Despite an international outcry and effort to pay traditional “blood money” in the Saudi legal system, the Kingdom has cut the head off a Sri Lankan maid for allegedly smothering an infant child when the nanny was just 17. The maid was decapitated by a swordsman in Riyadh under the country’s Sharia based legal system.
Rizana Nafeek was sentenced to death in 2007 but Sri Lankan government appealed the death penalty and many international groups decried the ludicrous trial and draconian sentence. While under arrest, the maid signed a confession written in Arabic that she did not understand and later retracted. It did not matter.
Saudi Arabia beheaded as many as 76 people last year.
Source: National Post
I hail from good old Blighty and believe in complete transparency, all countries make mistakes, it’s far more gracious to admit them, learn and move on. None of this fannying around with linguistic wizardry that ‘Gene’ seems to be a merchant in.
Frances,
Sometimes bath salt is not just bath salt….
Frances,
Where do you hail from…. Brilliant….
In reply to your post of January, 11th, Gene, it appears that America inadvertently provided the means by which the attacks were carried out. The rest of the world is aware of this, somehow, the great US with its freedom of speech etc, etc, doesn’t like it’s countrymen to know this. The US amongst others gave financial aid, which Bin Laden benefited from, in the Soviet and Afghani war. I won’t bore you with the rest of the details. It’s convenient to omit such facts. Your knowledge is obviously quite immense, however, somewhat tiresome as it is blatantly bias a reeks of Wikipedia.
Bron/Bruce,
Firstly:
“Hitler used Christianity if he did anything. There is no way Hitler was a practicing Christian.”
That he used it for other ends does not preclude that it was his proclaimed religion of choice.
“He didnt kill the Jews to save their souls, it was purely secular.”
Not necessarily. I’m going to go with a little of both because as he saw himself as a reformer much like Martin Luther, some of his anti-Semitism may be rooted in Luther’s own work. Not many people realize that Martin Luther was an anti-Semite, they only know about his work “The Ninety-Five Theses” that kicked off the Protestant Reformation. Luther penned a lesser well known work called “Von den Juden und ihren Lügen” (“On the Jews and Their Lies”); a 65,000 word anti-Semitic treatise written in 1543. Hitler was a big fan of Luther. That he needed a scapegoat for secular purposes does not preclude that his anti-Semitism has at least partial roots in his twisted view of Christianity.
“Also the Nazi Party was not an extension of the Thule society.”
Straw man. Nobody said it was. The Thule Society was an early backer of what would become the Nazi Party and quite a few of the upper ranks were members (particularly in the SS) but they were their own thing as it were.
Personal religious beliefs are determined by the individual, not the collective. That is a human right recognized not only in our Constitution’s 1st Amendment but in the U.N.’s UDHR. Everyone gets to decide what they define their beliefs as including Hitler. I stipulated that Hitler was a bad Christian (compared to the majority of practice), but the evidence is that he considered himself Christian and that he went to great lengths to reconcile that with his actions and the actions of his government.
This is in stark contrast to socialism which Hitler strongly rejected in both his praise of Mussolini, the express adoption of Italian fascism as the model for Germany’s economy (even over the protests of some of his cohorts that it was a “foreign influence”) and in the purge of socialists from the Party during the Night of the Long Knives. It is also facile to compare religious beliefs to economic policy and although you can argue that zealotry can be applied to political ideology as well is religious ideology, they are not the same thing unless you are talking some form of theocracy. While the Reich might have eventually transformed into a government with theocratic features should the plan for the National Reich Church succeeded, it didn’t and when it perished Nazi Germany was just a fascist dictatorship. Hitler never rejected his Christianity.
The fundamental problem with those who won’t accept Hitler was a Christian despite the evidence he thought he was is that they (rightfully so) don’t want such a monster identified as “playing for their team”. It’s a form of tribalism. It’s basic psychology. It’s also flawed logic, specifically a form of the fallacy of composition. Just because “a” Christian is responsible for the Holocaust does not mean “all” Christians are responsible for the Holocaust. The facts are that Christians as a group didn’t kill those in the concentration camps. Hitler and his henchmen did. That onus is upon them and them alone regardless of whether they believed in Jesus or the Tooth Fairy, but to gyrate wildly to say Hitler wasn’t a Christian – by his own proclamation and as was his right – is simply flying in the face of the facts. It’s classic psychological denial in a very basic form. “He’s a monster so he can’t be ‘one of us’.” Sorry! Monsters come in all shapes, sizes, colors, nationalities, ethnicities and (yes) creeds. No single organized religion has the market cornered on atrocity any more than they have the market corned on benevolence. I know this because history tells me so.
