Hitler & The Holocaust, Religion & the "Bad" & "Good"

[xOrangEEEx]

I'm currently learning about the Holocaust in school right now...for the millionth time, and every single time my teachers spoke about it, they were like "Oh, what a tragedy, Hitler is "evil" and "The Holocaust was such a "bad" time in history and Hitler is in hell right now next door to Stalin." Yes people died, and yes they were put through a tough time. That doesn't mean that it was "bad" or "evil" though. In fact it was brilliant. Most human beings would go insane with that kind of power, but Hitler remained calm and organized. He documented everything extremely well while also getting rid of and hiding evedince from the world. He exterminated more than 12 million people with almost no deaths or wars starting on his side. For those of you who believe in moral, here is a little lesson. There is no "good" or "bad", there is just conscious and subconscious. "Bad" and "good" are just words substituted by religion that describes an inner feeling produced by a series of punishments and rewards given throughout childhood by your parents and adults by following or disobeying certain customs. Now if you were to consider anything corrupt, then I would face religion. Religion is the most corrupt thing ever created. They tell you to follow a certain list of rules that are considered fit for society. Well this list contains prejudice against those seemingly impure or outside of your religion. Yet, your religion instructs you to respect everyone, and that "god", the figure head supreme being, "loves" all and instructs you to do the same. Every symbol of religion instructs you to follow this code. Take Santa for example, it is told that if you are "bad", you will not recieve any presents. Another example is the devil. First of all, the devil was originally a pagan god. Pfft religion tells you not to steal, and here they are stealing another religion's god and calling it "bad". Anyway, religion says that if you do not follow these "strict" rules, then you are a "bad" person and will rot in hell with the devil. To tell you the truth, if there were such a thing as heaven and hell, I would choose hell in an instant. Heaven is described to be this perfect utopia where nothing goes wrong. If I were to be stuck somewhere thats perfect for all of eternity, than I would go INSANE!!! Now don't take me wrong, I don't believe in such a place. This would be going against the laws of nature. There is no possible way to have a perfect anything because of perception.

 

[JakRandom]

I’m not quite sure where the best place to start with this is, but the thing that strikes me most about your post is that you seem to equate morality with religion. I don’t believe this to be so. I think that morality is a social construct, one that can be viewed in other social animals including chimps and other higher primates, that governs our behaviors. I believe the religious aspect of morality is more of an emotional appeal, trying give meaning greater than that of pure survival, to a behavior.

I also disagree with your claim that that because Hitler was methodical in the way he murdered people that that somehow makes it less bad. From a human stand point, or just a living stand point, murder is bad. Being as we are living and conscious creatures we can use subjective terms such as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to describe things we find as less than favorable.

I think you may have jumped the gun a little in equating religious ‘morality’ with the subjective human interpretation of the ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ of death and murder.  

[Jessica Malatori]

Hitler was a nut case. Yes, he was a economic genius, and pretty good a waging wars... but the man had some strange beliefs that are hypocritical to the ones he held.

I never knew he was for animal rights. Yet he liked slaughtering people...

Personally, I do believe is there "Good" and "Bad". Not in a religious sense, but in what that person does. It's not what a label truly created by religion. Religion is not necessary to truly deem something good or evil.

So are you supporting Hitler's extermination of thousands of people based on who they were and what religion they were? Humans can naturally tell if something is bad. Killing a bunch of your own race... is bad. Like I said, you don't have to have religion to tell you if it was a bad act or a good act. The words good and bad are just they way we can describe these things.

And about morals. I'm an atheist, yet I consider myself a person of high morals. I'm not talking about religious morals... I have my own personal standards based on what I believe is correct and good. Sure... quite a few happen to coincide with the set of morals that Christians hold dear... They have a knack of getting a *few* things right. It depends on your definition of morality. When I think of morality, I don't think religion.  

[Theophrastus]

If we Atheists took a simple step we would soon disarm most religious arguments against Atheism.

Morals are a religiously or societally imposed code of behaviors.

They cannot exist without an institution supporting them.

However...

Ethics are internal, much more the direct product of evolutionary selection and are universal. Morals are a lame attempt to grab ethics, rein it and use it to pull the war chariot of whatever power holds the reins.

Ethics can exist without a church, government or private interest group supporting and promoting them. Ethics tell us that killing and stealing are bad for us and others, and that charity and defense are good for us and others. What more do you need?

I would suggest question about ethics be addressed to any Humanist resources, though I'll field what I can in PMs.  

[JakRandom]

Hmm, I always thought it was the otherway around and that ethics was the study of morality.  

[Theophrastus]

My intent is not so much the textbook definitions of the words, but instead a way to separate ourselves from the right and the religious.

They have tons of buzzwords and terms that they claim exclusive right over.

