@blitzdriver I don't care if white supremacists want to believe they're supermen descended from Atlanteans. I was actually impressed to learn that the Nazis went to Tibet and stole Buddhist iconography because they believed that the Tibetans were Aryan.

Why don't more white nationalists practice Buddhism instead of promoting Christianity, the religion of Jewish Roman slaves?

That's the more fascinating question to me.

@Tfmonkey that's actually very easy to understand. Lutheran Christianity is the foundation of modern german culture. The public school system comes from Lutheranism, so does the belief that the State (not the church) must take care of the people in need.

@blitzdriver and that's where Germany fucked up. They broke with Latin Christianity, but only slightly. Nietzsche saw this and called it out long before the Nazis in "Antichrist" by Nietzsche.

It's too bad that modern white nationalists seem bent on preserving Christianity and not coming to the same conclusion that Nietzsche and even the nazis did, and making a clean break.

See Antichrist chapters 20 and 21 for Nietzsche's reasoning for Buddhism being better than Christianity.

Historical reasons, mostly. Christianity may have started in the Middle East, but it really took off in Europe, which went on for like two millennia at this point. It’s easy to conflate a religion’s start spot with its home territory later on in history but I don’t think it’s correct.

@NEETzsche @blitzdriver I get why Italy and Latin part of Europe might consider Christianity part of their history due to the Catholic church being a relic of the Roman Empire, but the Germanic part of Europe, of which most white nationalists come from, has no reason to revere Christianity, especially since they also hate Catholics.

The Nazis cribbing Buddhism and neo-nazis like Willian Pierce promoting "cosmotheism" is probably the best idea they ever came up with.

In order for Germans to start hating Catholics they had to first break off from them. Martin Luther was a Catholic friar, after all. Not to mention, that split happened like 600 years ago now, roughly. Even if Christianity’s history in Central/Germanic Europe started 600 years ago (it started well before then), that would still be long enough to establish it as the de facto racial religion of those people.

(Side note: I’m not a white nationalist)

@NEETzsche @blitzdriver Sure, I get that, and it's what the progressives did in the United States. When history is taught, the period of the Founding Fathers to WW2 is quickly glossed over because modern America began when the progressives took over and changed America from a country founded on freedom/liberty to one based on equality and big government.

History is written by the winners, and one good change deserves another.

Yeah but that’s my point, Germany didn’t go from Pagan to Christian at Martin Luther, it became Christian well before that. White nationalists appeal to Christianity as the de facto white religion because it basically is, historically. Consider that even in the place you brought as the place where you argue it doesn’t apply, it did for well more than 600 years. So, the point is that it makes sense for white nationalists to appeal more to Christianity than to Buddhism or whatever else thanks to this history.

@NEETzsche @Tfmonkey You can also see that the Third Reich also took a lot of stylistic inspiration from the Roman Empire. That could also be a reason for links to Christianity.

@NEETzsche @blitzdriver @Tfmonkey
Completey agree with this.

If TFM's argument were true it would also have to hold for Chinese or Zen Buddhism, i.e. that the Japanese have no reason to revere an indian religion derived from Hinduism, especially since they are so nationalistic and insular.

@Tfmonkey @blitzdriver the nazis where trying to come up with a volk religion for political purposes, they had groups led by people who where understandably a bit out there leading this effort. the point was to free themselves from christianity because christianity wasn't under their boot

@Tfmonkey @blitzdriver other failed efforts along this vein included setting up a massive hierarchical network of secret propagandists that would work next to you on the assembly line or drink with you at the pub and use positive reinforcement to encourage doubters. these would be organized in local cells, reporting upwards to regional cells and so on right up to nazi command. very german solution. never panned out before the war ended.