tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post5348730666094005820..comments2024-03-25T02:16:16.247-07:00Comments on Christ the Tao: Was Hitler a Christian? JP Holding answers questions. Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-19631630464796153802013-10-04T19:26:45.003-07:002013-10-04T19:26:45.003-07:00*suspicions. Silly auto correct....*suspicions. Silly auto correct....Arizona Atheisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17377658912951142427noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-5808821581645191912013-10-04T19:24:37.522-07:002013-10-04T19:24:37.522-07:00Holding gave his overall argument in the interview...Holding gave his overall argument in the interview so there is no fallacy. I've since read the book and my suspensions have been confirmed. I'm writing a response as I type.Arizona Atheisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17377658912951142427noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-33481250992792114642013-09-30T06:58:02.003-07:002013-09-30T06:58:02.003-07:00I have seen both compulsions, repeatedly. And of ...I have seen both compulsions, repeatedly. And of course it is not appropriate to assume that a book makes a fallacious argument, and does nothing else, before reading it -- in fact, that is a genuine instance of the general type that NTS is supposed to fit into, called "begging the question" or petitio principia. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-30074153281604981712013-09-30T04:14:55.414-07:002013-09-30T04:14:55.414-07:00I can tell this: if Hitler is a Christian then Rae...I can tell this: if Hitler is a Christian then Raelians are atheists.<br />http://www.raelpress.org/news.php?item.223.1<br /><br />Domicshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02108175024624509183noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-74333229267901696392013-09-30T03:30:32.561-07:002013-09-30T03:30:32.561-07:00AA - the book is only available on Kindle, but Hol...AA - the book is only available on Kindle, but Holding does explore the "No True Scotsman" issue specifically.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-53898874492651688532013-09-28T13:56:04.358-07:002013-09-28T13:56:04.358-07:00Interesting. Obsession refers to a “compulsive” id...Interesting. Obsession refers to a “compulsive” idea or action. I don't believe I've seen atheists “compulsively” cite Hume or the No True Scotsman Fallacy; only when it is appropriate, and I think it's certainly appropriate in this case. But I'm certainly interested in reading the book. I'm assuming it's only in e-book format. Maybe I'll have to break down and buy just this one.Arizona Atheisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17377658912951142427noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-46354863518770156172013-09-28T12:23:21.986-07:002013-09-28T12:23:21.986-07:00Ken: This atheist obsession with the Scottish peop...Ken: This atheist obsession with the Scottish people (especially David Hume) amazes me. But I'm glad we agree on something -- real books. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-90370372031693621032013-09-28T12:02:50.035-07:002013-09-28T12:02:50.035-07:00This book sounds interesting. Judging from the pre...This book sounds interesting. Judging from the premise and the interview it sounds like Holding has written a book that is one long logical fallacy: No True Scotsman. Just because Holding and other Christians don't believe in his form of Christianity doesn't make him any less of a Christian. <br /><br />I am genuinely interested in reading his arguments, though. Is the book in paperback or does it only come in the e-book version? I hate e-books. I enjoy holding actual books. I guess I'm just old fashioned like that.Arizona Atheisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17377658912951142427noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-37398232953539930172013-09-25T18:08:37.215-07:002013-09-25T18:08:37.215-07:00Domics: My impression from the book is, they had n...Domics: My impression from the book is, they had no interest in the subject. Could have used more concrete analysis on such points. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-45019816662410498812013-09-25T05:41:46.093-07:002013-09-25T05:41:46.093-07:00GAP: Very interesting comments, I appreciate your ...GAP: Very interesting comments, I appreciate your sharing the results of your fascinating little experiment. I had wondered about those brats in Colorado, myself. <br /><br />You may be giving me too much credit, though. I am a protagonist in these debates -- as is JP -- and in many of my other blogs here, and in books like The Truth Behind the New Atheism, I do argue for the social utility of Christianity. I agree with the atheist Sam Harris that "ideas have consequences," and it is important to try to figure out what those consequences are. But life is very, very complicated, and human beings are really unfair about these things, as you say, so I think we could all stand a stiff dose of the medicine you're offering. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-64202322797128304252013-09-25T00:41:50.424-07:002013-09-25T00:41:50.424-07:00I can not understand what Positive Christianity (a...I can not understand what Positive Christianity (and so Hitler) thought about the divinity of Christ.