Hitler was a Christian. A bad one. But that isn’t his most pertinent or even his defining characteristic. He was objectively an evil genocidal madman bent on European (if not global) domination by any reasonable standard. That’s what is important about Hitler. That he was a Christian is a historical footnote.
“Not many people realize that Martin Luther was an anti-Semite, they only know about his work “The Ninety-Five Theses” that kicked off the Protestant Reformation. Luther penned a lesser well known work called “Von den Juden und ihren Lügen” (“On the Jews and Their Lies”); a 65,000 word anti-Semitic treatise written in 1543.”
Gene,
This was so true. Luther didn’t start out hating Jews and actually believed that they would see the light and convert to his version of Christianity:
“As early as 1516, Luther wrote, “…[M]any people are proud with marvelous stupidity when they call the Jews dogs, evildoers, or whatever they like, while they too, and equally, do not realize who or what they are in the sight of God”. In 1523, Luther advised kindness toward the Jews in That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew, but only with the aim of converting them to Christianity. When his efforts at conversion failed, he grew increasingly bitter toward them.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther#Anti-Judaism_and_antisemitism
People have missed the obvious. Don’t be like Jesus don’t be a Christian. Warring, and oppressing thinking that weapons make a person powerful is not being a Christian. It is acting like the people against Jesus posing as being good. Hitler was a poser. He went by the name not following it up with actions proving he a was a christian.
Gene H:
The Nazis called themselves socialists, by your line of reasoning they were [and I have said this for years] but you have claimed many times and vociferously they are not socialists. Even though many Nazis claimed they were and the party itself is called National Socialist.
How can one claim be true and one claim not be true even though they are based on the same line of reasoning: the speaker must be believed?
People have missed the obvious. Don’t be like Jesus don’t be a Christian. Waring, and oppressing thinking that weapons make a person powerful is not being a Christian. It is acting like the people against Jesus posing as being good. Hitler was a poser. He went by the name not following it up with actions proving he a was a christian.
AY/Gene:
Hitler used Christianity if he did anything. There is no way Hitler was a practicing Christian. He didnt kill the Jews to save their souls, it was purely secular.
Also the Nazi Party was not an extension of the Thule society. From what I can find there are only a couple of Nazis who were members and some of those dont appear to be actual members but guests.
“In 1919 Anton Drexler, Gottfried Feder and Dietrich Eckart formed the German Workers’s Party (GPW) in Munich. The German Army was worried that it was a left-wing revolutionary group and sent Adolf Hitler, one of its education officers, to spy on the organization. Hitler discovered that the party’s political ideas were similar to his own. He approved of Drexler’s German nationalism and anti-Semitism but was unimpressed with the way the party was organized. Although there as a spy, Hitler could not restrain himself when a member made a point he disagreed with, and he stood up and made a passionate speech on the subject.
Anton Drexler was impressed with Hitler’s abilities as an orator and invited him to join the party. At first Hitler was reluctant, but urged on by his commanding officer, Captain Karl Mayr, he eventually agreed. He was only the fifty-fourth person to join the German Workers’s Party. Hitler was immediately asked to join the executive committee and was later appointed the party’s propaganda manager.
In the next few weeks Hitler brought several members of his army into the party, including one of his commanding officers, Captain Ernst Roehm. The arrival of Roehm was an important development as he had access to the army political fund and was able to transfer some of the money into the GWP.
The German Workers’s Party used some of this money to advertise their meetings. Adolf Hitler was often the main speaker and it was during this period that he developed the techniques that made him into such a persuasive orator.
Hitler’s reputation as an orator grew and it soon became clear that he was the main reason why people were joining the party. This gave Hitler tremendous power within the organization as they knew they could not afford to lose him.
Adolf Hitler advocated that the party should change its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). Hitler had always been hostile to socialist ideas, especially those that involved racial or sexual equality. However, socialism was a popular political philosophy in Germany after the First World War. This was reflected in the growth in the German Social Democrat Party (SDP), the largest political party in Germany.
Hitler, therefore redefined socialism by placing the word ‘National’ before it. He claimed he was only in favour of equality for those who had “German blood”. Jews and other “aliens” would lose their rights of citizenship, and immigration of non-Germans should be brought to an end.”
