"Secular consumerism/nationalism is worse than religion

[Androsphinx]

It had lots to do with his Christian belief. Sure, a particular form of that belief, but nonetheless, moron. You moved the goalposts, not I did. If there was nothing in Christian belief that pushed Hitler's motivation, how the fuck do you explain him using the Creation myth to build up his version of anti-Semitism and integrate it heavily with religion?

Let me just be clear on what you’re asking me. If there was nothing in Christian belief that led to Hitler’s anti-semitism, why, after he had those beliefs, did he attempt to import elements from other areas to support them? That’s what people do. They accept an idea, and fit it into other parts of their world-view. The first Christians accepted the idea of Jesus’ divinity, and sought to fit it into the Old Testament. Early modern Christians took the idea of “natural law”, and tried to superimpose that on the New Testament. Modern politicians conceive of an idea for pragmatic or selfish reasons, and then seek ideological justification. I quoted Churchill before, who is just one of hundreds of politicians who have claimed divine support or justification for their deeds, without that being their source. Even stronger (and not quite analogous, I know), the slogan “for God and Country” has been used interminable times by politicians and generals who didn’t believe a word of it.

In many cases, it’s hard to know what someone’s motivations are for an action. Hitler’s, however, are not. He tells us openly and plainly in Mein Kampf how he became an anti-semite, what he considered the basis of his anti-semitism, and that he repudiated the theoretical basis and ideal solution of Church anti-semitism. None of the principle features of his anti-semitism have any congruence to historic, Christian anti-semitism. You wave his Aryan!Jesus as a proof, but in fact it’s entirely the reverse – so removed was his anti-semitism from historical models that he had to re-invent classical Christian motifs in a way that the Church had never done.

This precent isn't also uncommon for Christianity. The Hamite tale has been a justification for black slavery

But was black slavery based on the Hamite tale? Did early slavers think that blacks were the descendants of Ham, and thus should be slaves! Of course not – once black slavery was established, it needed religious legitimization, because religion was a very important part of people’s belief system. But the Biblical proofs began after the slave trade was an established fact. So too with Hitler – his anti-semitism was based on racial and nationalist grounds, and then he sought support for it elsewhere. Even later, and it is to this is that I presume you were referring, the pseudo-religious justification for slavery became a major tool of pro-slavery polemics. But from the beginning of the slave trade to the emergence of the “Hamites” as a prominent justification was centuries. Maybe if Hitler had won WW2 (or rather, had won by not fighting it!), then doubtless German children today would be taught about Aryan!Jesus and all the rest. But your cause and effect is muddled – first Hitler was an anti-semite for non-religious reasons, then he sought to justify it in religion.

[Androsphinx]

Hitler's own obviously Christian justifications for anti-Semitism irrelevant

I honestly do not understand which of Hitler's reasons for anti-semitism are "obviously Christian". He rejected the idea of Jews as the killers of Christ, he rejected the idea that it was to do with their continued religiosity, he rejected the solution of conversion, he used none of the pre-existing explanations of anti-semitism that the church had used for centuries. You quoted Martin Luther, but the only time Hitler does in Mein Kampf it is as a German hero, not as a anti-semite, and certainly not as a theological source for anti-semitism. What are these "obviously Christian" justifications? Where does he talk about them? Where do his biographers and historians of Nazi Germany - Christian and non-Christian alike - talk about them?

[Darth Wong]

Hitler's own obviously Christian justifications for anti-Semitism irrelevant

I honestly do not understand which of Hitler's reasons for anti-semitism are "obviously Christian". He rejected the idea of Jews as the killers of Christ, he rejected the idea that it was to do with their continued religiosity, he rejected the solution of conversion, he used none of the pre-existing explanations of anti-semitism that the church had used for centuries. You quoted Martin Luther, but the only time Hitler does in Mein Kampf it is as a German hero, not as a anti-semite, and certainly not as a theological source for anti-semitism. What are these "obviously Christian" justifications? Where does he talk about them? Where do his biographers and historians of Nazi Germany - Christian and non-Christian alike - talk about them?

Have you ever fucking bothered to READ Mein Kampf?

[Androsphinx]

Have you ever fucking bothered to READ Mein Kampf?

You mean where he describes his discovery of anti-semitism as:

I began then to investigate carefully the names of all the fabricators of these unclean products in public cultural life. The result of that inquiry was still more disfavourable to the attitude which I had hitherto held in regard to the Jews. Though my feelings might rebel a thousand time, reason now had to draw its own conclusions.

The fact that nine-tenths of all the smutty literature, artistic tripe and theatrical banalities, had to be charged to the account of people who formed scarcely one per cent. of the nation--that fact could not be gainsaid. It was there, and had to be admitted. Then I began to examine my favourite 'World Press', with that fact before my mind.

The deeper my soundings went the lesser grew my respect for that Press which I formerly admired. Its style became still more repellent and I was forced to reject its ideas as entirely shallow and superficial. To claim that in the presentation of facts and views its attitude was impartial seemed to me to contain more falsehood than truth. The writers were--Jews.

