The New Neo-Nazi's

Willowtree,Please, develop some maturity and stop hoping that crying "racism" and "hate" will shut people up. Political correctness is an incredibly un-Christian value, and will not distract a focused and informed debater from a legitimate point.With regard to your most recent claim: it would be more appropriate to say that your conclusion disregards the information provided in the post to which you have replied. You have, without substantiation, argued that education is the reason for Nazism and that anyone who attempts to educate themselves and maintain a balanced perspective on one particular issue (Israel/Palestine) is in effect a Nazi. Pardon my saying so, but you don't have a leg to stand on. You can't simply handwave the words of Hitler himself with emotional rhetoric while foot-stomping your original (refuted) generalization.Germany between the wars was a depressed and impoverished nation full of desperate people who were vulnerable to an ideology that promised to help them regain their pride and prosperity, in part by giving them a scapegoat for their woes. The masses were not led by factual learning to make an informed decision that the Jews should be eliminated. While the education of the Nazi leaders quite possibly informed the shrewd, calculated, and horrid political ploys that resulted in the Holocaust, their possession of factual knowledge about the world in no way made them into the killers that they were.Anyone who says Hitler (or other Nazis) were Christians is simply taking their word for it. Bias never comes into play until a devout believer puts his hands over his ears and screams "WERE NOT!" If you think you can demonstrate that all their rhetoric about the will of the Creator was lies and propaganda, please, by all means, feel free to do so. I might not even be surprised. However, in my conviction to hold an unbiased attitude toward Christianity, I make no such assumption without information to support it. The bias which you so lowly claim is all on your side of the debate, my friend.

hehe... okay. I see you are buried in replies as it is. Cruel soul that I am, I have a few additional thoughts that I'd like answered eventually.Understand that I (and probably not a soul here) is claiming that education is proof against immoral acts, however one defines them. But the position you take is very extreme and unrealistic. It is one thing to seek perspective through learning and possibly conclude that there are two sides to a dispute (i.e., deplorable acts by both Israelis and Arabs) and something totally different to take murderous action based on education. This would be true even if all educated people condoned the suicide bombers, but that is nowhere near the truth! There are plenty of educated people who are strongly in favor of the Arab side, probably as many who support Israel in some way or another, and many in the center who are fed up with the insanity of the extremists on either side. Education is practically irrelevant to a typical distant observer's feelings on the issue.Also, you seem to be missing the fact that the people doing the killing are some of the most ignorant humans in existence, and they murder in the name of God and not education or learning. This directly contradicts your thesis. So, any argument you pose will have to deal with the fact that the educated are far from united in the view you have claimed they hold, and that the ignorant are the truly guilty parties.[This message has been edited by zephyr, 04-27-2004]

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Also, I thought those others who tried to show Hitler as Christian
--> was a pretty pathetic thing. A lot of Christians still think the Jews are God's people - including me. Hitler's political babble can in no way show a christian doctrine.

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Hi Mike,Nice to see you again.You both seem to be missing the point. It's not like I (or anyone else who mentioned Hitler's Christian statements) am claiming he exemplified the teachings of Jesus, that he has anything in common with somebody like you, or that Christians are bad because the Nazis claimed to do the will of the Christian God. If there is a sane middle ground here that can be defended, it is this pairing of UNDENIABLE FACTS:The Nazis made statements that distorted scientific learning into support for their cause.
The Nazis made statements that distorted Christian tradition into support for their cause.They were a smart political party that used whatever means they could to manipulate folks into supporting them. Hijacking nascent biological theories about comparative fitness was effective, so they did it. Exploiting a well-documented European Christian tradition of violent animosity toward Jews was also effective. But their use of both these political tools doesn't make them evolutionary scientists any more than it makes them Bible-believing Christians. This is why, when somebody is attacked with stupid rhetoric about the Nazis and natural selection, they are quite reasonable to reply facetiously with more apparently stupid rhetoric about the Nazis and Christianity. The point we are trying to make is that neither logical connection holds any water, so each should be left alone in favor of better arguments. It is aggravating when people misunderstand the logic and choose to react emotionally to the comparison.

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You are actually defending a country bumpkin accusation that christianity caused the Holocaust,

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Absolutely untrue. Your reading comprehension is abysmal. I hope you don't have any standardized tests in the near future.

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....which is actually a hate-based construct perpetrated by CERTAIN Jewish historians. This inflammatory religious rhetoric is intended as retaliation for christians blaming Jewry for murdering Jesus.

