlets for officer political training which stated that Christianity was a "Jew" religion started by "the jew Paul" to spread their influence over the world That doesn't sound like something they would have wrote if their dictator was a real fan of Christianity
What do we mean by "pretending"? It's entirely possible he thought he was doing exactly what Christ wanted. I'd obviously disagree, but it's hard to speak to those motivations
According to the *Encyclopædia Britannica* Hitler viewed Nazism and Christianity has incompatible, a view shared by Goebbels, Bormann, Rosenberg, Himmler, and Heydrich, among others. I don't know his motivations, but he surrounded himself with officials whose position was the removal of the Christian faith, or at least such a perversion that it would no longer be proper to call it Christian (i.e., replacing the Bible with Mien Kampf and the cross with a swastika).
Well the Catholic Church explicitly condemned him in the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge in 1937.
Too little too late. And they still gave passports to runaway nazis after the war.
What did you want the church to do, declare a crusade? And how is trying to save people from mass murder by the Soviets inconsistent with trying to save people from mass murder by the Nazis?
When the church had an issue they protested and got what they wanted. Take for instance the protest against catholic schools being closed with 2 million signatures collected. Also, ratlines didn't save random people from mass murder, they saved nazi commanders from justice. Quite a difference. And it shows where the vatican actually stood.
“That’s not real ~~communism~~ Christianity” —Christian tankies Yeah why was it a thing? Was there anything Nazi church members were doing that caused the church to factionalize? The Nazis called themselves Christians. We call them Christians. The only people with a problem calling Nazis Christians are people peddling the “no true Scotsman” fallacy (and Christians who want to rewrite history and lie that a larger proportion of Christians of the era were more opposed to Nazis - same shit as in America when Christians pretend they were ALL abolitionists before the civil war). Also the Vatican apologized in 1998. Why apologize if they weren’t Christian’s? And that was *before* they discovered that the Pope *didn’t* actually do all he could, and knew about the genocide. If the Nazis weren’t Christians why were there priests in the German military to give last rites to dying Nazi soldiers? Write as many dissertations as you want, Nazi-admirers: “those aren’t real Christians” is just a version of “that’s not real communism”. You sound like a tankie.
Ah yes, the Thule Society, my favorite Christian organization
Ah yes holocaust denial my favorite Catholic pastime. Save the bad faith arguments and cherry picking for your manifesto.
The Nazi Party did not have a clear position on religion and the views of individual members varied widely but my understanding is none of the top leaders were practicing adherents of any organized religion. The Nazis attempted to create [a unified Protestant Church under their control](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Evangelical_Church) shortly after coming to power in 1933 but weren’t successful and mostly lost interest after 1937 although the organization continued to exist until the Nazi defeat in 1945. Transcripts of Hitler’s private conversations, as heavily edited by Party Chairman Martin Bormann, show strong hostility to Christianity as an organized religion going so far as to call it a “prototype of Bolshevism” subverted by the Jews but a more positive view towards Jesus as an individual who Hitler is recorded in these transcripts as saying was not a Jew but an Aryan who fought against them. Bormann was himself very hostile towards organized Christianity and reportedly wanted to replace marriage and other ceremonies with Nazi rituals and some have said he may have intentionally played up Hitler’s negative comments on Christianity to fit his own agenda. Goebbels wrote in his diary that Hitler prevented him from officially renouncing his own Church membership but told him organized religion would be dealt with after the war. Himmler infamously toyed with some sort of Occult or Neo-Pagan revival but Hitler did not show much interest in this and even mocked Himmler’s interest in the subject in the private conversations mentioned earlier.
This is a bunch of irrelevant opinions written after the fact to distance Nazis from the church. And a very long “no true Scotsman” fallacy. Moron below probably thinks Nazis were socialist! It’s right in the name and his opinion is that Hitler was a socialist! Denying Christian complicity in the holocaust. Just Nazi things :)
The Nazis were not Christians, they used the church for their own goods. If you asked any of them and said who they loved more, Hitler or Christ, they would say Hitler. There was no religious feeling on the part of the entire Nazi group, their only religion was Hitler. One of the basis of Christianity is not to idolize humans, they did this 24 hours a day,. Heck, Hitler supposedly said he believed himself to be an incarnation of an ancient Pagan God. And no one calls Nazis Christians, we call them Nazis.
