It is typical of Westeners to view all Eastern
religions, especially Buddhism,
as nihilistic, or life-negating, while flattering
ourselves that the Western
christian worldview and religion is positive and
life-affirming.
In fact, both christianity and judaism, as well as
islam, are Eastern
religions -- they swept from the Near East, along with
the Indo-Aryan Sun God
beliefs, and eventually stamped out the truly Western,
indigenous Pagan
Spirituality of all Europe. And whether of East or
West, all patriarchal religions are inherently
nihilistic and fascistic.
They condemn the Earth as the source of material life
(while exploiting her
resources and creatures greedily for their own
advantage), and seek abstract
"spirit" somewhere in the sky. They desire
"illumination" or "salvation" not
within the ongoing life-and-death process, but by
denying it, striving to
escape it, or being "redeemed" from it through a male
godhead who acts as
ersatz Mother. In its concepts of "original sin" and
the need for "salvation"
from fleshly life -- and in its strange elitist belief
that only one man has
ever been of "divine birth" -- christianity is the
most nihilistic religion
to appear on Earth, and its impact on the tribes of
Europe (as well as every-
where else) was entirely necrophilic and destructive.
December 7, 2004
"God Is With Us": Hitler's Rhetoric and the Lure of
"Moral Values"
by Maureen Farrell
"God does not make cowardly nations free." -- Adolf
Hitler, Mein Kampf
A couple weeks ago, while asserting that the Founding
Founders intended for the U.S. government to be
infused with christianity, Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia said that the Holocaust was able to
flourish in Germany because of Europe's secular ways.
"Did it turn out that, by reason of the separation of
church and state, the Jews were safer in Europe than
they were in the United States of America?"
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1202-33.htm Scalia asked a congregation at Manhattan's Shearith
Israel synagogue. "I don't think so."
One might expect regular citizens to be ignorant of
history, but a Supreme Court Justice? Does he imagine
that the phrase "Gott mit Uns" was a German clothier's
interpretation of "Got Milk"?
If photographic evidence of the Third Reich's
Christian leanings were not enough,
http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm Hitler's own speeches and writings prove, at the very
least, that he presented many of the same faith-based
arguments heard in America today.
http://www.geocities.com/klomckin/Chaps.1.html#RELIGION Religion in the schools? Hitler was for it.
Intellectuals who practiced "anti-Christian, smug
individualism"? According to Hitler, their days were
numbered. Divine Providence's role in shaping
Germany's ultimate victory? Who could argue? In other
words, there is enough historical evidence to color
Scalia deluded. Writing for Free Inquiry, John Patrick
Michael Murphy explained:
"Hitler's Germany amalgamated state with church.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/murphy_19_2.html Soldiers of the wermacht wore belt buckles inscribed
with the following: "Gott mit uns" (God is with us).
His troops were often sprinkled with holy water by the
priests. It was a real Christian country whose
citizens were indoctrinated by both state and church
and blindly followed all authority figures, political
and ecclesiastical.
Hitler, like some of the today's politicians and
preachers, politicized "family values." He liked
corporeal punishment in home and school. Jesus prayers
became mandatory in all schools under his
administration. While abortion was illegal in
pre-Hitler Germany, he took it to new depths of
enforcement, requiring all doctors to report to the
government the circumstances of all miscarriages. He
openly despised homosexuality and criminalized it."
For anyone wanting even more proof, Mein Kampf is
chock full of the Fuhrer's musings on God. ("I believe
that I am acting in accordance with the will of the
Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew,
I am fighting for the work of the Lord," Hitler
wrote). But anti-Semitic rants aside, some of Hitler's
religious musings are interchangeable with Mr. Bush's.
Hitler was raised a Catholic and spoke of his faith in
God, yet, singling out his rants against religion,
politicians and pastors continue to characterize him
as a pagan barbarian.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1204/aaron_vayeishev.php3 Such distortions are convenient -- particularly in an
age where propaganda concerning "moral values" is
readily gobbled up and Christian nation legislation
waits in the wings -- but, to paraphrase the Bible,
overlooking the truth will not make us free.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/23/33620/186 Scalia, who also cited the Bible to claim that
government "derives its moral authority from God," is
hardly alone in his assertions.
