Re: CONTRARY EVIDENCE (WASRe: Evide)nce!

Ron Dean wrote:

Ernest Major wrote:

On 24/03/2024 21:10, Ron Dean wrote:

I only named only 3 atheist.

 One of whom was a Christian, not an atheist. (I'm not certain about the other two, but it seems more likely that not that they were indeed atheists.) >

I suspect you are speaking of Hitler. If so - you have offered no proof.
I quote:
"Hitler wasn't a Christian. The fact that so many atheist insist he was and use his quotations in public speeches to 'prove' this is... embarrassing. It's no better than right-wingers citing his party's name. National Socialist German Workers' party, as proof that Hitler was a socialist."

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/xzfrn6/hitler_wasnt_a_christian_the_fact_that_so_many/

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In public he says one thing, but in private his true self emerges.

That issue has come up frequently on TO, so I mainly repost
things I said before. And no, "some bloke on reddit said so" is
not an argument. And you are right, for some people, (but some people only) one's
paradigm can take over and lead to the denial of the evidence - as
it does so obviously in your case here, again. You deny all the
observation of Hitler endorsing Christianity ad and Christian thoughts
trying to explain them away with unobserved "private "reservations.
Unfortunately for you, we have a pretty good track record of his private
thoughts too, from his earlier letters (from the 1920s)
to his "autobiography" where he justifies himself to his most loyal followers (so no need to put up an act) to his "table talks". And the image we get is that he consistently, in
private, and long before he became a political player, and later in public
expressed opinions and ideas that come directly from Christian schools of
thought, though some of them fringe beliefs
As the theologian Reiner Bucher, who did the most comprehensive study
to date on religion and nazism, writes (my translation);
"Hitler has, if not all the evidence is misleading, really believed
what he said about theology. One of the reasons for this is the
high degree of consistency of his resulting theology.
It remains the same from his earliest writing to the "time of struggle"
in "mein Kampf" to his latest writings and private comments in 1945.
Even more important, his theological ideas are needed to explain
his actions. Only his religious beliefs can explain why he
continued the war fanatically even when it was clear even
for him that both, war and Holocaust, would eventually destroy
Germany and , physically and morally, himself. My studies show that
Hitlers texts are a genuine theological discourses and are
much more than a mere private mythology or political rhetoric.
Hitler is of course not a Christian theologian, and also not
an academic theologian, but he developed his political project
in the name of a god - and that from his first to his last
words, public and private"
(Rainer Bucher, Hitlers Theologie, in Lucia Scherzberg (ed)
Theologie und Vergangenheitsbewealtigung", (Theology
and coming to terms with the past)basel 2005 What does Bucher mean with that?
Religious affiliations tend to be inherited, which led one atheist
quip "“Religion is a sexually transmitted disease: you get it from your
parents.” He was born in a predominately Christian society, to Christian
parents, he was received into the faith through his baptism and sealed
in the sacrament of confirmation, and neither did the church expel him,
nor did he ever renounce membership.
The specific dominant social and religious environment in which he grew
up was Austro-fascism, an alliance between the Catholic church and far-right, ultra-national politics. This alignment of fascism with the church was typical for Europe at that time - we find it in Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain, the Ustaše in Croatia, Metaxism in Greece etc etc.
They all were a blend of fascism/corporatism, Roman Catholicism and ultranationalism. The church was willing to collaborate with everyone willing to oppose "godless communism" and liberal modernity (which quite officially included a rejection of democracy) .The use of violence for this goal was actively encouraged, as was a strong anti-democratic ideology by church leaders on all levels. Nationalism, racism and anti-semitic sentiment were a common element of these systems.
The importance of his roots for his religious beliefs in later life
are discussed  in Derek Hastings "Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism:
Religious Identity and National Socialism" (Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 2010; paperback 2011) and in (Father) Kevin P. Spicer's
 "Hitler’s Priests: Catholic Clergy and National Socialism", DeKalb, IL, Northern Illinois University Press, 2008 That was the climate he was exposed to in his formative years, so perceiving Christianity as a natural component of a racist, ultra-
nationalist, non-democratic society was perfecly normal for him. Unsurprisingly, he endorsed privately and publicly, long before he became a
political figure and afterwards, in a very consistent way his belief in
a specific (fringe) interpretation of Christianity that drew heavily on
ideas that church leaders in these clerico-facist systems promoted.
