...Or was he an atheistic New Ager using "God" (also gods, Fate, goddesses) to engender people to follow him? Did he consistently live out the Christian lifestyle that Christ modeled? Or did he embrace evolutionary atheism and the "survival of the fittest" (evolution is "red in tooth and claw" remember) and live out that worldview consistently? In other words, the naturalist cannot say Hitler was "morally wrong," the theist can. Evolution does not engender absolute moral laws to be used as guides to judge other cultures or men, matter (humans coming from rocks) doesn't equal morals. When an atheist says someone is immoral, say a christian they feel is not living morally enough, he is borrowing the "cosmic ruler" (if you will) from the Judeo-Christian framework to judge said person expecting that both he (the atheist) and the Christian (the theist) will see the immoral action in his behavior. This is not answerable by the atheistic epistemology. Period. the atheist is borrowing from one worldview a framework of moral "laws" in order to refute that same worldview. That is nonsensical.
A Book Recommend:
Below is the first known Swastika/Broken Cross known in Germany. It is part of a Thule Society political poster.
The Hitler of Mein Kampf
What did he believe in? Christianity? Evolution? Other gods?
(All references below are from Mein Kampf, citing book number [1 or 2] and chapter number.)
People who want to make us think Hitler was a Christian often use quotes from his book Mein Kampf. And it's true that he spoke approvingly in that book about Christianity, and claimed to be doing "the work of the Lord." Does that mean he was a Christian? Or was Hitler just using Christian terminology and concepts figuratively and illustratively?
Gods
After all, not only did Hitler speak of "God" (which is not necessarily always the Christian God)--he also spoke of "the gods." For example:
For if the art of the politician is really the art of the possible, the theoretician is one of those of whom it can be said that they are pleasing to the gods only if they demand and want the impossible. (Mein Kampf, 1:VIII)
The fact that a large part of the people moved blindly through the manifestations of decay showed only that the gods had willed
In proportion as economic life grew to be the dominant mistress of the state, money became the god whom all had to serve and to whom each man had to bow down. More and more, the gods of heaven were put into the corner as obsolete and outmoded, and in their stead incense was burned to the idol Mammon. (1:X)
Hitler also spoke of various "Goddesses." Does that mean he literally believed in them?
The Royal House Czechized wherever possible, and it was the hand of the goddess of eternal justice and inexorable retribution which caused Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the most mortal enemy of Austrian-Germanism, to fall by the bullets which he himself had helped to mold. (1:I)
While the Goddess of Suffering took me in her arms, often threatening to crush me, my will to resistance grew, and in the end this will was victorious. (1:II)
And all great movements are popular movements, volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotional sentiments, stirred either by the cruel Goddess of Distress or by the firebrand of the word hurled among the masses; (1:III)
It often seemed to me almost a sin to shout hurrah perhaps without having the inner right to do so; for who had the right to use this word without having proved it in the place where all playing is at an end and the inexorable hand of the Goddess of Destiny
A fire was kindled from whose flame one day the sword must come which would regain freedom for the Germanic Siegfried and life for the German nation. And side by side with the coming resurrection, I sensed that the goddess of inexorable vengeance for the perjured deed of November 9,1919, was striding forth. (1:XII)
...that the gentle Goddess of Peace can walk only by the side of the God of War... (2:VII)
...but History, acting as the goddess of a higher truth and a higher justice, will one day smilingly tear up this verdict, acquitting us of all guilt and blame.' (2:XV)
Further, Hitler spoke many times about "Fate," much more often in fact (mentioned 90 times in Mein Kampf) than he used the words "God" or "the Lord" (combined, the two occur 52 times). Instead of the Christian God, perhaps Hitler really believed in an impersonal force called Fate, as for example in the first words of the first chapter of his book:
Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the
When my mother died, Fate, at least in one respect, had made its decisions. (1:II)
And in this infinitely important question, as in so many others, Fate itself became my instructor. (1:II)
In this case the only remaining hope was struggle, struggle with all the weapons which the human spirit, reason, and will can devise, regardless on which side of the scale Fate
But how much more was Fate to be praised for accomplishing this investiture in the scion of a house which in
And so forth. Thus Hitler's use of Christian terminology may be on par with his use of language about gods, goddesses, and Fate. Anyone who claims to know that Hitler was a genuine Christian believer needs to show how he took his talk about Christianity any more seriously than his talk about these other deities and forces. You don't have to believe in these things to use them for making your language more colorful.
Christianity as a Necessary Evil
In fact, there's one place I've found in Mein Kampf where Hitler seems to speak somewhat disparagingly about Christianity. He's talking about intolerance and fanaticism and how the Jews first introduced these things into the blissful ancient world, with the result that these types of behavior now unfortunately have to be fought with similar counter-fanaticism. He says that Christianity is somehow related to this whole scenario, though it's unclear (to me) whether he's saying that Christianity is simply part of this regrettable Jewish mode of thought, or whether Christianity is a necessary, though regrettable, reaction to the evils introduced by the Jews. But here's what he says:
Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars...
