Would people still consider Hitler evil if he didn't try to slaughter Jews?

[DonaldDuck82]

most people leave out the last part of the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

Darwin did beleive in this, and many historians account Hitler to be an avid fan of Darwin,



<< Darwin was not to blame. Historically, the christain bible was used as a basis to commit some rather unpleasant acts. But I wouldn't blame the >>



first, you might want to spell Christian correctly, secondly, the Bible taken in its correct contex does not condone those &quot;unpleasant acts&quot; however, Darwin's philosophy did.

 

[Optimus]

He was a real nut - I don't think that he would have invaded everywhere without that insane, maniacal drive of his. Truly a great evil upon the world...

 

[hendon]

Darwin's philosophy doesn't condone any ethnic cleansing, if that's what you're implying.

 

[DonaldDuck82]

that's what i am implying, if he doesn't then how does he explain his survival of the fittest, if those who are being cleaned can't stop it then they obviously aren't the &quot;favoured race&quot;

 

[Athanasius]

Darwin's scientific theories, as they were applied to social issues, were tainted by his warped and all too common personal biases.

Social Darwinism was a perceived inevitability used by Hitler and others to promote their wacked agendas and perverted beliefs. Hitler believed that survival of the fittest was the HIGHEST rule. He believed that the Aryan race was the master race. He wickedly and falsely believed that Jews, gypsies, and many others were a threat to the so-called superior eugenics of the Aryan race. So, he eliminated the threat.

And yet, whether pro-evolution or anti-evolution, Darwin's personal failings are not an argument against the linchpins of his theories. By such reasonings, many flame the founding fathers of the United States since they did not live up to the ideas of their own stated governmental philosophy.
By similar false logic, many bash Christians because we do not live up to the ideas of our Founder.

But I don't think zonker is doing that. He isn't critiquing Darwin's theories as they touch on the physical sciences. He is recognizing that Darwin's social views were whacked and that many people were profoundly influenced by those biases and used Darwin's theories of human origins to justify their own pathetic hatreds and racism. Hitler was logical based on his perverted thinking. . . .

. . . but his thinking was evil. Darwin believed that the surest way to preserve humanity was to discourage the proliferation of &quot;inferior&quot; strains and encourage the stability of &quot;superior strains.&quot; Of course, you won't learn that in your typical biology class or social studies class. Hitler applied this thinking based on his own sick ideology.

Good and evil aren't just actions. Good thinking leads to good actions. Ideals matter. Philosophy is practical. Most people just aren't aware of their own philosophy. Wacked-out thinking leads to evil actions. Whatever you think about Darwin's theories of origin, Darwin's thinking regarding social issues and the races was wacked-out. Darwin was a very influential person. Hitler was influenced by Darwin's evil thinking in regard to social issues and carried them to a frightening extreme.

 

[DABANSHEE]

No, what Zonker's doing is being a hypocrit, that's all. Here's another one of these 'party of personal responsability' nongs, yet he blaming Darwin for Hitlers own actions.

AFAIK, Hitler's to blame for Hitler's actions.

Anyway going by the same reasoning Jesus is to blame for the Ukrainian pogroms by the pius Cossacks.

 

[Lawton]

The problem with your question is that Hitler and Anti-Semitism (hatred of Jews) cannot be so easily separated. His rise to power, his postures and policies, are all related to his ultra German nationalism and his ideas of Aryan superiority. What happened with the Holocaust wasn't a side-line tangential occurrence; the Holocaust--for Hitler and the top level Nazis--was the main thing going on.

The Nazi war on the Jews in central Europe began shortly after Hitler came to power (1933).

There's also a serious problem with &quot;hating&quot; Hitler (though considering him &quot;evil&quot; is hard to avoid, eh?)--what happened with Hitler can happen with any of us. The German public was--and still is for the most part--considered to be the most educated and generally rational group of citizens in Europe, yet they went along with and supported one of the most irrational social/political philosophies of the last 250 years (Nazism). Treating Hitler and Nazism as some odd historical anamoly is taking a step closer to allowing such things to happen again. The scarey thing about Hitler and Nazis, in other words, is that they were just humans like the rest of us, out of control.

