Resurrections and hyperdimensions

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 169 by Volbrigade]

The problem with your replies is that you aren't providing rational evidence for any of your religious beliefs or claims.

All your posts amount to are the standard "preaching" techniques of this religious cult that tries desperately to denigrate anyone who refuses to join and support it.

It's not going to be productive to simply attempt to denigrate people who refuse to be convinced. In fact, that is actually in direct violation of the teachings of Jesus anyway. Jesus never instructed his disciples to argue with or accuse anyone of anything. To the contrary, he clearly instructed them to move on if people aren't interested in hearing the message.

I'm not sure whether you're lecturing or preaching here. A bit of both?

I fail to see where I have denigrated anybody. I did mention the "vague beliefs" expressed by those with opposing arguments. Is that what you refer to?

But that is exactly what they, themselves, express. "I don't claim to know what our origins are, or what our destiny is..."; "I am comfortable with not knowing...". Sound familiar?

So when a theist does nothing but argue to the bitter death with non-believers I don't see where they are paying attention to the teachings of Jesus.

All due respect, but if I am looking for insight into the "teachings of Jesus", I will look elsewhere than to a non-theist.

"Argue to the bitter death"? That's a colorful way of putting it, isn't it? From my perspective, I'm just visiting a message board dedicated to the discussion and debate of Christianity. And expressing my reasons for being a Christian. Which generates oppositional views, which I then address.

If by "bitter death", you mean until both parties begin to repeat themselves -- well, yes. am willing to engage to that point. A point we seem to have reached, in our discussion.

If I were going to preach to people I would at least follow Jesus' instructions and only preach to those who are interested in hearing the message.

Is that a nice way of saying "shut up"?

Again -- it is perhaps a good thing that the prohibition against "preaching" (however defined -- apparently, it means "sharing the Good News"; which is an odd injunction on a site devoted to Christianity...) does not extend to "lecturing", of which I cetainly have been the recipient of my share -- as here.

I think, in general, theists "preach" (against the rules);
non-theists "lecture" (within the rules).

Perhaps that has a bearing on the subject of the OP?

In the meantime, if you are attempting to argue or debate for why the religion has merit, I haven't seen where you have supplied any compelling arguments.

I certainly regret to hear that.

But I don't see where that is a compelling argument that I haven't made any.

[/quote]

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 90 by Zzyzx]

I stand by the Apostles Creed as a fine synopsis of what a Christian assents to, and believes.

If someone who claims (I should qualify -- "sincerely claims") to be a Christian disputes those articles, in sum or in part --

I'll discuss it.

But such discussion is beyond pointless with someone who admits they have no opinion in regard to what makes a person a Christian (while accumulating nearly 5,000 posts on a "Debating Christianity" message board -- hmmm), and who blithely accepts that Hitler was one, simply because of a couple of remarks he made.

That, my friend, can only be called "credulity" and "naivete".

You do know that people lie and misrepresent themselves, don't you? (hmm. Maybe there's something wrong with that quantum foam? )

I mean, we're talking about Adolf freekin' Hitler here.

May I be excused the euphemism in this instance...?

[Zzyzx]

.

I stand by the Apostles Creed as a fine synopsis of what a Christian assents to, and believes.

That YOU 'stand by the Apostles Creed' is of no consequence. The Creed is NOT accepted by all of Christendom and is not set as a requirement for membership in the Christian club.

If someone who claims (I should qualify -- "sincerely claims") to be a Christian disputes those articles, in sum or in part --

How does anyone KNOW whether another person's claim (regarding their religious beliefs) is 'sincere' or not?

But such discussion is beyond pointless with someone who admits they have no opinion in regard to what makes a person a Christian (while accumulating nearly 5,000 posts on a "Debating Christianity" message board -- hmmm), and who blithely accepts that Hitler was one, simply because of a couple of remarks he made.

From the perspective of one who has 20,000 posts in DC&R and ten years of experience debating here, I understand that Forum Policy is that a person is entitled to self-identify as ANY theistic position and no one is entitled to dispute that declaration.

That, my friend, can only be called "credulity" and "naivete".

The terms 'credulity' and 'naivete' seem to apply to those who pretend to know the theistic position of other people BETTER than the persons themselves.

You do know that people lie and misrepresent themselves, don't you?

NO – really?

Is this to suggest that every person's declaration of faith should be viewed with suspicion as a possible lie or misrepresentation? How are true declarations identified?

I mean, we're talking about Adolf freekin' Hitler here.

Is that some indication of resentment when a miscreant identifies themselves as a fellow Christian?

May I be excused the euphemism in this instance...?

In honorable and reasoned debate one should be able to make their points (such as they may be) without resort to obscenity (even in transparent disguise).

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to Volbrigade]

The Nazis were Nationalist Socialists, and were as far removed from Classical Liberalism (what is now referred to as "Conservatism") as "the east is from the west". They were fascists, statists, and (predominantly) secular (when not mystically pagan) -- as opposed to Conservatives, who hold to the concept of limited government, by the people, with unalienable rights endowed by God.

The Nazi's called themselves the National-Socialist German Workers' Party, and were socialists in much the same way that the Democratic Republic of North Korea is a democracy. In other words, not even close. The Nazi's represented the ultimate right wingers in the way that Soviet communism represented the ultimate left wingers.


In the modern day, anyone who equates socialism with either Nazi-brand Fascism or Soviet-brand Communism is a political propagandist, usually affiliated with right-wing US interests. It wasn't socialist, and in fact was vehemently opposed to actual socialists/communists.
https://www.google.com/search?q=were+th ... e&ie=UTF-8

Question:
The Nazi Party stands for the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), which sounds like a name for a communist party, why is it considered a far-right party? Isn't it a far-left party, or was socialism considered to be far-right at the time?

Answer:
The Nazi Party destroyed the political apparatus of the working class, broke the trade union movement, and handed the economy over to German capitalist monopolies. "Socialism" in the mind of the NSDAP involved either the SA's street fighting fantasy of a German nation recast in the image of the right wing worker; or, the NSDAP's central apparatus' conception of a pliant breeding nation. "Socialism" was for the NSDAP the forced mobilisation of the ethnic nation.

Many Germans at the time, particularly right wing Germans, associated these values with a Bismarkian right wing policy that had been called "Socialism," in the sense of state provided goods and services. To take political advantage of this feeling, the NSDAP named itself "National Socialist." The NSDAP did not hope for the abolition of capitalism, nor for workers' control.

In addition to this economic position, the NSDAP wished to reunify their imaginary German nation by force; impose a German order on Europe through war; and to eliminate their imaginary racial "other."

These combination of policies are considered "right wing."

Ordinary socialism, in the sense of workers' control of production, was considered left wing at the time.
http://history.stackexchange.com/questi ... -socialist

And Hitler was a white hot mess.

He had, simmering in his fevered brain, notions of Darwinism ("Mein Kampf" -- "my struggle" -- was a reference to the Darwinian struggle for existence), which fueled his ideas regarding racial superiority, eugenics, and genocide.

