(April 15, 2016 at 1:26 am)Maelstrom Wrote: Hitler was just Hitler.
Attempting to place him into a particular category does not change who he was, rather it makes the people who are labeling him into a particular category seem rather suspicious.
No nobody is labeling him for reading his words both public and private. We are coming to conclusions based on those recorded events. He was not a standard Christian no, but there is no way he could be called an atheist. It still remains he had the idea that their was a "providence" a higher force guiding him.
And again, he would have murdered anyone who dissented against him, including atheists, and he at the same time employed anyone who supported him including the church and or atheists. He was an opportunist.
Luther's anti Jewish rhetoric still shaped Hitler's views and that does have a biblical source regardless.
It is the same dodge people use with calling Stalin an atheist, which still does not matter. Stalin simply replaced the authoritarian nature of the bible with worship of the state, but even he utilized the Russian Orthodox church to gain support for WW2 so even he didn't get rid of religion completely.
And the same with even modern Cuba. If the country were all atheist, then why did the Pope last month give a service in a Catholic church there?
Because Germany nor Russia nor Cuba are atheist countries in reality. They are different forms of monopolies of power, and people stupidly get stuck on atheist vs theist, and the issue with those states is power, not religion itself.
No modern westernized atheist I would call sane would or should value those types of monopolies of power by one person, one family or one party. Worship of an absolute state is the same worship of an authoritarian god.
The god character of Abraham is a great character to learn from if one wants to set up an oppressive state of any kind, theocracy or worship of the state like Kim Jong Un. Appeal to authority and blind loyalty.
