(August 29, 2017 at 1:34 pm)CatholicDefender Wrote: I think it's fair to say that Hitler was a Catholic in the same way Saddam Hussein was a Muslim.
Saddam was friendly toward the Sunni Islamic faith generally and made a show (especially in his final years) of being a good True Muslim TM.
But his faith life was a joke. He and his sons lived a life of decadence and extravagance, drank whiskey and wine, had many mistresses, did not force women into the hijab and out of the workforce, and did not mind that one his closest associates, Tariq Aziz was a Christian.
Hitler was tolerant and even favorable toward Catholicism and general Christianity at times, but it seems his spiritual life was nil. What bible study were he and Eva part of again?
No sorry, doesn't work like that. How you wish someone else whom falls under the same label as you does not change the thoughts in their heads.
Hitler went to his death believing in providence and a divine higher power, he always believed. And again, arguing over his personal beliefs, which can only be argued as unique to him, still did not change the fact he DID convince a Christian majority Germany to follow him.
No different than knowing Castro's Cuba is a majority Catholic. Dictators don't single out religion, they use it too, what they all do is silence anyone who tries to dissent.
No different than saying both Bin Laden and Malala have the same God, same prophet and same holy book. None of what I just said favors a monster like Bin Laden, just a statement of fact that both use the same book to come to completely different conclusions.
I include atheists in that too. Stalin was an atheist, I won't dodge that fact. But just because I wouldn't want other atheists to behave that way doesn't mean he was not. Stalin was a monster because he wanted power, just like Hitler just like Castro, but all of them DID manipulate the masses with religion regardless of their own personal views.
What most humans fail to realize, not just Christians, but Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists too, is that our species capability for either cruelty or compassion isn't being handed to us from above, but our behaviors good or bad, have always been in us.
Hitler had a personal belief but he believed in his own personal interpretation as much as Martin Luther King. Sure I will value King and hate Hitler, but they still both believed in a God.
Point being, you the individual are either good or bad. You the individual and nothing is magic about that. Holy writings don't have magic powers. Humans help humans or humans hurt other humans, but there is no patent owned on our species morality, no religion invented it, and no religion owns it. Every nation, friend or foe has hospitals and prisons.
King was a great and empathetic man. Malala is a great and empathetic woman. Ann Frank was a great and empathetic girl. But their compassion and empathy was not handed to them, it was already in them. Just like Katherine Hepburn was an atheist, she too was a very compassionate person.
You are not good because you are Catholic or Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist or even atheist. You are good because our species has always had that ability.