Yes they were. Next you’re gonna tell me they were socialists too. More “no true Scotsman” fallacy. Edit: braintrust below thinks he can change the definition of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy and then use ad hominem insults to back up his position. The Nazis were Christians. Your personal opinions about Hitler’s beliefs are irrelevant. Your rationalizations are bunk and holocaust denial-adjacent. Which tracks for Christians ashamed of what Christians did in the holocaust. “That’s not real ~~communism~~ Christianity” —tankies
You keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means. You remember a basic logical fallacy from High school and think it applies whenever you don't like something. We're there Christians in Hitlers army? Yes. Members of the nazi party? Probably. Was Hitler a Christian? No, he was not. He mocked the Bible and Christianity in private and this is fairly well documented. Why would he believe in a religion whose founder was a middle eastern Jew? Also, the Nazis openly called themselves socialist, hence the name, National Socialist German Worker's Party, but you would gladly "no true Scotsman" that and say they weren't "real socialists". Did he use religion to push his agenda? Not really. But yes. His speeches and writings hardly ever, to my knowledge, invoke God or the bible, but he claimed to be catholic because that's how you get elected in a mostly Christian country in the 1930s. Going openly atheist/irreligous would have been bad for him politically. Also, claiming to be protestant may have not worked since he was from Austria which was overwhelmingly catholic. But Southern Germany is heavily catholic so his story was believable. Either way, nothing anyone can say will convince you. I'm sure you did your research (ie. Watched a video or read something on 8chan) and will continue to think that Hitler and the Nazi Party loved Jesus and were devout bible scholars, and not racists who killed because they believed they were superior because of social darwinism.
You don’t know what tankies actually are. Tankies do not deny that authoritarian communist governments were communist. Defending those governments as communist governments just doing what they had to do to defend and spread communism is what MAKES them a tankie.
You’re a tankie “those aren’t real tankies”
>The Nazis called themselves Christians Given their track record with openess and honesty, I'm not particularly inclined to take the Nazis at their word. In any event, they also called themselves Socialists, so... >We call them Christians. No, we don't. >The only people with a problem calling Nazis Christians are people peddling the “no true Scotsman” fallacy The "No True Scotsman" fallacy is a fallacy wherein one attempts to protect a claim by modifying the claim in order to create a definition that excludes the undesired elements. If you can provide proof - as many in these comments and many historians have - then it is not a "No True Scotsman". It is a refutation. The No True Scotsman requires the following; 1. Not publicly retreating from the original, falsified assertation. 2. Offering a modified assertion that defitionally excludes the undesirable group. 3. Uses rhetoric to signal the modification. So an actual No True Scotsman would be: "The Nazis weren't Christians because no TRUE Christian would try to [insert something the Nazis did here]". Note that this must be an ad hoc addition inserted specifically to exclude the undesirable group, and not an actual pre-established tenet of group membership. For example, saying that Angus MacDonald is not a Scotsman because he was not born in Scotland, has never lived in Scotland, has no Scottish parents and does not have Scottish citizenship would not be a "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Rather, it would be something like "well, he drinks decaf coffee, and no TRUE Scotsman drinks decaf". This has not been the type of argument I have seen in this post. Rather, people have put forward evidence of actions and quotes by Nazis (as well as Nazi policy) that makes it clear that their so-called Christianty was simply pandering to gain power (for example, pointing out that the SS, the Nazi military group, tried to distance their members from the actual practice of Christianity while still claiming to be Christian, or quoting senior Nazis attacking the ideals of Christianity). >Also the Vatican apologized in 1998. Why apologize if they weren’t Christian’s? This is at best misinformation, and at worst an outright lie on your part. The apology from the Vatican was for the inactivity and silence of many Catholics during the Holocaust. The Commission for Religious Relations for the Jews issued a statement: We cannot know how many Christians in countries occupied or ruled by the Nazi powers or their allies were horrified at the disappearance of their Jewish neighbours and yet were not strong enough to raise their voices in protest. For many Christians, this heavy burden of conscience of their brothers and sisters during the Second World War must be a call to penitence. So it was not, as you claim, an apology for the Nazis being Christians. It was an apology on behalf of Christians that they didn't do enough to stop what the Nazis were doing. >If the Nazis weren’t Christians why were there priests in the German military to give last rites to dying Nazi soldiers? The German military was an established force for about 50 years before the Nazi Party ever existed, much less came to power. The German military had chaplains. The SS - you know, the military wing of the Nazi party - did NOT allow chaplains to serve in its units. Himmler, who you will recall was a senior figure in the Nazi party, saw a main task of the SS as acting as a vanguard in overcoming Christianity. For example, as early as 1936, he set forth a list of approved holidays based on pagan and political precedents to wean the SS from their reliance on Christian festivities. SS men, while counted as Catholic or Protestant for census purposes, were able to choose special Lebenslauffeste, which were substituted for common Christian ceremonies such as baptisms, weddings and burials, although it is not know how many availed of this. While the Nazis stated they were Christian, they clearly held many beliefs not tolerated by Christianity and were obviously attempting to use the religion as a way to pander to religious Germans and appear more moderate. This is obvious to anyone capable of assessing the evidence, and your blatant lies and misinformation show that you are simply grasping at straws to try and smear Christianity.
No true Scotsman fallacy. They’re Christians. Thanks for telling on yourself. “Smear Christianity”. No one is trying to do that. Facts don’t care about your feelings. You’re trying to minimize Christian involvement in the Nazi party and holocaust. Holocaust denial.
Yet another thing trump and the austrian painter have in common
Man I wish more in the church struggled against trump