Thousands of details that I had scarcely noticed before seemed to me now to deserve attention. I began to grasp and understand things which I had formerly looked at in a different light.

I saw the Liberal policy of that Press in another light. Its dignified tone in replying to the attacks of its adversaries and its dead silence in other cases now became clear to me as part of a cunning and despicable way of deceiving the readers. Its brilliant theatrical criticisms always praised the Jewish authors and its adverse, criticism was reserved exclusively for the Germans.

The light pin-pricks against William II showed the persistency of its policy, just as did its systematic commendation of French culture and civilization. The subject matter of the feuilletons was trivial and often pornographic. The language of this Press as a whole had the accent of a foreign people. The general tone was openly derogatory to the Germans and this must have been definitely intentional.

What were the interests that urged the Vienna Press to adopt such a policy? Or did they do so merely by chance? In attempting to find an answer to those questions I gradually became more and more dubious.

Then something happened which helped me to come to an early decision. I began to see through the meaning of a whole series of events that were taking place in other branches of Viennese life. All these were inspired by a general concept of manners and morals which was openly put into practice by a large section of the Jews and could be established as attributable to them. Here, again, the life which I observed on the streets taught me what evil really is.

The part which the Jews played in the social phenomenon of prostitution, and more especially in the white slave traffic, could be studied here better than in any other West-European city, with the possible exception of certain ports in Southern France. Walking by night along the streets of the Leopoldstadt, almost at every turn whether one wished it or not, one witnessed certain happenings of whose existence the Germans knew nothing until the War made it possible and indeed inevitable for the soldiers to see such things on the Eastern front.

A cold shiver ran down my spine when I first ascertained that it was the same kind of cold-blooded, thick-skinned and shameless Jew who showed his consummate skill in conducting that revolting exploitation of the dregs of the big city. Then I became fired with wrath.

I had now no more hesitation about bringing the Jewish problem to light in all its details. No. Henceforth I was determined to do so. But as I learned to track down the Jew in all the different spheres of cultural and artistic life, and in the various manifestations of this life everywhere, I suddenly came upon him in a position where I had least expected to find him. I now realized that the Jews were the leaders of Social Democracy. In face of that revelation the scales fell from my eyes. My long inner struggle was at an end.

Would you like to provide me with an example of historical Christian anti-semitism - that is, explanations for anti-semitism, solutions to "The Jewish Question", or claims about the Jews which appear in Mein Kampf and can be directly atttributed to pre-modern, Christian anti-semitism? As I pointed out before, even when Hitler deals with the same topics as previous anti-semites - such as the Crucifixion and Jewish rejection of Jesus - he does so in a way which is indebted to modern anti-semitism rather than its Christian predecessors.

[Darth Wong]

Thanks for the irrelevant drivel, you dishonest twat. I'm talking about the part of Mein Kampf where he says:

How many of my basic principles were upset by this change in my attitude toward the Christian Social movement! My views with regard to anti-Semitism thus succumbed to the passage of time, and this was my greatest transformation of all!

and

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.

and

The result of all racial crossing is therefore in brief always the following: (a) Lowering of the level of the higher race; (b) Physical and intellectual regression and hence the beginning of a slowly but surely progressing sickness. To bring about such a development is, then, nothing else but to sin against the will of the eternal creator.

and

The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-- and this against their own nation.

and

The Jew almost never marries a Christian woman; it is the Christian who marries a Jewess ... The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew ... With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people.

You're a fucking liar, who has carefully snipped out only the portions of the text which support your viewpoint and ignored those which blatantly contradict it.

[K. A. Pital]

You wave his Aryan!Jesus as a proof, but in fact it’s entirely the reverse – so removed was his anti-semitism from historical models that he had to re-invent classical Christian motifs in a way that the Church had never done.

Not just Aryan Jesus. Aryan Creation myth. And who the fuck cares that "the Church had never done"? The Church also never thought people would be rolling on the floor blabbering and call that "speaking in tongues" and "great gift of the Pentecost", moron. That's the point which you continously ignore as if to have roots in Christianity you must follow inch-to-inch all of it's classical traditions, including the "classical" anti-semitism.

Now, I see no reason to continue, since your trolling was adequately dealt with. Hereby I resign from the thread.

[Androsphinx]

How many of my basic principles were upset by this change in my attitude toward the Christian Social movement! My views with regard to anti-Semitism thus succumbed to the passage of time, and this was my greatest transformation of all!

First, I should just point out that Hitler then goes on to explain -why- his views changed- the long walks through Vienna, the "irrelevant drivel" you mentioned above. He never mentions any religious or theological arguments, but rather the same attitudes I've mentioned about - scapegoating, racial and nationalist theories, perceptions of a large Jewish conspiracy set against Germany, and so on.

