I hit the "post" button on the last entry too soon; I was being called to dinner. My last paragraph didn't come out right. The number 100 million is true (see The Black Book of Communism), but to link those dictators to Jesus wasn't appropriate except as a rhetorical question.
Of course we know Communism was based on atheism. National Socialism, on the other hand, is often used to smear Christianity, as the Catholic Church is cited by many critics of Christianity of endorsing the Holocaust through their silence. I've posted on this topic before (arggh, gotta go find it now....it's in my 10/20 archive, and I can't get the permalink, sorry). Bottom line is, the idea of Christians supporting the Nazis is not true; there was plenty of Christian opposition to the Holocaust, and Hitler's strategy was to corrupt the church, not merely to form a political alliance with it.
Now, to the actual wording. Did Hitler, Stalin, .... consider themselves to be following Jesus? Of course not, but they were following a religious ideal, the concept of the common good. It's a false god however. We all want the common good of course, but what do we do when we disagree? Allow people to act in their legitimate self-interest, and trust that the result will be alright, or force the ideas of an irrational madman on an unwilling populace? Much human suffering and pain has been caused by people who were merely seeking to serve the common good.
Here's a reprint of a post I put on the Conservative Forum of Unitarian Universalists bulletin board back on June 7, 2000. I was not a Christian at the time I posted this, but I am still in agreement with F.A. Hayek's premise after my conversion.
Posted by joelfuhrmann at December 3, 2002 09:48 PM
I am currently reading F.A. Hayek's book, "The Road to Serfdom," and he claims there is no real difference between Naziism and Communism. They are both experiments in expanding the role of government over people's lives at the expense of liberty. The book was written in 1944, and was a warning to "The Socialists of All Parties". Hayek wanted to warn Britain of walking the "Road to Serfdom" which Germany had done before. He saw it as a very real possibility.I am just in the middle of the book, but some highlights so far:
1) Lots of people have wonderful ideas for correcting society's evils, if they could only get their way...,
2) Some of these ideas just cannot be argued against, they are so wonderful (protect the children comes to mind),
3) Unintended consequences occur as people modify their behaviour accordingly,
4) Government closes the loopholes by restricting the people's ability to adapt, and
5) We lose our liberties, not all at once, but just a little bit more with every new law that's passed, until it's all gone, and everyone wonders how it happened.