He did so also in situations where it did not give him any advantages, if anything it put him at odds even with his supporters and led to self-destructive actions. So e.g. when he addressed a Nazi rally (so preaching as it is to the choir) in 1920: [Catholics and protestant] 'are German and with every fibre of their
hearts sympathize and suffer with the current calamity of the Volk, who
are prepared for every sacrifice, regardless of which confession they
belong'.
Which matched his private diary:
'The Party stands on the basis of positive Christianity and supports
every Christian activity" (Hitler, Aufzeichnungen, 1921)
and also his actions, financing building work for the church from party
funds that he controlled in the early days, and official government support after he came to power
(Kyle Jantzen's "Church-Building in Hitler's Germany Berlin's Martin-Luther-Gedächtniskirche as a Reflection of Church-State
Relations", Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte December 2014, Volume 27, Issue
2, pp. 324-348)
Even in the later years when the conflict between Hiter and the established churches had become more pronounced, his behaviour also against other Nazi functionaries speaks a clear language:
 Gauleiter Wagner had ordered the removal of
crucifixes from churches in Bavaria in 1941  Hitler
was furious, personally ordered him to revoke the degree and threatened
Wagner with the concentration camp Dachau "Should he ever do something
like this again". (Kershaw's Popular opinion and political dissent
in the Third Reich", on p. 340-357)
Atheists were always excluded from joining the SS . "This [the prohinition of atheists in the SS] was deliberate. Atheism
signified an egoistic belief that man was the measure of all things, and
hence a refusal to acknowledge higher power. In a word, it constituted a
potential source for indiscipline. Generalized recognition of
transcendental forces counteracted the arrogant individualism stemming
from membership in a racial elite" (The Third Reich" by Michael Burleigh (2000).  196) and ibid
"there was considerable common ground between Nazis and many churchmen,
of both confessions, on anti-Bolshevism, anti-Judaism and the feeling
that e country has gone to the dogs If antisemitism was unforgivable, it
was harder to find a distinct position on communism, [...] given the
atheistic intolerance of the soviet union." Hitler prohibited in 1933 all atheist organizations and
seized their properties, their leader, Max Georg Wilhelm Sievers,
arrested and later (in 1944) executed. He had been head of the
Deutsche Freidenker-Verband (German Freethinker organisation) the
largest of the organised atheist groups, with 50000 members. Its
headquarters in Berlin, the Freidaenkerhalle, coincidentally was handed
over by the Nazis to the Protestant church authorities as a base to
"inform the public about church matters and help to "regain lost
membership in Prussia"
On these events, Hitler said in his private diary
 "We were convinced that the people need
and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against
the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical
declarations: we have stamped it out." (October 24, 1933) The particularly virulent form of anti-semitism that he espoused can be
traced back to the writing of Martin Luther, as even protestant church
leaders during Hitler's time regretfully acknowledged. And indeed
religious leaders among his contemporaries from Germany's enemies
clearly saw the religious motivation in him, and the influence of
Luther on his ideology: So the Very Reverend W. R. Inge, who
wrote in the Church of England Newspaper (in 1944) that " There is very
little to be said for this coarse and foul-mouthed leader of a
revolution. It is a real misfortune for humanity that he appeared just
at the crisis in the Christian world. Even if our burly Defender of the
Faith was not a worse man, and did far less mischief. We must hope that
the next swing of the pendulum will put an end to Luther's influence in
Germany"
Or Dr William Temple, then Achbishop of Canterbury, who said in his
address to the Archbishop's Conference in Malvern, 1941, that
"It is easy to see how Luther prepared the way for Hitler." Now, it is true that Hitler became over time more and more hostile
towards the established churches, and that is then cited by some
as evidence that he was also against Christianity. But that is
of course nonsense - and you yourself make the distinction between
"organised religion" and religious belief all the time. Hitler's
role models were Luther and Henry the 8th, his vision a new,
national church (like the Church of England) either with himself as head (English model) or a head elected by a small
circle of senior functionaries (Luther's model)
This vision obviously put him in conflict with the established Churches, but was equally ferociously embraced by Christians who
we disenchanted with the establishment. But that
asked for a new Christian Church, not rejection of Christianity
see e.g. Steigmann-Gall, Richard. The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of
Christianity, 1919–1945. Cambridge University Press, 2003;
Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch, Die politische Religion des
Nationalsozialismus. Die religiöse Dimension der NS-Ideologie in den