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0205/articles/scalia.html Leo Strauss, the philosopher who has influenced
neoconservativism, and by proxy, George Bush's
America, felt that religion, like deception, was
crucial to maintaining social order. Meanwhile,
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/001679.html neoconservative kingpin Irving Kristol has argued
similar points
http://www.princeton.edu/%7Estarr/fnr-kris.html --
bragging about how easy it is to fool the public into
accepting the government's actions while arguing that
America's Founding Fathers were wrong to insist on the
separation of church and state.
http://thewitness.org/agw/wakeleelynch063004.html Why? According to Jim Lobe, it's because religion, as
Strauss and his disciples see it, is "absolutely
essential in order to impose moral law on the masses
who otherwise would be out of control."
http://www.alternet.org/story/15935 Saying that neoconservatives believe that secular
society is undesirable "because it leads to
individualism, liberalism, and relativism, precisely
those traits that may promote dissent that in turn
could dangerously weaken society's ability to cope
with external threats," Lobe explained why Kristol and
other neocons have "allied themselves with the
christian right" and, in some cases, have also
denounced Darwin's theory of evolution.
"Neoconservatives are pro-religion even though they
themselves may not be believers," Reason magazine's
Ronald Bailey explained, pointing to publications like
Commentary which has espoused the virtues of religious
fundamentalism and has questioned evolutionary
science.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/archive/digitalarchive.aspx...
(Hitler did the same. The book The German Churches
Under Hitler includes his assertion that secular
schools should not be tolerated while Hitler's Table
Talk quotes him questioning the wisdom in teaching
children both creationism and the theory of evolution.
"The present system of teaching in schools permits the
following absurdity: at 10 a.m. the pupils attend a
lesson in the catechism, at which the creation of the
world is presented to them in accordance with the
teachings of the Bible; and at 11 a.m. they attend a
lesson in natural science, at which they are taught
the theory of evolution,"he said. "Yet the two
doctrines are in complete contradiction. As a child, I
suffered from this contradiction, and ran my head
against a wall.")
Professor Shadia B. Drury also noted the similarities
between the methods endorsed by Hitler and
neoconservatives' favorite philosopher. She explained:
"Strauss loved America enough to try to save her from
the errors and terrors of Europe. He was convinced
that the liberal democracy of the Weimar Republic led
to the rise of the Nazis. That is a debatable matter.
But Strauss did not openly debate this issue or
provide arguments for his position in his writings. I
am inclined to think that it is Strauss's ideas, and
not liberal ideas, that invite the kinds of abuses he
wished to avoid. It behooves us to remember that
Hitler had the utmost contempt for parliamentary
democracy. He was impatient with debate and dispute,
on the grounds that they were a waste of time for the
great genius who knew instinctively the right choices
and policies that the people need. Hitler had a
profound contempt for the masses - the same contempt
that is readily observed in Strauss and his cohorts.
But when force of circumstances made it necessary to
appeal to the masses, Hitler advocated lies, myths,
and illusions as necessary pabulum to placate the
people and make them comply with the will of the
Fuhrer. Strauss's political philosophy advocates the
same solution to the problem of the recalcitrant
masses. Anyone who wants to avoid the horrors of the
Nazi past is well advised not to accept Strauss's
version of ancient wisdom uncritically.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6750.htm But this is exactly what Strauss encouraged his
students to do."
Although several others, including the legendary
Seymour Hersh, have noted the neoconservatives' belief
that deception is essential,
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/...
the religious aspect of their philosophy is especially
unnerving. Religion may be the opium of the masses,
but when zealots become so certain of their own
righteousness that they ignore their own humanity,
horror is the natural consequence. Islamic extremism
offers the most glaring recent example, and now that
Osama bin Laden has been granted permission to nuke
America, the most extreme changes within the U.S.
could very well come from the outside world.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/12/60minutes/main655407.shtml In the meantime, however, for those who have not yet
noticed, our own homegrown zealots
http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php...