<br />Domicshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02108175024624509183noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-26011529850538648702013-09-24T22:57:03.206-07:002013-09-24T22:57:03.206-07:00The lengths everyone goes to in order to show how ...The lengths everyone goes to in order to show how evil the "other" is. Most atheists on the Internet claim both Hitler and Stalin were Christians; most Christians call them both atheists. It's rare to find someone who knows the truth about both. (Sometimes Muslims do, but they also tend to claim that Islam has a clean history.). All people want to carve history into a beautiful image of themselves.<br /><br />I've kept an obscure blog for four years now that has gotten only a few thousand views. There is one article I wrote last year that accounts for almost a quarter of those views: "Harris and Klebold on Religion". Claims about the religious affiliation and beliefs of the Columbine High shooters range from "militant atheists" (by conservatives) to "Christian terrorists" (by liberals--Tavis Smiley claimed this on P.B.S.). It was so silly that a school shooting so devoid of ideological motives is attached to religion in the minds of so many based on the mistaken testimony of a student in the library of the high school attributing words to the wrong people. (I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.).<br /><br />So I set the record straight on my blog by collecting every one of Harris and Klebold's recorded thoughts about religion--they were both secular, but their dislike of religion had nothing to do with the massacre. And the article gets views almost every day. Search terms are commonly "eric harris religion" as well as more loaded search terms like "eric harris was catholic" and "dylan klebold atheist", apparently by people looking for dirt to throw into silly Internet religion conversations.<br /><br />It probably makes people feel good when there is one less similarity between them and some awful human being. I don't really think either Hitler or Stalin should ever be brought into any discussion about the question of God's existence--unless it involves the problem of evil, of course.<br /><br />Anyway, good, honest discussion--you're among the few of all people with the ability to look at your own group critically.GreekAsianPandahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02197787940733271998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-2606093700922563392013-09-24T21:32:29.670-07:002013-09-24T21:32:29.670-07:00Well, Ed, you're kind of all over the board, t...Well, Ed, you're kind of all over the board, there. The one point I think I'll respond to is about who voted for Hitler. My high school Russian teacher, who was from Berlin, explained it this way. They had an effectual choice between the Communists and the Nazis. They knew what the Communists were like, so they went with the Nazis. Maybe there's a little self-justification there, but of course she was too young to vote -- not too young to get shot at when the Russians came. <br /><br />But I'm having a hard time figuring you out. You post all over the place, usually challenging what some Christian or other is saying, reading all kinds of stuff, and editing a book about ex-converts. But you don't seem to be an atheist. To cut to the chase, what motivates you? What do you know to be true? What keeps your boat sailing towards the sunrise?David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-22425622300312454522013-09-24T21:19:56.187-07:002013-09-24T21:19:56.187-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-69194995214436581052013-09-24T18:50:20.060-07:002013-09-24T18:50:20.060-07:00Thanks for leaving up the three posts! As I said, ...Thanks for leaving up the three posts! As I said, there's plenty to ponder. <br /><br />But after looking at such questions I would hope you would ask whether the cosmos clearly appears to be a neat, tidy "theologically systematic" place to live. Instead, history is messy. Testimonies are messy (which is probably why JP simply discounts them, including his own and any detail concerning what he read prior to converting to Christianity). <br /><br />I also hope both you and JP can see the irony in this statement from the interview: <br /><br />"...people just need to handle the text more responsibly, and not use the Biblical texts to justify what it is they have decided they want to be true."<br /><br />The irony is how many biblical scholars from conservative to moderate, liberal, secular, Jewish, etc., might say the same thing. <br /><br />And speaking of handling the text more responsibly, i.e., reading it with ancient eyes rather than misreading it with modern eyes, JP needs to catch up on his ancient Near Eastern studies and fess up to the fact that it's not "fundamentalist atheists" who espouse the view that the authors of the Bible most probably viewed the cosmos as flat and the raqia as firm. John Walton, interviewed on Deeper Waters, said as much, so why doesn't JP create a video showing John Walton cow-towing to fundie atheists? Walton went even further I believe, and mentioned a few additional things that the ancient Hebrews believed that we don't believe today. <br /><br />I suppose JP doesn't want to give up on his default position of young-earth creationism. Not yet. He's too busy studying whether or not Hitler was a Christian. Edwardtbabinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036816926421936940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-77385462784946760722013-09-24T18:13:18.924-07:002013-09-24T18:13:18.924-07:00I think, Ed, it would be a good idea to let people...I think, Ed, it would be a good idea to let people respond first, and not block the reader with too long a series of posts, especially lengthy quoted texts. So I've deleted that last long quotation. That will make dialogue a little easier, if anyone wants to take you up on your comments, as I may later. Appropriate links are fine. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-84599683815630047082013-09-24T18:05:27.059-07:002013-09-24T18:05:27.059-07:00FRITZ STERN EXPLAINS THE RISE OF HITLER