So why don't we sidestep that terminology and say something that a non-religious person and a theist and whoever else could all grasp on equal terms?

Idunno, just my little campaign, I suppose.

I'll stop getting off-topic.  

[=X-Sparker + AquaKiller=]

Sorry REALLY don't want to be mean but, ******** you.

Just because he hid something well doesn't mean he did something right.

The definition of "Good" and "Bad" comes from nature, it's an instinct for an animal to NOT kill its own species. Do you see cats murdering other cats? No. Maybe lions may kill other lions when they fight, but that is NOT intentional, they're just fighting over a reproduction partner so that they can have MORE offspring which, obviously, is to EXTEND their species, NOT ENDING it. What Hitler did was INTENTIONAL, it was something that will EXTINCT a species, and that is neither what a human nor an animal should do.

And if you say that he was brilliant because he hid away his genocide, you're basically saying that I'm brilliant if I kill you and hide the crime away.

Also you said religions tell us to respect others and I'm not religious, so.... does that mean I don't have to respect you?

There, that's my opinion. Nazism is bad, sorry. End of story.  

[JakRandom]

Theophrastus,

On-topic's overrated anyways lol

Have you ever read "Don't think of an Elephant"? I cant remember the authors name off the top of my head but the book explains how the neo-conservatives 'mastered', for lack of a better term, the use of language in framing their arguments. It goes on to explain how Democrats could do the same using the same tactics but I don't see why you couldn't use it either.  

[Theophrastus]

Jak, I'll be sure to check it out, thank you. biggrin

Aqua ...whoa.

Calm the hell down. First off, I think if you feel that way you should say "******** you" to her idea, not to her. She never at any time condoned his acts. She just said that when teachers try to invoke a religious view of what he did by saying there are moral absolutes they're violating the separation of church and state and they're forcing their world view on their students.

Also, cats (and most any species) often eat their young for various reasons, so to point to the animal world for moral leadership is a weak argument.  

[The Candy Store Massacre]

Wowie.. well I'm almost a self proclaimed Nazi myself, and you just went on a speech to religiously or morally justify the slaughter of over 6 million people. I think it's time you visited therapy. (Again if neccessary)

Secondly.. Religious or not, I think it's very naive of you to consider 'being tortured for enternity' the better option to basically having whatever you wanted. You don't seem to fully grasp what Hell is supposed to be.

Theres a The Far Side strip (props to Gary Larson, a god himself) that has two 'devils' in hell and one guy, whose beat up and sweating, but just happily whistling, and the quote is "I just don't think were reaching this guy" (see hound of the far side) Maybe you should read it, for laughs and for some common sense.  

[JakRandom]

TMOI,

"I'm almost a self proclaimed Nazi myself... I think it's time **you** visited therapy." Would you mind reconciling these two for me? Almost nazi could mean a lot of things, I guess that I don't understand what you mean.

Theophrastus,

Your welcome.

Also, a I would like to say I agree with you that the animal kingdom is not the right place to look for moral guidance. However, if you want to better understand the foundations of human morals, that might be just the place to look. Reciprocity, food sharing, reconciliation, consolation, conflict intervention, and mediation, are, as some would argue, the very building blocks of moral systems all of which can be observed in animals, especially primates (and also elephants?).  

[cabbage3]

~Tarzan-a~

I'm currently learning about the Holocaust in school right now...for the millionth time, and every single time my teachers spoke about it, they were like "Oh, what a tragedy, Hitler is "evil" and "The Holocaust was such a "bad" time in history and Hitler is in hell right now next door to Stalin." Yes people died, and yes they were put through a tough time. That doesn't mean that it was "bad" or "evil" though. In fact it was brilliant. Most human beings would go insane with that kind of power, but Hitler remained calm and organized. He documented everything extremely well while also getting rid of and hiding evedince from the world. He exterminated more than 12 million people with almost no deaths or wars starting on his side. For those of you who believe in moral, here is a little lesson. There is no "good" or "bad", there is just conscious and subconscious. "Bad" and "good" are just words substituted by religion that describes an inner feeling produced by a series of punishments and rewards given throughout childhood by your parents and adults by following or disobeying certain customs. Now if you were to consider anything corrupt, then I would face religion. Religion is the most corrupt thing ever created. They tell you to follow a certain list of rules that are considered fit for society. Well this list contains prejudice against those seemingly impure or outside of your religion. Yet, your religion instructs you to respect everyone, and that "god", the figure head supreme being, "loves" all and instructs you to do the same. Every symbol of religion instructs you to follow this code. Take Santa for example, it is told that if you are "bad", you will not recieve any presents. Another example is the devil. First of all, the devil was originally a pagan god. Pfft religion tells you not to steal, and here they are stealing another religion's god and calling it "bad". Anyway, religion says that if you do not follow these "strict" rules, then you are a "bad" person and will rot in hell with the devil. To tell you the truth, if there were such a thing as heaven and hell, I would choose hell in an instant. Heaven is described to be this perfect utopia where nothing goes wrong. If I were to be stuck somewhere thats perfect for all of eternity, than I would go INSANE!!! Now don't take me wrong, I don't believe in such a place. This would be going against the laws of nature. There is no possible way to have a perfect anything because of perception.