That the best you got? It’s a poor substitute for evidence to substantiate your claim.
Go for it Gene,
Gotcha….. Finish (intransitive verb) it up… Knowing full well…. The following as a noun:
“Hyperbole …. Hyperbole (pron.: /haɪˈpɜrbəliː/ hy-PUR-bə-lee;[1] Greek: ὑπερβολή hyperbolē, “exaggeration”) is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally.[2]
Hyperboles are exaggerations to create emphasis or effect. As a literary device, hyperbole is often used in poetry, and is frequently encountered in casual speech. An example of hyperbole is: “The bag weighed a ton.”[3] Hyperbole makes the point that the bag was very heavy, though it probably doesn’t actually weigh a ton.
In rhetoric, some opposites of hyperbole are meiosis, litotes, understatement, and bathos (the ‘letdown’ after a hyperbole in a phrase).”
AY,
So in other words you have no evidence, merely unfounded opinion.
Again, belief isn’t a factor, the evidence of his own words is what is salient. My belief is that he was a very bad Christian and this is based upon my knowledge of Christianity and his actions. The evidence is that he was a self-proclaimed Christian and he promoted a very specific brand of Christianity. What I don’t believe is your psychic interpretation over direct testimony that Hitler himself considered himself a Christian. Evidence speaks louder than opinion. As you said, who are you to argue with him when it comes to his professed creed? Foolish is as foolish does.
Gene,
There is nothing inconsistent with professing to be a Christian and believing in the occult. If you believe Hitler said he was a Christian and he said he was, who am I to argue with. If you believe everything you hear someone say, I can understand that. Deeds of atheist have more meaning to me that talk of being a Christian.
The rest if your dribble is fodder for fools.
No one said you were revising history, but you will slant it to your goal … Paranoia can be overcome.
AY,
I never said you weren’t entitled to your opinion or to express it. I said you were wrong. I proved it by Hitler’s own words. You’re free to be as wrong as you like and I’m free to point it out using evidence. If that presents a problem for you, then you should select your targets better.
As to reason? When you misrepresent another’s statements to attack the misrepresentation, that is the very definition of a straw man argument. If you don’t like having your statements dismantled for lack of substantive evidence and your use of logical fallacies? Learn to argue better.
As to the rest of your drivel? You’re the one who made it personal by the accusation of historical revisionism without proof so if you don’t like catching any crap, don’t throw any. Imply I’m a liar at your own peril. You acted and you got the consequences of your actions. Then again some people have a problem connecting actions and consequences. That I’m better at retort than you, you have no evidence and your logic and argumentation was faulty is your problem to deal with. Nothing personal.
Now where’s your proof? Not your opinion. Your proof Hitler wasn’t a Christian. I listed a dozen plus examples above illustrating he considered himself a Christian and promoted a twisted form of the religion. Show some evidence where Hitler himself renounced Christianity and adopted some other creed.
Again – my contention was that he was a Christian with an interest in the occult but not an occultist proper like his cohorts Bormann, Speer and Goebbels. There is no evidence Hitler ever attended a Thule Society meeting let alone renounced his Christianity. If there is, the burden is upon you to present it.
You’re entitled to your opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts. Either your opinion is founded in fact or it is baseless. That is not a false dichotomy but rather the nature of evidentiary based thinking. Hitler’s own words back my contention. Where’s your proof? Don’t have any? Well then that simply indicates that your opinion isn’t based in evidence. And again, you’re entitled to your opinions and to express even the baseless ones. You aren’t entitled to have them go unchallenged.
Awf,
If the Christian principles were based upon what Jesus was supposed to have taught it’d be closer to Judaism ….. The Christian philosophy is so far from its origins ….. That in my opinion he’d rebuke it…..
P Smith,
There is a certin social click here that if you don’t follow the leader….. You won’t be listened to…. The leader depends on the day….
Well gene, you say you are right…. No reason to argue there….. You say you encourage free speech….. I’ll let your post speak for themselves….. If you don’t like an ideal, you 1) attack the ideal; 2) call it a strawman argument; 3) attack the person….. The list is endless….
In my opinion based upon what I’ve read Hitler was a Christian in Name Only…. There was a movement within the party to assimilate and then indoctrinate the party agenda through the guise of religion….. What is religion exactly….. Means many things to many people…. Even the Catholics have an occult aspect….if you’ve a problem with this read some more….. I’ll say again, there is nothing inconsistent with being a Christian and believing in the occult…in this case astrology…..
