Answering the Atheists

White Racism

When Moses married an Ethiopian woman, the local 'White Citizen's Council' grumbled. God indulged in a little 'symbolic speech' to set them straight: "Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman...So the anger of the LORD was aroused against them, and He departed. And when the cloud departed from above the tabernacle, suddenly Miriam became leprous, as white as snow. Then Aaron turned toward Miriam, and there she was, a leper. So Aaron said to Moses, 'Oh, my lord! Please do not lay this sin on us, in which we have done foolishly and in which we have sinned.'" (Numbers 12:1-11).

God having made His feelings about white racists plain, where do the atheists get their information that the Bible teaches blacks are inferior to whites? From Bible interpretations that don't pass the straight-face test, like the 'mark of Cain'! Acquired characteristics are not passed on to offspring; so why would an acquired characteristic like the 'mark of Cain' be passed on to Cain's descendants at all? The Bible says nothing about Cain's descendants inheriting the 'mark', which was placed on Cain to protect him from vengeance; why his descendants would need such protection is far from obvious: "Then the LORD said to him, 'Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.' And the LORD put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him." (Genesis 4:15). If Cain was not born with this characteristic - and he was not -- then in the ordinary course of nature, his descendents would not inherit it. While God could certainly change Cain's genetic make-up if He willed the 'mark' to be inherited, where in the text does it suggest He wished to do so?

Even if the 'mark of Cain' were imagined to be heritable versus 'a tattoo', where does the text even hint that the 'mark' is 'black complexion', versus 'a birthmark shaped like the State of Utah', or 'red hair', or an 'epicanthic fold'? Nor is the 'mark' placed on Cain to mark him out for ill-treatment, but rather precisely to protect him from ill-treatment. Reassembling the atheist/racist house of cards for the moment, if we were to allow the speculation that the 'mark of Cain' were heritable, and that the 'mark of Cain' were black skin, and that the 'mark of Cain' was intended to mark its possessor out for ill-treatment, then why would only one of Noah's sons have inherited this character? One commonly expects brothers to be of the same race, not different ones.

Noah placed a curse upon Canaan, the nation displaced by Israel...which the atheists/racists transform into a curse upon Africans, by displacing it back a generation: "...he said, 'Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.'" (Genesis 9:25). Cush, black Africa, was also a son of Ham, but this is not the nation Noah cursed. The Egyptians, who held Israel in slavery until the LORD liberated them, were also Ham's descendants: "Then Israel came to Egypt, Jacob lived as an alien in the land of Ham." (Psalm 105:23). The Egyptians, descendants of Ham, enslaved Israel, but were never enslaved by them. For the racists' purposes, the wrong nation was cursed; it ought to have been Cush.

Another verse atheists advance to claim the Bible teaches racism is Nehemiah 13:3, "Now it came to pass, when they had heard the law, that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude." Of course, northern Europeans were as much part of Nehemiah's "mixed" multitude as any African would have been!: "When the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent." (Nehemiah 13:3 NRSV).

God had instructed His chosen people not to form marriages with the pagans surrounding them, on grounds that this would put a snare and temptation in their way to corrupt the worship of the true and living God with paganish practices: "Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods." (Deuteronomy 7:3-4); "And you will take wives from among their daughters for your sons, and their daughters who prostitute themselves to their gods will make your sons also prostitute themselves to their gods." (Exodus 34:16).  Often enough they defied God's instructions, and just what He predicted happened: worship of foreign gods was introduced to the people of Israel.  The infamous Jezebel was only following the religion she'd been taught as a child when she introduced Baal-worship to Israel: "And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took as his wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him." (1 Kings 16:31).

This isn't a question of 'race', because those foreigners who chose to cleave to the God of Israel were welcomed: "But Ruth said, 'Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  Where you die, I will die -- there will I be buried. May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!" (Ruth 1:16-17).  Ruth, of Moabite racial origin, is in the family tree of King David: "...and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David." (Matthew 1:5-6).