 

[Athanasius]

Ok, I will admit that zonker's original comment,

<< You may thank Darwin for much of Hitler's actions >>

was &quot;fuzzy logic.&quot;

I think zonker's later posts clarify what he was getting at.

EDIT - and yes, Hitler is to blame for Hitler's actions.

 

[~zonker~]

Athanasius Thanks for trying to extinguish the flames I have raised...

DABANSHEE Is it possible for you to disagree with someone without attacking them personally?

&quot;You may thank Darwin&quot;

Not.... 'I do blame' Darwin

 

[element]

No one wants to address the Stalin issue?

Is it because Stalin killed Russians, and Russians were our political enemy?

So because we hated Russians then we don't hate Stalin for killing them? Because if that is so then we would be no better than Nazis.

But if that is not the case then the question stands: Why do we not hate Stalin as much as Hitler?

 

[StageLeft]

alphaivt My dad has mein kamf and I opened it up and read a couple of pages. I'm not just saying this to be politically correct: Its a very stupid book. Its extremely stupid! At least the two pages I read were very very mindless. I don't deny that Hitler was extremely intelligent but those two pages gave me a very poor impression of his intelligence.

element Perhaps different motives? Hitler wanted all Jews dead (?) and Stalin only killed more people but didn't want to kill off an entire race. That and the fact that the US has more Jews so we are reminded of it more, but I don't think Hitler was necessarily worse than stalin.

 

[Schola]

Hey AlphaIVT, if you are going to read his book, Mein Kempf be prepared to be bored out of your mind, I read it and was thoughaly bored, oh and its actually two books put into one.

schola

 

[Athanasius]

Lawton quote:

<< There's also a serious problem with &quot;hating&quot; Hitler (though considering him &quot;evil&quot; is hard to avoid, eh?)--what happened with Hitler can happen with any of us. >>



Good point. I don't consider Hitler to be &quot;evil&quot; in any way that is fundamentally different than the evil I find in myself. I view evil as the inevitable consequence of missing the purpose for which we exist. The higher and more noble our ideals, the more we will minimize the evil consequences of having no universal sense of purpose.

Hitler's evil might have been &quot;stage four&quot; spiritual cancer. But, under the x-ray and MRI examinations of holiness, I find plenty of malignancy in myself.

Maybe the refusal to recognize inner malignancy in a genuine way lends itself to extreme hatred of malignancy when we see it in others? Perhaps we seek to exorcise our own shadow?

EDIT: Fixed typos.

P.S: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Nero, Torquemada. . . It's the same scenario, with some variations, played over and over again. Hitler does seem to be the favorite scapegoat of today's age.

 

[cxim]

Hitler was a really nice guy !! I dated his sister for a while.. She talked about him a lot. He was just misunderstood &amp; had a good heart. All those bad Germans took advantage of him because he was a vegan.

cxim
C/O The People's Lysol Program.ORG
PO Box 102
Death Row, Fl 34666

 

[dchilder]

Zonker, Darwin isn't as much to blame as Spencer. I believe it was he who began the &quot;social evolution&quot; and survival of the fittest craze.

&quot;if he didn't try to slaughter Jews?&quot;

Unfortunately... he did. The man was evil.

I think that he also cut all funds for international abortions and planned parenthood and tried to cancel a bunch of executive orders meant to protect the environment too. Oh wait, that is modern history...

 

[JellyBaby]

DonaldDuck82,

<< first, you might want to spell Christian correctly, secondly, the Bible taken in its correct contex does not condone those &quot;unpleasant acts&quot; however, Darwin's philosophy did.
>>

The bible is quite open to interpretation. Its &quot;correct context&quot; (and you misspelled the word &quot;context&quot;, btw, you might want to spell context correctly in the future) has often been up to religious leaders. You must be careful with any interpretation and that's my point.

 

[tinneric]

Of course he is the root of evil

 

[Elledan]

Noone is to be considered totally Evil.

Starting a war, however, is already a reason not to trust anyone. And noone can accuse Hitler of being logical. Due to his warped and malformed feelings of logic, he totally messed up what could have been a very successful and relatively non-violent and bloodless war.

