Thanks for your input.
I ran into an interesting study of childhood development in 19th and early 20th centuries years ago-—which I have filed away somewhere. It dealt in parenting techniques and German and Russian women were horrid to small children. They were cruel and were not adverse to sexually abusing their children.
(Not all the Germans and Russians-—just the unChristian ones. My parents were pure German and good Christians and wonderful parents, although very strict).
The Christianity of Luther was wearing thin by the rise of the Atheists in the 1800’s, like Nietzsche and Hegel and Darwin whose ideology became the dominant worldview in Germany quickly, first the Rhine area which “flowed into the Thames”-—to deChristianize all of Europe eventually.
Pastor Bonhoeffer in the late 20’s was well aware of the “thin” Christianity “practiced” by the Germans. It was so thin-—they could put swastikas on the altars and worship Hitler without blinking an eye.
Without an Absolute (God), you can redesign Good and Evil to any random, arbitrary thing. German’s started doing that in the late 1800’s, and by the time the Weimar Republic was established, and after WWI, they had little belief in a “God”. That removal of Christian Ethics is the slippery slope to no morality what-so-ever. Their dehumanizing and debased culture swallowed many of the children.
We will be reduced to a Hobbsian nasty world, if we dump Judeo-Christian Ethics. Individuality is a Christian concept. Nothing will give dignity and worth to every human beings like Christianity-— and power over others will becomes the big thrill—using others in demeaning ways for fun to give people that temporary “feeling” of immortality which they can’t really have with a belief in no God.
I’m only `Einvierterdeutsch’ myself. There was a time when I admired everything great & good about German culture especially music and I still regard the Nazis as hijackers & robbers. Guess I still believe in the best of Germany. I just wish more of today’s Germans did.
But as my Dad taught me, the more you know, the more you realize how little you know (this while I was being told to study hard & get good grades. Didn’t make sense then.)
I’m older now & I have to concentrate my diminishing intelligence on the only society I ever grew up in - America. In over a century Germany hasn’t found its soul yet IMO and the solution would seem so simple - turn back to Christian traditions. Maybe the Muslim threat will finally awaken der Deutschen Volk and remind them that their roots & rock & bulwark is no further away than the nearest Bible.
Where is the modern Pastor Niemoeller?