XPost: alt.global-warming, alt.atheism   
   From: david-hartung@hotmail.com   
      
   Was Hitler Christian? Here's a page of quotes showing that   
   Hitler apparently was, indeed, Christian. Others have managed   
   to dig up quotes that would seem to show that Hitler was an   
   atheist, a deist, a Pagan, or an occultist of some kind.   
   Personally, I suspect that Hitler, like many political leaders,   
   saw religion as a tool to be used for political ends, and that   
   what he had to say about religion depended on who he was   
   talking to at a given moment. Since the majority of Germans   
   were Christians, it was obviously in his best interests to   
   appeal to Christians if he wanted to attain and keep political   
   power. It is also not clear that he was genuinely Pagan, etc.,   
   either, rather than just trying to rally different kinds of   
   racists and Jew-haters.   
      
   If today's neo-Nazis are to have even the remotest chance of   
   attaining power, they too will need to appeal to Christians,   
   because the majority of white people are Christian. Let us now   
   consider the consequences of neo-Nazism's need to appeal to   
   Christians.   
      
   What kinds of Christians would most likely be attracted to neo-   
   Nazism? Obviously, not the more tolerant sorts. In the vast   
   majority of cases, a Christian who tolerates people of other   
   religions is likely also to reject racism  -  or at least to   
   reject such blatant forms of racism as are espoused by the neo-   
   Nazis, even if they may still be racist in more subtle ways.   
      
   Furthermore, racialist ideology itself is all about preserving   
   a "cohesive people" (as even Joy of Satan founder Maxine's   
   husband Cliff Herrington put it in one of his speeches  -   
   here's a brief audio excerpt). Preserving a "cohesive people"   
   necessarily involves culture as well as race; and culture   
   certainly does include religion. Hence it is only natural for   
   many racialist ideologues to oppose religious diversity, just   
   as they oppose racial diversity within a given region.   
      
   Many neo-Nazis and many other White Nationalists consider   
   religious diversity to be "culturally decadent." Naturally they   
   consider Satanism to be even more "decadent."   
      
   These same neo-Nazis and many other White Nationalists might   
   nevertheless be willing to put aside their religious   
   differences with other White Nationalists in the short run, for   
   the short-term strategic purpose of being able to work together   
   with other White Nationalists. But this doesn't mean they would   
   continue to be religiously tolerant if/when their desired White   
   Nation were ever to come into existence.   
      
   A Christian neo-Nazi will in most cases believe that   
   Christianity has been a vital part of the culture of the white   
   Western world for the past 2000 years and is therefore the   
   religious tradition that must be preserved in the West, albeit   
   perhaps in modified form such as Christian Identity. Hence neo-   
   Nazi Christians will most likely favor efforts to keep the   
   Western world Christian and will therefore reject, on   
   principle, the very idea of religious tolerance even toward   
   other mainstream religions, let alone toward Satanism  -  at   
   least in the long run.   
      
   Thus, neo-Nazi Christians are likely to support the agenda of   
   the Christian religious right wing. Moreover, they are likely   
   to see the religious right wing as a good recruiting ground for   
   neo-Nazism. (This may be one of the reasons why some neo-Nazi   
   groups have focussed on anti-gay activism.) Hence I would   
   expect to see more and more religiously intolerant Christians   
   joining the neo-Nazi movement. And their prevalence will   
   inevitably shape the agenda of the larger neo-Nazi movement   
   itself, hardening the White Nationalist movement's already   
   strong bias against "multiculturalism" and hence against   
   religious diversity.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)