 

[element]

How does the saying go? Fear is the root of all evil. (or something like that)
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to violence...there is more but I can't remember how it goes. Anyway the Germans feared the Jews and so blamed them for all their problems, and WWII was the result. (more or less)

Also it has been said that the best politician (leader or head of state if you will) is one who tells the people what they want to hear. So it's not like Hitler made the Germans do something they didn't already want to do. Scary huh? Now we can all say that Hitler was a madman, but could the entire (or most) of Germany's population have been equally mad? Or is it just inherent in people to be potentially insane?

I mean can we really say Hitler was unbalanced? He really didn't act alone.

 

[LordMaul]

Yeah...loose the moo-stash, get some fat pants, longer hair, some Ecko shoes, and rice his horse...then he will be cool...




NOT!

 

[Athanasius]

Elledan:

I do not believe Hitler was logical in an objective, universal sense. I said:

<< Hitler was logical based on his perverted thinking. . . .

. . . but his thinking was evil. >>



Individual logic is based on individual beliefs, or at least individual presuppositions. Unless someone accepts a universal logic that applies in the social, ethical, and moral dimensions, it is hard to apply an outside standard as to who is logical or who isn't.

I believe in an objective, universal Logos that transcends and unifies all areas of thought. I believe that Universal Logos was and is perfectly manifested in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. But it also shows itself in moral codes throughout many cultures. By that standard, evil is the consequence of the irrational in the human consciousness.

Evil is insane. But none of us is perfectly sane.

 

[Marty]

World War 2 would never have happened, and Hitler would never had come into power, if the victors of World War 1 had been reasonable in the requirements for German surrender. In Germany, the treaty of Versailles is sometimes called the &quot;Friedens Diktat,&quot; which means that the ceasefire was imposed upon Germany. Incidentally it is France who was pushing the strongest for the many crippling clauses in the document. This is the same France who was treated rather leniently at the time of its defeat under Napoleon, even after he came back to cause more trouble. So I guess you could argue that it was the Allies who created Hitler.

Not only did they create Hitler, but they supported his existence. Does &quot;appeasement&quot; ring a bell? I think it is more understandable for German citizens in their time of oppression to have supported Hitler at the time than it is for foreign nations to have done so.

Reagarding the anti-semitism issue: Hitler himself was not Jewish. If I remember correctly, his strong feelings are believed to have stemmed from his rejection from an art school in Vienna which was run by a prominent Jew. Additionally, he was on bad terms a Jew who was a friend of his family. The man was a doctor, and while he did not like the man, Hitler spared him from the holocaust.

Anti-semetic feelings in general are to a certain extent the result of misguided leadership from the Roman Catholic Church. This was compounded in Germany by the lack of patriotism felt by many Jews, which was the result of England's promise to Zionist supporters to establish a Jewish Homeland. This promise was made during the First World War, and again during the second in order to obtain monetary support for the war effort.

Marty

 

[imhotepmp]

<< or someone else would be more than happy to walk up next to him and let loose with the rocket launcher. >>



rofl!!

that gave me a good laugh




imhotep(MP)

 

[zippy]

ZeroCool420 IS INCORRECT!!!


<< Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't
smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any extramarital affairs. >>


He was in prison when he wrote Mein Kampf, how could he have been in the military?! He was a vegetarian? I find that hard to believe but okay, it doesn't really matter- being a vegetarian doesn't make you any better of a person. Doesn't smoke, wow, billions of people don't smoke- is it really that much of an accomplishment?! &quot;Occasional beer&quot;- who the fsck cares?! Once again, billions of people don't drink regularly! Finally, he never had any extramarital affairs because he couldn't- he was never married! He may have had a girlfriend- but she may have just been a lackie obsessed with him, they aren't really positive- another theory is that he was gay actually.

By the way, he was something like 1/4 or 1/8th Jewish- not really Jewish, but still enough to be considered a friggin hypocrite!

He was evil...I dunno what I would have thought of him if he didn't kill 6million Jews and millions of other people. 20+ relatives of mine (depends how far on the tree you want to go out) were murdered in the Holocaust. :|

EDIT: Reading some of this thread, it makes me furious the kind of crap some people are spewing. If you don't know about something, keep your damn mouth shut and don't try and act like you know everything and are the all spiritual being of the world and try and rationalize what Hitler did! :| :| :|

 

[Athanasius]

zippy:

I may be mistaken, but I don't get the sense that anyone on this thread is trying to rationalize what Hitler did.