The objection may very well be raised that such phenomena in world history arise for the most part from specifically Jewish modes of thought, in fact, that this type of intolerance and fanaticism positively embodies the Jewish nature...we may deeply regret this fact and establish with justifiable loathing that its appearance in the history of mankind is something that was previously alien to history...
The individual may establish with pain today that with the appearance of Christianity the first spiritual terror entered into the far freer ancient world; but he will not be able to contest the fact that since then the world has been afflicted and dominated by this coercion, and that coercion is broken only by coercion, and terror by terror. Only then can a new state of affairs be constructively created. (2:V)
At the very least, Hitler seems to be saying that Christianity is a regrettable, but necessary, reaction to Jewish intolerance. Would a true Christian (not a pretender) describe Christianity in this way--that it's a necessary evil?
Elsewhere Hitler talks about how religion is useful to keep the masses in line, because they're not sophisticated enough to be philosophers. They have to be controlled by a faith system:
The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude...
For the political man, the value of a religion must be estimated less by its deficiencies than by the virtue of a visibly better substitute. As long as this appears to be lacking, what is present can be demolished only by fools or criminals. (1:X)
Is this the real Hitler? The "political man" who uses religion to control the masses only because there is no "better substitute"? This is hardly the picture of a true believer.
Evolution
When it comes to Darwinian evolution, Hitler definitely both talked the talk and walked the walk. To say that Hitler was a social Darwinist would be an understatement.
- In general it should not be forgotten that the highest aim of human existence is not the preservation of a state, let alone a government, but the preservation of the species. (1:III)
Is this the statement of a Christian or a Darwinist? Do Christians believe that the "highest aim" of our existence is "the preservation of the species"? Not by a long shot. That's Darwinism.
In Mein Kampf Hitler showed very clearly his (apparent) belief in
In the struggle for daily bread all those who are weak and sickly or less determined succumb, while the struggle of the males for the female grants the right or opportunity to propagate only to the healthiest. And struggle is always a means for improving a species' health and power of resistance and, therefore, a cause of its higher development...Nature does just this by subjecting the weaker part to such severe living conditions that by them alone the number is limited, and by not permitting the remainder to increase promiscuously, but making a new and ruthless choice according to strength and health. No more than Nature desires the mating of weaker with stronger individuals, even less does she desire the blending of a higher with a lower race, since, if she did, her whole work of higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, night be ruined with one blow. Historical experience offers countless proofs of this. (1:X)
[Speaking against artificial population control:] For as soon as procreation as such is limited and the number of births diminished, the natural struggle for existence which leaves only the strongest and healthiest alive is obviously replaced by the obvious desire to 'save' even the weakest and most sickly at any price, and this plants the seed of a future generation which must inevitably grow more and more deplorable the longer this mockery of Nature and her will continues. And the end will be that such a people will some day be deprived of its existence on this earth; for man can defy the eternal laws of the will to conservation for a certain time, but sooner or later vengeance comes. A stronger race will drive out the weak, for the vital urge in its ultimate form will, time and again, burst all the absurd fetters of the so-called humanity of individuals, in order to replace it by the humanity of Nature which destroys the weak to give his place to the strong. (1:IV)
For anyone who believes in a higher development of living creatures must admit that every expression of their life urge and life struggle must have had a beginning; that one subject must have started it, and that subsequently such a phenomenon repeated itself more and more frequently and spread more and more, until at last it virtually entered the subconscious of all members of a given species, thus manifesting itself as an instinct. (2:II)
The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he after all is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development of organic living beings would be unthinkable. The consequence of this racial purity, universally valid in Nature, is not only the sharp outward delimitation of the various races, but their uniform character in themselves. The fox is always a fox, the goose a goose, the tiger a tiger, etc., and the difference can lie at most in the varying measure of force, strength, intelligence, dexterity, endurance, etc., of the individual specimens. But you will never find a fox who in his inner attitude might, for example, show humanitarian tendencies toward geese, as similarly there is no cat with a friendly inclination toward mice. Therefore, here, too, the struggle among themselves arises less from inner aversion than from hunger and love. In both cases, Nature looks on calmly, with satisfaction, in fact. (1:X)
In the end, Hitler would carry these doctrines of the stronger dominating the weaker to demonic extremes.
In view of Hitler's non-Christian Darwinist ideas, his portrayal of Christianity as a necessary evil, and his use of terminology about other gods and goddesses, the assertion that Hitler was a Christian is baseless and reckless.