Secondly, you have failed to show that the Christian Social Party's anti-semitism was linked to historic Christian anti-semitism. Indeed, from Hitler's own words, they appear to attack the "immoral" and "atheistic" nature of many Austrian Jews - their involvement in Zionism, pornography and prostitution, and their wider influence: "Was there any shady undertaking, any form of foulness, especially in cultural life, in which at least one Jew did not participate?"

You are making three unwarented assumptions - firstly, that because the name of the party contains the word "Christian", all their policies are thus indebted to Christianity. Assuming that - Secondly, that their anti-semitism was in any way related to historic Christian anti-semitism. Assuming that - Thirdly, that Hitler was influenced by any religious arguments (which he fails to mention) rather than the racial and social arguments he enumberates at length.

Your other quotes show exactly what I've been saying - that Hitler incorporated his anti-semitism into his world-view. As I said above, this is what people do - they merge together different concepts and ideas into something more or less consistent. Since Hitler believed in God, he would obviously hold that his actions were acceptable to God, and the will of God. It doesn't mean that his anti-semitism came from his religion, any more than Churchill's saying "I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization" means that he was only fighting Nazi Germany for religious reasons.

Similarly, he said that inbreeding between races was against the will of god. Why? Because it was unnatural. Why? Because his racial theories said so. Racial theories here clearly precede the religious rhetoric. In historic Christian anti-semitism, intermarriage was encouraged, because in doing so the Jew abandoned Judaism and became part of Christian society - which was the goal of Christian anti-semitism. Hitler reversed this position - another sign that his racial beliefs prefigured his religious ones.

Your third quote I myself quoted early on in this thread, so you can hardly accuse me of "snipping it out". I used it to show that Hitler rejected the charge of deicide - or at the very least attatched no weight to it - and that this is in fact another departure from historic anti-semitism.

Your final quote is the weakest of all. Hitler identifies the Jews with the devil. Elsewhere he states that in pursuit of his goal, he would be prepared to side "even with the devil" - which would seem to imply that the devil is -not-, in fact, in league with the Jews. Rather, Hitler is using "the devil" as a rhetorical concept, the same way that people used to call unfortunates "poor devils", or say "the devil's in the detail". They aren't genuinely implying that a genuine supernatural force has possessed people, or interferes with people's plans. If I were to use the word "bedeviled" in conversation, I would be "beset" or "surrounded by" - not imply that an exorcism was in order!

You seem to think that I'm denying that Hitler believed in God (I've said specifically that he did), nor that he used religious rhetoric and concepts as part of his ideology and to gain public support (I've said that he did that too). Nor am I denying that Nazi ideology in a broader sense incorporated them as well - I've referred to Nazi "political theology" in this thread.

But my position, as I said before, is that I see any link between historical Christian anti-semitism and Hitler's anti-semitism as remote, and certainly not the direct causal one you give it. While I appreciate that may have not been clear from my very first post on the subject, both my highlighting of Goldhagen's approach (one of the historians who places the most weight on historical German attitudes to the Jews) and my repeated subsequent emphasises of and responses to this point should have made this clear very early on.

[Ryan Thunder]

So you picked out just one piece of advice from the Bible, the one that appears in every other ethics code even long before Jesus and that's supposed to negate all the other shit in there? You're a moron.

Hey, if you want to take all that other old stuff that's been done away with to heart, be my guest.

I'm just reminding you that Hitler, just like the medieval Catholic Church, the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition was totally out of character with the principles of Christianity.

[Kanastrous]

Just like the majority of vocal Christians in this country today, too...

Is a religion really any better than its practitioners?

Without them, it's nothing.

[General Zod]

Hey, if you want to take all that other old stuff that's been done away with to heart, be my guest.

I'm just reminding you that Hitler, just like the medieval Catholic Church, the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition was totally out of character with the principles of Christianity.

So the parts of the Bible where God advocates wholesale genocide is out of character with the principles of Christianity too?

[Rye]

Hey, if you want to take all that other old stuff that's been done away with to heart, be my guest.

I'm just reminding you that Hitler, just like the medieval Catholic Church, the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition was totally out of character with the principles of Christianity.

What, whipping moneylenders, cursing trees and stating that the end times are just around the corner and all who don't believe will burn in righteous fire? Don't be lulled into thinking christianity is all about peace and love when its source scripture is a mixed bag and the social movements it's been involved with are even more important to the objective impact Christianity has on the world.

[Flagg]

So you picked out just one piece of advice from the Bible, the one that appears in every other ethics code even long before Jesus and that's supposed to negate all the other shit in there? You're a moron.

Hey, if you want to take all that other old stuff that's been done away with to heart, be my guest.

I'm just reminding you that Hitler, just like the medieval Catholic Church, the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition was totally out of character with the principles of Christianity.

Dipshit, the medieval Catholic Church made the principles of Christianity.

[Androsphinx]

Various things

We seem to be going round in circles here, but there seems to be a much bigger problem, so I’m going to leave what you just said aside for a moment and deal with that.

