Irenaeus, Siteadmin, Check users, oversight, Administrators
351,891
edits
Changes
no edit summary
:Wouldn't Hitler have called himself an atheist today? He was not religious.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:12, 19 June 2015 (EDT)
:Wouldn't Hitler have called himself an atheist today? He was not religious.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:12, 19 June 2015 (EDT)
::Andy, A few points:
::1. Nominal Protestants/Catholics/Muslims aren't religious either. However, they are all theists. In addition, agnostics are not atheists, but agnostics are often not religious. See David Hackett Fischer's rules #2 and #7 above which state "Historical evidence must be an answer to the question asked and not to any other question." and "All inferences from historical evidence are probabilistic."
::2. Most of the [[Nones]] are theists.
::3. Historical investigations are based on sound data and not speculations about hypothetical present events.
::4. The burden of proof for historical claims is on the claimant and you are unconditionally, without reservation, declaring Adolf Hitler was an atheist without providing evidence of for this claim. See Fischer's rule #6 above which declares: "An empirical statement must not be more precise than its evidence warrants."
::5. [[Conservapedia:Commandments|Conservapedia commandment]] #1 says "Everything you post must be true and verifiable".
::How do we verify what Adolf Hitler would call himself today? He's dead. I am not being sarcastic/flippant here, but merely pointing out that Fischer rightly says, "The meaning of any historical evidence is dependent upon the context from which it is obtained from." See Fischer's rule #5 above. This point reflects that many so-called atheists today are really agnostics at best because many so-called atheists attempt to dilute the term atheism. See: [[Attempts to dilute the definition of atheism]]
::And more importantly, you should be able to provide clear and compelling evidence using sound principles that Hitler was an atheist if you claim that he was (see David Hackettt Fischer's rules of historiography above).
::6. Nazi General Gerhard Engel declared that in 1941 Hitler said, "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." Source: John Toland (1992). Adolf Hitler. New York: Anchor Publishing, p. 507.
::Hitler was not a practicing Catholic. He may have been a nominal, cafeteria Catholic who wanted to inject ideas that he liked into Catholicism and remove Catholic doctrines that he not like from Catholicism. He appears to be an anti-Christian/anti-clerical theists.
::He was also appeared to possibly be a evolutionist syncretist when it comes to religion who thought religion should "evolve". Hitler reportedly said (if Hitler's Table Talk is authentic), "When one thinks of the opinions held concerning Christianity by our best minds a hundred, two hundred years ago, one is ashamed to realise how little we have since evolved. I didn't know that Julian the Apostate had passed judgment with such clear-sightedness on Christianity and Christians ... the Galilean, who later was called the Christ, intended something quite different. He must be regarded as a popular leader who took up His position against Jewry ... and it's certain that Jesus was not a Jew. The Jews, by the way, regarded Him as the son of a whore—of a whore and a Roman soldier. The decisive falsification of Jesus's doctrine was the work of St. Paul ... Paul of Tarsus (his name was Saul, before the road to Damascus) was one of those who persecuted Jesus most savagely." (Trevor-Roper, Hugh, ed. (2000). Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944. Trans. Norman Cameron and R. H. Stevens. New York: Engima Books, p. 76).
::Joseph Goebbels wrote in 1941 that Hitler "hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity."[http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheists,_Adolf_Hitler_and_the_no_true_Scottsman_fallacy#Jesus_Christ.27s_gospel_of_love_contrasted_with_Adolf_Hitler.27s_Nazism]
::7. On the other hand, Michael Burleigh said regarding Hitler's worldview: "a mixture of materialist biology, a faux-Nietzschean contempt for core, as distinct from secondary, Christian values, and a visceral anti-clericalism." Source: (Burleigh, Michael (2001). The Third Reich - A New History. London: Pan Books. pp. 716–717.).
::Hitler appears to have been found of the atheist Friedrich Nietzsche.[http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheists,_Adolf_Hitler_and_the_no_true_Scottsman_fallacy#Adolf_Hitler_admired_the_work_of_the_atheist_Friedrich_Nietzsche]
::Perhaps Adolf Hitler was an atheist, but I am leaning towards Hitler being a syncretist monotheist who mixed evolutionism into to his worldview. He clearly was an evolutionist though which can be seen by multiple pieces of clear evidence (Mein Kampf, etc.).[http://www.conservapedia.com/Adolf_Hitler#Hitler_and_the_Theory_of_Evolution]
::8. My concluding point is that the evidence is not clear what Hitler's exact worldview was when it comes to religion/irreligion. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 06:46, 20 June 2015 (EDT)