-- those who advocate hatred in the name of the Lord
-- have made considerable headway, with gays and
lesbians currently at the center of legislation which,
should it pass, will alter this country forever.
When the Marriage Protection Act passed the House in
July,
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0726-08.htm the New York Times called it "a radical assault on the
Constitution. "If it passes in the Senate, the bill
could obliterate the separation of powers and wipe out
Constitutional protections for all minorities,
stripping the courts and possibly paving the way for
Christian nationhood. Other pieces of court stripping
legislation bills designed to topple the wall between
church and state are also in play.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20040923.html http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/08/far04026.html This encroaching infusion of church and state,
combined with recent decrees concerning moral values,
doesn't resonate with inclusive tolerance. "When was
the last time a Western nation had a leader so
obsessed with God and claiming God was on our side? If
you answered Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany, you're
correct," Bob Fitrakis wrote.
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/942 "Nothing can be more misleading than to categorize
Hitler as a barbaric pagan or Godless totalitarian,
like Stalin."
It's important to remember that christianity has been
created for these purposes. Whether you're talking
about Nazi Germany, the pre-Civil War American South,
or the atmosphere in the U.S. these past few years,
whenever questions of conscience are vigorously
denounced, you can bet there is trouble ahead -- and
the hijacking of faith and the manipulation of
religion should always arouse suspicion. Moral values
as a mandate? What better way to foster civil
obedience and "One nation Under God" unity in a time
of preventative war, suppressed liberty and sanctioned
torture.
http://www.cardhouse.com/travel/az/billboards/billboards.htm So, yes, despite tales of Hitler's atheism and
Germany's Godlessness, the list of Hitler's religious
assertions and Nazi christian affiliations is long,
http://www.nobeliefs.com/speeches.htm and before Americans swallow more WMD-type baloney,
it's best to comprehend this history and understand
that no nation, including our own, is immune to
faith-based fascism.
Substituting "America" for "Germany," many of Hitler's
religious assertions could have been uttered by Jerry
Falwell or Pat Robertson -- with Hitler even asserting
that God punished Germany for turning away from Him --
before promising that renewed piety would protect the
Fatherland and make it prosperous and successful once
more. "Once the mercy of God shown upon us, but we
were not worthy of His mercy. Providence withdrew its
protection and our people fell, fell as scarcely any
other people heretofore. In this deep misery we again
learned to pray," Hitler said in 1936, sixty-five
years before Falwell and Robertson blamed abortionists
and feminists for the tragedies of Sept. 11.
Hitler's religious phrases could have also come from
the lips of George W. Bush. "Our prayer is: Lord God,
let us never hesitate, let us never play the coward,
let us never forget the duty which we have taken upon
us,"Hitler said in March, 1933, sounding much like our
president, who believes that God wants him to liberate
the people in Middle East -- even if he has to
torture, maim and kill tens of thousands in the
process. "I believe we have a duty to free people,"
Bush told Bob Woodward. "I would hope we wouldn't have
to do it militarily, but we have a duty.. . . Going
into this period, I was praying for strength to do the
Lord's will. . . ."
Speaking in Berlin in March, 1936, Hitler said
something remarkably similar. "I would like to thank
Providence and the Almighty for choosing me of all
people to be allowed to wage this battle for Germany,"
he said, before launching the preventive war heard
round the world.
Both leaders also promised peace while planning for
war.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm "We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes
peace must be defended," Bush said, in his State of
the Union address in Jan. 2003, two months before
launching a preventative war in Iraq.
http://www.themoderntribune.com/george_bush_state_of_the_union_address_january_28,_2--3_-_president_george_w_bush.html
"Never in these long years have we offered any other
prayer but this: Lord, grant to our people peace at
home, and grant and preserve to them peace from the
foreign foe!"Hitler said in Nuremberg on Sept. 13,
1936.
Yes, many of Hitler's faith-based comments could have
come from George Bush himself, and are undoubtedly the
kinds of sentiments many Americans not only agree with
-- but take comfort in. This is not to say that Bush
is Hitler or that religion is evil, but to serve as a
reminder that things are not always what they seem.