He also was interested in mysticism -- which, it is plain to see, is not far from the "microbes-to-men" myth of pagan scientism.

He despised Jesus, who he saw as "weak", in addition to being a Jew. And he used the institutional, denominational Churches by fraudulently and cynically posing as a "Christian" in order to garner their support -- a strategy we have recently seen repeated on American "evangelicals".

People often make the claim that Adolph Hitler adhered to Atheism, Humanism or some ancient Nordic pagan mythology. None of these fanciful and wrong ideas hold. Although one of Hitler's henchmen, Alfred Rosenberg, did undertake a campaign of Nordic mythological propaganda, Hitler and most of his henchmen did not believe in it .

Many American books, television documentaries, and Sunday sermons that preach of Hitler's "evil" have eliminated Hitler's god for their Christian audiences, but one only has to read from his own writings to appreciate that Hitler's God equals the same God of the Christian Bible. Hitler held many hysterical beliefs which not only include, God and Providence but also Fate, Social Darwinism, and ideological politics. He spoke, unashamedly, about God, fanaticism, idealism, dogma, and the power of propaganda. Hitler held strong faith in all his convictions. He justified his fight for the German people and against Jews by using Godly and Biblical reasoning. Indeed, one of his most revealing statements makes this quite clear:

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

Although Hitler did not practice religion in a churchly sense, he certainly believed in the Bible's God. Raised as Catholic he went to a monastery school and, interestingly, walked everyday past a stone arch which was carved the monastery's coat of arms which included a swastika. As a young boy, Hitler's most ardent goal was to become a priest. Much of his philosophy came from the Bible, and more influentially, from the Christian Social movement. (The German Christian Social movement, remarkably, resembles the Christian Right movement in America today.) Many have questioned Hitler's stand on Christianity. Although he fought against certain Catholic priests who opposed him for political reasons, his belief in God and country never left him. Many Christians throughout history have opposed Christian priests for various reasons; this does not necessarily make one against one's own Christian beliefs. Nor did the Vatican's Pope & bishops ever disown him; in fact they blessed him! As evidence to his claimed Christianity, he said:

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
http://www.nobeliefs.com/hitler.htm


Hitler was a Christian, raised as a Catholic, and never renounced Christianity or Catholicism. In fact he spoke of God often in his writings and his speeches.

To be accurate, it should be pointed out that the the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, was vocally anti-Christian.

Wkipedia
Anti-church struggle
Main articles: Kirchenkampf and Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church
Himmler believed that a major task of the SS should be "acting as the vanguard in overcoming Christianity and restoring a 'Germanic' way of living" as part of preparations for the coming conflict between "humans and subhumans".[3] Himmler biographer Peter Longerich wrote that, while the Nazi movement as a whole launched itself against Jews and Communists, "by linking de-Christianisation with re-Germanization, Himmler had provided the SS with a goal and purpose all of its own."[3] Himmler was vehemently opposed to Christian sexual morality and the "principle of Christian mercy", both of which he saw as dangerous obstacles to his planned battle with "subhumans".[3] In 1937, Himmler declared:

We live in an era of the ultimate conflict with Christianity. It is part of the mission of the SS to give the German people in the next half century the non-Christian ideological foundations on which to lead and shape their lives. This task does not consist solely in overcoming an ideological opponent but must be accompanied at every step by a positive impetus: in this case that means the reconstruction of the German heritage in the widest and most comprehensive sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Himmler

You have already admitted that you do not know what a "Christian" is. Claiming that Hitler was one stands in glaring confirmation of that self-admission.

What I said was that, not being a Christian myself, I am effectively forced to take a person's word for it. If someone tells me that they consider themselves to be a Christian as a follower of Christ, I must accept that. Hitler certainly thought of HIMSELF as a Christian. I don't know what he would have thought of you for declaring yourself to be the arbitrator of exactly who is and is not a Christian, and for asserting that Hitler was no Christian, but eighty years ago if you had been a German, such an assertion might not have gone down well for you. Because Hitler had ACTUAL power to call the shots and make declarations, and not simply some self proclaimed power.

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 93 by Tired of the Nonsense]

Volbrigade wrote:

The Nazis were Nationalist Socialists, and were as far removed from Classical Liberalism (what is now referred to as "Conservatism") as "the east is from the west". They were fascists, statists, and (predominantly) secular (when not mystically pagan) -- as opposed to Conservatives, who hold to the concept of limited government, by the people, with unalienable rights endowed by God.

The Nazi's called themselves the National-Socialist German Workers' Party, and were socialists in much the same way that the Democratic Republic of North Korea is a democracy. In other words, not even close. The Nazi's represented the ultimate right wingers in the way that Soviet communism represented the ultimate left wingers.

They called themselves "socialists". It's right there in their name.

If they self-identify as "socialists", then that's what they are. Who are you to say otherwise?

Isn't that what you (and Z) said about "Christians"? That you are one, if you say you are one?

Are you asserting that there's more to one's taking on a label, than simply making a sound with your mouth, or checking a box?

Could it be that someone who launches unprovoked attacks against other nations, oppresses people because of their religion/ethnicity, launches a policy of eugenics against "undesirables", starting with the developmentally disabled, and ending with 6 million Jews murdered in concentration camps, plus millions more Gypsies, Slavs, etc. --

could it be that maybe such a person isn't a Christian, no matter what they may have said in political rhetoric?

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to Volbrigade]

They called themselves "socialists". It's right there in their name.

If they self-identify as "socialists", then that's what they are. Who are you to say otherwise?

Wikipedia
Socialism
Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and workers' control of the means of production;[10] as well as the political ideologies, theories, and movements that aim to establish them.[11] Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective, or cooperative ownership; to citizen ownership of equity; or to any combination of these.[12] Although there are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them,[13] social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Does it occur to you that Hitler may have MISREPRESENTED himself and the intentions of his party in an effort to gain power? People do not usually come right out and say, " I am going to take all power for myself, so come out and vote for me." They misrepresent their intentions, and then they grab power.

Unless of course you are contending that socialism and communism are at opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Isn't that what you (and Z) said about "Christians"? That you are one, if you say you are one?

Are you asserting that there's more to one's taking on a label, than simply making a sound with your mouth, or checking a box?

What I said was that, not being a Christian myself I do not have the right to pronounce judgements concerning who is a real Christian is.

Could it be that someone who launches unprovoked attacks against other nations, oppresses people because of their religion/ethnicity, launches a policy of eugenics against "undesirables", starting with the developmentally disabled, and ending with 6 million Jews murdered in concentration camps, plus millions more Gypsies, Slavs, etc. --

could it be that maybe such a person isn't a Christian, no matter what they may have said in political rhetoric?

Christians historically did EXACTLY that very thing in the name of God and with the blessing of the Catholic church over the centuries.

Here is Hitler in his own words, taken from his book "Mein Kampf."

