Dear David f,

I haven't read the book you mentioned
in your last post - "Theologians Under Hitler,"
by Robert P. Ericksen - however I did find a
review of it by Walter Harrelson of the
Vanderbuilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee -
He asks:

"How can one separate theological entirely from the
political, social and cultural setting and consequences
of the thought?"

Harrelson then states that:
"Christianity is claimed by Erickson to contain strains
at once anti-Jewish and anti-modern. But some of the
German theologians with whom he deals (Barth, Tillich,
even Bultmann...) have theological constructions neither
anti-Jewish nor anti-modern."

William L. Shirer in his book, "The Rise and Fall of
the Third Reich," tells us:

"Under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler,
who were backed by Hitler - the Nazi regime intended
eventually to destroy Christianity in Germany if it could,
and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal
Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists.
As Bormann, one of the men closest to Hitler said publicly
in 1941 - 'National Socialism and Christianity are
irreconcilable.'"

I stated in one of my previous posts - a historian
must look critically at motivation, circumstances, context,
and other considerations in order to explain events.

To set the record straight:

Yad Vashem contains the records of tens of thousands deemed
"Righteous Gentiles." These men and women risked their own
safety and that of their families to oppose the Nazis
and save Jewish lives. Corrie ten Boom, who wrote the book,
"The Hiding Place." She and her family held to a conservative
Christian theology and their faith led them to risk hiding
jews in their home. Eventually they ended up in a
concentration camp. Others like Diet Eman joined the
underground. Germany had a very strong resistance movement.

Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford who wrote, "After the Evil,"
points out that Hitler's ideology, "Was not only not Christian,
it was Anti-Christian."

David, do you really believe that were there no religions
on this planet that we would have a beautiful and harmonious
planet?

cont'd ...

The Associated Press reported that on the
28th October 2008 a new Museum opened in Berlin.
A Memorial for the thousands of World War II Germans
who helped Jews. "The Silent Heroes," Museum,
used to be a workshop for the blind in an old tenement
near the city center. Many Jews survived in a secret room,
hidden by owner Otto Weidt.

Historian Johannes Tuchel, Head of the German Resistnace
Memorial Center, which is in charge of the Museum, told
the Associated Press,

"We can't come up with a typical profile (of the recuers).
Some were workers, some academics, or devoted Christians;
others helped spontaneously or for political reasons."

As stated in "The New KGB," by William R. Corson
and Robert T. Crowley.

"There is no dispute about the enormity of Hitler's
Holocaust. But it is equally important to be aware
of the accomplishments of the Soviet secret police, which
brought death at least four times as many Russians, Poles,
Jews, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Japanese, Koreans,
Chinese, Gypsies, and Romanians as Hitler did in his
eleven years as a leader of the '1,000-year Reich."

Noted columnist Joseph Sobran expressed a similar opinion,
in the Washington Times: Mr Sobran stated that:

"Hitler, it is well to remember, was only one of the
practitioners of the Century's most ghastly
innovations...and he was not even the worst. Lenin
preceded him in numbers; Stalin and Mao killed far more
people ... Communism has proved a far more potent and
persistent evil than Nazism, which was a brief flare-up
by comparison...But this generation, my generation, the
generation that was spared the experience of Hitler,
has no right to denounce 'the Holocaust' as long as we
shut our eyes to the Holocaust in progress."
Jospeh Sobran, 'The Holocausts (plural,'
The Washington Times, April 23, 1985.

Dear Foxy,

I really don't understand your posts. You are arguing with a lot of things I have not said. We were discussing Nazi Germany. I maintained that the great majority of German Christians supported Hitler.

That does not make Communism a good thing. That does not deny that there were Germans who opposed Hitler at the risk of their lives. That does not deny that around 100,000.000 people were killed by various Communist entities. That does not say that we would have a wonderful world without religion. It does not deny that eventually the Nazis might have tried to get rid of Christianity. That does not say that some German Christians didn't oppose Hitler. That does not say one can separate theological entirely from the political, social and cultural setting and consequences of the thought.

I class Lenin with Hitler as a great monster.

However, I merely maintained that the majority of German Christians supported Hitler some enthusiastically. Instead you argue with a lot of things I didn't maintain.

If you want to disagree with what I posted you are free to do so. If you want to disagree with what I didn't post I don't understand why.

I can't bite my tongue any longer.

In regards to Foxy’s posts on this thread...

<<...it's not religion that creates a 'them' and 'us' view - it's prejudiced exponents of religion that does that.>>

Not necessarily, no. But religion does give extremists divine reasoning for their extremist beliefs. What more dangerous reasoning do you need than the promise of eternal life?

<<...you can't blame religion for the behaviour of certain people within it.>>

This is an excuse I used to use myself as a Christian, until I realised what a pathetic excuse it was.

Considering my point above, yes, religion can take a nice chunk of the blame. Without religion, what would those in power have to motivate an entire coutry's population to support evil?

<<...I disagree with your statement that, "Good people need religion to do evil." If they use religion to do evil - then they are not 'good people.' (by anyone's definition).>>

Not necessarily.

If I remember correctly, Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, mentions a pair of neatly-dressed; well-mannered; well-spoken; polite and very charitable young men who appeared to be a very decent pair of human beings.

They later went on to shoot-up an abortion clinic.

They felt they were doing God’s will purely because of their religious beliefs. Now were these boys “pure evil”, or did their religious beliefs overtake the minds of what would otherwise be a perfectly decent pair of Human Beings?

It’s like my favourite saying goes: “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things, and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” (Steven Weinberg)

So true!

Continued...

...Continued

<<You forgot to mention while citing the "religious atrocities," that they were all committed by fundamentalists (extremists) be they - Christian, Jewish, Muslim Extremists, Buddhist, or Hindus - the act remains the majority of people who practice those religions do not commit the acts you described.>>

There is nothing wrong with David F mentioning the atrocities of extremists, whether or not they are only committed by extremists, because the moderates of religion are almost as much to blame for those atrocities.

I’ve mention this before, but it bears mentioning again...

It’s like the comedian Marcus Brigstocke one said in one of his routines:

"...Now, I know that most religious folk are moderate and reasonable and wear tidy jumpers and eat cheese, like real people. And on hearing this they'll mainly feel pity for me, rather than issue a death sentence. But they have to accept that they are the power base for the nutters. Without their passive support the loonies in charge of these faiths would just be loonies, safely locked away and medicated; somewhere nice with a view of some trees where they can claim they have a direct channel to god between sessions making tapestry coasters, watching Teletubbies and talking about their days in the Hitler Youth."

Again, so very true.

Now think about this... If a God really did exist, would belief in it be so potentially dangerous?

Most unlikely.

But if religion really isn’t to blame, then I dare anyone here to introduce it to a mentally disturbed person...

Doesn’t seem like a very good idea, does it?

Think about why...

Despite Pericles disbelief that the coin in the solstace pudding identified the child to be sacrificed to the gods, my argument remains. There is enough evidence to demonstrate child sacrifice and cannabalism existed in recent history. That we do not have to go back 800,000 years and claim that genetic developments changed the practise of cannabalism.

Those that I have spoken too that have eaten human flesh say it is light and tasty. That cats and dogs are among their favourite meat. Cannabilsm was still practised in New Guinea and West Papua into the last century. It did not stop by an evolutionary development but by the introduction of the teachings of Christ; who stated "Love and forgive your enemy". Today former tribal enemies have boat races to demonstrate victory instead of bloody wars where the slaughtered would be cannabalised.