Is there even a loose analogy between God's election of nation Israel and the racist's claim of superiority of whites over blacks?  No; nation Israel was not chosen to be a "kingdom of priests" because they were superior to the other nations.  Quite to the contrary, God rubs their noses in how inconsequential they were: "It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the LORD set his heart on you and chose you -- for you were the fewest of all peoples." (Deuteronomy 7:7).  Far from stressing the innate superiority of the Jews, the Bible stresses their pitiful state versus God's great mercy in choosing them for His own: "No eye pitied you, to do any of these things for you out of compassion for you; but you were thrown out in the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born.  I passed by you, and saw you flailing about in your blood. As you lay in your blood, I said to you, 'Live!...'" (Ezekiel 16:5-6).

This is a recurring theme of scripture; God's election is not of the elder but of the younger, not of the strong but of the weak, not of the superior but of the inferior: "Even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God's purpose of election might continue, not by works but by his call) she was told, 'The elder shall serve the younger.'" (Romans 9:11-12).

There was no racial segregation in the early church. Believers were united in one body: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28). One of the first Gentile converts to Christianity was an Ethiopian: "So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet...Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, 'See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?'...So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him." (Acts 8:27-38).  There was a flourishing Christian church in Ethiopia while the savages of northern Europe were dancing around sacred trees.  If North African church fathers Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, and Victor, Bishop of Rome, had all boarded a time machine and tried to hop on a bus in the American Southland in the 1950's, they'd have been obliged to go to the back of the bus. Their precise ethnic affinities are in dispute but what is certain is that none of these gentlemen would have looked like Heidi.

The Bible teaches that we are all God's offspring: "For in him we live,and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." (Acts 17:28).  All humankind are of the same parentage: "Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother,by profaning the covenant of our fathers?" (Malachi 2:10); "Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?" (Job 31:15).

We were made in the image of God: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Genesis 1:27).  We are all descendents of Adam: "From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live..." (Acts 17:26); "...for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:22); "Thus it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living being'...Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven." (1 Corinthians 15:45-49).

The Bible has plenty to say about Africa and its inhabitants.  The "Cush" of the older translations is approximately Ethiopia: "Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel? says the LORD..." (Amos 9:7).  But nothing the Bible says is unflattering to the inhabitants of that region.  Since this is what the Bible teaches, where could the white racists of nineteenth and twentieth century American have gotten contrary information?

One fertile source was the 'science' of anthropology, which throughout the period was putting out the hokum that the various races of man were of different origin and of differing worth.  Paul Broca (1824-80), professor of clinical surgery at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, thought he'd found solid, measurable proof that whites are superior to other races...in weighing brain size!: "In general, the brain is larger in men than in women, in eminent men than in men of mediocre talent, in superior races than in inferior races.  Other things equal, there is a remarkable relationship between the development of intelligence and the volume of the brain." (Paul Broca, quoted p. 150, The Panda's Thumb, Stephen Jay Gould.)  Another 'scientific' anthropologist, E.A. Spitzka, found an evolutionary lesson in brain size: "Spitzka, nonetheless, was undaunted...he arranged, in order, a large brain from an eminent white male, a bushwoman from Africa, and a gorilla.  Spitzka concluded...'The jump from a Cuvier or a Thackeray to a Zulu or a Bushman is no greater than from the latter to the gorilla or the orang.'" (pp. 150-151, The Panda's Thumb, Stephen Jay Gould.) (Brain size tracks with body size; if these 'scientific' anthropologists were even correct that European male brains out-sized oriental or aboriginal brains, the likely reason, I should think, was better nutrition, thus larger overall body size, amongst the former. Tall men have larger brains than short men do.)

These 'scientific' anthropologists quite pointedly turned up their noses at the Christian sentimentality of the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of God.  Louis Agassiz, famed American naturalist, was very well aware his contention that each major race had begun as a separate biological species rebutted the Bible's teaching of common descent.  He reserved the right to pursue science untainted by religion: "Naturalists have a right to consider the questions growing out of men's physical relations as merely scientific questions, and to investigate them without reference to either politics or religion." (p. 171, The Panda's Thumb, Stephen Jay Gould). Unfettered by the Christian sentimentality of a common origin, he gave full voice to the racism then prevalent in his profession: "The indomitable, courageous, proud Indian - in how different a light he stands by the side of the submissive, obsequious, imitative negro, or by the side of the tricky, cunning, and cowardly Mongolian! Are not these facts indications that the different races do not rank upon one level in nature." (Louis Agassiz, quoted in the Panda's Thumb, Stephen Jay Gould, pp. 171-172).  The 'scientific' anthropologists strained at the bit to find an 'evolutionary sequence' in the races of man, marching upward from lower to higher. The Bible always knew better.

