Hitler was an Atheist!

While I don’t consider myself an atheist, my current stance towards religion often has me labeled as an atheist. As such, I often hear many of the Christians’ arguments against atheism, and quite frankly, they are often amusing.

There is one in particular, though, that is less amusing and more confusing. The argument usually goes something like this:

Atheistman: Can you explain to me why there is so much torture and pain in the Bible?

Christianman: No, but Hitler was an atheist; look what he did!

Now, let’s take a look at this. Atheistman has asked a question, one that I’ve asked myself over the years, and instead of answering it, Christianman has totally ignored it with the argument that Hitler was an atheist. This is a pretty common occurrence, and it seems a lot of Christians are hell bent (if you’ll pardon the phrase) on pegging Hitler as an atheist as though somehow it makes all the things in the Bible unimportant.

The problem with this argument is that it doesn’t hold a drop of water. And to see why, we have to take a little stroll through history.

Adolf Hitler, born April 20, 1889, was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party. It was this group that was the precursor of the Nazi Party. His father, Alois, was Catholic to an extent but was somewhat religiously skeptical. Adolf’s dear mother, on the other hand, was a practicing Catholic. According to an interview with a British correspondent conducted years after the Great War, Hitler claimed a mysterious voice told him to leave a section of a crowded trench during a minor barrage. Moments after he left the area, a shell fell on that particular spot. Hitler saw this experience as a message that he was a uniquely illuminated individual who had a special task to fulfill.

In the early 1920s, a Catholic priest and journalist by the name of Bernhard Stempfle was seen to be one of Adolfs inner circle, a man the soon to be Führer would confide in regularly. Hitler was also quoted in several speeches, stating:

“The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated.”

"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." – This one was said in private, so would be difficult to argue as political propaganda.

“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” – Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

In his April 12, 1922, speech, published in My New Order, he makes his feelings towards Christianity abundantly clear with such phrases as:

In boundless love as a Christian and as a man, I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.”

Now at this point, you might hear the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. This basically means that you will get told, “No True Christian would ever do what Hitler did.” And maybe that’s true. Maybe he was a wackjob that just thought he was getting messages from God. But even if he wasn’t getting those messages, and only thought he was being told what to do by God, it would still make him a believer and not an atheist.