Posted on 08/04/2018 5:36:48 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
In 2012's debate between Cardinal George Pell and Richard Dawkins, Pell argued that Nazism and Stalinism were the "two great atheist movements of the last century." Dawkins responded that while Stalin was an atheist, Hitler was not.
However, they both agreed that Hitler represented the "personification of social Darwinism" (Pell) or that certain of what he tried to achieve arose "out of Darwinian natural selection" (Dawkins).
The divergence of opinion between Pell and Dawkins reflects deep divisions among historians themselves as to what the Nazis believed about religion.
The argument that the Nazis were pagans derives from the fact they arose from the ultra-nationalist volkisch movement in Germany, which had a bizarre range of esoteric and mystical religious notions. Hitler was certainly aware of the ideas of one of the most influential authors, Guido von List, who sought to rediscover the lost wisdom of the "Armanen," supposedly a high-caste of the priesthood of the pagan god Wotan (or Odin). He proposed to do so principally through runes and Norse poetry like the Edda.
When the Nazis first celebrated Christmas in Munich (in 1920), they did so as a solstice celebration...
In one of the most complete speeches we have of Hitler's from 1920, he made direct references to some of List's concepts and argued that all Aryans built "cults of light" wherever they had founded civilisations in the world...
In the same speech he disparaged the Bible as too Jewish... Yet at the end of August 1920, he argued the Nazis "supported every Christian activity" and promoted Nazism as a "gospel of German revitalization."
Hitler did voice a great deal of support for an "Aryan" Christ, generally a figure who fitted completely with his own agenda: a violent anti-Semite named Jesus.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc.net.au ...
“the Japanese with their Shinto Buddhism.”
Shintoism and Buddhism are two very different religions.
Buddhism is from India, but Shintoism is native to Japan.
Shintoism was the State religion, which declared the Emperor to be the divine descendant of the Shinto Sun Goddess Amaterasu (the reason for the sun on the flag). Shintoism also proposed that all ethnic Japanese were racially connected to this divinity, but that no other races/ethnicities could be.
There is nothing like any of that in Buddhism, which is explicitly universal to all.
Yes but while being far from an expert, my general understanding is that in Japan, the two are rather interwoven.
Never-the-less, the Japanese of WWII were as pagan and racist as the nazis, facts that the Left will never admit.
From what I’ve read I believe Hitler was a theosophist.
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