Matthew Evans - Nazi Propaganda and Media

The other day I was flipping through youtube and came across some old Nazi propaganda films, some of them involved Hitler yelling a furious message while others had rallies and book burnings. The entire time these movies preached an Atheist pro state message. I found this to be extremely interesting could this be a secular state religion? I started thinking about it, and what is nationalism, but a state sponsored religion. Great examples of this include endeavors such as Imperialism. Imperialism had a cause, betterment of the mother country and native peoples. Furthermore, it had sacred symbols, government houses, flags, traditions, ways of life, language, literature. Really any emotionally driven secular institution could be labeled as a religion. This got me to thinking, what about the Samurai’s? Sure they were Daoist in most cases but they believed their tyranny had a purpose and needed to be preserved. This can be seen well in the movie the Last Samurai staring Tom Cruise . As he became imbedded in Samurai culture Tom Cruise’s character flourished. This idea has helped me to redefine my personal views on “what religion is”.