Why do some theists bring up Adolf Hitler when discussing atheism?

[thesummerqueen]

When you're trying to 'prove' something is 'bad', as many Christians would love to do to atheism, the format to do so follows what they consider a logical equation of sorts. "Atheism = bad, how do I prove it?" They connect up other things they think are bad, like evolution (Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, natural selection) and hook it with something that's SORTA similar (Hitler's ridiculous ideas of a master race) and somehow decide they amount to the same thing. They do this by 'cherry picking' quotes and ideas from Hitler and taking them completely out of context, much as they do Darwin, and saying "see?! see?!" Nevermind if the quote they lifted actually meant IN CONTEXT what it does OUT OF CONTEXT. Why label him atheist? Obviously because no good Christian would ever try to exterminate a race like that. (Riiiiiight.) It all goes hand in hand.

The cherry picking process is seen all over the place where politicians, religious leaders/followers, ignoramuses, and media outlets pick whatever pieces of a story or source they want just to prove their own point. The second most common place you see this, outside of direct bible quotes that are supposed to 'prove' whatever bullshit is being spilled out of the pulpit that week, is when fundamentalists try to prove this is a christian nation by cherry picking quotes from the founding fathers. Inevitably, when you dig a little deeper, the ascertains fall apart.

I guess their flow of logic is that anyone who believes in evolution must be an atheist, and since Hitler ascribed to something they wrongfully equated with evolution, that must make him truly an atheist, and since both are bad, well...Hitler's doubly damned. And yet somehow he's never given the credit due to him by those same fundamentalists who think there's a Jewish world conspiracy. I guess since he's atheist, he doesn't deserve to be recognized as someone taking out the enemy. Irrational people never make sense.

The sad part about this is the retroactive logic they apply to evolution BECAUSE of Hitler. Hitler ascribes to something like evolution, therefore evolution is evil, because Hitler was evil. Well, no, the study of evolution was around before Hitler, you numbnuts. You can't blame an idea for the person who comes around later and perverts it. To paraphrase someone else, that's like telling Rosie O'Donnell that she can go ahead and blame her fork.

But to answer your question, no...they don't give a crap about facts unless they match their opinions. And some of them are just smart enough to know this, and also smart enough to know that most people just lay down and accept whatever is told to them without much critical thinking attached to it. Therefore they find it easy to perpetuate their hysteria and lies in order to spread their own propaganda...oddly enough, the same thing Hitler did. So, by their own logic... Hitler spread propaganda...Christians spread propaganda...are Christians evil?

Lewis Black made a hilarious bit of commentary on Glenn Beck's habit of doing this in his Back in Black segment on the Daily Show. If you hit up the website, look up "Glenn Beck has Nazi Tourette's" and prepare to laugh nearly until you throw up.