***

Volume 1, Chapter 1, In the House of My Parents
=============================================================

Their sword will become our plow, and from the tears of war the daily bread
of future generations will grow.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Note: "Their sword will become our plow" appears to paraphrase Micah 4:3
about beating swords into ploughshares, but his tears of war more resembles
Joel 3:9-10 "Beat your plowshares into swords."

I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor
of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to
me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and
most desirable ideal.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

I thank Heaven that a portion of the memories of those days still remains
with me. Woods and meadows were the battlefields on which the 'conflicts'
which exist everywhere in life were decided.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Only a handful of Germans in the Reich had the slightest conception of the
eternal and merciless struggle for the German language, German schools, and
a German way of life. Only today, when the same deplorable misery is forced
on many millions of Germans from the Reich, who under foreign rule dream of
their common fatherland and strive, amid their longing, at least to
preserve their holy right to their mother tongue, do wider circles
understand what it means to be forced to fight for one's nationality.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 1, Chapter 2, Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna
=============================================================

...God have mercy!
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Fate must bring retribution, unless men conciliate Fate while there is
still time. How thankful I am today to the Providence which sent me to that
school!
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Thus my faith grew that my beautiful dream for the future would become
reality after all, even though this might require long years.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The more the linguistic Babel corroded and disorganized parliament, the
closer drew the inevitable hour of the disintegration of this Babylonian
Empire, and with it the hour of freedom for my German-Austrian people.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Not until my fourteenth or fifteenth year did I begin to come across the
word 'Jew,' with any frequency, partly in connection with political
discussions.... For the Jew was still characterized for me by nothing but
his religion, and therefore, on grounds of human tolerance, I maintained my
rejection of religious attacks in this case as in others. Consequently, the
tone, particularly that of the Viennese anti-Semitic press, seemed to me
unworthy of the cultural tradition of a great nation.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic tone, but from time to
time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought. At all events,
these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the movement,
which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger and the
Christian Social Party.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

(Note: Karl Lueger (1844-1910) belonged as a member of the anti-Semitic
Christian Social Party, he became mayor of Vienna and kept his post until
his death.) The man and the movement seemed 'reactionary' in my eyes. My
common sense of justice, however, forced me to change this judgment in
proportion as I had occasion to become acquainted with the man and his
work; and slowly my fair judgment turned to unconcealed admiration. Today,
more than ever, I regard this man as the greatest German mayor of all
times.
-Adolf Hitler speaking about Dr. Karl Lueger (Mein Kampf)

How many of my basic principles were upset by this change in my attitude
toward the Christian Social movement! My views with regard to anti-Semitism
thus succumbed to the passage of time, and this was my greatest
transformation of all.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the
Almighty Creator: *by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for
the work of the Lord.*
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 1, Chapter 3 General Political Considerations Based on My Vienna
Period
=============================================================

A man does not die for something which he himself does not believe in.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The Western democracy of today is the forerunner of Marxism which without
it would not be thinkable. It provides this world plague with the culture
in which its germs can spread.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Just as a man's denominational orientation is the result of upbringing, and
only the religious need as such slumbers in his soul, the political opinion
of the masses represents nothing but the final result of an incredibly
tenacious and thorough manipulation of their mind and soul.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

God forbid!
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Sooner will a camel pass through a needle's eye than a great man be
'discovered' by an election.
-Adolf Hitler with his twist on Mark 10:25 (Mein Kampf)

Thank the Lord, Germanic democracy means just this: that any old climber or
moral slacker cannot rise by devious paths to govern his national comrades,
but that, by the very greatness of the responsibility to be assumed,
incompetents and weaklings are frightened of.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

For by employing religious force in the service of its political
considerations, the crown aroused a spirit which at that outset it had not
considered possible.
-Adolf Hitler on the state of Rome (Mein Kampf)

For when a people is not willing or able to fight for its existence--
Providence in its eternal justice has decreed that people's end.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

the unprecedented rise of the Christian Social Party... was to assume the
deepest significance for me as a classical object of study.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Even less could I understand how the Christian Social Party at this same
period could achieve such immense power. At that time it had just reached
the apogee of its glory.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

But the power which has always started the greatest religious and political
avalanches in history rolling has from time to immemorial been the magic of
power of the spoken word, and that alone. Particularly the broad masses of
the people can be moved only by the power of speech.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The hard struggle which the Pan-Germans fought with the Catholic Church can
be accounted for only by their insufficient understanding of the spiritual
nature of the people.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The root of the whole evil lay, particularly in Schonerer's opinion, in the
fact that the directing body of the Catholic Church was not in Germany, and
that for this very reason alone it was hostile to the interests of our
nationality.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Protestantism as such is a better defender of the interests of Germanism,
in so far as this is grounded in its genesis and later tradition; it fails,
however, in the moment when this defense of national interests must take
place in a province which is either absent from the general line of its
ideological world and traditional development, or is for some reason
rejected.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Thus, Protestantism will always stand up for the advancement of all Germans
as such, as long as matters of inner purity or national deepening as well
as German freedom are involved, since all these things have a firm
foundation in its own being; but it combats with the greatest hostility any
attempt to rescue the nation from the embrace of its most mortal enemy,
since its attitude toward the Jews just happens to be more or less
dogmatically established.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

As long as leadership from above was not lacking, the people fulfilled
their duty and obligation overwhelmingly. Whether Protestant pastor or
Catholic priest, both together and particularly at the first flare, there
really existed in both camps but a single holy German Reich, for whose
existence and future each man turned to his own heaven.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Verily a man cannot serve two masters. And I consider the foundation or
destruction of a religion far greater than the foundation or destruction of
a state, let alone a party.
-Adolf Hitler speaking like Jesus in Matthew 6:24 (Mein Kampf)

Heaven will smile on us again.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Political parties has nothing to do with religious problems, as long as
these are not alien to the nation, undermining the morals and ethics of the
race; just as religion cannot be amalgamated with the scheming of political
parties.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

*For the political leader the religious doctrines and institutions of his
people must always remain inviolable; or else has no right to be in
politics, but should become a reformer, if he has what it takes!*
0 -Adolf Hitler [the original comes in italics] (Mein Kampf)

In nearly all the matters in which the Pan-German movement was wanting, the
attitude of the Christian Social Party was correct and well-planned.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

It [Christian Social Party] recognized the value of large-scale propaganda
and was a virtuoso in influencing the psychological instincts of the broad
masses of its adherents.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The anti-Semitism of the new movement [Christian Social movement] was based
on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

If Dr. Karl Lueger had lived in Germany, he would have been ranked among
the great minds of our people.
-Adolf Hitler speaking about the leader of the Christian Social movement
(Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 1, Chapter 4, Munich
=============================================================

But the people on top made a cult of the 'ally,' as if it were the Golden
Calf.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

(The Golden calf occurs in Exodus 32:1-4)

Mankind has grown great in eternal struggle, and only in eternal peace does
it perish.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

