I come from a region of germany with a lot of nazis and you can put almost anyone in that region into 4 categories:
Nazis, right wing, …
LGBTQ, left wing, …
Christians
People who dont care
With Christians I mean not every christian, but people who really live that out 100%.
Depending on the region this can have different consequences.
In my region the church helped refugees and at least cares a little bit about the environment.
While this isn’t the case everywhere and so on, the Christians are a group seperate to the nazis in my region.
And since there are way too many nazis in my region, I will not make myself the Christians as enemys. “Not Nazi” has to be enough in these circumstances.
When was a sovereignty of the Third Reich in question? Hitler and the NSDAP took power under legal means and then transformed into a dictatorship. They would have been recognized when they came to power.
There’s a book about it called Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, and how the church used The Nazis and Holocaust to further their power in Europe
Mao’s failures were issues of idiocy and incompetence, not wanting to exterminate groups of people he didn’t like based on their race. If mao was more competent he wouldn’t have been as fucking awful (though still quite bad). If Hitler was more competent we’d have even more victims of the Holocaust.
If Nazism grew in a Christian monoculture, where did all the Jews come from?
For the sake of debate, please refrain from personal attacks. We don’t have to agree, but can we do so in a civil manner?
I get your point: Assuming Nazi Germany was nothing but Christian, the picture would be correct.
But that was not the case. Some were even atheists! And some Christians were some of the fiercest resistance fighters.
I also think it’s dishonest to reduce the picture to just that. It’s also an example of connecting your political enemy to some monstrosity in an undifferentiated way, just like the Nazis did.
Still, this meme not only lowers you to the level of these Christians, but also to the level of Nazi propaganda.
If you want civil discussion this is not how you get it.
The majority of Germans were Christian, the official state religion was Christianity and it was recently revealed the Vatican was aware of the Holocaust well before the Allies were.
Nazis were Christians. Christians supported Nazis from the highest levels of the Church.
Any attempt to say otherwise is to whitewash the Catholic Church’s involvement and is unacceptable.
The majority of Germans were Christian, the official state religion was Christianity and it was recently revealed the Vatican was aware of the Holocaust well before the Allies were.
Nazis were Christians. Christians supported Nazis from the highest levels of the Church.
Yes, that’s all correct, broadly and roughly speaking. If you insert ‘all’ or ‘every’ like the picture in question, it becomes false, strictly speaking.
Any attempt to say otherwise is to whitewash the Catholic Church’s involvement and is unacceptable.
Agreed. I think our statements don’t contradict each other.
Still, this meme not only lowers you to the level of these Christians [who throw slur memes at atheists], but also to the level of Nazi propaganda.
If you want civil discussion this is not how you get it.
Maybe I did a poor job at delivering my point. Maybe someone else can do better. I think, at least, I contributed some new viewpoint to the discussion, and if only as something to which others can respond with “no, because …”. None of that justifies personal attacks.
Maybe others are happy with /c/atheism being an uncritical echo chamber for memes. I’d find that pretty sad and boring.
I regard it as my civil duty as a German anti-fascist to point out Nazi aesthetics and methods when I see them. There are so many ways to rightfully criticize Christianity, and even the interconnections between Christianity and Nazism. But doing so in the style of Goebbels is not the way. Maybe I should have clarified the similarities I see:
The colors resemble the Flag of the German Empire and were the favorite colors in Nazi propaganda
They too used generalizations over nuance
They too cared more about the narrative to deliver, even if it meant to exaggerate or distort historic facts
Connecting the disfavoured ‘others’ with emotionally laden pictures, equating them with monsters, stylizing them as ultimate enemies
This is actually not true. Nazism, like pretty much all authoritarian systems, wanted to push aside Christianity and organized religion, because they wanted to be the sole focus of society. They didn’t work in concert like you are claiming.
So for the people here who don't know what this is about: Super conservative Christians like to claim that without God, there can be no morals because God told us what's right or wrong. They deny the intrinsic morals we humans have. This image turns that BS argument on it's head.
No it doesn’t. All this image is implying is that Christians can be immoral. It says absolutely nothing about the idea that an objective morality needs an external source. This is claimed (incorrectly I would argue) by many atheist philosophers as well, so it’s not just “Super conservative Christians” that say it.
If the image was intended to do what you said then it utterly failed.
No, what it shows is that people who call themselves Christians can be caught up in evil things, same as everyone else. To your point, humanity has some intrinsic moral understanding, certainly heavily configured by the surrounding society, for the survival of society. It’s not triggered necessarily by faith in some deity. Everyone is capable of good. Everyone is capable of evil.
If you want to take it a step farther and argue with someone pushing the “only Christians have a sense of morals” stupidity on their own turf, just point out that according to the Bible, we are made in God’s image, and since he has a sense of good and evil, therefore so do we. Even an evolution loving, abortion having, pot smoking, illegal immigrant might technically be created in God’s image. They have morals, and can do good or evil things.
just point out that according to the Bible, we are made in God’s image, and since he has a sense of good and evil, therefore so do we.
I think in Christian lore, that’s supposed to be the role of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2–3). It’s fruits are forbidden. Serpent, original sin.
Bottom line it does not change your argument, since all humans after that point in the story have that ability. Just the reason is different.
I was about to question this picture, because, depending on the time it was taken, it might as well been very likely, that these children were raised as nazis in nazi Germany and not have been Christians at any point in their life. . Well the reverse image search told me it’s from a nazis rally in 1930… Wow. I’d still say, that this is not a good atheist meme. It’d go down better with their parents, waving flags at the same rally.
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