You seem to think that I’m a liar – that is to say, I am both wrong and know I’m wrong. I’m not sure how I can convince you that not only do I feel that I’m right, but that the vast majority of historical research (as opposed to non-peer-reviewed, no-qualifications-necessary materia). But let’s try the following. I was in one of the College libraries today, and looked on the Modern European History shelves, where there were two books entitled “Hitler” – the first by Norman Stone, of Cambridge. This is what he wrote about Mein Kampf (p36):

Historians have seen in it Hitler’s masterplan: tomorrow Germany, the day after Europe, and the day after that the world. It was an anti-semitic work, certainly, and it demonstrated how much harm the Jews had done to Germany because of their profiteering and their left-wing agitation… It saw in race what earlier writers had seen in Protestantism: Jews were a disruptive influence, because they were either pastiche versions of the host culture or destructively rebellious against it. Mein Kampf seriously attempted to rationalise the various hatreds fizzling around Germany at the time. Hitler wished to find a new morality, a substitute for the Christian one.

He also said (p29-30):

The was a similar problem with the Church. Hitler had been born a Catholic, but he lost his religious faith early on, retaining only a vague belief in “Providence” without any tiresome New Testament connotations. Some of the Bavarian leagues were strongly Catholic, and the Catholic clergy in Bavaria usually condemned anti-semitism

The other was Alan Bullock’s (Oxford) “Hitler: A Study in Tyranny” (p44)

“The political ideas and programme which Hitler picked up in Vienna were entirely unoriginal. They were the clichés of radical and Pan-German gutter politics, the stock-in-trade of the anti-semitic and national press. The originality was to appear in Hitler’s grasp of how to create a mass-movement and secure power on the basis of these ideas…The three parties which interested Hitler were the Austrian Social Democrats, Georg von Schonerer’s Pan-German Nationalists and Karl Lueger’s Christian Socialist Party. From the Social Democrats Hitler derived the idea of a mass party and mass propaganda… From Schonerer Hitler took his extreme German Nationalism, his anti-Socialism, his anti-semitism, his hatred of the Hapsburgs and his programme of reunion with Germany… It was in the third party, the Christian Socialists, and their remarkable leader, Karl Lueger, that Hitler found brilliantly displayed that grasp of political tactics… Hitler saw much to criticize in Lueger’s programme. His anti-Semitism was based on religious and economic, not racial, grounds (“I decide who is a Jew,” Lueger once said), and he rejected the intransigent nationalism of the Pan-Germans.

and

The truth is that, in matters of religion at least, Hitler was a rationalist and a materialist. “The dogma of Christianity,” he declared in one of his wartime conversations, “gets worn away before the advances of science… gradually the myths crumble”… Hitler’s belief in his own destiny held him back from a thorough-going atheism. “The Russians,” he remarked on one occasion, “were entitled to attack their priests, but they had no right to assail the idea of a supreme force. It’s a fact that we’re feeble creatures, and that a creative force exists”…What interested Hitler was power, and his belief in Providence or Destiny was only a projection of his own sense of power

I should note that while I have not read every biography of Hitler ever published, I’ve read a fair few, and in none of them has his anti-semitism been considered to have been caused by his personal religious beliefs.I’m sure that if nothing I’ve said so far has convinced you, the two I quoted won’t do any good either. But can you not at least acknowledge that everything I’ve said here is completely accepted in the academic world, has firm historiographical roots, and is not something I’m making up? I’m not saying anything that I haven’t learnt from research and the studies of professional, trained and educated historians who have spent their lifetimes studying Nazi Germany, and often (Stone, Bullock, Kershaw, less so Goldhagen) risen to the heights of their profession. Is it possible that they might be right, and you might be wrong?

[Darth Wong]

Ah, of course. The ever-popular appeal to authority, with no reasoning whatsoever. The fact is that you claimed there is only a "remote" connection between Christianity and the Holocaust, based on ... what? Your bizarre creation of more and more conditions to be placed upon that statement, so that it becomes defined out of existence? One cannot seriously read Mein Kampf and deny that Hitler himself draws a clear connection between his religion and his anti-Semitism; he actually believes that Aryans are made in the image of God while Jews are evolved from animals, which is why he calls them "half-apes", fucktard. So historians who have tried to deny this connection have always relied on hearsay to try and divine some hidden intent behind Hitler's words, because the actual content of those words did not match what they wanted to hear.

Historical peer review is not remotely similar to scientific peer review; the only time history becomes remotely as reliable as science is when it actually employs scientists to confirm its expectations.

[Darth Wong]

First, I should just point out that Hitler then goes on to explain -why- his views changed- the long walks through Vienna, the "irrelevant drivel" you mentioned above. He never mentions any religious or theological arguments, but rather the same attitudes I've mentioned about - scapegoating, racial and nationalist theories, perceptions of a large Jewish conspiracy set against Germany, and so on.