We must, therefore, coolly and objectively adopt the standpoint that it can
certainly not be the intention of Heaven to give one people fifty times as
much land and soil in this world as another.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

...a man does not die for business, but for ideals.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 1, Chapter 5, The World War
=============================================================

Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm,
I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for
granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

I had so often sung 'Deutschland u:ber Alles' and shouted 'Heil' at the top
of my lungs, that it seemed to me almost a belated act of grace to be
allowed to stand as a witness in the divine court of the eternal judge and
proclaim the sincerity of this conviction.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Indeed, nearly all attempts to exterminate a doctrine and its
organizational expression, by force without spiritual foundation, are
doomed to failure, and not seldom end with the exact opposite of the
desired result...
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Only in the steady and constant application of force lies the very first
prerequisite for success. This persistence, however, can always and only
arise from a definite spiritual conviction. Any violence which does not
spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 1, Chapter 6, War Propaganda
=============================================================

I soon realized that the correct use of propaganda is a true art which has
remained practically unknown to the bourgeois parties. Only the
Christian-Social movement, especially in Lueger's time achieved a certain
virtuosity on this instrument, to which it owed many of its success.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Certainly we don't have to discuss these matters with the Jews, the most
modern inventors of this cultural perfume. Their whole existence is an
embodied protest against the aesthetics of the Lord's image.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 1, Chapter 7, The Revolution
=============================================================

More than once I was tormented by the thought that if Providence had put me
in the place of the incapable of criminal incompetents or scoundrels in our
propaganda service, our battle with Destiny would have taken a different
turn.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the heavens along the
endless marching columns, and for the last time the Lord's grace smiled on
His ungrateful children.
-Adolf Hitler reflecting on World War I (Mein Kampf)

...we must pray to the Almighty not to refuse His blessing to this change
and not to abandon our people in the times to come.
-Hitler recalling a priest's speech after the defeat of WWI (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 1, Chapter 8, The Beginning of My Political Activity
=============================================================

As soon as the theoretician attempts to take account of so-called 'utility'
and 'reality' instead of absolute truth, his work will cease to be a polar
star of seeking humanity and instead will become a prescription for
everyday life.
-Adolf Hitler reflecting on World War I (Mein Kampf)

The thinking of the one, therefore, will be determined by eternal truth,
the actions of the other more by the practical reality of the moment. The
greatness of the one lies in the absolute abstract soundness of his idea...
-Adolf Hitler reflecting on World War I (Mein Kampf)

The more abstractly correct and hence powerful this idea will be, the more
impossible remains its complete fulfillment as long as it continues to
depend on human beings...
If this were not so, the founders of religion could not be counted among
the greatest men of this earth... In its workings, even the religion of
love is only the weak reflection of the will of its exalted founder; its
significance, however, lies in the direction which it attempted to give to
a universal human development of culture, ethics, and morality.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

To them belong, not only the truly great statesmen, but all other great
reformers as well. Beside Frederick the Great stands Martin Luther as well
as Richard Wagner.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of
our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of
our blood, the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our
people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the
creator of the universe.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 1, Chapter 10, Causes of the Collapse
=============================================================

Consequently, the value and importance of the monarchic idea cannot reside
in the person of the monarch himself except if Heaven decides to lay the
crown on the brow of the heroic genius like Frederick the Great or a wise
character like William I.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Hastily and indifferently, people tried to pass by the unpleasant truths,
as though by such an attitude events could be undone. No, the fact that our
big city population is growing more and more prostituted in its love life
cannot just be denied out of existence; it simply is so.
...it is said with such terrible justice that the sins of the fathers are
avenged down to the tenth generation. But this applies only to profanation
of the blood and the race.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

(Avenged to the tenth generation appears in Deuteronomy 23:2-3)

Blood sin and desecration of the race are the original sin in this world
and the end of a humanity which surrenders to it.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The fight against syphilis demands a fight against prostitution, against
prejudices, old habits, against previous conceptions, general views among
them not least the false prudery of certain circles.
The first prerequisite for even the moral right to combat these things is
the facilitation of earlier marriage for the coming generation. In late
marriage alone lies the compulsion to retain an institution which, twist
and turn as you like, is and remains a disgrace to humanity, an institution
which is damned ill-suited to a being who with his usual modesty likes to
regard himself as the 'image' of God.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the poisoning of
the soul must begin. Our whole public life today is like a hothouse for
sexual ideas and simulations. Just look at the bill of fare served up in
our movies, vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able to deny
that this is not the right kind of food, particularly for the youth...
Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must
be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world and placed in the
service of a moral, political, and cultural idea.
-Adolf Hitler sounding like the Moral Majority (Mein Kampf)

But if out of smugness, or even cowardice, this battle is not fought to its
end, then take a look at the peoples five hundred years from now. I think
you will find but few images of God, unless you want to profane the
Almighty.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The works of Mortiz von Schwind, or of a Bo:cklin, were also an inner
experience, but of artists graced by God and not of clowns.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

How widespread the general disunity was growing is shown by an examination
of religious conditions before the War. Here, too, a unified and effective
philosophical conviction had long since been lost in large sections of the
nation. In this the members officially breaking away from the churches play
a less important role than those who are completely indifferent.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

While both denominations maintain missions in Asia and Africa in order to
win new followers for their doctrine-- an activity which can boast but very
modest success compared to the advance of the Mohammedan faith in
particular-- right here in Europe they lose millions and millions of inward
adherents who either are alien to all religious life or simply so their own
ways. The consequences, particularly from a moral point of view, are not
favorable.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Also noteworthy is the increasingly violent struggle against the dogmatic
foundations of the various churches without which in this human world the
practical existence of a religious faith is not conceivable.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for
the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude. The
various substitutes have not proved so successful from the standpoint of
results that they could be regarded as a useful replacement for previous
religious creeds. But if religious doctrine and faith are really to embrace
the broad masses, the unconditional authority of the content of this faith
is the foundation of all efficacy.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The attack against dogmas as such, therefore, strongly resembles the
struggle against the general legal foundations of a state, and , as the
latter would end in a total anarchy of the state, the former would end in a
worthless religious nihilism.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Worst of all, however, is the devastation wrought by the misuse of
religious conviction for political ends. In truth, we cannot sharply enough
attack those wretched crooks who would like to make religion an implement
to perform political or rather business services for them.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 1, Chapter 11, Nation and Race
=============================================================

The result of all racial crossing is therefore in brief always the
following:
(a) Lowering of the level of the higher race;
(b) Physical and intellectual regression and hence the beginning of a
slowly but surely progressing sickness.
To bring about such a development is, then, nothing else but to sin against
the will of the eternal creator. And as a sin this act is rewarded.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Here, of course, we encounter the objection of the modern pacifist, as
truly Jewish in its effrontery as it is stupid! 'Man's role is to overcome
Nature!'
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

(Man's dominion over earth appears in Genesis 1:26)

...the fall of man in paradise has always been followed by his expulsion.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

