Parokki... I see your referance to the point that "Christianity's primary spreading didn't occur by the sword". In that case, I cannot think of any religion that did as most religions are based upon a group of moral beliefs.

If though, you consider that reclaiming holy land invoves killing (or converting) all of the non-belivers. And this greatly increased the influence, scope and power of the church. Then it appears that violence was used to spread the word of god. And while it was not primarily founded by violence, it is significantly more powerful because of it.

Much of the opposition to the eugenic movement came from German Christians. Although Hitler was baptized a Catholic, he was never excommunicated, and evidently 'considered himself a good Roman Catholic' as a young man, and at times used religious language. He clearly had strong, even vociferous, anti-Christian feelings as an adult, as did probably most Nazi party leaders. As a consummate politician, though, he openly tried to exploit the church. Hitler once revealed his attitude toward Christianity when he bluntly stated that religion is an:

' ... organized lie [that] must be smashed. The State must remain the absolute master. When I was younger, I thought it was necessary to set about [destroying religion] with dynamite. I've since realized there's room for a little subtlety ... The final state must be . in St. Peter's Chair, a senile officiant; facing him a few sinister old women . The young and healthy are on our side . it's impossible to eternally hold humanity in bondage and lies ... [It] was only between the sixth and eighth centuries that Christianity was imposed upon our peoples ... Our peoples had previously succeeded in living all right without this religion. I have six divisions of SS men absolutely indifferent in matters of religion. It doesn't prevent them from going to their death with serenity in their souls.'

The Nazi party viewed Darwinism and Christianity as polar opposites. Milner said of Germany's father of evolution, Ernst Haeckel, that in his Natural History of Creation he argued that 'the church with its morality of love and charity is an effete fraud, a perversion of the natural order'. A major reason why Haeckel concluded this was because Christianity:

' ... makes no distinction of race or of color; it seeks to break down all racial barriers. In this respect the hand of Christianity is against that of Nature, for are not the races of mankind the evolutionary harvest which Nature has toiled through long ages to produce? May we not say, then, that Christianity is anti-evolutionary in its aim?'

The Spainards that arrived in the new world had the permission and the instructions from the Pope, there by the word of God himself, to convert by any means necessary any pagans that they encountered. They successfully destroyed two entire civilizations and many different cultures. Expeditions and settlers to North America did the same, and enjoyed using God to justify the eradication of Native Americans, though greed and fear or hatred of those unknown is far more likely.

Even Hitler may have been given the "thumbs up" by Pope Pius XII(this is still being debated)

I recommend that everyone follow their own beliefs, I just do not have any faith in "organized religion." Like any other institution it seems to oft times have its own agenda.

Yes, and his name is Jehovah. If there's no God, who made everything?

Well by that logic who made God?

 Thank God for existentialism, lol

And Hitler, like many Nazis, was very involved with the occult. Besides, the only difference between modern muderers(Stalin), and the earlier, religiously driven killers is the effectivness of their weapons. Imagine the Spanish Inquisition if the Christians had gas chambers and machine guns. However, I think its folly to assign religion or atheism as the root of genocide and the like. People are responsible for such actions, and thats the real source of the problem, wether it be religion as a justification or anti-religion as the same.

BTW, no one has mentioned the religious justifcations for slavery and the colonization of Africa

This thread could end really badly, don't try to force your beliefs on other people...

 Upon further reading I would have to say that this is debatable.  While Hitler did say things that seemed anti-judeo-christian.  He never refrained from using the lord or creator as his justification for killing jews.  The quote I used above was spoken as late as 1938.  His soldiers wore belts that  stated "god is with us".  He acknowledged cristianity as Germany's religion and upon his political ascent, required school children to recite prayers to Jesus.

  All of the conflicting info may be difficult to make sense of, but there is one certain...   Hitler was crazy and opportunistic.  Perhaps he knew and liked the power of religion, even if he himself didn't belive in god.

Guys, I'm really happy with the way this thread is going. Please keep it clear and instructive

And no one mentioned the scientific justification for them as well, the latter being more heavily geared towards science.

@footbag: Yes, those are also true, but he did base most of his ideology off of Nietzsche, who was just plain 'ol anti-religion. Later along, there were changes in Nazi Germany such as Nazi children being baptized, not under God but under Hitler. Also, various priests were told to equate God with Hitler. Numerous weddings were conducted in which neither God nor Jesus were mentioned in the proceedings, only that the union should benefit the "fatherland."