Secondly, you have failed to show that the Christian Social Party's anti-semitism was linked to historic Christian anti-semitism. Indeed, from Hitler's own words, they appear to attack the "immoral" and "atheistic" nature of many Austrian Jews - their involvement in Zionism, pornography and prostitution, and their wider influence: "Was there any shady undertaking, any form of foulness, especially in cultural life, in which at least one Jew did not participate?"

You are making three unwarented assumptions - firstly, that because the name of the party contains the word "Christian", all their policies are thus indebted to Christianity. Assuming that - Secondly, that their anti-semitism was in any way related to historic Christian anti-semitism. Assuming that - Thirdly, that Hitler was influenced by any religious arguments (which he fails to mention) rather than the racial and social arguments he enumberates at length.

Amazing how you could draw all of those implications and arguments out of a quote which I did not actually comment on at all, liar. The fact is that you have erected such strict conditions on what constitutes a legitimate connection between Christianity and Nazism that you have made a farce out of the entire argument. Short of "No True Scotsman" fallacies, you haven't got sht.

Your other quotes show exactly what I've been saying - that Hitler incorporated his anti-semitism into his world-view. As I said above, this is what people do - they merge together different concepts and ideas into something more or less consistent. Since Hitler believed in God, he would obviously hold that his actions were acceptable to God, and the will of God. It doesn't mean that his anti-semitism came from his religion, any more than Churchill's saying "I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization" means that he was only fighting Nazi Germany for religious reasons.

So all of his ranting about how inter-marriage corrupts "God's image" had no real relation to religion? What a load of bullshit.

Similarly, he said that inbreeding between races was against the will of god. Why? Because it was unnatural. Why? Because his racial theories said so. Racial theories here clearly precede the religious rhetoric. In historic Christian anti-semitism, intermarriage was encouraged, because in doing so the Jew abandoned Judaism and became part of Christian society - which was the goal of Christian anti-semitism. Hitler reversed this position - another sign that his racial beliefs prefigured his religious ones.

Again, you lie. His "racial theories" included the belief that Aryans were made in God's image, as per the Bible, while other races evolved from animals. That's why he called interracial people "half-man, half-apes".

Your third quote I myself quoted early on in this thread, so you can hardly accuse me of "snipping it out". I used it to show that Hitler rejected the charge of deicide - or at the very least attatched no weight to it - and that this is in fact another departure from historic anti-semitism.

How the fuck did he reject it? In his own words, he claims that Jesus hated the Jews and rebuked them publicly, and was killed in return.

Your final quote is the weakest of all. Hitler identifies the Jews with the devil. Elsewhere he states that in pursuit of his goal, he would be prepared to side "even with the devil" - which would seem to imply that the devil is -not-, in fact, in league with the Jews. Rather, Hitler is using "the devil" as a rhetorical concept, the same way that people used to call unfortunates "poor devils", or say "the devil's in the detail". They aren't genuinely implying that a genuine supernatural force has possessed people, or interferes with people's plans. If I were to use the word "bedeviled" in conversation, I would be "beset" or "surrounded by" - not imply that an exorcism was in order!

Semantic horseshit. You're focusing on the word "devil" and ignoring the fact that the whole point of that sentence is to rant about intermarriage between Christians and Jews; emphasis on the word Christian.

You seem to think that I'm denying that Hitler believed in God (I've said specifically that he did), nor that he used religious rhetoric and concepts as part of his ideology and to gain public support (I've said that he did that too). Nor am I denying that Nazi ideology in a broader sense incorporated them as well - I've referred to Nazi "political theology" in this thread.

No, I think you're resorting to a "No True Scotsman" fallacy to pretend that in order to qualify as a real connection between Christianity and Nazism, we must meet all kinds of conditions which you have arbitrarily created.

But my position, as I said before, is that I see any link between historical Christian anti-semitism and Hitler's anti-semitism as remote, and certainly not the direct causal one you give it. While I appreciate that may have not been clear from my very first post on the subject, both my highlighting of Goldhagen's approach (one of the historians who places the most weight on historical German attitudes to the Jews) and my repeated subsequent emphasises of and responses to this point should have made this clear very early on.

Your entire argument is based on the idea that because the rationalizations for this attitude have changed over the centuries, it is not a continuous social phenomenon. This is a wildly obvious non sequitur.

[Androsphinx]

Not just Aryan Jesus. Aryan Creation myth. And who the fuck cares that "the Church had never done"? The Church also never thought people would be rolling on the floor blabbering and call that "speaking in tongues" and "great gift of the Pentecost", moron. That's the point which you continously ignore as if to have roots in Christianity you must follow inch-to-inch all of it's classical traditions, including the "classical" anti-semitism.

"inch-to-inch all of its classical traditions"? One of them would be nice. In Nazi anti-semitism, there's barely a trace.