Fritz Ster...FRITZ STERN EXPLAINS THE RISE OF HITLER<br />Fritz Stern, a refugee from Nazi Germany who was awarded the Leo Baeck Medal, mentioned the following in his acceptance speech covered by the New York Times: <br /><br />There was a longing in Europe for fascism before the name was ever invented... There was a longing for a new authoritarianism with some kind of religious orientation and above all a greater communal belongingness... <br /><br />Hitler was a brilliant populist manipulator who insisted and probably believed that Providence had chosen him as Germany’s savior, that he was the instrument of Providence, a leader who was charged with executing a divine mission. God had been drafted into national politics before, but Hitler’s success in fusing racial dogma with a Germanic Christianity was an immensely powerful element in his electoral campaigns. Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion and politics, but many more were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics that largely ensured his success, notably in Protestant areas. German moderates and German elites underestimated Hitler, assuming that most people would not succumb to his Manichean unreason; they didn’t think that his hatred and mendacity could be taken seriously. They were proven wrong. <br /><br />People were enthralled by the Nazis’ cunning transposition of politics into carefully staged pageantry, into flag-waving martial mass. At solemn moments, the National Socialists would shift from the pseudo-religious invocation of Providence to traditional Christian forms: In his first radio address to the German people, twenty-four hours after coming to power, Hitler declared, “The National Government will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built up. They regard Christianity as the foundation of our national morality and the family as the basis of national life.” <br /><br />Let me cite one example of the acknowledged appeal of unreason. Carl Friedrich von Weizsaecker, Nobel-laureate in physics and a philosopher, wrote to me in the mid-1980s saying that he had never believed in Nazi ideology but that he had been tempted by the movement, which seemed to him then like “the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.” <br /><br />The Nazis didn’t realize that they were part of an historic process in which resentment against a disenchanted secular world found deliverance in the ecstatic escape of unreason. German elites proved susceptible to this mystical brew of pseudo-religion and disguised interest. The Christian churches most readily fell into line as well, though with some heroic exceptions.<br />Edwardtbabinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036816926421936940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-51548543115459985082013-09-24T17:51:45.227-07:002013-09-24T17:51:45.227-07:00There's also a fascinating documentary, "...There's also a fascinating documentary, "Confessions of a German Soldier," about Dietrich Karsten, who started out a young seminarian (whose professor, Karl Barth, did not adore Naziism), during the time when Germans voted Hitler into power due to the expectation that Hitler would bring a renewed spirituality and strength to the country. Dietrich spoke out against the Nazis but could not find a job as a priest in the Confessional Church since the Nazis were keeping an eye on its ministers and putting up roadblocks to their employment. Dietrich finally volunteered for an army chaplaincy but was refused. Still he had signed up and was now assigned as a reservist in the armed forces, and then the Nazis allowed him to work as a chaplain in a beautiful area of Germany. But since he was a reservist they later called him up to serve as an infantryman, but he was assigned to local garrison duty where he became restless (he liked being active and never could remain at rest for long apparently) and arranged himself to be transferred to a front line unit, and helped with the invasion of France! He found he enjoyed being a soldier, and even won an iron cross on the battlefield in France for his leading role in taking out a French machine gun position to secure a crossing over the Loire river. (His armed services job also enabled him to send money back home to support his family). His letters from France at that time are filled with boyish excitement over the battle, seeing the enemy run, bullets whizzing over his head. [I am summarizing the portions of his letters that I read in a History Today article.] He died after having served on both the western front when France was invaded, and the eastern front, defending Germany against the Russians. Dietrich left over 300 letters that chronicle the decade he spent from seminarian to soldier. <br /> <br />A brief selection from his letters...