Evil People

[piqaboo]

Originally posted by Shapley:
Shos,

Are these people considered most evil only because of the number of people they killed? Was Hitler more evil than Jeffrey Daumer? Was Idi Amin more evil than Jack the Ripper? Osama bin Laden did not rule a country, so is he less evil than Botha?

Levels of evil are subjective. I'm sure the author thinks he is the definitive authority on the subject, but I think one can be more evil and yet do less harm. Perhaps the most evil people have never been able to obtain power to perpetrate their evil to the level needed to make it into a book. I'm sure some truly evil people have been found out before election day, and thus never made beyond city council.

Just a thought.

V/R
Shapley

The book had to have a title. "A Bunch of Fairly Evil People" probably wouldnt sell as well.

I remember being taught about Idi Amin. My teachers clearly thought he was evil scum. But I dont remember any national outcry to chastise him for his behaviour.

[Shapley]

Hi Shos and Piq,

I do remember an outcry against Idi Amin, but at the same time he was considered a joke to many (the Benny Hill sketches come to mind). It is telling that murderous dictators are often the source of much humour

I was simply trying to make the point that, IMHO, levels of evil are subjective things. Idi Amin was perhaps not more evil than Jeffrey Daumer, he simply found the opportunity to carry out his evil on a grander scale.

Many religions teach that whatever you do, even if it is a great evil in the world, if you do it with a clear mind that you are doing right, you will find peace in the afterworld. Thus, if Hitler sincerely believed that the slaughter of millions of Jews was justified for the betterment of the world, he was not truly evil.

Genghis Khan united a country, but at great cost. So did Abe Lincoln. So did Alexander the Great, or was he Alexander the Evil? Were they great men or evil ones? It depends on where you're from, I suppose. :confused:

V/R
Shapley

[Marye]

Originally posted by Shapley:
Many religions teach that whatever you do, even if it is a great evil in the world, if you do it with a clear mind that you are doing right, you will find peace in the afterworld. Thus, if Hitler sincerely believed that the slaughter of millions of Jews was justified for the betterment of the world, he was not truly evil.

V/R
Shapley

Shap,... if you substitute Bin Laden for Hitler and Americans for Jews....

You scare me....

[shostakovich]

From Shap: "Thus, if Hitler sincerely believed that the slaughter of millions of Jews was justified for the betterment of the world, he was not truly evil."

-------------------------------------------------------

This must be the nicest thing anybody has said about Hitler in half a century. And by Marye's extension bin Laden is a sweetie?

What religions teach the philosophy you were referring to? I'm assuming you don't adhere to such a philosophy (but if you were running for office, a spin doctor might).
Shos

[piqaboo]

I dont know what Shapley is referring to, but in Christianity, all you have to is repent. So if Hitler was truely sorry for what he did, then he'd be forgiven & therefore wouldnt be evil.

I have a problem with that.

[haggis]

Since Hitler (and Nazis in general) embraced paganism, its doubtful he repented.

Beside, from my understanding of purgatory, I don't think repentance would be all that great a thing to experience.

[piqaboo]

'twas an example. :p
welcome back, Haggis.

E'en were Hitler christian, I doubt he'd have repented. He believed he was doing right.

P has little to recommend it, but there is that APBH philosophy: anyplace is better than hell.

<small>[ 11-04-2004, 10:19 PM: Message edited by: piqaboo ]</small>

[Serenity]

Evil is the antithesis of good. Death, disease and sin are included in the "problem" of evil. Traditional Christian belief ascribes evil to human misdeed, to whom God has granted free will.

The term Sin implies disobedience to a personal God. Some Christians divide human acts into good, indifferent, and bad. In Western theology (especially Roman Catholicism), sins are mortal if committed with knowing and deliberate intent. Habitual sin is called vice. The seven deadly sins are pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth. The sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance are willful murder (Gen.4.10), the sin of Sodom (Gen. 18.20,21), oppression of the poor (Ex.2.23) and defrauding the laborer of his wages (James 5.4).

The sin of the angels is pride (specifically Satan). The opposite of sin is virtue (the quality of good in human conduct). In Christian practice, the opposite of sin is grace (divine love and protection by the favor of God).

[Shapley]

Shos,

It's been a while since I studied comparative religions in detail. I know the Druids ascribed to this philosophy, as did some Eastern faiths.

Basically, any religion that requires you to "use your conscience as your guide" would espouse this. If you sincerely believe it to be right, your conscience will not tell you otherwise.

V/R
Shapley

[Marye]

Originally posted by Haggis:
Since Hitler (and Nazis in general) embraced paganism, its doubtful he repented.

Haggis, how are you defining pagan in this instance? There are a few differing thoughts on the meaning of paganism.

[Shapley]

Marye,

RE:Shap,... if you substitute Bin Laden for Hitler and Americans for Jews....

You scare me....

I've not stated that I espoused that belief. As a Catholic, I have a firm belief in what I consider evil, as apparently does the author of the book, even though our concept of evil may be very different. That was my only point.