Hitler did not go insane in the clinical sense... but he still went corrupt. He didn't document things well. His people did. What's truly amazing is how so many people at the ends of their ropes are willing to believing anything preposterous as a scapegoat to their problems. What's even more amazing is how they believe that getting rid of this "problem" solves it, rather than finding a way to fix it themselves.

From their Christian standpoint, yes, Hilter is rotting in hell next door to Stalin. The Bible taught to accept all mankind while Hilter did not accept Jews and darker-skinned people.

You must have some gaps in understanding. Such big ideas and beliefs are created by ideals. Ideals explain how something can be "perfect." Technically if we all followed the Bible, life would be perfect; however, we do not follow the Bible. The corruption is brought about by officers of the religion. These are the same types of people who say they can talk to God just because they are priests. The longer the religion has gone, the more corrupt it has become by its people. Religion does not corrupt. Books do not corrupt. People corrupt. People can corrupt religion (The Crusades, mercy killings, etc.) and books (The Popes over the years have burned several books of the Bible that none of us have even seen. There are books of the Bible never published stuck in the Vatican.)

As far as how "bad" religion gets (you seem to even place this label on religion though you state that there is no such label. Though you don't outright say it, you completely imply such) every white-light religion has some contradiction that keeps its followers guessing and undoubtedly keeps people following the religion in the first place.

I doubt you'd choose the Christian version of Hell because that hell is supposed to be a place of eternal suffering while heaven is a place free of this eternal suffering. Technically in this heaven there's no "insane" either. Insanity is left for the victims of the chinese-water-torture-like tantalization of the Christian Hell.

People she's not justifying the slaughter of several people for all the wrong reasons. She's introducing her point that good and bad are just petty labels that don't really exist.

Truly, Tarzan, if anything is "good" or "bad" it depends on how well your conscious knows your subconscious and can determine what works for you. In the end it should work out rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water.  

[xOrangEEEx]

Jessica Malatori

Hitler was a nut case. Yes, he was a economic genius, and pretty good a waging wars... but the man had some strange beliefs that are hypocritical to the ones he held.

I never knew he was for animal rights. Yet he liked slaughtering people...

Personally, I do believe is there "Good" and "Bad". Not in a religious sense, but in what that person does. It's not what a label truly created by religion. Religion is not necessary to truly deem something good or evil.

So are you supporting Hitler's extermination of thousands of people based on who they were and what religion they were? Humans can naturally tell if something is bad. Killing a bunch of your own race... is bad. Like I said, you don't have to have religion to tell you if it was a bad act or a good act. The words good and bad are just they way we can describe these things.

And about morals. I'm an atheist, yet I consider myself a person of high morals. I'm not talking about religious morals... I have my own personal standards based on what I believe is correct and good. Sure... quite a few happen to coincide with the set of morals that Christians hold dear... They have a knack of getting a *few* things right. It depends on your definition of morality. When I think of morality, I don't think religion.

-sigh- You people are misinterpreting (sp?) what I'm saying. First of all, I am NOT for the Holocaust. Infact, evolution proves that there is meaning to existence. Otherwise, our bodies would not be constantly mutating to better our survival in the future. So yes, murder probably isn't something that should be done. However, let me state that because of personal perception, view of such things as "good" and "bad" may differ greatly. Lets use a terrorist for example. To be more specific, how about one of the terrorists from 9/11. This man was no different than any other person. How I know? Well, one of the kids in my class actually lived next door to him. Back to my point though, he was a normal human being yet because of his perception, he hungered for murder and believed it to be a GOOD thing to do. This proves that there cannot be a universal moral law, which proves there is no "good" and "bad". But yes, you can have a personal perception of "good" and "bad".

 

[JakRandom]

I don’t think there is a whole lot of misinterpreting going on so I'd just like to make a few quick points.

The original post by Tarzan-a states that the holocaust, "In fact it was brilliant" and that Hitler was not "insane" but "calm and organized". What was meant by these statements and what they actually say are two different things.

Second, I believe everyone gets the point that morals are subjective. However, using Hitler, the most universally despised human in history, and arguing that he was, by any standard, moral is a poor way to make your point.

Third, I would argue that there are universal moral laws. They might differ from place to place but important ones, like those that govern human killings, exist in every culture.  

[Theophrastus]

Jak, I submit to you Nice Guys Finish First by Richard Dawkins.