Was Hitler a Christian?

[Redbeard The Pink]

Austria was a sovereign nation then, doesn't matter if it was once part of a larger country loosely organized.


Hitler became a German citizen by being appointed to a position in Brunswick by the Nazi party, Hitler refused to become a citizen by standing in line like all others did. Hitler was an egomaniac from the start. Like everything else be bullied his way in.

So you admit he was German. Thank you.


Anyway, it's beside the point. The point is that he was Catholic, which means he was a Christian.

It's not my problem, the problem belongs to non- believers like yourself. It says if a person pretends to be a Christian and claims to do work that wasn't God's work then they will wind up in hell. 

Way to miss the point entirely, GC. Knew I could count on you.


The "problem" we're talking about here is the one you'r having with the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Stop trying to change the subject.

You need to prove that each denomination has a different view as to what it takes to be a Christian. The great majority believe in grace through acceptance of Christ into one's life.

You're joking, right? If those denominations didn't have differing opinions on what it takes to be a Christian, why are there different denominations in the first place? I was a Christian for over 20 years, and I know this statement isn't true. Different denominations have all kinds of different ideas about exactly what you must/mustn't do in order to be saved/damned.


How exactly does one determine whether somebody has "accepted Christ" into their lives? The Bible says that all who believe in their hearts and confess with their mouths that Christ is Lord will be saved, does it not? Is this sufficient for salvation according to your view?


If it is, and Hitler professed sincere beliefs in God, Jesus, and the Catholic Church, how exactly is it you claim to know he wasn't really Christian? How do you know he didn't sincerely accept Christ, and if he did, then why wouldn't God forgive his wrongdoings and accept him into Heaven?


According to your model, a kind, compassionate person who doesn't believe in God will go to Hell, but a person who rapes a baby a day and then accepts Christ on his deathbed will go to Heaven. Based on that very logic, there is no reason to believe that Hitler wouldn't have been admitted to Heaven.


If he sincerely believed in Jesus (like he said he did) and really did strive toward God's will with some or all of his being, why wouldn't God forgive him for the Holocaust and accept him into Heaven as a Christian? Are you saying that Hitler's sins are too great for your god to forgive? If so, that's in direct contention with Christian doctrine. Are you saying that he was lying about being a Christian just so he could come to power in Germany? How would you know that he didn't really believe? How do you know he wasn't just a severely misguided Christian? You might say that a Christian would never commit the warlike acts or atrocities that he did, but you're forgetting a significant portion of the Old Testament if you say that. Plenty of sincere men of god were commanded to slaughter loads of people for various reasons. Samson, for example, is said to have personally murdered, like, all of the Philistines, and he's just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot of stuff about laying waste to whole cities, dashing their babies on the rocks, and keeping the virgin girls for yourselves. Your god is a war-god, bro.


An interesting side note: how much of the stuff have you read about the captivity in Babylon? I think the passages I'm referencing come from Isaiah, but it talks about how the people will be stripped of their freedom and clothes, and how they'll have their heads shaved, be made to work, be made to march around in lines...the whole thing is very Holocaust-like in the imagery it presents. Given that Christians like to interpret random Bible passages as being predictions from the future (with some prophecies even being fulfilled multiple times), how do you know these passages aren't also a prophecy about the Holocaust? How do you know that your god wasn't using the Christian Nazis in Germany to punish is wayward "chosen people" the same way he did with Babylon? He does have a track record for that, after all (according to the Bible, anyway...I'm not saying I endorse the "history" presented there). If that were the case, then Hitler may have actually been doing God's will. You don't know.


Furthermore, even if I granted that Hitler was pretending to be Christian just to gain power in Germany so he could do all the things he did without being questioned, is that argument really helping Christianity?


"Hey, Hitler! You can't be the Fuhrer of Germany because you're an atheist/satanist/whatever, and German is a nation of Christians. The only way to get the Germans to unquestioningly commit the mass murder, the torture, the bombings, the racial and social injustice, and the wishes of our dark Lord Satan is to pretend to be Christian!"


Yeah...I don't really think that's helping you guys.

Some denominations do that true. You do not know what God's will is because you are not part of His family. God's ultimate will is made quite clear in the scriptures and then His will for each Christian is part of a personal relationship. People can say I'm not a Christian, but then all that really matters is that Jesus knows I'm his. Christians do not live a life as Hitler did, that's obvious to all who can see, believer and non-believer alike.

GC

And again, the problem with that is that all the different denominations and individuals are looking at scripture and coming to wildly different conclusions about what god's will is. Your assertion that they all agree on god's will just isn't true. All we have to go on is what people profess to believe. No one person, church, or denomination has given evidence of having the "correct" iteration of god's will figured out, so until that happens a Christian is somebody who believes in Jesus Christ, and if that's what they profess then I have no reason to disbelieve that. Based on what I know of Christian and Jewish history and scripture, nothing about Hitler's behavior necessarily suggests that he was false in what he professed to believe, and what he professed to believe in was Jesus.