Only 1.5 percent identified themselves as non-believers in Nazi Germany

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=paul_23_4

The Great Scandal: Christianity's Role in the Rise of the Nazis

<snip>Roughly two-thirds of Germans were Protestant, almost all of the rest Catholic. The pagan minority claimed at most 5 percent. Explicit nontheism was limited to an intellectual elite and to committed socialists. Just 1.5 percent of Germans identified themselves as unbelievers in a 1939 census, which means either that very few Nazis and National Socialist German Worker’s Party supporters were atheists, or that atheists feared to identify themselves to the pro-theistic regime.

Most religious Germans detested the impiety, secularism, and hedonistic decadence that they associated with such modernist ideas as democracy and free speech. If they feared democracy, they were terrified by Communism, to the point of being willing to accept extreme countermethods.

Thus it was a largely Christian, deeply racist, often antidemocratic, and in many respects dangerously primitive Western culture into which Nazism would arise. It was a theistic powder keg ready to explode.

Nazi Leaders, Theism, and Family Values

According to standard biographies, the principal Nazi leaders were all born, baptized, and raised Christian. Most grew up in strict, pious households where tolerance and democratic values were disparaged. Nazi leaders of Catholic background included Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, and Joseph Goebbels.

Hitler did well in monastery school. He sang in the choir, found High Mass and other ceremonies intoxicating, and idolized priests. Impressed by their power, he at one time considered entering the priesthood.

Rudolf Hoess, who as commandant at Auschwitz-Birkinau pioneered the use of the Zyklon-B gas that killed half of all Holocaust victims, had strict Catholic parents. Hermann Goering had mixed Catholic-Protestant parentage, while Rudolf Hess, Martin Bormann, Albert Speer, and Adolf Eichmann had Protestant backgrounds. Not one of the top Nazi leaders was raised in a liberal or atheistic family—no doubt, the parents of any of them would have found such views scandalous. Traditionalists would never think to deprive their offspring of the faith-based moral foundations that they would need to grow into ethical adults.

[still_one]

1. there are parallels

[Ravenseye]

2. 90% of people who identify themselves as Christian, aren't

They either don't even try to be Christian, or they fail miserably. I don't have a study, but from my personal observation that's a conservative number. There are few true practicing Christians, imho. Certainly anyone who was involved in Nazi atrocities wasn't one, no matter how they were baptised. The same could be said for pretty much every fundamentalist on the far right today in our own country.

[Ian David]

4. You can't disown bad people in a group simply by saying...

"They're not REALLY part of the group."

Christians can't disown bad Christians simply by saying, "Well, if they did those bad things, then they weren't REALLY Christians."

One key problem is that the mechanisms of the large Christian organizations have traditionally been behind many, many very bad things. That includes The Holocaust. People who are "following orders" from the top of their Christian denominations cannot be dismissed by saying that those people were not "Real Christians."

Unless, of course, one is willing to say that the Christian churches themselves are no longer following the teachings of Christ. You would have to write-off entire denominations as non-Christian.

[Swede]

7. So Stalin and Pol Pot cannot be disavowed by athiests?

There are bad dudes everywhere,it's human nature.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. You can disavow them.

But you can't claim they weren't really atheists.

[Ian David]

16. If Stalin and Pol Pot were Atheists, then no, Atheists cannot disown them

However, they most certainly were not Humanists.

And they also weren't following the guidance of an International Atheist Association, either.

HUMANISM AND ITS ASPIRATIONS
Humanist Manifesto III, a successor to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933*

Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.

The lifestance of Humanism—guided by reason, inspired by compassion, and informed by experience—encourages us to live life well and fully. It evolved through the ages and continues to develop through the efforts of thoughtful people who recognize that values and ideals, however carefully wrought, are subject to change as our knowledge and understandings advance.

This document is part of an ongoing effort to manifest in clear and positive terms the conceptual boundaries of Humanism, not what we must believe but a consensus of what we do believe. It is in this sense that we affirm the following:

Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis. Humanists find that science is the best method for determining this knowledge as well as for solving problems and developing beneficial technologies. We also recognize the value of new departures in thought, the arts, and inner experience—each subject to analysis by critical intelligence.

Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. Humanists recognize nature as self-existing. We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine them to be. We welcome the challenges of the future, and are drawn to and undaunted by the yet to be known.

Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond. We are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity, and to making informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility.


More:
http://www.americanhumanist.org/3/HumandItsAspirations.htm
-----------------------------------------------------

EDIT: COPYRIGHT. PLEASE POST ONLY 4 OR 5 PARAGRAPHS
FROM THE COPYRIGHTED NEWS SOURCE PER DU RULES.

[Ravenseye]

8. Fair enough

I don't disagree with you.

[lonestarnot]

6. You could be right. (95%) better?

[valerief]

3. Amen! Who needs science when we've got Ford Explorers?

[Ian David]

5. Google Image Search: Hitler Church

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GGGL%2CGGGL%3A2006-17%2CGGGL%3Aen&q=hitler+church+OR+Hitler+catholic&btnG=Search
(Safe-search is OFF)

[lonestarnot]

9. Didn't realize he was supposed to be Catholic.

[Marie26]

11. So, what?

This means that Christians are Nazis or something?

[NNN0LHI]

13. It means we had better tread very carefully while gazing back on history

Thats all.

Don

[Marie26]

15. True

Seems like institutions in general are kind of alike that way. Communist Russia & China were totalitarian states w/o any religion at all. I guess my only hesitiation is the implication that Christianity is somehow responsible for facism. We might as well imply that athiests are to blame for Communism, IMO.

[rawtribe]

12. Voltaire said it best....

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

[Boomer]

14. Organized Christianity is an institution

All to often the institution of Christianity, especially the Catholic Church, is all about obeying authority, not about practicing the teachings of Jesus.

The rituals of the organized church are about creating a schism between "us" and "them". What True Believers actually believe is irrelevant as long as they don't consort with the Unbelievers.

Individual Christians may actually try to be humane, compassionate, generous people who speak up against bigotry, hatred and intolerance. Unfortunately, that stance is optional, or even discouraged, since it often makes then disobey authority.