Why Faith Fails The Christian Delusion

by John W. Loftus

victims of Group Y as Target 2. However, let's further suppose that Target 1 was

  an ethnic tribe that only had a thousand people, while Target 2 was a religious

  group composed of a million people. In tabular form:

  Now, would the reprehensibility of the principle of genocide change if Group X

  only killed one thousand while Group Y killed one million? Of course not,

  because we can reasonably suppose that if Target 1 had been composed of a

  million members, then Group X might have killed a million.

  So an ethical sleight-of-hand is being deployed by D'Souza in his numbers

  game insofar as he supposes that Christianity is somehow morally superior

  because it simply had lesser numbers of people available for killing in some

  target groups. Consider that even by D'Souza's admission, Christian witch-hunts

  killed some 100,000 persons in Europe.11 But if the principle of killing witches

  did not change, then we might have had 10 million witches killed if witch-

  hunters had managed to find and kill that many.

  The fact that we had only 100,000 victims of witch-hunts just means that the

  target group was smaller, but not that the goal of total extermination was

  different. Thus, we must judge genocide's morality not just by the absolute

  numbers of people killed but also by the proportion of the target group slated to

  be killed. Since the presumed extermination goal for Hitler or for Christian

  witch-hunters is both 100 percent, the moral reprehensibility of Hitler and the

  witch-hunters are morally equal. Their acts of genocide also would be equally

  banned by the United Nations standard.

  Therefore, the only thing D'Souza accomplishes is to show that Chris tianity is

  not morally superior in its principles of genocide. Christians can and have sought

  to kill entire groups of people. It is simply a historical accident that there were

  different sets of numbers for atheist versus Christian regimes, even if we allow

  D'Souza's erroneous assumption that Hitler represented an atheist regime.

  Otherwise, D'Souza's argument is akin to claiming that Hitler should be given

  credit for killing only 6 million Jews because that is all he managed to round up.

  NAZISM AND CHRISTIAN ANTI JUDAISM

  Contrary to D'Souza's contention that Nazism is an antireligious philosophy,

  Nazism is part of a long history of Christian anti Judaism. Nazism does not

  represent a radical departure from traditional Christian attitudes toward Jews.

  This much is admitted by the Catholic historian, Jose M. Sanchez: "There is little

  question that the Holocaust had its origin in the centuries-long hostility felt by

  Christians against Jews." 12

  The fact that Nazism is simply an updated form of Christian antiJudaism is

  evidenced by how closely the Nazi plan for Jews resembles that of the father of

  Protestant Christianity, Martin Luther (1483-1546). In order to understand this

  link, we present an actual extract of Luther's seven-point plan, issued in 1543 in

  his tract, On the 7ews and Their Lies

  First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with

  dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or

  cinder of them.

  This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God

  might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate

  such public lying, cursing, blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians ...

  Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed ...

  Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in

  which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from

  them.

  Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain

  of loss of life and limb ...

  Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely

  for the Jews.

  Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and

  treasures of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for

  safekeeping ...

  Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a

  spindle into the hands of young strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them

  earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children

  of Adam (Gen. 3 [:19]).13

  Every single point in Luther's plan was implemented by Nazi policy. For

  example, during Kristallnacht, the horrific anti-Jewish rampage of 1938, Jewish

  synagogues, businesses, and homes were burned or ransacked, just as Luther's

  first and second points direct. Moreover, whether by coincidence or not,

  Kristallnacht spanned Luther's birthday on November 10. Jewish literature was

  burned by the Nazis just as is stated in Luther's third point. Rabbis were certainly

  forbidden to teach, as directed by Luther's fourth point. The arrests and shipment

  of Jews to concentration camps certainly would be consistent with Luther's fifth

  point. Jewish property, including works of art, was confiscated by the Nazis, thus

  paralleling Luther's sixth point. Luther's seventh point had a correspondence in

  Nazi labor camps, with their infamous Arbeit machtfrei ("work liberates")

  slogan.

  The plans are so similar that even Martin H. Bertram, a Lutheran Luther

  scholar and the translator of Luther's anti-Jewish tract, states: "It is impossible to

  publish Luther's treatise today, however, without noting how similar his

  proposals were to the actions of the Nationalist Socialist regime in Germany in

  the 1930s and 1940s."14 And when one looks at how Hitler viewed Luther, all

  we need to do is consult Mein Kampf. "Beside Frederick the Great stands Martin

  Luther as well as Richard Wagner."15

  Catholic Christians have an even longer history of anti Judaism. Canon

  Sixteen of the Council of Elvira (ca. 306), for instance, prohibited marriage

  between Christians and Jews.16 Thus the Nazi Nuremberg laws, which

  prohibited marriages between Germans and Jews, are simply an extension of a

  Christian tradition, not a radical departure as D'Souza would have us believe.

  While anti Judaism reaches back to the NT, it is in the Middle Ages that we

  begin to witness some of the most brutal and systematic Christian attacks on

  Jews.17 In part, the codification of Catholic canon law was responsible for a

  more uniform policy toward the Jews.18 And despite signs of tolerance shown in

  canon law at times, the reality is that Jews were expelled from England in 1290

  and from France in 1306. Of course, by 1492, Spain also expelled the Jews.