(See Genesis Chapter 3)

...that is why the prophet seldom has any honor in his own country.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

("For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own
country." John 4:44)

The purest idealism is unconsciously equivalent to the deepest knowledge.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The Jew has always been a people with definite racial characteristics and
never a religion.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Due to his own original special nature, the Jew cannot possess a religious
institution, if for no other reason because he lacks idealism in any form,
and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him. And a
religion in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction
of survival after death in some form. Indeed, the Talmud is not a book to
prepare a man for the hereafter, but only for a practical and profitable
life in this world.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious
education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit
is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years
previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the
latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when
necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this
adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but
an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to
the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to
begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political
swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-- and this against their own nation.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

At times of the bitterest distress, fury against him finally breaks out,
and the plundered and ruined masses begin to defend themselves against the
scourge of God.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

(See Isaiah 63)

This game is repeated again and again, and in it the role of the so-called
'German princes' is just as miserable as that of the Jews themselves. These
lords were really God's punishment for their beloved peoples and find their
parallels only in the various ministers of the present time.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

They [German princes] made a pact with the devil and landed in hell.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

If we consider how greatly he has sinned against the masses in the course
of the centuries, how he has squeezed and sucked the blood again and again;
if furthermore, we consider how the people gradually learned to hate him
for this, and ended up by regarding his existence as nothing but punishment
of Heaven for the other peoples, we can understand how hard this shift must
be for the Jew.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

First, therefore, he goes about making up to the people for his previous
sins against them. He begins his career as the 'benefactor' of mankind.
Since his new benevolence has a practical foundation, that the left hand
should not know what the right hand giveth; no, whether he likes it or not,
he must reconcile himself to letting as many people as possible know how
deeply he feels the sufferings of the masses and all the sacrifices that he
himself is making to combat them.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

(The left/right hand paraphrase appears to come from Matthew 6:3)

But even more: all at once the Jew also becomes liberal and begins to rave
about the necessary progress of mankind.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The Jew almost never marries a Christian woman; it is the Christian who
marries a Jewess.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the
living shape of the Jew.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait
for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her
from her people.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Peoples which bastardize themselves, or let themselves be bastardized, sin
against the will of eternal Providence...
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Providence did not bestow her reward on the victorious sword, but followed
the law of eternal retribution.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 1, Chapter 12 The First Period of Development of the Nationalist
Social German Worker's Party
=============================================================

Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than
respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to the
mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less in a
scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism which
inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The future of a movement is conditioned by the fanaticism, yes, the
intolerance, with which its adherents uphold it as the sole correct
movement, and push it past other formations of a similar sort.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

...absolute intolerance also provides long growth.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea in this world
lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance with which, fanatically
convinced of its own right, it intolerantly imposes its will against all
others.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for
compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world,
but in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own
doctrine.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

No more than a famous master can be replaced and another take over the
completion of the half-finished painting he has left behind can the great
poet and thinker, the great statesman and the great soldier, be replaced.
For their activity lies always in the province of art. It is not
mechanically trained but inborn by God's grace.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

All in all, this whole period of winter 1919-20 was a single struggle to
strengthen confidence in the victorious might of the young movement and
raise it to that fanaticism of faith which can move mountains.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The characteristic thing about these people is that they rave about old
Germanic heroism, about dim prehistory, stone axes, spear and shield, but
in reality are the greatest cowards that can be imagined. For the same
people who brandish scholarly imitations of old German tin swords, and wear
a dressed bearskin with bull's horns over their heads, preach for the
present nothing but struggle with spiritual weapons, and run away as fast
as they can from every Communist blackjack.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

(The above statement refutes the common impression that Hitler admired
ancient Nordic customs.)

A man who knows a thing, who is aware of a given danger, and sees the
possibility of a remedy with his own eyes, has the duty and obligation, by
God, not to work 'silently,' but to stand up before the whole public
against the evil and for its cure.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 2, Chapter 1, Philosophy and Party
=============================================================

Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable stupidity of
the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin the fight for the
'remaking' of the Reich as they call it.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

By helping to raise man above the level of bestial vegetation, faith
contributes in reality to the securing and safeguarding of his existence.
Take away from present-day mankind its education-based, religious-dogmatic
principles-- or, practically speaking, ethical-moral principles-- by
abolishing this religious education, but without replacing it by an
equivalent, and the result will be a grave shock to the foundations of
their existence.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Of course, even the general designation 'religious' includes various basic
ideas or convictions, for example, the indestructibility of the soul, the
eternity of its existence, the existence of a higher being, etc. But all
these ideas, regardless of how convincing they may be for the individual,
are submitted to the critical examination of this individual and hence to a
fluctuating affirmation or negation until emotional divination or knowledge
assumes the binding force of apodictic faith. This, above all, is the
fighting factor which makes a breach and opens the way for the recognition
of basic religious views.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits
sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to
the expulsion from paradise.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 2, Chapter 2, The State
=============================================================

We, as Aryans, can conceive of the state only as the living organism of a
nationality which not only assures the preservation of its nationality, but
by the development of its spiritual and ideal abilities leads it to the
highest freedom.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

the task of preserving and advancing the highest humanity, given to this
earth by the benevolence of the Almighty, seems a truly high mission.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

World history is made by minorities when this minority of number embodies
the majority of will and determination.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

A folkish state must therefore begin by raising marriage from the level of
a continuous defilement of the race, and give it the consecration of an
institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not
monstrosities halfway between man and ape.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

It would be more in keeping with the intention of the noblest man in this
world if our two Christian churches, instead of annoying Negroes with
missions which they neither desire nor understand, would kindly, but in all
seriousness, teach our European humanity that where parents are not healthy
it is a deed pleasing to God to take pity on a poor little healthy orphan
child and give him father and mother, than themselves to give birth to a
sick child who will only bring unhappiness and suffering on himself and the
rest of the world.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

That this is possible may not be denied in a world where hundreds and
hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily submit to celibacy, obligated
and bound by nothing except the injunction of the Church. Should the same
renunciation not be possible if this injunction is replaced by the
admonition finally to put an end to the constant and continuous original
sin of racial poisoning, and to give the Almighty Creator beings such as He
Himself created?
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

*For the greatest revolutionary changes on this earth would not have been
thinkable if their motive force, instead of fanatical, yes, hysterical
passion, had been merely the bourgeois virtues of law and order.*
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

It doesn't dawn on this depraved bourgeois world that this is positively a
sin against all reason; that it is criminal lunacy to keep on drilling a
born half-ape until people think they have made a lawyer out of him, while
millions of members of the highest culture-race must remain in entirely
unworthy positions; that it is a sin against the will of the Eternal
Creator if His most gifted beings by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands
are allowed to degenerate in the present proletarian morass, while
Hottentots and Zulu Kaffirs are trained for intellectual professions.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the
time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 2, Chapter 5, Philosophy and Organization
=============================================================

Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it
was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars.
Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form;
this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a
doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes
in its outward structure? ...Here, too, we can learn by the example of the
Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite
superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is
none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its
dogmas... it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character
of a faith.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 2, Chapter 7, The Struggle with the Red Front
=============================================================

I must frankly admit that... I should probably lose all interest in life
and would rather not be a German at all. But since, thank the Lord, this
cannot be done, we have no need to be surprised that the health, unspoiled
people avoid 'bourgeois mass meetings' as the devil holy water.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

This, it may be that centuries, dissatisfied with the form of their
religious life, yearn for a renewal, and that from this psychic urge dozens
and more men arise who on the basis of their insight and their knowledge
believe themselves as prophets of a new doctrine, or at least as warriors
against an existing one.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

The main fighter for the DSP [*Deutsch-Sozialistische Partei* or German
Socialist Party], as I have said, was Julius Streicher, then a teacher in
Nuremberg. At first he, too, had a holy conviction of the mission and the
future of his movement.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

*Great, truly world-shaking revolutions of a spiritual nature are not even
conceivable and realizable except as the titanic struggles of individual
formations, never as enterprises of coalitions.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 2, Chapter 10, Federalism as a Mask
=============================================================

The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own
denomination, of making *people stop just talking superficially of God's
will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be
desecrated.* For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their
abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's
creation, the divine will.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

In the ranks of the movement [National Socialist movement], *the most
devout Protestant* could sit beside *the most devout Catholic,* without
coming into the slightest conflict with his religious convictions. The
mighty common struggle which both carried on against the destroyer of Aryan
humanity had, on the contrary, taught them mutually to respect and esteem
one another.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 2, Chapter 13, German Alliance Policy After the War
=============================================================

... the world has no reason for fighting in our defense, and as a matter of
principle God does not make cowardly nations free...
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

If the German nation wants to end a state of affairs that threatens its
extermination in Europe, it must not fall into the error of the pre-War
period and make enemies of God and the world; it must recognize the most
dangerous enemy and strike at him with all its concentrated power. And if
this victory is obtained through sacrifices elsewhere, the coming
generations of our people will not condemn us.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

For this, to be sure, from the child's primer down to the last newspaper,
every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every
billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission,
until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: 'Lord, make us
free!' is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning
plea: '*Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou
hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless
our battle!'
-Adolf Hitler's prayer (Mein Kampf)

=============================================================
Volume 2, Chapter 14, Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy
=============================================================

...we National Socialists must hold unflinchingly to our aim in foreign
policy, namely *to secure for the German people the land and soil to which
they are entitles on this earth.* And this action is the only one which,
before God and or German posterity, would make any sacrifice of blood seem
justified: before God, since we have been put on this earth with the
mission of eternal struggle for our daily bread...
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

And so he [the Jew] advances on his fatal road until another force comes
forth to oppose him, and in a mighty struggle hurls the heaven-stormer back
to Lucifer. Germany is today the next great war aim of Bolshevism. It
requires all the force of a young missionary idea to raise our people up
again, to free them from the snares of this international serpent...
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

*The fight against Jewish world Bolshevization requires a clear attitude
toward Soviet Russia. You cannot drive out the Devil with Beelzebub.*
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

(devils through Beelzebub comes from Luke 11:15-19)

Never forget that the most sacred right on this earth is a man's right to
have earth to till with his own hands, and the most sacred sacrifice the
blood that a man sheds for this earth.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

(till the ground: see Genesis 3:23)

=============================================================
Volume 2, Chapter 15, The Right of Emergency Defense
=============================================================

Viewing all this from a higher vantage-point, we can speak of one single
piece of good fortune in all this misery, which is that, though men can be
befuddled, the heavens cannot be bribed.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

But in the great hour Heaven sent the German people a great man, Herr von Cuno. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf )

***

You didn't read it all, did you? Because long before the end my point was clear. Hitler was religious, and his world view was derived from Christian upbringing.

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 95 by Tired of the Nonsense]

LOL -- I certainly have no excuse for putting off reading "Mein Kampf", in its entirety, any longer. Thanks for the paste job. It only took twenty minutes or so to scroll through it.

I will give it the consideration it merits. Who knows? Perhaps if I were to carefully authenticate each excerpt, and dutifully research Der Fuhrer's understanding and intent and with regard to each one, I might be able to share your conclusion that a charismatic murderous madman, who directed racial genocide and instigated a war that produced perhaps 50 million casualties, inspired by his understanding of Darwin's "struggle for existence", "survival of the fittest", and "preservation of favored races", was actually a believing Christian, and a follower of the "Prince of Peace".

One thing's for sure: he might as well be. Because if your "everything is quantum foam" is true, there is no categorial difference between Adolf and Gandhi.

Tell you what -- that's quite a chunk of Hiterlian text you provided. Not exactly page-turning material.

Give me a little while to give it it's full due --

say, a year or two?

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 95 by Tired of the Nonsense]

LOL -- I certainly have no excuse for putting off reading "Mein Kampf", in its entirety, any longer. Thanks for the paste job. It only took twenty minutes or so to scroll through it.

I will give it the consideration it merits. Who knows? Perhaps if I were to carefully authenticate each excerpt, and dutifully research Der Fuhrer's understanding and intent and with regard to each one, I might be able to share your conclusion that a charismatic murderous madman, who directed racial genocide and instigated a war that produced perhaps 50 million casualties, inspired by his understanding of Darwin's "struggle for existence", "survival of the fittest", and "preservation of favored races", was actually a believing Christian, and a follower of the "Prince of Peace".

One thing's for sure: he might as well be. Because if your "everything is quantum foam" is true, there is no categorial difference between Adolf and Gandhi.

Tell you what -- that's quite a chunk of Hiterlian text you provided. Not exactly page-turning material.

Give me a little while to give it it's full due --

say, a year or two?

I never expected you to read every bit of it. The purpose was to establish just how thoroughly Hitler's Christian upbringing influenced his thinking as an adult. Reading Hitler is somewhat akin to holding a snake. At first it's pretty creepy.

Both Gandhi and Hitler were the result of quantum mechanics, this is true. But our opinion of each is entirely our own.

You say you enjoy learning new things. As an award for even attempting to read some of Mein Kampf, I am going to give you Richard Feynman to consider. If you are not aware of who Richard Feynman is, he is the person who more-or-less inherited the entirely arbitrary and unofficial title of "smartest man in the world" after Einstein died. Feynman died in 1988 and is something of a hero of mine. The unofficial title of "smartest man in the world" is currently unofficially held by Stephen Hawking, simply as a result of being the world's best known scientist.

At any rate, this video is about 15 minutes long. Pay close attention, because his every thought is deeply intelligent.

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 97 by Tired of the Nonsense]

Ahhh, yes. Feynman.

I love this quote, by him:

"I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics... in fact, it is often stated of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. Some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for it, in fact, is that it is unquestionably correct."