Schriften von Dietrich Eckart, Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg und
Adolf Hitler (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1998) And that was exactly how other Chrsitians who were also disenchanted
 withe the churches saw him:
Hans Hinkel, leader of the Luther League's magazine Deutsche Kultur-Wacht, and of the Berlin chapter of the Kampfbund, . "Through his
acts and his spiritual attitude, he (Hitler) began the fight which we will wage today; with
Luther, the revolution of German blood and feeling against alien elements of the
Volk was begun. To continue and complete his Protestantism, nationalism must
make the picture of Luther, of a German fighter, live as an example above the barriers
of confession for all German blood comrades."
Or Karl Fahrenhorst, who had been long before the Nazis came
to power General Secretary of the protestant youth organisation. Again, long
before Hitler came to power he organised several extreme right wing
"workers unions" in competition to those from the left. at the same time
when he was active in various protestant youth groups, he was elected for
a right wing party, the NSFP, into Parliament, where he sponsored several
laws asking for the expropriation of all property of east jewish (Galician)
citizens (he called them in a speech in 1924 "lice ridden scum", and was
then admonished for calling the Weimar republic a "Jewish republic" He did
not need a Hitler to get his ideas, but when he came, he endorsed
him enthusiastically. Charged with organising the Luthertag, he
wrote to Hitler: "Luther is truly not only the founder of a Christian
confession; much more, his ideas had a fruitful impact on all Christianity
in Germany." Precisely because of Luther's political as well as religious
significance, the Luthertag would serve as a confession both "to church
and Volk." (Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of
Christianity, 1919-1945, (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p.138.) Anti-semitism had of course had a long and dark history in Christian
tradition in Europe through the centuries, from the 6th century when the newly
christianized Visigothic kingdom issued a series of anti-Jewish edicts,
to the massacres of Jews during the first and second crusades, the
banishing of all Jews in England in 2190, then in 1394, the expulsion
of 100,000 One main contributor was the teaching of the reform religious
orders, the Franciscans such as Bernardino of Feltre and Dominicans
such as Vincent Ferrer, who finished their sermons frequently with
calls to violence against the Jewish population. Ultra-nationalists and
the proto-Nazis drew consistently on these accounts in their vision
of a "restored" Christian order along medieval lines, generally using
the Middle ages as a main point of reference, as did Hitler throughout.
The pre-Hitler "voelkische" (populist) movement combined romanticist
nationalism with medieval overtones with strong religious messages. Some
of them closer to pagan mysticism, but others just as strongly to fringe
Christian beliefs, in particular the millennianism of de Fiore. From
this christian-theological doctrine comes among other things the
expression "thousand years empire", as one of the necessary stages of
human history that through bloodshed and destruction lead ultimately to
the Kingdom of Christ. The historical line of reception of these ideas
to Nazism leads along e.g. fro the pre-Nazi voelkische writers such as
Johannes Schlaf and later Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, who are also
responsible for the expression "Third Reich" which again comes from Fiore.
For an acedemic discussion, see
Michael Ley: Apokalyptische Bewegungen in der Moderne. In: Michael Ley /
Julius H. Schoeps: Der Nationalsozialismus als politische Religion.
Bodenheim bei Mainz 1997 and also Thomas Idinopulos: Nazism,
millenarianism, and the Jews, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, (2003)
So in summary, everything we know about the way people become part of
religious groups, and everything we know about Hitler, is best explained
by him believing into an interpretation of Christianity which while
never a dominant form of Christian thought has a clear and traceable
presence through the history of ideas. The atrocities he committed too
have precursors in the history of Christianity in Europe, so are not
"that far out" from the historical trajectory as to raise any
difficulties for this interpretation. The apocalyptic philosophy he embraced comes directly from the Milleniast tradition of de Fiore. Atheists by contrast were consistently and throughout his reign subejct of
persecution.

This goes to show something that I've pointed out several times. One's paradigm takes precedence, priority, overrules and  reigns supreme over everything: opinion, observation, facts, truth and empirical evidence.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/04/20/hitler-hated-judaism-he-loathed-christianity-too/
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Hitler's inter circle  knew him for what he was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler
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https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/hitlers-religion-was-hitler-an-atheist-christian-or-something-else/