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Substantiate please?Incidentally, "hate" is a verb, not a noun.

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The Church COULD OF stopped Hitler, but they conned themselves to believe that Sermon on the Mount principles would work on a tyrant.

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I think you meant "could have." Again, please substantiate this claim. It took six years, the combined efforts of many nations and the expenditure of millions of lives to defeat Hitler. But you think The Church could have done it?

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Nope. I have argued that the highly educated (Nazi's) committed the worst sin/Holocaust, therefore anyone who wants to claim that education is the cure for evil/sin does not have a leg to stand on.

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What a waste of an argument. If that is all you are really arguing, that the statement you describe is unfounded, this thread is way off track already and most of the points in the OP (hell, all the posts) were irrelevant. Tangentially, you still haven't shown the Nazi politicians were more educated than anyone else.

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If a "balanced perspective" includes whitewashing the murdercide of Jews

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This has been pointed out, but "murdercide" is not a real word. It's hard to take your points seriously when you fail to use the English language properly in making them.

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The ultra-educated committed the Holocaust and today the ultra-educated still justify the murder of Jews.

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LOL! Tell us about the Nuremberg defendants' academic credentials if you want anyone to listen. Your argument is empty until you can do that! Then you'd have to show that anyone other than a small minority of today's academic world actually justifies the murder of Jews while condemning all other murder. Then you would have to show that this has any relevance when the actual killing - which is a quantum leap above simply excusing killing - is being done by uneducated, ignorant religious zealots at the bidding of other uneducated, ignorant religious zealots. You have no clue how far off track you are, because only one of those three is within your grasp, and without them all your entire premise is dead.[This message has been edited by zephyr, 04-28-2004]

Fair enough, Mike. Good answers to the parts you quoted, but I wish you'd try to take the whole thing in at once. The point was that if you can absorb the entire perspective I'm trying to offer, then your take on the individual pieces will be different than if you just pick out the ones you understand or find interesting (I'm not sure what your criteria are) and deal with those separately.I'm not gonna go off about the True Scotsman thing, because it's been beaten to death. It doesn't really matter, because nobody will ever agree who is a true Christian. For the moment, let us agree that you understand (and I accept your interpretation of) half of this picture. On that side, we have a contrast between following Jesus and slaughtering people under a banner of Christianity. But you must understand the whole for my point to have any meaning. If you don't know or care what the difference is between studying evolutionary science and forming a genocidal, eugenics-fueled nationalist movement, then we can just stop right here, because it is effectively the same as the difference between trying to live like Jesus and carrying on a tradition of anti-Semitism in the name of a state church that happens to bear his name. Thus, if you lack the knowledge or the interest to build BOTH of those parallel concepts in your head and understand the analogy between the two, we're wasting our time by trading posts here....

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You are very "articulate" (Is that the word?).

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Yes, and thanks

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Ofcourse, I can see the difference. Many infact most here, are studying evolution and they seek not to kill Jews. I don't agree with "that" part of WT's post and so I chose to only answer to the christian parts of your post - being the nitpicker I am.

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Cool, I was just asking. Wasn't sure if you were avoiding or just saying "no-comment" on the rest. Please don't think I was insulting your intelligence.

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Whether intelligence has any baring on "murder" I don't know. Many serial killers are touted as being intelligent - very intelligent. And many psychopath killers are touted as very cunning. (Mainly on the discovery channel ). So, I guess education/intelligence does have no effect on morals, but I am still a bit unsure.

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Well, intelligence may help them avoid capture long enough to become serial killers instead of one-time killers... education, probably not. Unless you're talking about education in the field of forensics and such, which is highly specialized and unlikely to affect morals. I can't imagine either of those things turning a loving and well-mannered person into a psychopath.

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I think we could agree to agree, that those two statements you made about the nazis are probably accurate.
Regards, Mike.

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Awww, come over here and give me a hug!

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I just think you're overstating the case regarding these professors. I don't think there are as many radical Israel-hating professors as you suggest there are. Sure, there are some, but unless you can provide us with some research about this all we have to go on is your perception.

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BINGO.All I see so far is this: lots of handwaving. Lots of nasty labels. No real facts. Nazis and hate(sic) and racism... and it all results from education. Why should I believe it? Because it seems that way to Willowtree.