Slavery

Had the law of Moses been scrupulously followed, debt slavery should not have existed at all within nation Israel:

"If one of your brethren becomes poor, and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you. Take no usury or interest from him; but fear your God, that your brother may live with you. You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food at a profit. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God. And if one of your brethren who dwells by you becomes poor, and sells himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve as a slave. As a hired servant and a sojourner he shall be with you, and shall serve you until the Year of Jubilee. And then he shall depart from you -- he and his children with him -- and shall return to his own family. He shall return to the possession of his fathers. For they are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him with rigor, but you shall fear your God." (Leviticus 25:35-43).

Every 49 years Israel was to hold a year of jubilee.  At this time, farmlands that had been sold were reclaimed by their original owners, debts were remitted, and anyone who had fallen into a condition of servitude was liberated.  Every 49 years the deck was reshuffled and economic inequities that had built up in the meantime were drawn back to the starting point.  For many years after the Civil War, African Americans celebrated the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation as 'Jubilee Day'.  We have a sort of rolling jubilee built into our own law code, in the form of bankruptcy law.

The law of Moses, while providing a high standard of justice and righteousness within nation Israel, was not universal in its scope; Jews were allowed to treat Gentiles unjustly.  Chattel slavery as it existed in the American South was perceived by Moses as an injustice; one Israelite cannot keep another in a state of lifelong involuntary servitude.  The slave trade was strictly forbidden: "He who kidnaps a man and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, shall surely be put to death." (Exodus 21:16).

The Mosaic law does not have a universal perspective, though; Moses permitted Jews to treat Gentiles unjustly, enslaving them, charging usurious interest, etc.  Jesus addressed this very issue of Moses' particularism, when asked, 'who is my neighbor': But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was.  And when he saw him, he had compassion.  So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him...'So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?'  And he said, 'He who showed mercy on him.'  Then Jesus said to him, 'Go and do likewise.'" (Luke 10:33-37).

In theory, under Leviticus 25, debt slavery should not have existed within nation Israel, though this law was often honored in the breach.  Should one of the people fall into slavery through this route or through the common ancient route of capture during time of warfare, even before hitting the backstop of the Jubilee year, the term of servitude was limited to six years:

"Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them: If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years; and in the seventh he shall go out free and pay nothing." (Exodus 21:1-2)

"If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. And when you send him away free from you, you shall not let him go away empty-handed; you shall supply him liberally from your flock, from your threshing floor, and from your winepress.  From what the LORD has blessed you with, you shall give to him.  You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this thing today." (Deuteronomy 15:12-15).

The Mosaic law on slavery seems to have been observed mostly in the breach.  Jeremiah 34:8-22 reports a fitful, inconsistent effort by King Zedekiah to proclaim a jubilee: "...after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were in Jerusalem to proclaim release to them: that each man should set free his male servant and each man his female servant, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman; so that no one should keep them, a Jew his brother, in bondage.  And all the officials and all the people obeyed...But afterward they turned around and took back the male servants and the female servants, whom they had set free, and brought them into subjection for male servants and for female servants." (Jeremiah 34:8-11).

The economic provisions of Mosaic law were not made binding upon Gentile churches, but it has always been assumed that Mosaic law will inform the consciences of Christians on issues of economic equity: "For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath." (Acts 15:24).

The law of Moses ameliorated rather than totally corrected existing social conditions within nation Israel.  The early church went Moses one better, not just practicing the jubilee, but sharing all: "And all those who had believed were together, and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions, and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need." (Acts 2:44-45).  The church came to realize that "...God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right, is welcome to Him." (Acts 10:34-35).  With this realization, Gentiles too were admitted to one brotherhood: "...and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all." (Colossians 3:10-11).

The Mosaic law's distinction between Jew and Gentile was overcome in Christ, who tore down the wall of partition: "So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth...you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.  He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it." (Ephesians 2:11-16).

It's precisely because of the Bible's teaching against slavery that evangelicals like Wilberforce agitated against it.  Atheists misrepresent Paul's instructions to slaves to work hard for their masters as an unconditional endorsement of slavery, because they can't think of any reason why slaves should work hard unless it's because slavery is hunky-dory.  But Christian ethics does not deal with injustice the way they expect, teaching non-resistance to evil: "Slaves, accept the authority of your masters will all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh.  For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly.  If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that?  But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval.  For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps...When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.  He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross..." (1 Peter 2:18-24).