There is noting personal in this post…. I suggest you reasses your attacks if you wish to …. It’s not very becoming of a guest blogger and writer to continue personal attacks when reason will work just as well…..I don’t think you are doing this blog any honors….. I may disagree with bron on his philosophy of economics…. See any attacks there?
To resort to your arguments may be cute…come on gene…. Get a grip…. I am chuckling…..as well as others…..to suggest a CAT scan….hmm…. You might be right….. It’s insane to try and carry on an intelligence exchange of ideals with someone that is not open to others ideals….
Anonymous –
There is no “both sides” on Hitler’s christianity. Suggesting so is tantamount to saying there are “two sides” about whether the holocaust happened.
Even if he wasn’t, so what? Religion was used to motivate and indoctrinate the German populace, to drive them to commit atrocities. Being politically conservative himself didn’t stop Conrad Black from owning and operating socialist newspapers.
“The means to an end” is using anything, even things you don’t like, to achieve a goal, and *if* Hitler wasn’t a christian, he used christianity and most christian’s animosity towards jews to achieve his goals.
And to Splindell – You obviously didn’t read carefully. I wasn’t talking about you, I was talking TO you ABOUT Mickey and what you had said in an earlier post about him.
But given your failure to read in context, maybe it does apply.
“This is yet another example of why religion needs to end.” (Smith)
“@P Smith. Joseph Stalin murdered 10s of millions without religion. Chineese communist many other godless regimes have mudered hundreds of million combined.” (Mickey)
“Mickey,
You need to read the history of The Inquisition, the Witch Trials, anti-Jewish Pogroms and the Crusaders before they even got to the Holy Lands.” (Me)
“Mickey,
I’m really not sure that can be quantified. However, you must understand that even though Communists are atheists, Communism as practiced is itself a religion, though one not believing in God. I can’t say that I agree with P Smith’s original statement either. I think that institutionalized religion, fundamentalist religion and atheistic religions are all bad, not because of their teachings per se, but because sociopaths tend to rise to the top of their hierarchies and pervert the original intent of the belief. do you really think that Karl Marx would have approved of Lenin, Stalin and Mao? I seriously doubt it.” (Me)
“Spindell –
There are two type of ignorant and uneducate people:
(1) Those who don’t know because they’ve never been exposed to facts
(2) Those, like “mickey”, who don’t want to know or deal in facts. Addressing them would undermine his claims.
“mickey” –” (Smith)
Smith,
If you are going to address a comment specifically towards Mickey, then perhaps opening it addressing me, offering two noxious alternatives, the second addressing Mickey contextually implies that I’m the object of alternative number one. This is underlined by the fact that I disagreed with both you and with Mickey on your premises.
No “if” about it Hitler was not a Christian. Had Jesus be a Christian like Hitler was thought to be all of us would have had it. The Hitler mentality is against public nudity, and sex with other species too.
lol
Or perhaps a heart, pete? But only in his notes to Eva of course. 😉
j i same thing. wonder if hitler ever wrote his name with a little smiley face over the i. would be a cute emotocon. 😐 with a little mustache and hair.
Yeah AY, just gloss over the positive Christian aspect of the National Reich Church and say he “had no use for it” despite the fact positive Christianity being key element in seeking to gain acceptance for that failed project. I presented the evidence he considered himself a Christian in his own words. I’ve presented evidence he had great use for Christianity in promoting nationalism and did so quite frequently. All of it in his own words.
You’ve presented no evidence at all he considered himself an occultist or not a Christian.
In short, your counter amounts to “uh uh, was not”.
The club girls may think that’s cute, but anyone trained in argumentation is chuckling.
Again, he was a Christian and so by his own proclamation. That he wasn’t a very good one is beside the point. He said he was one and he promoted positive Christianity as a path to a consolidated nationalism. That you apparently think he wasn’t a Christian is immaterial to the evidence he said he was one. Are you the Pope? Are you Jesus? Do you have the ability to excommunicate? Did your “knowledge” he “had no use for it” come from psychic powers? I didn’t think so.
“[H]e is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.”
And some people wallow in it.
There’s a bubble bursting alright. Might I suggest a cranial CAT scan to find it. Or not.
my guess is hjtler saw god every time he looked into a mirror
He saw Satan. God was not in his soul. People that kill don’t have God in their soul . it is not a one way road. God is not in war. The devil wants people to think God is in war..