I don't think the Nazis needed to pick this aspect from the Old Testament to develop their ideology. Darwinism was good enough as an inspiration. Of course anyone can take aspects from the Bible, the Koran, the Torah and interprete them in a way that leads to cruel, unethical attitudes. Who is the culprit? The "religion" or the human beings that interprete it according to their needs? I don't really know what the outcome of this endeaver is to make "religion" the culprit. Obviously it is rather the question what somebody wants to focus on, if he wants to pick a certain aspect and abuse it.
The core message of present Christianity, at least according to the churches I know, is about Jesus who loves those who are weak, different, strangers, at the fringe of society.
It's every individual's responsibility how to interprete a religion.
So if you were able to eliminate all Bibles, Korans and Torahs, all knowledge, stories and myths about Jesus and other religious content, that's obviously what you wish for, you think nobody would develop any ill-minded ideology again, and there would be no more wars? Like in John Lennon's song?

How can you believe that you're "chosen by god" if you don't believe in 'god'?

To me, atheist just means you don't subscribe to all those ridiculous fairy tales.....and that science trumps superstition.

chas

Mirza, I misunderstood your post. I though it was Rosetree saying that the Nazi's thought they were 'chosen by god'. My bad.

chas

Surviving of the fittest is not what Darvin said it should be. It was just his observation of how everything evolved. And nobody said the way evolution works is moral by any standard. On the other hand religion claims many things as moral as long as it is in the name of God or religion . It doesn't matter which religion.

Yes, he was a scientist. But the Nazis didn't care how it was meant originally and used and interpreted it for their evil purposes. As I said, if someone is ill-minded, he can abuse any kind of scientific theory or religion.

If you observed some services in the protestant church, you would realize that you hardly would find anyone who rejects scientific findings. I don't think any of the pastors I know believe the earth was created by God 6,000 years ago instead of what astrophysicists tell us. In the churches I know (in Germany) there isn't any denial of science (except for some fundamentalist "free churches" that are far away from the official protestant church organization). It is not about retaining a naive, science-rejecting view of the world, but about retaining the basic values such as "love your enemy". But even as a scientist you can still believe in a higher power. Einstein did!

Do Christians love their enemies even now?

http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/h...eir-enemies.cfm

With all respect but I firmly believe that most Christians won't be able to retain the basic value such as "love thy enemy" when it comes to some of the points illustrated in the article (see above link).

Neither do I believe that humans needed to be given the Commandments for it would be an outright lie to say that prior to the Commandments people didn't know right from wrong. How do we explain peaceful societies that are non-Christian?

Believing and acting upon are two different matters which are more often than not prone to clash.

Now have a look at this. How many Christians would've lived a full life? I doubt there's be many left:
http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=16785

What was this again about loving thy enemy?

Poor Jimmy...


But you've got to admit that he has a good head on his shoulders.

Chas, no problem. Sometimes I don't I understand myself either.

Rosetree, now you are talking about spirituality and pretty much that has nothing to do with religion. Faith and religion are two totally different things.

It was a reply to Chas who talked about believing in fairy-tales ans superstition instead of science. I explained that The churchgoers in my Church have nothing to do with naive people believing in fairy-tales.