Paul doesn't recommend slavery, telling the Corinthians, "Were you called while a slave?  Do not worry about it; but if you are able also to become free, rather do that....You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men." (1 Corinthians 7:21-23).  He tells Philemon to receive Onesimus, a runaway slave, as a brother: "For perhaps he was for this reason parted from you for a while, that you should have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.  If then you regard me a partner, accept him as you would me." (Philemon 1:16-17).

Those who worked most diligently against the evil of slavery were believers whose consciences were informed by the Bible: "Truly He taught us to love one another, His law is love, and His gospel is peace; Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother, And in His name all oppression shall cease." (O Holy Night, Adolphe Adam).  Had the practice of the early church continued, there would have been little cause for complaint: "Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common." (Acts 4:32).

This practice did not continue, however; John Chrysostom would later look back wistfully, "Should we do as much today, we should all live much more happily, rich as well as poor...Let us imagine things as happening in this way: All give all that they have into a common fund. No one would have to concern himself about it, neither the rich nor the poor.  How much money do you think would be collected?  I infer -- for it cannot be said with certainty -- that if every individual contributed all his money, his lands, his estates, his houses (I will not speak of slaves, for the first Christians had none, probably giving them their freedom), then a million pounds of gold would be obtained, and most likely two or three times that amount.  Then tell me how many people our city [Constantinople] contains?...What could we not undertake with our huge treasure!...Will we not make heaven on earth?" (John Chrysostom, quoted in Foundations of Christianity, Karl Kautsky, Book Four, 1, pp. 280-281)

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was politically astute enough to maintain some public distance between himself and the Neo-Pagan ideologues of the Nazi Party. But he was not far from them at heart. After his death documentation became available showing that Hitler had approved grandiose plans to wean the German churches away from Christianity and into the Neo-Pagan fold: "...under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler, who were backed by Hitler, the Nazi regime intended eventually to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists. As Bormann, one of the men closest to Hitler, said publicly in 1941, 'National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable.'

"What the Hitler government envisioned for Germany was clearly set out in a thirty-point program for the 'National Reich Church' drawn up during the war by Rosenberg, an outspoken pagan...

"The National Reich Church of Germany categorically claims the exclusive right and the exclusive power to control all churches within the borders of the Reich: it declares these to be national churches of the German Reich.

"The National Church is determined to exterminate irrevocably...the strange and foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany in the ill-omened year 800...

"The National Church has no scribes, pastors, chaplains or priests, but National Reich orators are to speak in them.

"The National Church demands immediate cessation of the publishing and dissemination of the Bible in Germany...'"

"On the altars there must be nothing but 'Mein Kampf' (to the German nation and therefore to God the most sacred book) and to the left of the altar a sword.

"On the day of its foundation, the Christian Cross must be removed from all churches, cathedrals and chapels...and it must be superseded by the only unconquerable symbol, the swastika."
(The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer, P. 240).

Martin Bormann was faithful to Hitler till the end, sprinkling gasoline on the bodies after Hitler's suicide. This true believer put it this way:

"National Socialist and Christian concepts are incompatible. The Christian Churches build upon the ignorance of men and strive to keep large portions of the people in ignorance because only in this way can the Christian Churches maintain their power. On the other hand, National Socialism is based on scientific foundations. Christianity's immutable principles, which were laid down almost two thousand years ago, have increasingly stiffened into life-alien dogmas.  National Socialism, however, if it wants to fulfill its task further, must always guide itself according to the newest data of scientific researches.

"The Christian Churches have long been aware that exact scientific knowledge poses a threat to their existence.  Therefore, by means of such pseudo-sciences as theology, they take great pains to suppress or falsify scientific research...No one would know anything about Christianity if pastors had not crammed it down his throat in his childhood.  The so-called loving God by no means reveals the knowledge of His existence to young people, but amazingly enough, and despite His omnipotence, He leaves this to the efforts of a pastor.  When in the future our youth no longer hear anything about this Christianity, whose doctrine is far below our own, Christianity will automatically disappear.