Christianity was used for everything, from the Salem
witch trials to slavery in America, and facilitated
group-think in Germany -- when individuality and
questions of conscience were needed the most. These
are but a few of the Fuhrer's assertions:
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a
school has no religious instruction and a general
moral instruction without a religious foundation is
built on air; consequently, all character training and
religion must be derived from faith." (The German
Churches Under Hitler, p.241)
"We must turn all the sentiments of the Volk, all its
thinking, acting, even its beliefs, away from the
anti-christian, smug individualism of the past, from
the egotism and stupid Phariseeism of personal
arrogance, and we must educate the youth in particular
in the spirit of those of christ's words that we must
interpret anew: love one another; be considerate of
your fellow man; remember that each one of you is not
alone a creature of God, but that you are all
brothers! This youth will, with loathing and contempt,
abandon those hypocrites who have Christ on their lips
but the devil in their hearts." (Hitler: Memoirs of a
Confidant, page 140)
"It will be the Government's care to maintain honest
cooperation between Church and State; the struggle
against materialistic views and for a real national
community is just as much in the interest of the
German nation as in that of the welfare of our
Christian faith." (At the Reichstag, March 23, 1933)
"Without pledging ourselves to any particular
Confession [Protestantism or Catholicism], we have
restored to faith its prerequisites because 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."
(Berlin, Oct. 24, 1933)
"But there is something else I believe, and that is
that there is a God. . . . And this God again has
blessed our efforts during the past 13 years."
(Munich, Feb. 24, 1940)
"You [blue-collar workers] represent the most noble of
slogans known to us: "God helps those who help
themselves!' (Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, Vol.
2, page 1147)
"Fifteen years ago I had nothing save my faith and my
will. Today the Movement is Germany, today this
Movement has won the German nation and formed the
Reich. Would that have been possible without the
blessing of the Almighty? Or do they who ruined
Germany wish to maintain that they have had God's
blessing? What we are we are, not against but with the
will of Providence. And so long as we are loyal,
honest, and ready to fight, so long as we believe in
our great work and do not capitulate, we shall also in
the future have the blessing of Providence."
(Rosenheim, Aug. 11, 1935)
"My feelings as a hristian points me to my Lord and
Savior as a fighter. . . As a christian I have no duty
to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to
be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is
anything which could demonstrate that we are acting
rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a
christian I have also a duty to my own people."
(Munich, April 12, 1922)
"If positive christianity means love of one's
neighbor, i.e. the tending of the sick, the clothing
of the poor, the feeding of the hungry, the giving of
drink to those who are thirsty, then it is we who are
the more positive christians. For in these spheres the
community of the people of National Socialist Germany
has accomplished a prodigious work." (Feb. 24, 1939)
"We were convinced that the people needs and requires
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." (Berlin, Oct. 24, 1933)
"An educated man retains the sense of the mysteries of
nature and bows before the unknowable. An educated
man, on the other hand, runs the risk of going over to
atheism (which is a return to the state of the
animal)." (Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-1944, page 59)
In his book, They Thought They Were Free, Milton Mayer
interviewed Germans who discussed how their society
changed right before their eyes, and how, despite
Hitler's rhetoric, God was nowhere to be found. As one
interviewee put it:
"The world you live in -- "your nation, your people"
http://www.thirdreich.net/Though_They_Were_Free.html -- is not the world you were in at all. The forms are
all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses,
the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the
concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit,
which you never noticed because you made the lifelong
mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed.
Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the
people who hate and fear do not even know it
themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is
transformed. Now you live in a system which rules
without responsibility even to God. The system itself
intended this in the beginning, but in order to
sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way."
Of course, America has hardly "gone all the way" and
is unlikely to become as psychotic as Nazi Germany any
time soon. But what do you suppose God thinks of
preventative war based upon deception? Or about the
use of depleted uranium?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/082304W.shtml Or about dropping napalm on civilians?