By the way --

if your point is that Hitler was "religious", you get no argument from me.

Religion is a very dangerous thing.

It cannot but keep men from the Truth of Jesus Christ.

Christianity, in its purest form, is not a religion, at all. It is a relationship. With the God who created heaven and earth.

That has become a cliche; but only because it is fundamentally true.

Hitler may have been a Catholic, I don't know. He was certainly what I call a "Whateverist" -- one of those who believe in something, nothing, everything, anything. Whatever.

The fastest-growing variant of Whateverism -- which is the prevailing "religion" of our time, and includes the vague secular-humanistic materialistic "faith"-- is "Sheila-ism". After the semi-famous "Sheila", who semi-famously proclaimed that she had her own religion, her own "god", and her own version of reality -- and it was whatever she decided it was.

Or words to that effect.

No wonder people are opaque, and deaf, to the Truth of Jesus Christ. [shrug]

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to Volbrigade]

Ahhh, yes. Feynman.

I love this quote, by him:

"I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics... in fact, it is often stated of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. Some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for it, in fact, is that it is unquestionably correct."

Yes, this is the recognition that based on our direct macro intuitive view of how the universe appears to work, the world of the quanta is ever curiouser and curiouser. It would be hard to consider the concepts of quantum mechanics even potentially valid (as believers are so often inclined to do) if it weren't for the inarguable fact that the practical application of quantum mechanics has led directly to all of our modern working technology. If quantum mechanics is not valid, then that computer you are sitting at should not be functioning. Quantum mechanics may not be intuitive, but it is "unquestionably correct," because it has direct practical applications.

By the way --

if your point is that Hitler was "religious", you get no argument from me.

Religion is a very dangerous thing.

Not only do I agree thoroughly with this statement, it is one of my main objections to religion in general. Virtually all religions claim to be peaceful and benevolent. In practice however religions engender a type of unwavering self righteous certainty that causes people to commit hideous actions against others in the name of their religious beliefs. In a nuclear world these types of passionately self righteous beliefs represent an unprecedented danger to all life on earth. We humans need to recognize these ancient superstitious beliefs for the nonsense that have always been, so we can put them behind us before the passions they engender destroy us all.

It cannot but keep men from the Truth of Jesus Christ.

Conflict over the various beliefs in the "Truth of Jesus Christ" have been responsible for millions of deaths over the centuries. WHY! Because the truth is, Jesus (Yeshua of Nazareth) LEFT NOTHING WRITTEN IN HIS OWN HAND! Nothing which serves to tell us unquestionably what HE actually believed and HE actually intended. Not having such a definitive statement directly from Jesus' own hand allows for an almost limitless interpretation to have developed. Everything you and others suppose that Jesus personally believed and stood for, is derived from material written decades after Jesus was dead by individuals proclaiming what THEY personally believed. Dozens and dozens of works, which have then been culled and sorted over the course of centuries, and either discarded as inaccurate and unacceptable, or accepted and included into the "canon" of Christian belief as depicting the "real" consensus Jesus, by individuals who lived centuries after Jesus lived and died. Having no actual "words of Jesus" written in his own hand, has resulted in thousands of different concepts of Jesus to have form over the centuries. And this allows the "Truth of Jesus Christ" to be tailored do be exactly whatever each group prefers to belief it to be. The Jesus that history has constructed over the centuries is a composite individual. That Jesus is a myth. The actual historical Yeshua has long since been lost beyond all recovery.

To give you some perspective, here is a list of many of the various documents written about Jesus in the years following his death that DIDN'T make the cut into the final 27 books of the NT. All of these documents were considered to have been true and accurate at one time by one group of Christians or another.

1 and 2 Clement
Shepherd of Hermas
Didache
Epistle of Barnabas
Apocalypse of Peter
Third Epistle to the Corinthians
Gospel of Thomas
Oxyrhynchus Gospels
Egerton Gospel
Fayyum Fragment
Dialogue of the Saviour
The Gospel of the Ebionites ("GE") – 7 quotations by Epiphanius.
The Gospel of the Hebrews ("GH") – 1 quotation ascribed to Cyril of Jerusalem, plus GH 2–7 quotations by Clement, Origen, and Jerome.
The Gospel of the Nazarenes
Gospel of the Ebionites
Gospel of the Hebrews
Gospel of the Nazoraeans
Secret Gospel of Mark
Gospel of Marcion
Gospel of Judas
Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of Marcion (mid 2nd century)
Gospel of Mani (3rd century)
Gospel of Apelles (mid-late 2nd century)
Gospel of Bardesanes (late 2nd - early 3rd century)
Gospel of Basilides (mid 2nd century)
Gospel of Peter
Gospel of Nicodemus (also called the "Acts of Pilate")
Pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem, On the Life and the Passion of Christ
Gospel of Bartholomew
Questions of Bartholomew
Resurrection of Jesus
Apocryphon of James (also called the "Secret Book of James")
Book of Thomas the Contender
Dialogue of the Saviour
Gospel of Judas (also called the "Gospel of Judas Iscariot")
Gospel of Mary (also called the "Gospel of Mary Magdalene")
Gospel of Philip
Greek Gospel of the Egyptians (distinct from the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians)
The Sophia of Jesus Christ
Coptic Apocalypse of Paul (distinct from the Apocalypse of Paul)
Gospel of Truth
Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter (distinct from the Apocalypse of Peter)
Pistis Sophia
Second Treatise of the Great Seth
Apocryphon of John (also called the "Secret Gospel of John")
Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians (distinct from the Greek Gospel of the Egyptians)
Trimorphic Protennoia
Acts of Andrew
Acts of Barnabas
Acts of John
Acts of the Martyrs
Acts of Paul
Acts of Paul and Thecla
Acts of Peter
Acts of Peter and Andrew
Acts of Peter and Paul
Acts of Peter and the Twelve
Acts of Philip
Acts of Pilate
Acts of Thomas
Acts of Timothy
Acts of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca
Epistle of Barnabas
Epistles of Clement
Epistle of the Corinthians to Paul
Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans
Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians
Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians
Epistle to Diognetus
Epistle to the Laodiceans (an epistle in the name of Paul)
Epistle to Seneca the Younger (an epistle in the name of Paul)
Third Epistle to the Corinthians - accepted in the past by some in the Armenian Orthodox church.
Apocalypse of Paul (distinct from the Coptic Apocalypse of Paul)
Apocalypse of Peter (distinct from the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter)
Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius
Apocalypse of Thomas (also called the Revelation of Thomas)
Apocalypse of Stephen (also called the Revelation of Stephen)
First Apocalypse of James (also called the First Revelation of James)
Second Apocalypse of James (also called the Second Revelation of James)
The Shepherd of Hermas
The Descent of Mary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament_apocrypha


And this is why it is impossible for any one group today to actually trace it's ancestry directly back to Jesus. There in only an entangled knot of differing beliefs constructed according to the concepts that each group prefered to subscribe to.