"[...] When we National Socialists speak of a belief in God...[we mean] [t]he force which moves all these bodies in the universe, in accordance with natural law, is what we call the Almighty or God.  The assertion that this world-force can worry about the fate of every individual, every bacillus on earth, and that it can be influenced by so-called prayer or other astonishing things, is based either on a suitable dose of naivete or on outright commercial effrontery."

"Any influence that would impair or damage the leadership of the people exercised by the Fuhrer with the aid of the NSDAP has to be eliminated.  To an ever increasing degree the people must be wrested from Churches and their agents, the pastors...Only the Reich leadership, together with the party and the organs and associations connected with it, has a right to lead the people.  Just as the harmful influence of astrologists, soothsayers, and other swindlers has been suppressed by the state, so it must be absolutely impossible for the Church to exercise its old influence."
(Martin Bormann, Reich Leader, 1942, 'National Socialist and Christian Concepts are Incompatible', From Kirchliches Jahrbuch fur die evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, 1933-1944, pp. 470-472, quoted pp. 245-247, George L. Mosse, Nazi Culture: A Documentary History).

Hitler's contempt for Christians and the Bible was genuine and well-attested. Of Roman Catholic upbringing, he was, however, a theist, who seems to have had a vague religious faith, attributing his escape from Stauffenberg's bomb to "Providence." (Colonel Stauffenberg had placed a briefcase containing a bomb at the Fuhrer's feet, then hastily departed. Not owing to any break in the course of nature, but simply because somebody found the clumsy briefcase to be in the way, it had been moved before exploding, and Hitler survived.) He spoke to the nation: "The bomb planted by Colonel Count Stauffenberg exploded two meters to the right of me...I myself an entirely unhurt, aside from some very minor scratches, bruises and burns. I regard this as a confirmation of the task imposed upon me by Providence..." (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer, p. 1069). He considered this "Providence" to favor the strong over the weak:

"...I may be no pious churchgoer, but deep within me I am nevertheless a devout man. That is to say, I believe that he who fights valiantly obeying the laws which a god has established and who never capitulates but instead gathers his forces time after time and always pushes forward---such a man will not be abandoned by the Lawgiver. Rather, he will ultimately receive the blessing of Providence." (Adolf Hitler, in his June 26, 1944 speech to industrialists, quoted by Albert Speer, p. 555, Inside the Third Reich.)

But He was no Christian, and his movement was no celebration of Christianity. He thought ill of Christianity, preferring Islam for its warrior spirit:

"You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?" (Adolf Hitler, quoted by Albert Speer, p. 96, Inside the Third Reich.)

The "meekness and flabbiness" to which Hitler objected in Christianity fell straight from the lips of its Founder:

Our own "War President" deals with such troublesome verses mostly by ignoring their existence.

While it is difficult to fix the boundary between lunatic fringe and mainstream in a political movement which was all lunatic fringe, the general tenor of Nazi ideology was in favor of the old Nordic paganism and against Christianity:

"The German people is no longer blinded by illusions as at the time of the Reformation. It has come to recognize not only Judaism, but Christianity too, as foreign to its genius.-- Der Blitz, January 12, 1936, quoted p. 6, The War Against God, edited by Carl Carmer).

"But today a new faith is awakening: the myth of the blood...Then in place of the Old Testament stories of cattle breeders and the exploitation of prostitutes, we shall have the Nordic sagas and fairy tales, at first simply recounted, later assuming the form of symbols." (Alfred Rosenberg, Myth of the Twentieth Century, 1932, quoted p. 6, The War Against God, edited by Carl Carmer).

"The teaching of mercy and love of one's neighbor is foreign to the German race and the Sermon on the Mount is according to Nordic sentiment an ethic for cowards and idiots.-- Hans Hauptmann, Bolshevism in the Bible (Nazi textbook), 1937, quoted p. 28, The War Against God, edited by Carl Carmer).

"If Jehovah has lost all meaning for us Germans, the same must be said of Jesus Christ, his son...He certainly lacks those characteristics which he would require to be a true German. Indeed, he is as disappointing, if we read his record carefully, as is his father.-- E. K. Heidemann, 'What the Christian Does not Know about Christianity,' September, 1935, quoted p. 105, The War Against God, edited by Carl Carmer).