  In any event, the First Crusade, which aimed to capture the Holy Land from

  Muslims, generated a new wave of systematic anti-Jewish violence. The First

  Crusade was proclaimed in 1095, and the first contingents began to make their

  way eastward in 1096. These contingents, composed mostly of laypersons, were

  held responsible for most anti-Jewish violence. Hordes of "crusaders" stormed

  into towns such as Cologne, Mainz, and Worms, and left some three thousand

  Jews dead.19 Many of the Jews caught in those pogroms refused to convert to

  Christianity. According to one Jewish
chronicle, the following rationale for

  martyrdom was uttered:

  After all things, there is no questioning the ways of the Holy One, blessed

  be He... Who has given us His Torah and has commanded us to allow

  ourselves to be killed and slain in witness to the Oneness of His Holy

  Name. Happy are we if we fulfill His will and happy is he who is slain or

  slaughtered and who dies attesting to the Oneness of His Name.20

  These Jews, victimized by Christians, certainly saw hatred against them as

  rooted in religion. D'Souza's defense that at least Medieval Jews could have

  converted to Christianity, as opposed to the case in Nazi Germany, fails by the

  United Nations standard.21 One cannot kill any group based on their ethnicity or

  religion, and so the opportunity to convert does not make a difference.

  So does D'Souza think that if the number of Jews available for killing in those

  Medieval German cities would have been greater, then fewer Jews would have

  been killed? On the one hand, church authorities did denounce these pogroms.

  On the other hand, the laity may have acted the way they did because of words

  such as those of Pope Innocent III, who on October 9, 1208, issued the following

  announcement concerning heretics and Jews to Philip II Augustus, the king of

  France:

  In order that the Holy Church of God, arrayed like a fearful battlefront, may

  proceed against its cruelest enemies, to exterminate [ad extermi-nandum]

  the followers of wicked heresy, which like a serpent or an ulcer, has

  infected the entire province, we have caused garrisons of Christian soldiers

  to be called together ... 22

  Notice that, even if not always carried out literally, the idea of exterminating

  groups of people (heretics, Jews) is already there, as is the use of medicalized

  genocidal language ("ulcer ... infected") also common to Nazism.23

  The fact that Hitler saw what he was doing as a continuation of Catholic

  policy is confirmed by a conversation he had on April 26 1933, with Hermann

  Wilhelm Berning, bishop of Osnabriick, Germany. According to a report

  recorded in Documents on German Foreign Policy:

  [Hitler] then brought up the Jewish question. In justification of his hostility

  to the Jews he referred to the Catholic Church, which had likewise always

  regarded the Jews as undesirables and which on account of the moral

  dangers involved had forbidden Christians to work for Jews. For these very

  reasons the Church had banished the Jews to the ghetto. He saw the Jews as

  nothing but pernicious enemies of the state and Church and therefore he

  wanted to drive the Jews out more and more, especially from academic life

  and public professions.24

  As the famed Holocaust historian, Guenter Lewy, summarized this meeting,

  "Hitler was merely doing what the Church had done for 1,500 years."25 Indeed,

  Hitler simply had much better logistics and technology to do what some

  Medieval Christians wanted to do to the Jews. There were also many more Jews

  living in Germany by Hitler's time. Thus, D'Souza should be counting the

  increases in target populations, not just general populations, to judge the

  proportionality of atheist and religious violence.

  How RELIGIOUS WAS NAZI ANTI JUDAISM?

  D'Souza contends that Nazism was an "antireligious philosophy," but he offers

  meager indisputable evidence for his claim. If we wish to know motives, a

  reasonable procedure is to seek the reasons people give for what they do. If we

  follow this procedure, then the following statement by Hitler in Mein Kampfis

  most relevant:

  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.26

  But D'Souza dismisses Hitler's statement as evidence that Hitler meant what he

  said.'? Instead, D'Souza suggests that a better source for Hitler's thoughts on

  religion is Allan Bullock, author of a book titled Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives

  (1993). As D'Souza phrases it: "From an early age, his torian Allan Bullock

  writes, `Hitler had no time at all for Catholic teaching, regarding it as a religion

  fit only for slaves and detesting its ethics."128 This is clearly a deflective tactic

  since D'Souza does not explain why Bullock knows what Hitler thinks better

  than Hitler himself. It is usually poor history when one substitutes a secondary

  source (i.e., Bullock) for a primary source (i.e., Hitler). Moreover, even if Hitler

  detested Catholic teachings, D'Souza confuses atheism with anti-Catholicism.