Christianity, in its purest form, is not a religion, at all. It is a relationship. With the God who created heaven and earth.

That has become a cliche; but only because it is fundamentally true.

That is the belief that appeals to you and therefore that is the belief that you subscribe to. All you have to sustain this claim of course is your assertion that your beliefs are the true and valid beliefs because they are sustained not only by the precise documents that you have declared to be the real true and valid documents, but by the interpretation of these documents that you have chosen to declare to be the one true interpretation of them. Which is exactly what all believers do.

And your statement of belief does not serve to change the fact that what you are doing is having regular conversations with invisible friends. And this practice is either absolutely valid, or it is little different from believing in and practicing voodoo.

Hitler may have been a Catholic, I don't know. He was certainly what I call a "Whateverist" -- one of those who believe in something, nothing, everything, anything. Whatever.

Hitler was raised Catholic and considered himself to be a Catholic. Or at least he never publicly renounced his Catholicism. And of course Catholics now insist that he was never ACTUALLY one of them. But he was given Catholic instruction as a boy. His worldview was based on his Catholic upbringing. And as I earlier pointed out to you, Catholics have an ugly history of taking it upon themselves to do terrible things to those who do not conform to their beliefs and worldview. But then, that has been a consistent problem with ALL religious people.

The fastest-growing variant of Whateverism -- which is the prevailing "religion" of our time, and includes the vague secular-humanistic materialistic "faith"-- is "Sheila-ism". After the semi-famous "Sheila", who semi-famously proclaimed that she had her own religion, her own "god", and her own version of reality -- and it was whatever she decided it was.

You are correct. Sheila Larson declared her ability to be in tune with the mind of God, and to be able to follow a little voice in her head that she attributes to God. She is simply doing on an individual basis, what church congregations do as a group. It's what you call having a personal relationship with God, and I call make believe.

No wonder people are opaque, and deaf, to the Truth of Jesus Christ.

One way or another each person is fully in tune with their own personal concept of Jesus. And there are millions of varieties of concepts to choose from. So at best the odds that you have chosen the correct one is one in a million. At worst the reason that there are so many varieties of beliefs to choose from is that NONE of them is founded on solid ground. Which has caused them to fracture into millions of beliefs, each one specifically tailored to conform to the specific belief most attractive to each individual believer. And they all do seem to work to provide the emotional comfort that each individual believer apparently so desperately feels they need.

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 99 by Tired of the Nonsense]

Volbrigade wrote:

Ahhh, yes. Feynman.

I love this quote, by him:

"I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics... in fact, it is often stated of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. Some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for it, in fact, is that it is unquestionably correct."

Yes, this is the recognition that based on our direct macro intuitive view of how the universe appears to work, the world of the quanta is ever curiouser and curiouser. It would be hard to consider the concepts of quantum mechanics even potentially valid (as believers are so often inclined to do) if it weren't for the inarguable fact that the practical application of quantum mechanics has led directly to all of our modern working technology. If quantum mechanics is not valid, then that computer you are sitting at should not be functioning. Quantum mechanics may not be intuitive, but it is "unquestionably correct," because it has direct practical applications.

The great Christian teacher, Dr. Chuck Missler, who is a "man's man" -- built a computer in his parents' garage at 17, turned down Cal Tech for Annapolis, and a Naval career that placed him in the field of information science and cryptology during the Cold War technology boom, from where he landed in the corporate world, serving on the boards of think tanks and hi-tech companies (e.g., Rand) and military contractors, all the while pursuing his intense interest in, and precise study of, the Bible, born of his justification (with God -- i.e., salvation, "faith in Jesus") as a teenager, which led to his leading Bible studies in his maturity that incorporated his encyclopedic knowledge of science, technology, language, history, and the Bible, the cassette copies made by participants copied so prodigiously that they became a sort of cottage industry, and in turn led to his establishing the Koinonia House ministry; his presentation unique not only in content, but in style: warm and humorous, as expressed in the self-deprecating quote "everybody has a spiritual gift. Mine is sarcasm" (I just wanted to see how long I could make a run-on sentence -- that'll do ) --

at any rate, Dr. Missler tells the following amusing (to me) story (I don't recall all the details. I'll do the best I can):

He was sitting on the board of a hi-tech concern during a presentation of the latest in atomic clocks. The claim made regarding the clock was that it was accurate to within one-thousandth of a second every 100 million years, or some such astronomical claim.

The claim prompted a couple of questions from Chuck (and as he tells the story, a sort of impish smile creeps across his face): "How do you know? And who cares?"

The answer to the first question has to do with the vibration of the Cesium atom.

The answer to second question is that such precise time-keeping is necessary for the implementation of accurate GPS technology, and other applications.

I think you're a tad hyperbolic to claim that quantum theory is responsible for ALL of our working technology. But it has had a dramatic impact, especially when coupled with the more generic "atomic science".

Which is why it is friendly to Christianity. Everything that corresponds with ultimate truth is.

Aren't we blessed to inhabit such a magnificently designed creation?

And isn't it interesting that the "fairy tale for grownups" -- the microbes-to-men evolutionary myth -- cannot boast of one single technological advance associated with it?

Volbrigade wrote:

By the way --

if your point is that Hitler was "religious", you get no argument from me.

Religion is a very dangerous thing.

Not only do I agree thoroughly with this statement, it is one of my main objections to religion in general. Virtually all religions claim to be peaceful and benevolent. In practice however religions engender a type of unwavering self righteous certainty that causes people to commit hideous actions against others in the name of their religious beliefs.

Christianity being the lone exception in that regard.

Volbrigade wrote:

It cannot but keep men from the Truth of Jesus Christ.

Conflict over the various beliefs in the "Truth of Jesus Christ" have been responsible for millions of deaths over the centuries.

No.

Men's pride, their sinful nature, the fact that "tares have been sown among the wheat" (by a malevolent and dangerous spiritual enemy), and other factors have led to, perhaps, thousands of deaths in the name of the Christian religion -- but not true, or "Mere", Christianity.

But contrast that with the tens of millions of deaths prompted by secularism, and the battle over materialist belief systems (fascism, communism, Marxism, Darwinism, capitalism), during the bloody 20th century alone.

To give you some perspective, here is a list of many of the various documents written about Jesus in the years following his death that DIDN'T make the cut into the final 27 books of the NT.

All of them works of various value, some quite worthless; others notable for insights into language, culture, etc.

None of them considered worthy of inclusion as canon, as Paul's epistles were very early on (2 Peter 3:14-16).

Volbrigade wrote:

Christianity, in its purest form, is not a religion, at all. It is a relationship. With the God who created heaven and earth.

That has become a cliche; but only because it is fundamentally true.

That is the belief that appeals to you and therefore that is the belief that you subscribe to.

But only because it is TRUE.

And your statement of belief does not serve to change the fact that what you are doing is having regular conversations with invisible friends.

Yes. Message board forums are odd things -- are they not, my invisible friend?