If somebody could actually provide me an example of a professor who did such a thing, then I could answer that question. You can't even do that!As is, I can speculate - maybe such a prof is deluded or misguided, or maybe he was slighted by an Israeli at some time in his life. Maybe he is more horrified by various Israeli atrocities, with their veneer of legitimacy, than by Palestinian ones. These are just guesses. I can't defend or condemn a hypothetical person you haven't shown to exist in the first place. I can tell you that I would most likely not call him a neo-Nazi, because Nazism is a very distinct political system. Simply being anti-Semitic does not make you a Nazi. Furthermore, Palestinian suicide bombers would most likely do what they do if ANYONE had taken their ancestral land in a manner they viewed as unjust and treated their people as the new nation of Israel has done. It is their political marginalization that drives them first and foremost, with religion being a catalyst for the extreme means to which they resort. Thus, supporting them does not require a detached academic sort to subscribe to any views that more than superficially resemble those of the Nazis.You will find that the more you ignore the other side of this issue, the more people will argue for that side. The idea is to get you to realize how little you actually know, and learn enough to balance your perspective. You're talking to a lot of genuinely educated people right here, and none of them has said that suicide bombings are okay. All they are saying is that you need to do your homework before you try to argue about an issue like this.

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You are suddenly challenging the existence of that which you have already assumed (university elites who make excuses for killing Jews)

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I have done neither. The goalposts shift so fast with you that I cannot attempt to address every point from the same exact angle in every post. I offered arguments that did not depend on the existence or prevalence of anti-semitic views and thus may have appeared to accept your impression of how common they are. More recently I may have pointed out that you had no evidence to show that anti-semitism is more common among the educated. I have no trouble believing there are anti-semitic professors in the world, and pointed out that probably quite a few support the Palestinian cause without necessarily being anti-Jewish. These arguments in no way contradict each other, and the manner in which you have answered them suggests you have no substantive defense against either.

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You have conceded the debate. You act like I and what I say is fresh out from outer space.

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For all the effect it has on the issue at hand, it may as well be the case. I have not conceded because nothing I've posted has been challenged with relevant evidence.

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You are clowning the debate. I see no need to respond to you any further unless your strategy of insulting my intelligence ceases.

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The debate is a joke already, and it has been from the OP. You offer conflicting explanations of what you're trying to prove, you avoid answering major points made against your ideas, and when all else fails you retreat to a non-controversial point (education is not a 100% cure-all for morality) that no debate remains. I am not questioning your intelligence. I am, for good reason, questioning your knowlege and your willingness to debate in good faith.

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I disagree.

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HAHAHAHA!!!! If only it were so simple.Personally, I would like to solve every argument with this line:"I know you disagree, but I've done a lot of thinking about this, and I realized that, well, I have it all figured out... and, you see, the thing is, you're wrong."I am continually surprised by the rarity of favorable responses.

Hey,I somewhat arbitrarily clicked on your second link there. Incidentally, you're violating forum guidelines.Oh, but I had a point. Yeah. Here is some text from the beginning of that article:Twenty-six Harvard professors and lecturers are among the over 1,100 American academics who have signed a petition warning the Israeli government against the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian minority and calling for "vigilance" by the U.S. government to prevent it.

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The petition decries the "transfer solution," under consideration by parts of the Israeli leadership, which involves forcibly removing Palestinians from Israel and the Occupied Territories. How dare those ivory-tower hippies sign a petition against ethnic cleansing! They may as well be herding Jews into gas chambers!....except that the two have nothing to do with each other.Honestly, you should stick to posting links that actually support your case. Then, when you post them here, have the decency to actually discuss their content.

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The relevance of this link evidences that there is a sizable body of professors who are vehemently against Israel.

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On the contrary, there is a sizable body of professors who are taking a stand against the violent disposession of a large ethnic group by a more powerful and organized group.

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Then I will add, how many amongst these intellectuals do you think make excuses for Palestinian terror ?

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It is no stretch to assume some.

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It is a stretch to assume anything. I would sign that petition in a heartbeat and I am horrified by the violence on BOTH sides. Given the size of the group, it is possible that there are a few crackpots who are detached from reality enough to theorize their way into making excuses for suicide attacks on civilians. If you want to prove anything from that, you'd need to document the existence of one of them. Then you could start arguing for those similarities you find so compelling.

It is quite clear in the forum rules that I am not responsible for knowing the content of all the web sites you can link to. Especially those written by frothing-at-the-mouth political partisans with such an extremist agenda that I can hardly read the facts through their emotional language.Now give me a name and a balanced set of information that says that person encourages suicide bombings.