Dawkins on Stalin and Hitler

Just been reading that bit in the God Delusion when the Dawk says that Stalin was an atheist but...

 

The argument is that he didn't go to war on because of his atheism.

 

Perhaps not, but the USSR certainly waged war against religious belief during its many years of tenure, with atheism (soviet style) being taught in classrooms as strongly and as ideologically correct as any religious belief (which was, of course, banned in schools and mostly in the public domain). I've spoken to Russians who left after the breakup of the USSR about their education, and apart from saying this part was monumentally dull, they also describe how it was not an "optional extra".

 

Doesn't the Dawk do any research before pontificating? As for Hitler, the claim that he was "really" a Christian - and those behind the racial purity / master race / elimination of weaknesses were "religious" beggars belief. Hasn';t he noted how couched in Darwinian terms their rhetoric was, or thought that it is sometimes expedient when politicians are trying to get support to appear to be religious?

 

In Mein Kampf, we have:

 

"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."

 

But beware, because he also said (in the same book)

 

"To whom should propaganda be addressed? … It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses… The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision.  The whole art consists in doing this so skilfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself … its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect… it's soundness is to be measured exclusively by its effective result". 

 

On Reichstag on 30 Jan. 1939, he spoke: "Amongst the accusations which are directed against Germany in the so called democracies is the charge that the National Socialist State is hostile to religion. In answer to that charge I should like to make before the German people the following solemn declaration:  No one in Germany has in the past been persecuted because of his religious views, nor will anyone in the future be so persecuted."

 

Does the Dawk take this at its face value? If not, what about Hitler's other public pronoucements about Christianity and religion? If so, he must be incredibly gullible. For someone who accuses Michael Ruse of being like Neville Chamberlain, I suspect that on the gullibility rating, believing what people say would rate high!