<br /> <br />'[Naziism is] one form of bolshevism wanting to defeat another form of bolshevism [communism]... I wonder if dear God uses this war as another means to have one brigand punished by another, one wrong with another wrong. I believe that.' [Unfortunately, Bolshevism was not crushed by Hitler, which was something Deitrich did not live long enough to see, since he died as the Russians advanced on Eastern Europe and Germany. Interestingly, the pope chose to make concords with Hitler and not excommunicate him, probably for fear of bolshevism. However the pope did excommunicate a prominent general of Hitler's, was it Martin Boorman? Apparently the crime was getting a divorce. That pope.]<br /><br />The article in History Today about Deitrich added, "On the one side were the 'German Christians' with their new Nazi version of Christianity; on the other side, there were those... who opposed the religious policies of Adolf Hitler, considered themselves true Christians, and tried to protect their faith by founding the Confessional Church... This did not mean the Confessional Church were hostile to the Nazis or the wider policies of National Socialism; many would have been content if the Nazis had simply stopped interfering with their Church." <br />--History Today (Dec. 2007), and article about Dietrich and the 300 letters he left behind, dating from 1932-1942 <br />Edwardtbabinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036816926421936940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-90042282011768557392013-09-24T17:50:51.037-07:002013-09-24T17:50:51.037-07:00Enjoyed the interview. But the questions don't...Enjoyed the interview. But the questions don't end there. There's all sorts of messy areas of history, theology, biography, including the human tendency to join movements, such that it does not appear like this cosmos was conceived in order to create the maximum number of souls who would choose the right God, right savior, right theology [sic] to paraphrase something William Lane Craig recently stated. <br /><br />To start with, wasn't it some naive Christian apologists who began lumping Hitler in with Stalin and Mao as an "atheist?" Then some atheists responded that Hitler was some sort of "Christian" or at least not an atheist?<br /><br />Nazism began in a Catholic German city that already had a Jew-hating past. Derek Hastings, author of Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism: Religious Identity and National Socialism (Oxford, 2009), examined the years after World War I--when National Socialism first emerged--to reveal its close early ties with Catholicism. Although an antagonistic relationship between the Catholic Church and Hitler's regime developed later during the Third Reich, the early Nazi movement was born in Munich, a city whose population was overwhelmingly Catholic. Focusing on Munich and the surrounding area, Hastings shows how Catholics played a central and hitherto overlooked role in the Nazi movement before the 1923 Beerhall Putsch. He examines the activism of individual Catholic writers, university students, and priests and the striking Catholic-oriented appeals and imagery formulated by the movement. He then discusses why the Nazis embarked on a different path following the party's reconstitution in early 1925, ultimately taking on an increasingly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian identity.<br /><br />Interestingly, both Hitler and George Washington spoke about "providence" directing matters or leading them and/or their mission. <br /><br />Makes one ponder what psychological forces drive people to both lead and join mass movements, be they fascist, communist, Christian or Islamic. It certainly seems that people are susceptible to joining movements of a wide variety, from small cults to large political or religious movements. On that topic, Hoffer's insights are worth pondering: http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2012/01/eric-hoffer-quotations-on-similar.html<br /><br />And, WHO voted Hitler into office? I looked at two books year ago on that topic. Hitler was running against several candidates and gained an equal percentage of votes as other candidates from city-dwellers, but more votes than the rest in towns, villages and the countryside--and I assume such folks were more conservative in their religious views. So maybe conservative Christians played a decisive role in voting a "strong conservative" like Hitler into office? Nice to know Christian made the right choice. <br /><br />Of course everyone rationalizes their interpretations of history. It's a fun game. But does anyone really see "providence" clearly at work in history? Hitler's rise made the U.S. align itself with Stalin, helped arm communist Russia, and led to Russia gaining German scientists and the bomb and half of Europe. Providence at work? I dunno. <br /><br />I also read that an American company, IBM, sold Hitler machines which he used to keep track of the Jews, their names, locations, and other data, and to keep the railroads running to the concentration camps on time. See IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation-Expanded Edition by <br />Edwin Black. Providence? Edwardtbabinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036816926421936940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-20007319885436806012013-09-23T07:56:11.101-07:002013-09-23T07:56:11.101-07:00Thanks. Give me a link later, and I'll work i...Thanks. Give me a link later, and I'll work it in. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-5472984839911208562013-09-23T07:23:23.838-07:002013-09-23T07:23:23.838-07:00Good interview David! He'll be on my show late...Good interview David! He'll be on my show later on as well to talk about this book.Nickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16175830373964472006noreply@blogger.com