Mein Kampf it was as though Nietzsche were speaking from the dead. Said Hitler, “Look at these young men and boys! What material! I shall eradicate the thousands of years of human domestication. Brutal youth—that is what I am after…. I want to see once more in its eyes the gleam… of the beast of prey. With these I can make a new world… and create a new order!”
Mankind felt the crushing, brutal impact of Hitler’s mammoth war machine during World War II as he forced millions to join his ranks of imperialistic conquest which was designed to make him dictator of the world. In this country we watched in amazement as he rose to power. Finally, after several years of seeing the black boots of National Socialism stomp out the light of civilization wherever they marched, we rose up in our wrath and joined forces with other nations of the world to smash Nietzsche-inspired Nazism.
However, the spirit of total war which was spawned by the materialists was not confined to the National Socialists in Germany. It had been projected into the ambitions and philosophies of the leaders of several nations. It was codified into the political aims of the military leaders of Japan and Italy who also collapsed under the mighty blow which struck down National Socialism.
However, with the ending of World War II, many people felt that the conflict with materialism was at an end. Almost immediately the spirit of sacrifice seemed to wither within us. Virtually overnight our armies were demobilized, the world’s largest air force was practically scrapped, and the world’s largest navy was put into mothballs. All this was on the presumption that the war with materialism was finished. Time, of course, proved this presumption to be a mistake.
In putting down National Socialism and the Axis we had only conquered one form of materialism. Another form, equally strong, immediately rose to take its place. This new form of materialism came from Nietzsche’s comrade-in-arms—Karl Marx—a man out of the same school of philosophy, with the same motivations as Nietzsche. Karl Marx thought of himself as the father of dialectical materialism, more commonly known as Communism. Today, the great force of conquest and imperialism which he envisioned stands arrayed against the people of the free world and marches under the banner of the hammer and sickle.
What Was the Mission of Karl Marx?
Some people have mistaken the mission of Karl Marx and his followers as purely economic in nature, but like all other materialists their mission was to gain power through ideological warfare. Note how they denounced any competitive ideology, even religion: “We must combat religion—this is the ABC of materialism, and consequently of Marxism.”{236} And another disciple declared that when they took over, “God will be banished from the laboratories as well as from the schools.”{237}
Now since we are dealing with the field of ideological warfare, one might well ask, What is the objective of these militant atheists? What are they trying to set up as the new ideal for human relations? Listen to the words of Lenin:
“We must hate-hatred is the basis of Communism. Children must be taught to hate their parents if they are not Communists.” And listen to the amazing declaration of the former Russian Commissar of Education, Anatole Lunarcharsky: “We hate Christians and Christianity. Even the best of them must be considered our worst enemies. Christian love is an obstacle to the development of the revolution. Down with love of one’s neighbor! What we want is hate…. Only then will we conquer the universe!”{238}
I am sure you would agree that when men like these rise to positions of power in the earth it is indeed a challenge to the youth of the free world. When Karl Marx was asked what his object in life was, he said, “To dethrone God and destroy capitalism!”
In a declared war against morals, ethics, and spiritual values among the people, Marx and his associates resolved to completely eliminate the worship of the Almighty among men. Heinrich Heine declared: “Our hearts are filled with compassion for it is… Jehovah Himself who is making ready to die,”{239} and Nietzsche, so successful in the atheistic campaign, said: let the “death of God” be boldly proclaimed.{240} Ludwig Feuerbach announced that: “The turning point of history will be the moment man becomes aware that the only God of man is man himself.”{241}
Pirates of Science and Religion
The strategy of the materialists was to appropriate to themselves the toga of “science” and take credit for all scientific accomplishments. Then they determined to ridicule and rationalize away all the things which they opposed by pronouncing them “unscientific.” Thus they attacked the Bible, called themselves higher critics, and attempted to explain it away. They explained the worship of God as being merely the effort of man to project the qualities of his own better nature into some fictitious superior being. They called Jesus Christ an itinerant preacher whose life and writings were effeminate and weak. They ridiculed the possibility of his resurrection; They denied the immortality of human life or the existence of the spirit or soul.
They said that man was nothing but a graduate beast and that human life—especially the other man’s life —was no more sacred than that of a centipede, a caterpillar, or a pig. In other words, the materialists turned their backs on six thousand years of human history and achievement. As Marx and Engels boasted in their Manifesto: Our program “abolishes eternal truths; it abolishes all religion and all morality… it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.”
Men Who Worship Themselves
But having denounced God, the scriptures, morals, immortality, eternal judgment, the existence of the spirit, and the sanctity of individual human life, the materialists turned to worship themselves. They decided that man, collectively speaking, was the epitome of perfection among nature’s achievements and therefore the center of the universe. This gave Nietzsche an excellent opportunity to teach his concept of “superman.”
As Nietzsche exalted himself and all other men as the most superior of all existing things he burst forth into statements like this: “Now this God (of the Bible) is dead! You higher men, this God was your greatest danger…. Do you understand this saying, Oh my brothers? You are frightened? Do your hearts fail you? Does the abyss yawn at your feet? What of it? Forward, higher men! Now at last the mountain of man’s future is about to give birth. God is dead; now it is our will that superman shall live!”{242}
In the egotistical tunnel vision of these men who sought to dethrone God there flamed the phantom hope that somehow they may have made the discovery of the ages. Nietzsche made a studied attempt to assume the proper humility which he felt was becoming to such a genius as himself. Said he, “Great heavens!” Who has any idea of the burden that weighs upon me and the strength that it takes to endure myself! I don’t know why it should fall upon me of all people—but it may be that I am the first to light upon an idea which will divide the history of mankind in two…. It takes some courage to face that thought.”
The Fruits of Materialism
But it took more courage than Nietzsche realized. His writings groaned with the burden: “Since there ceased to be a God, loneliness has become intolerable.” But then he bolstered his timidity by reminding himself