When the context of the discussion is the role of historical Christian anti-semitism, it's kind of important to establish some sort of continuity, don;t you think? I mentioned the link between the two in the historical context in my first post on Friday at 11:27, and was made totally clear in my later posts at 11:43, which was picked up on by Darth Wong at 13:36, when he brought up Luther, and which I repeated again in my reply on Saturday at 14:25. You yourself seemed to be taking the same line of argument when you talked about Luther and causality on Sunday at 11:30.

Then you changed the topic to Hitler's personal religiousity and belief (13:32). At which point the discussion becomes much more precise - you sought to attribute Hitler's antisemitism to his religious beliefs. You'll note that the subject is no longer "Christianity and the Holocaust" but "the origins and motivations of Hitler's antisemitism". While you seemed to have missed it, we are not talking about a "link" between Christianity and Hitler (which I never denied), but the causal relationship between Hitler's Christianity and his antisemitism.

Your analogy is thus inexact - a more precise version would be "some elements of modern Christianity include "speaking in tongues. Therefore Christianity led to speaking in tongues" - when in fact the relationship is precisely reversed - a phenomenon called "syncretism" is at work, whereby foreign elements are absorbed into a pre-existing body of beliefs and practices. Precisely the same is true for Hitler's Christianity (if indeed it existed at all outside the public eye - I just quoted two prominent Hitler biographers who claim that it did not), it incorporated ideological elements which had previously been foreign to Christianity, and which clearly and self-evidently have their origins, motivations and goals elsewhere - in a heady mix of racialism, nationalism, paranoia and scapegoatism.

[Androsphinx]

Amazing how you could draw all of those implications and arguments out of a quote which I did not actually comment on at all, liar.

You quoted Mein Kampf to say that once Hitler ran into the Christian Social Democrats, he became antisemitic. Your general argument was that Hitler's antisemitism was based in Christian sources. The clear implication was that he got it from the Christian Social Democrats, and this proved your point because they were "Christian". If I misread your argument,
please feel free to say what exactly you meant to imply by that quote.

So all of his ranting about how inter-marriage corrupts "God's image" had no real relation to religion? What a load of bullshit.

Again, you lie. His "racial theories" included the belief that Aryans were made in God's image, as per the Bible, while other races evolved from animals. That's why he called interracial people "half-man, half-apes".

Semantic horseshit. You're focusing on the word "devil" and ignoring the fact that the whole point of that sentence is to rant about intermarriage between Christians and Jews; emphasis on the word Christian.

Last one first. Hitler, as I've said several times, considered Jews to be a -race-, not a religion. So opposing intermarriage between Jews and Christians is a racial matter, not a religious one. I've said this several times, and assumed that it was so obvious, there must be something else in the quotation that you found demonstrative.

As for the other two - as I've said repeatedly, once Hitler had his anti-semitism, he incorporated it into the rest of his world-view. There is considerable doubt amongst historians as to how genuine Hitler's religious beliefs were - but for the moment we'll assume that they were. I've presented plenty of evidence that Hitler's anti-semitism was always based on and motivated by racial theories, not religious ones (which he expressly repudiated), and that quotations which imply a religious slant are at best later interpolations of two sets of ideological beliefs.

How the fuck did he reject it? In his own words, he claims that Jesus hated the Jews and rebuked them publicly, and was killed in return.

As a single historical example amongst many, to which he attatches no particular religious significance. To any pre-modern Christian, this is the absolute core of anti-semitism; and Hitler pays it negligible attention. This would seem to indicate quite strongly that his religious beliefs did not have a causal effect on his anti-semitism.

No, I think you're resorting to a "No True Scotsman" fallacy to pretend that in order to qualify as a real connection between Christianity and Nazism, we must meet all kinds of conditions which you have arbitrarily created.

As I explained immediately above, you also seem to be conflating two different discussions: the origins of modern German anti-semitism and its role in the Holocaust - specifically, the role and significance of historic Christian anti-semitism; and the second issue of the origins of Hitler's personal anti-semitism. If I was arguing that Hitler was not a Christian, "No True Scotsman" would apply. I'm not doing that - I have no agenda or desire to vindicate Christianity, which I consider to be a subject of great interest, but with a very low Truth-value.

Instead, I'm arguing that the basis, origins and central argumentation of Hitler's anti-semitism lay in his racial theories, not in his Christianity. That he later amalgamated the two is not suprising, but here somewhat irrelevant. You are mistaken as to my position, and your criticisms are thus misplaced.

Your entire argument is based on the idea that because the rationalizations for this attitude have changed over the centuries, it is not a continuous social phenomenon. This is a wildly obvious non sequitur.

You do realise that I've said repeatedly that German anti-semitism was a continuous social phenomenon? For example, my post on Sunday, 13:38:

What seems to have happened is that the core sentiment of Jew-hatred remained while through the nineteenth century the reasons for it radically changed - what Dawidowicz calls "Judenhaas".

So your claim that I say that anti-semitism was not a continuous social phenomenon is totally incorrect.