  And the above quotation was not the only time Hitler invoked God, religion, or

  Christianity to explain his policies in Mein Kampf. Hitler also stated: "For God's

  will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys

  His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will."29 In the

  meeting with Berning, Hitler insisted that "neither a personal life could be built

  without Christianity nor a state."30

  Yet another attempt to avoid the obvious implications of Hitler's statements is

  D'Souza's appeal to the propagandistic aspect of Hitler's Mein Kanipf D'Souza

  claims that "Hitler himself says in Mein Kanipf that his public statements should

  be understood as propaganda that bears no relation to the truth but are designed

  to sway the masses."31 D'Souza does not cite a direct quote from Hitler for this

  claim and only refers us to pages 177-85 of Mein Kampf, which again reflects

  poor scholarship. D'Souza does not seem to realize that his gross generalization

  about Mein Kampfs bearing "no relation to the truth" creates a case of self-

  referential incoherence. If Hitler's propaganda always hides the truth, then it

  follows that the very statement about how he was using propaganda must be

  false. And does Hitler not really believe that Jews are evil because what he says

  in Mein Kanapf has no relation to the truth? Rather, a better historical procedure

  is to presume that an author meant what he said about what he believed unless

  proven otherwise. Nothing Hitler said disproves that he believed he was doing

  God's will.

  Moreover, D'Souza leaves unexplained why Hitler could have thought that his

  anti-Jewish rhetoric would sway the masses unless the masses were receptive to

  an anti-Jewish message. This is important because the masses of which D'Souza

  speaks identified themselves largely as Christians. For example, a Nazi report

  indicates that by 1938, 51.4 percent of SS members were identified as Protestant,

  22.7 percent were Catholic, and 25.7 percent were "God-believers"

  (Gottglaubigen).32 Since anti Judaism was not associated with Darwin's own

  writings, then it is a history of Christian anti Judaism that would be much more

  effective in convincing the Christian masses.

  POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY

  Another aspect of Nazism that D'Souza dismisses without much investigation is

  the Nazi idea of Positive Christianity. The term dates from as early as Point 24 of

  the Nazi Party Program of 1920, which says:

  The Party as such reflects the viewpoint of a positive Christianity
without

  being bound confessionally to any specific denomination. It battles the

  Jewish materialistic spirit.33

  Again, anti Judaism was one of its main tenets, and that simply follows a long

  history of Christian anti Judaism. It is not a radical departure from historically

  orthodox Christianity in that sense.

  If one reads The Myth of the Twentieth Century, a treatise on Nazism by

  Alfred Rosenberg, who is credited with authorship of that Party Program of

  1920, one will understand that he saw Positive Christianity as a restoration of the

  original and purer teachings of Christ.34 Indeed, Rosenberg tells us that Christ's

  life is what should be meaningful for Germans.35 Rosenberg repudiated the idea

  of Christ's sacrifice as a Jewish corruption, and saw Jesus as a great figure whose

  true work, the love of one's race, has been distorted by organized Christendom

  into a universal love, instead of a love restricted to one's racial group (especially

  as he interpreted Leviticus 19:18 and 25:17).

  That is why Rosenberg called it "positive Christianity" (positive Christentum),

  which he explicitly contrasted to the "corrupt" form represented by the "etrusco-

  asiatic clergy" (etrusco-asiatische... Priesterherrschaft), which encompassed

  Roman Catholicism.36 Thus, for Positive Christianity, the mere word

  "Christianity" often meant the Judaized and clerically organized form seen in

  Roman Catholicism, which was not equivalent to what Jesus had in mind. Being

  opposed to "Christianity," therefore, did not mean opposing the religion of Christ

  or opposing religion.

  In fact, DerMythus is replete with biblical quotations. Some of Rosenberg's

  interpretations of the Bible were ones upon which even Jewish scholars could

  agree. For example, he notes that Leviticus 25:17, which states "thou shalt not

  take advantage of thine neighbor," refers to fellow Hebrews, and not to everyone

  else.37 But this interpretation of "thine neighbor" is consistent with the

  interpretation of Harry M. Orlinsky, the great Jewish biblical scholar.38

  Rosenberg also thought that the Gospel of John best preserved some of the

  teachings of Jesus. He commented thus: "The Gospel of John, which still bears

  an aristocratic spirit throughout, strove against the collective bastardization,

  orientalization and Judaization of Christianity"39 It is in the Gospel of John

  (8:44) where Jesus himself says that the Jews are liars fathered by the devil. That

  verse later shows up on Nazi road signs, whereas no quotes from Darwin were

  ever on Nazi road signs.40 That verse has echoes in the title of Luther's tract (On

  the7ews and their Lies), as well as the longer original title of Mein Kampf ([My]

  4 and 1/ 2 Years of Struggle against Lies ...).

  Yes, Rosenberg syncretized Christian concepts found in the NT with

  Germanic myths, and myths of his own creation or adaptation. But how does

  Rosenberg's biblical exegesis and syncretism differ from what other self-

  described Christians have been doing throughout history? Indeed, many scholars

  argue precisely that Christianity was the result of combining Jewish with

  Hellenistic ideas. In understanding themselves as restorers of early Christianity,

  Positive Christians are no less Christian than the first Lutherans or Anabaptists.

  Indeed, Positive Christianity had great forebears among early Christians who

  rejected Judaism. This includes Marcion (second century), the Gnostic Christian

  who repudiated the Old Testament (OT) entirely, and promoted a canon

  consisting only of an expurgated Gospel of Luke and some of Paul's Epistles.

  Marcionism repeats itself in Christian history, especially among some Anabaptist