Hitler was NOT an Atheist and Favored Christian Ideolgy.

Many thanks to my opponent for an engaging and thorough response. I will take his opening sentence as a concession of the first portion of the resolution so that we may focus on the second - the issue of whether or not Hitler favored Christian Ideology. I should point out that my opponent has intended to "prove that Hitler was a fair-weather Christian, and that his main purpose was utilizing ANY argument that advanced his own ideologies -- to include various forms of religion" but has brought forth evidence for only the first of his three claims. I take them to be as follows: 1) Hitler was a fair weather Christian. 2) Hitler was indiscriminate in his use of argumentation for his ideologies. 3) Hitler used multiple forms of religious argumentation as per #2. I will briefly address numbers 2 and 3 -Whether or not Hitler was indiscriminate in his use of argumentation is beside the point. Christian ideology in Germany during the early 1900's was so rampant that it would hardly do to make the case that Hitler did NOT favor Christian ideologies as argumentative tools. Christianity was something the people understood and resounded with. Christian references are so widely sown in his speeches that I do not believe a serious case can be made for the position that he did not favor Christianity publicly. As for the third point above, there was one quote concerning the religions of the Japanese and the Muslims that would seem to support this point, but the context of the quote (by it's own admission) is counterfactual, which dismisses it as evidence in support of a claim that Hitler used any other religious argumentation to support his ideologies. In short, I do not believe there is a cogent case to be made on either of these two points, so I shall focus where my opponent did - on the first. ************************************************************************** I do concur that Hitler was raised in a Catholic household. However, the rest of my opponent's claims are undocumented, and somewhat suspicious. For example: >> "Hitler often challenged his own religion and had grown very skeptical of its truth claims." I was aware that his FATHER was somewhat of a skeptic, religiously. However, Hitler himself did not seem to delve into skepticism until his teens, which is perfectly normal. >> "He begrudgingly attended mass, not willingly." Among Catholics, this is hardly a surprise. A semester in a Catholic school will show you that a great number of Catholic teenagers attend mass only begrudgingly. >> "As a young man, his theological attention was drawn to Germanic paganism that was later supplanted by Christianity." Yes... let's see just HOW supplanted it became. We know that Hitler was baptized and confirmed as a Roman Catholic. But for someone who supposedly was only a fair-weather Christian, he sure did a lot of things involving Christianity, even in his private life. Let's take a look at how this fair-weather Christian was involved with the Church. Hitler prays in public - http://www.flyingchariotministries.com... Hitler goes to church - http://www.alamoministries.com... Priests salute Hitler - http://www.flyingchariotministries.com... More priests salute Hitler - http://www.flyingchariotministries.com... Hitler invites the Papal Nuncio Orsenigo to his BIRTHDAY PARTY? Yes, it's hard to find and somewhat grainy (http://3.bp.blogspot.com...) but from a different angle and camera (http://www.reformation.org...) the picture is quite clear. Happy birthday fair-weather Adolf. Love, the Catholic Church. While this certainly could be seen as the Church's involvement with Hitler, and not the other way around, let's consider some other facts... While dictating his memoirs in Mein Kampf, yes, Hitler rails against Christianity. But he also fondly recalls his experience: "I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal." Mein Kampf, Vol. 1. Ch. 1. Though they never met, Hitler's inflammatory remarks are reminiscent of another German - Frederich Nietzsche - who Hitler obviously adored (See this loving gaze?? http://www.historycooperative.org...) The point is that Hitler's criticisms of Christianity read much more like a student of Nietzsche than of a lapsed Catholic. Consider: >> "...first spiritual terror entered into the far freer ancient world..." The turning point of culture and the glorification of an ancestral deity... >> "...the world has been afflicted and dominated by this coercion..." Sounds like the contrast between slave and noble moralities to me... >> "...and that coercion is broken only by coercion, and terror only by terror..." And now we have rudimentary asceticism... These passages may as well have come from "On the Genealogy of Morals." ******************************************************************* Let us turn lastly and briefly to the symbolism used by the Nazi party. For being "weak and flabby," Christianity played a vital role. Let's take a look. The Nazi SS Trooper belt buckle - http://newsjunkiepost.com... And the flag of the Luftwaffe - http://www.pzg.biz... Both bear the phrase "Gott Mit Uns" - God is with us. Pardon the poor representation in Paint, but I couldn't find a clear picture of these pictograms AND their combination, so I had to make one - http://students.millikin.edu... - the Nazi symbol is literally a representation of God. ************************************************************* What conclusions can we draw from this? We could, as my opponent argues, conclude that Hitler was a fair-weather Christian who privately thought the religion "weak and flabby." However, I contend that Hitler's upbringing and rise to political power had much more to do with his political charisma and the fact that he brought Germany from the depths of terrible depression to a major world power in the span of twenty years (6 years really, from when he became Chancellor). Here is something else to think about... while gaining political power and making his grandiose speeches that I quoted in the first round above, Hitler's approval ratings were through the roof. The people loved him and his (or more appropriately his party's) economic policies that were restoring the Fatherland to its former glory. Why would Hitler have had a reason between 1933 (when he became Chancellor) and 1939 (when WWII began) to falsely profess to be Christian? Religion was not the issue in politics - it was economics and poverty. Furthermore, many of these speeches were given before or at the very beginning of his election - at a time when it would have served no political purpose to falsely profess to be Christian, and if found out, would ruin him politically. Take note that the quotes my opponent presents were delivered AFTER the beginning of the war. Readers, the main point of consideration is thus: Should we take Hitler at his word that he was a Christian, despite his expressed reservations about this particular belief system, and in light of his and his party's obvious Christian affiliations.... or should we denounce Hitler as lying through his teeth at every chance he got? Genocide, Racism, and Militant Nationalism do no a liar make. AFFIRMED.