That being said, I should point out that, as a Catholic, I cannot say "Hitler burns in Hell" or "Idi Amin burns in Hell", as it is the Catholic teaching that none of us can know what the final judgment of these, or indeed of any, souls may be.

I can say "I believe that Usama bin Laden is truly evil", but I cannot say "Usama bin Laden is truly evil", as I am not empowered with the knowledge to make that a definitive statement. I do not know what is in his heart, nor do I know for what purpose God has put him on earth. I do not know if he truly believes his attacks are perpetrated in compliance with the commandments of Allah, or if he is merely using the Koran as a means to compel others to carry out acts of his own personal vengence.

Was the Rev. Jim Jones evil or confused? What about Rasputin? Historians can only tell us what they did, not what truly drove them.

V/R
Shapley

<small>[ 11-05-2004, 12:32 PM: Message edited by: Shapley ]</small>

[haggis]

Nazi leaders and ideologues were not Christians. They were pagan, some quite explicitly. For the rest, the ancient myths celebrated in Wagner became a pillar of their doctrine of Teutonic racial superiority.

Nazism was itself a "political religion," Cardiff University historian Michael Burleigh stresses in his book “The Third Reich: A New History" It sought to displace the traditional church and command spiritual authority as well as temporal.

Its special animus toward Jews was not religious but racial, and it "had one foot in the dark irrationalist world of Teutonic myth, where heroic doom was regarded positively, and where the stakes were all or nothing--national and racial redemption or perdition."

The Nazi attack on Christianity was widely understood at the end of World War II. William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" recounts the Nazi plan for the Christian churches: It included an intention to

"exterminate irrevocably . . . the strange and foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany in the ill-omened year 800."

Current denominations would be replaced by the National Church. Its altars would have only a copy of "Mein Kampf," with a sword to the left. The Christian Cross would be removed, replaced "by the only unconquerable symbol, the swastika."

The Nuremberg Project of the Rutgers Journal of Law and Opinion published a 1945 document prepared by William Donovan's Office of Strategic Services, "The Nazi Master Plan: the Persecution of the Christian Churches." (You can find it here)

Marye, I'm not sure what your definition of "paganism" is but replacing the cross with a swastika and the bible with "Mein Kampf" pretty much puts me in the "Nazis were pagan" category.

[RC]

Shap
I like what you're saying.

[Marye]

My definition of Pagan is having no religion. But one is a pagan who has any religion other than a Christian, Muslim or Jew....

I won't quote Hitler since I have no desire to start a Hitler thread of quotes ... but he believed in the Resurrection and an Almighty Creator. By definition, this cannot make him a Pagan

And Shapley you still scare me. :p

[Shapley]

RC,

Thanks.

V/R
Shap

[OperaTenor]

Hi Haggis,

You're the only other person I know who's read that book. What did you think of it?
I think the last paragraph on page 481 is the most eloquent description I've ever read of the Third Reich.

[shostakovich]

From Serenity: "The seven deadly sins are pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth."

I think "covetousness" and "envy" are one, even though our common usages of the words make them different. You're missing "GREED", which is not gluttony (eating too much). Or possibly your list is more current, as "greed" seems to have moved from sin to the commandments for business practices.


From Shap: "Shos,

It's been a while since I studied comparative religions in detail. I know the Druids ascribed to this philosophy, as did some Eastern faiths."


Never having been a Druid, I'll have to take your word for this.


Haggis, thanks for the input on Naziism and the plans Hitler had for churches. OT, what is that last paragraph on p 481? I never did buy the book. I assume you're talking about "Rise and Fall" rather than "Mein Kampf" (which I also never bought).
Shos

[haggis]

Shos,
OT’s referring to “The Third Reich: A New History” written by historian Michael Burleigh and published in 2000. It’s a 940+ page book with very small type!

Here’s the quote:


”How might this most transient of modern empires be viewed in the longer perspective which separates us from other empires, both ancient and modern? The Nazi empire was created by violence, lived by violence and was destroyed by violence. In contrast to other empires created by armed might, which bequeathed art and literature that are still widely admired, or administrations, customs, languages and legal codes that Europeans and non-Europeans still adhere to, from Ireland to India, the tawdry Nazi anti-civilisation left nothing of any worth behind, except perhaps its contemporary function as a secular synonym for human evil. Nazism's material remains number a few third-rate buildings, for Albert Speer was hardly Bernini, Wren or Lutyens, concrete coastal fortifications too dense to destroy, and the wooden huts, wind-swept parade grounds, watchtowers and barbed wire of the concentration camps, which are paradoxically restored, rather than left to rot and rust. Nazism was literally 'from nothing to nothing': with its powerful imaginative afterlife curiously disembodied from its pitiful achievements. Rarely can an empire have existed about which nothing positive could be said, notwithstanding the happy memories of wartime tourism with which we began. Even in the limited terms of its own aesthetic politics, the Nazi 'New Order' was merely the universalisation of ugliness.”

[shostakovich]

Thanks, Haggis. It's a great description of the empire and its legacy. It was truly a reflection of Hitler, the monster.
Shos

[OperaTenor]

Hi Shos,

I highly reccommend the book. I'll loan you my copy, if you like.