Steeledux,

1. The Bible quotes you list are not Jesus condemning all Jews to whatever fate you imagine. It is Jesus taking on the church hierarchy who he considers to be corrupt. I see Jesus as a political resistance leader and thus opinion that he saw the Romanising pharisees as Quislings. Either way its only this group he attacks. For example your John 8:44 quote. If you read the full chapter (and I wonder if you did or if you just found a verse that seemed to support your position), you'll see that its the Pharisees who he addresses as they try to trip him up over theological issues.

Still, I guess its possible to assume that Hitler made your mistake about Jesus so...

2. I note, as I'm sure you did, that you can only find quotes from Hitler supportive of Christianity from his early days. I'll help you out by offering that you could also find some such quotes from the mid to late 30s as well. But they are all in regards to public utterances. Germany in those days was still 90% Christian and Hitler, publicly, saw no good reason to gratuitously piss them off by attacking their faith.

But in private....read Speer's "Inside the Third Reich", (" "Amid his political associates in Berlin, Hitler made harsh pronouncements against the church") or Goebel's diary. Read the Table Talk. Or read the Nuremberg Project's information about the future plans to destroy the Christian church post-war.

In the end, for your hypothesis to offer even a passing nod at believability, you'd need to find some evidence of the Nazis in general and Hitler in particular, saying that their actions during Kristallnacht or the final solution were in response to their desire to honour Jesus.

Good luck with that.

Dear mhaze,

Attempting obfuscation so quickly? Come on, I could easily offer a counter to my own point without trying to twist the argument.

Let me bring you back to what you said;

“You 'think' Hitler acted in the name of Jesus? Now THAT'S extreme.”

Note I did not say he acted in the name of the Church or indeed of Christianity as a religion. Rather that Hitler acted for and evoked the name of Jesus which patently he did.

Your first argument was;

“1. The Bible quotes you list are not Jesus condemning all Jews to whatever fate you imagine. It is Jesus taking on the church hierarchy who he considers to be corrupt.”

Which was exactly the reason I said “This is what Jesus thought of the Jewish leadership;”. Yet you chose to ignore it.

Your second was;

“2. I note, as I'm sure you did, that you can only find quotes from Hitler supportive of Christianity from his early days.”

I repeat I made no claim about Hitler's support of Christianity and it is disingenuous of you to try and claim I did. Rather it was Jesus himself whom Hitler constantly references. You raise Table Talk in evidence but this is what Hitler supposedly said;

“When one thinks of the opinions held concerning Christianity by our best minds a hundred, two hundred years ago, one is ashamed to realise how little we have since evolved. I didn't know that Julian the Apostate had passed judgement with such clear-sightedness on Christianity and Christians... the Galilean, who later was called the Christ, intended something quite different. He must be regarded as a popular leader who took up His position against Jewry... and it's certain that Jesus was not a Jew. The Jews, by the way, regarded Him as the son of a whore—of a whore and a Roman soldier. The decisive falsification of Jesus's doctrine was the work of St. Paul... Paul of Tarsus (his name was Saul, before the road to Damascus) was one of those who persecuted Jesus most savagely."

Cont..

Cont..

While decidedly critical of the Church and the religion of Christianity the reverence Hitler held for Jesus was still as evident as ever. Note this was in late 1941.

Then you conclude with this;

“In the end, for your hypothesis to offer even a passing nod at believability, you'd need to find some evidence of the Nazis in general and Hitler in particular, saying that their actions during Kristallnacht or the final solution were in response to their desire to honour Jesus.”

Bulldust! You are doing it again. My hypothesis was that Hitler acted in the name of Jesus and I made no submission about the Nazis at all. More obfuscation. How about just this once you try and address my argument without resorting to it.

Steeledux,

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. But instead you're making the claim and asking me to disprove it. Well you can't prove a negative.

For your claim to work you need to:

1. Show that Jesus wanted to or condemned Jews to some sort of retribution for their 'evil' and that he fought during his lifetime to do so.

OR

that Hitler at least thought that Jesus wanted to visit disaster on the Jews and that Jesus encouraged his followers to take up that cudgel.

2. Show that Hitler specifically said that his pogrom against the Jew was done at the instigation of Jesus or in response to Jesus's call through the ages for such a pogrom. It might also be of some value to demonstrate that Hitler sought to implement other calls to action made by Jesus so as to avoid the suspicion that he was simply using this one part of the Jesus story to give some cover for what he wanted to do anyway.

Simply saying that Jesus hated some Jews and Hitler made some nice comments about Jesus' hatred of some Jews, doesn't, I'm afraid, cut the mustard.

Dear mhaze;

You wrote;

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. But instead you're making the claim and asking me to disprove it. Well you can't prove a negative.”

It is just that this is not an extraordinary claim at all. I just took Hitler's own words both and made a self-evident observation. You had two choices, either to show my evidence was false/incorrect or to produce an alternative argument, both of which you have failed to do. This does not mean I am asking you to prove a negative at all rather to attempt to disprove a positive.

You insisted that for my claim to work I had to;

“1. Show that Jesus wanted to or condemned Jews to some sort of retribution for their 'evil' and that he fought during his lifetime to do so.

Well no I don't, all I had to show is that Hitler thought that was what Jesus sought to do and it is very clear from the evidence I have presented this was exactly how he was thinking. There are many interpretations of the bible and of Jesus' message held by innumerable denominations of the Christian faith. Those that Hitler held were very much in vogue in Europe especially during the early part of the 21st century, especially within the Catholic church.

You second requirement was;

“2. Show that Hitler specifically said that his pogrom against the Jew was done at the instigation of Jesus or in response to Jesus's call through the ages for such a pogrom.”

Here it is from his own pen;

“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” Mein Kampf.

I'm not sure if there could be anything more explicit yet I'm sure it will not suffice to shake your determination not to accept any evidence that I present.