I'm not sure if you implied it, but by saying "rationalisation", you imply that there is a deeper reason, which is covered by a series of excuses. While the root causes of anti-semitism is a totally different discussion, if you consider both 1540s Lutherist Christianity and 1940s Nazi racialism to be rationalisations, and that the true reason lies elsewhere, you've negated your own point that the basis for Hitler's anti-semitism was Christianity, or rather Christian rationalisations of anti-semitism. If in 1540s is a rationalisation, how come by the 1920s it's a cause of such force that it over-rides Hitler's own, explicit "rationalisations"? As I said before, I'm not sure if you intended to imply this.

[Darth Wong]

You quoted Mein Kampf to say that once Hitler ran into the Christian Social Democrats, he became antisemitic. Your general argument was that Hitler's antisemitism was based in Christian sources. The clear implication was that he got it from the Christian Social Democrats, and this proved your point because they were "Christian". If I misread your argument, please feel free to say what exactly you meant to imply by that quote.

How could you "misread" my argument for that particular quote when I only provided a group of quotes to show how Hitler's himself cited Christianity as a source of his attitudes, and did not provide specific interpretation of any one of them? Don't play games with me, liar.

So all of his ranting about how inter-marriage corrupts "God's image" had no real relation to religion? What a load of bullshit.

Again, you lie. His "racial theories" included the belief that Aryans were made in God's image, as per the Bible, while other races evolved from animals. That's why he called interracial people "half-man, half-apes".

Semantic horseshit. You're focusing on the word "devil" and ignoring the fact that the whole point of that sentence is to rant about intermarriage between Christians and Jews; emphasis on the word Christian.

Last one first. Hitler, as I've said several times, considered Jews to be a -race-, not a religion. So opposing intermarriage between Jews and Christians is a racial matter, not a religious one. I've said this several times, and assumed that it was so obvious, there must be something else in the quotation that you found demonstrative.

It's totally irrelevant what he thought Jews were. What's important is what he thought they were not, ie- they were not "made in God's image", unlike Aryans. I already explained this; what the fuck do you not understand about it?

As for the other two - as I've said repeatedly, once Hitler had his anti-semitism, he incorporated it into the rest of his world-view.

And every time, that has been a flimsy excuse, not an explanation. You have claimed repeatedly that there is almost no connection between Christianity and Nazism, and when faced with Hitler himself saying the opposite, you simply declare that it doesn't count. As I said, you have erected so many conditions and prerequisites for a "true" connection between Christianity and Nazism that you have made a complete farce of this discussion.

I've presented plenty of evidence that Hitler's anti-semitism was always based on and motivated by racial theories, not religious ones (which he expressly repudiated), and that quotations which imply a religious slant are at best later interpolations of two sets of ideological beliefs.

And you have consistently glossed over the fact that those "racial theories" were in turn religious in nature. You're playing a shell game and hoping I won't notice.

How the fuck did he reject it? In his own words, he claims that Jesus hated the Jews and rebuked them publicly, and was killed in return.

As a single historical example amongst many, to which he attatches no particular religious significance. To any pre-modern Christian, this is the absolute core of anti-semitism; and Hitler pays it negligible attention. This would seem to indicate quite strongly that his religious beliefs did not have a causal effect on his anti-semitism.

So the fact that he does not emphasize his religious arguments enough for your taste means that they were irrelevant? Do you even listen to yourself?

Your entire argument is based on the idea that because the rationalizations for this attitude have changed over the centuries, it is not a continuous social phenomenon. This is a wildly obvious non sequitur.

You do realise that I've said repeatedly that German anti-semitism was a continuous social phenomenon?

Yet you deny the obvious implication, that if it was a continuous social phenomenon which was once rooted in religion, then the root cause of this social phenomenon was in turn religion. The fact that its arguments changed over time does not refute this.

[Illuminatus Primus]

What an obvious case of an apologist not wanting his precious sky-pixie to be identified with mass murderers.

[Androsphinx]

How could you "misread" my argument for that particular quote when I only provided a group of quotes to show how Hitler's himself cited Christianity as a source of his attitudes, and did not provide specific interpretation of any one of them? Don't play games with me, liar.

So when you quoted the first source, you -did- intend to show that Hitler cited Christianity as the source of his anti-semitism? And that he did so by acknowleding a political party who had "Christian" in their name? That's what I assumed initally, and you attacked me for making unwarranted assumptions.

And you have consistently glossed over the fact that those "racial theories" were in turn religious in nature. You're playing a shell game and hoping I won't notice.

No, they weren't. German theories of racial superiority, and of the Jews as a distinct racial identity, developed independantly of Christianity, from 19th and early 20th century scientific theories about race. They weren't religious in nature. Nor was Hitler's initial acceptance of them.

you have erected so many conditions and prerequisites for a "true" connection between Christianity and Nazism that you have made a complete farce of this discussion.

