Political signs with Nazi words, symbols, or overtones showed up a rally during that past week, and the media yawned. Maybe they were tired from all of their outrage a few weeks ago. Larry O’Connor reports, “What is truly scandalous about the traditional media’s apparent obliviousness is the fact that unlike the Tea Parties — which are often spontaneous, unorganized events with no direct affiliation to a politician or a political party — this protest has been directly liked to Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson, and her campaign has been caught in a series of misleading statements regarding that involvement.”
Is it worse that such signs appear at an organized rally or at an unorganized one? Is it exhausting to hear outrage about one and not the other, a news cycles about one and nothing about the other?
Of course, the illustration here is not from one of the posters, but it is a curious bit of Nazi propaganda, is it not? Having they been called christians of a sort in your hearing? This isn’t a Christian poster.
I’m confused. Are you saying this is a Nazi poster? It looks like an anti-Nazi poster to me.
Well, that shows my ignorance. I looked for Nazi posters on Picapp, and the description of this one did not lead me to understand it was anti-Nazi. I thought it was the Nazis tell us the Bible was their enemy.
I agree with Lars — I think this is an anti-Nazi poster.
I haven’t heard Nazis called “Christian,” but they certainly made use of Christian language and symbolism (mixing it with Pagan stuff). I have heard people draw a line between Luther’s anti-Semitism and the anti-Semitism at the core of Nazi-ism.
I tend to think of any religious feelings at work in various leaders (and members) of the Nazi party to have been subordinated to the blinding ideology and group-think they bought into. In other words, their religion had very little to do with their actions, IMO.
I wish the mainstream news media would learn about Godwin’s Law and invoke it as a response to this kind of unthinking analogy.
All you need to do to be told the Nazis were Christians is to mention the millions murdered by Communists in the 20th Century. Then you will surely be told that the Nazis were Christians, and look how many people they killed. Try it yourself.
Yeah, a Nazi poster wouldn’t be in English. I should have thought of that, but this poster does flow with what I thought to be overt teaching from some of the Nazis that the church was their enemy and Christians must be subjugated into the cause until it become apparent that they will refuse. Then they must be fought.
I hadn’t heard of Godwin’s Law. I love it. I remember someone else saying that whenever Nazis are brought into the conversation, whatever the topic, it’s over. That’s a cynical stretch, but it’s close.
I’m always interested in this shift because yes, I’ve seen it. But in my mind, political ideology and religion are two separate arguments. So I’m not sure why anyone would answer the “Communist” argument with the “Christian” one, unless the argument is really about religion, in which case I’d suggest both Communism and Nazism are red herrings, those being political ideologies rather than religious ones.
I have seen someone make the point “most Nazis were Christians” in response to the fallacious claim that Hitler was an atheist (c.f. the Pope in England last week). Calling Hitler an atheist (and thus implying that atheism leads to atrocities) is, of course, one of the classic instances of Godwin’s law.
So what do you believe Hitler was, if not an atheist? A Satanist or occultist? Perhaps he held not organized religious ideas at all, remembering a few things from his Catholic heritage and believe religious ideas were useful to gaining the cooperation of the people. Looking at Wikipedia, perhaps the answer is Aryan.
Your thoughts on political vs religious ideologies is interesting to me. I don’t see divisions like that. I see wide areas of overlap. For Communism particularly, didn’t the Soviets argue that the state took the place of God as the people’s highest authority and benevolent provider? I have heard of Cuban students being told to pray for something specific to see if God would answer them. When nothing happened, they were told to ask the state for it, and of course, they were given it, proving the state was real and god was fantasy. The Communists in China and Vietnam have also targeted the Christian church as their opposition over the years, and I heard this morning that Chinese officials were see the benefits of Christian citizenry.
Sorry for the slow response — my email caught the notification as junk and I only just now saw it.
Hilter was certainly a deist, but probably not part of any particular religion. His views were idiosyncratic and perverted. See:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA006_1.html
I agree, there are indeed wide areas of overlap. Communist ideology certainly has an anti-religious stance. But it’s also an ideology in itself with dogmas that are as unchallengeable within the system as dogmas of religions are within those religions. In the case of both Nazism and Communism, however, religious belief was not the dominant drive that informed the ideology shaping those societies.