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=14920109&method=full&siteid=106694&headline=fallujah-napalmed-name_page.html Are Iraqi insurgents are any less certain that God is
on their side than our own evangelical Marines?
Yes, Saddam Hussein was a brutal thug, but why do so
many insist on forgetting that the U.S. helped him to
power in the first place?
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/morris.htm Does God see our role in all of this as lightly as we
do? And how many U.S. citizens do you know, who, mired
in fear, readily dismiss America's use of torture and
rationalize our disregard for international law?
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm...
What else might they overlook?
In 1937, Hitler said that because of Germany's belief
in God and God's favoritism towards Germany, the
country would prevail and prosper. "We, therefore, go
our way into the future with the deepest belief in
God. Would all we have achieved been possible had
Providence not helped us? I know that the fruits of
human labor are hard-won and transitory if they are
not blessed by the Omnipotent. Work such as ours which
has received the blessings of the Omnipotent can never
again be undone by mere mortals,"he said.
While attempting to solidify his power, Hitler also
denounced those who denounced religion -- as if he
were talking about Hollywood or blue states or Noam
Chomsky. "For eight months we have been conducting a
fearless campaign against that Communism which is
threatening our entire nation, our culture, our art,
and our public morals, "Hitler said in a speech in
Oct. 1933. "We have made an end of denials of the
Deity and the crying down of religion."
There will be no more crying down of religion in
George Bush's America, either. Though oft-repeated
assertions made by the media in the immediate
aftermath of the election have proven to be nothing
more than myth, propagandists would have you believe
that the American people have spoken: "Moral values"
reign supreme.
But how can any one of us know God's desires --
especially when our enemies claim to have God on their
side as well? And doesn't it seem that religious
hubris -- believing that God sanctions one's own
inhumane treatment of others -- always invites a fall?
"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is
just; that his justice cannot sleep forever," Thomas
Jefferson said, of the price America would eventually
pay for slavery. "Nations, like individuals, are
punished for their transgressions," Ulysses S. Grant
advised, describing karmic retribution without
pointing hateful fingers at lesbians.
And long before that, the poet John Milton tried to
"justify the ways of God to Man." But yet, the world,
with its conflicting visions of morality, ethics and
truth, still struggles to comprehend.
Perhaps Truth, for want of a better definition, is
what God sees when he looks at any given situation.
And perhaps it is ultimately impossible for us to know
God's mind. After all, it's obvious that Hitler wasn't
telling the truth when he spoke of God and country --
and by the same token, it's difficult to look at Najaf
or Fallujah or Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay and see
God's hand in any of it.
After one of Bush's operatives promised to "export
death and violence to the four corners of the earth in
defense of our great nation" Bob Woodward wrote: "The
president was casting his mission and that of the
country in the grand vision of God's Master Plan." And
sure enough, when Woodward asked Bush if he had
discussed the impending invasion of Iraq with his
father, President George H.W. Bush (who could have
offered sage advice),
http://www.thememoryhole.org/mil/bushsr-iraq.htm the President responded: "He is the wrong father to
appeal to in terms of strength; there is a higher
father that I appeal to."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17347-2004Apr16.html But, without knowing God's mind, most of us have only
History to help us judge. And the fact is, without the
benefit of History, some of the "moral values" Hitler
embraced sound eerily like those being peddled today.
George Bush is not Hitler. America is not Nazi
Germany. But buying into religious assertions or
thinking that God is on your side is not wise when it
comes to matters of war -- particularly when that war
is an aggressive preventative war based on false
premises and assumptions.
So, aside from Jerry Falwell, who speaks with
hate-filled authority, most of us do not know how God
will judge us. We will have to settle for History's
imperfect record.
All of this begs the question, however. Given his
assertions regarding God's role in helping him decide
policy ("I pray that I be as good a messenger of His
will as possible" Bush told Woodward. . . "I felt so
strongly that [invading Iraq] was the right thing to
do") how does Bush view the more mundane, secular
implications of his actions? When asked by Woodward
how History would judge the war in Iraq, Bush replied:
"History. We don't know. We'll all be dead."
I challenge anyone to find the moral value in that.