Do you just ignore half the things I say? I just outlined the two different issues under discussion - the origins and causes of modern german antisemtism (NOT Nazism), and the origins of Hitler's anti-semitism. Neither topic is directly related with the syncretised religiopolitical cult that was Nazism. There Christian elements are clear and undeniable - I've referred twice to it's "political theology", and would never deny something so obvious from the historical record. What I -am- disputing is the influence of Christianity on a specific subsection of Nazism - namely, eliminationist antisemitism. I maintain that they orginated separately from Christian ideas, some of which were later incorporated. Or, as Michael Burleigh (yet another world-class historian) put it:

Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not the sum total of Christian fantasies regarding Jews, nor simply prejudice masquerading as racial science. The former was fit for peasants, the latter for the racialist professors he despised as cranks… he needed something altogether more vaulting, a prejudice worthy of a Fuhrer… Hitler assimilated visions of racial degeneration and cleansing to religious narratives of perdition and redemption

Burleigh of course goes further, considering racialism just a cover for prejudice (not, you'll note, a cover for religious motivations).

So the fact that he does not emphasize his religious arguments enough for your taste means that they were irrelevant? Do you even listen to yourself?

It's not just that he doesn't emphasise the religious element- it's that he ignores it totally in this most crucial of all cases to religious anti-semitism, and focuses on a tiny side-issue - that Jesus rebuked the Jews, and modern Germans pander to them. It's inconcievable that anyone whose anti-semitism was based on the traditional Christian model would deal with the crucifixion in such a way. It would be like saying "the Red Sox beat the Rockies on Sunday, thus giving them seven consecutive victories, only five away from their best performance since 1992". The crucial and central point is that the Red Sox won the world series! Here, the crucial and central element which informed every aspect of Christian anti-semitism, and whose importance it is impossible to overstate, is bundled off withou a mention. It is without doubt an implicit rejection of the charge of deicide, the central feature of Christian anti-semitism.

Yet you deny the obvious implication, that if it was a continuous social phenomenon which was once rooted in religion, then the root cause of this social phenomenon was in turn religion. The fact that its arguments changed over time does not refute this.

Two things. Firstly, you assume that the origin of antisemitism is Christianity. If (as Dawidowicz does), you consider it to be something else, then that something else (Judenhaas) is the root cause, and both Christianity and racial theories are rationalisations - but I don't think this line of argument works very well.

Secondly, this is exactly the line of argument which Goldhagen uses, and which I referenced and acknowledged when I first posted on the subject! You're accusing me of denying something which I've maintained all along. All I've said since is that the involvement of a multiplicity of different factors and ideologies in German anti-semitism, combined with the decline of the Christianity-based argument over the centuries means that establishing causation is a much more complex matter here, than in the Crusades, and that comparatively it is remote. The list of motivations for the Crusades are a very short list, and most of them involve religion. The list of motivations for anti-semitism in 1930s Germany is far longer, and some of them - while not in themselves involving religion, have their historical roots in religion.

For example, I said exactly that on Sunday at 04:13. You had previously said (in your other guise as Admiral Kanos), "Once you decide that you dislike a group, you start blaming them for things that they may not even have done. This is hardly exceptional or unusual, and it certainly does not indicate that one is unrelated to the other.". To which I replied:

would not disagree with either of the above. What you are both saying is that Medieval anti-semitism, which was primarily religious in nature, shifted over time into a more socio-cultural anti-semitism. This is precisely Goldhagen's thesis, to which I refered in my first post on the subject

[Androsphinx]

[quote="Illuminatus Primus"]What an obvious case of an apologist not wanting his precious sky-pixie to be identified with mass murderers.[/quote

I've said several times in this thread that I'm not a Christian. Perhaps not as obvious as all that

[Illuminatus Primus]

What an obvious case of an apologist not wanting his precious sky-pixie to be identified with mass murderers.[/quote

I've said several times in this thread that I'm not a Christian. Perhaps not as obvious as all that

Its still sophistry and goalpost-shifting. Now you just don't have a common motive for your lack of academic rigor.

[Androsphinx]

What an obvious case of an apologist not wanting his precious sky-pixie to be identified with mass murderers.

Oh, and I've repeatedly emphasised that Hitler believed in God, thought that he was doing God's will, and would probably have called himself a Christian. So not only is he not my Lagrange-One teapot, I've clearly identified him with mass-murder. I'm not sure how what you've said could be any more incorrent.

[Androsphinx]

Its still sophistry and goalpost-shifting. Now you just don't have a common motive for your lack of academic rigor.

Again, incorrect. I have made clear what my positions are, the area which I've been discussing, the pertinant tangential positions which I accept (Christian elements in Nazism, Hitler's belief in God), and made these clear from the beginning of the debate.

I also seem to be the only person quoting reputable historians, whose claims no-one has acknowledged (someone snipped all of Goldhagen, calling it "bullshit", but that was as far as anyone got).

[Ryan Thunder]

What an obvious case of an apologist not wanting his precious sky-pixie to be identified with mass murderers.

Because He can't be, you retard. It's like saying that Atheism is to blame for all that shit that happened in Russia during the Cold War.

Neither condones the actions often taken (conveniently) in their name.