Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The Other Demythologizer

You are probably familiar with Rudolf Bultmann's over-quoted electricity quip:
It is impossible to use the electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles.
For variety's sake, I suggest we express that same worn out sentiment with a similar quote from a different twentieth-century figure: "Put a small telescope in a village, and you destroy a world of superstitions." Said the same individual, "The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science." That person: Hitler.

Below the belt perhaps, but it may be fair to play the Hitler card when the card is supported by direct quotes from the man himself. For more on Hitler's scientifically enlightened hatred of Christianity, especially Catholicism, see Mohler or page 547 of The Third Reich at War.