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Author | Topic: The blurry line between religious and crazy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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I've done some fairly crazy things without God telling me to. I've also decided not to do a few things because they were too crazy.
In the end, I don't think religious people are more likely to do crazy things than non-religious people. Religious people may be more likely to credit God with their good decisions and blame themselves for their bad decisions but they're still their own decisions.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Dr Adequate writes:
What if he's fed up with his life? What if he follows his dreams? What if he rushes in where angels fear to tread?
If a man knows some weighty secret that he must reveal, and instead he blows a whistle, releases a cat from a bag, and spills some beans, we would not form a high estimate of his rationality.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Omnivorous writes:
What's really frightening about the Holocaust, for example, is the cold, calculating efficiency with which it was done. Serial killers and child molesters also seem to lack an obvious appearance of madness. Doesn't it seem like madness to wish or attempt the deaths of millions of people? When we decide to mistreat somebody who is "other", we are pretty good at fooling the ones who are "us".
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Dr Adequate writes:
Yes, it was efficient. Don't take Hogan's Heroes too literally. The sad part is that the transport of the Jews "to the East" was the crowning glory of Nazi organization.
Well, was it efficient? We have these stereotypes of German efficiency, but in fact organizationally Nazism was a complete shambles.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Dr Adequate writes:
Yup.
... we would judge their efficiency by how many got away, what it cost per Jew.... Dr Adequate writes:
No. You can't do that. You might as well say that it would have been "more efficient" not to start the war in the first place. You might as well say it would have been "more efficient" to be Polynesians instead of Germans. ... and indeed whether that was a good use of their resources rather than fighting the Allies. You can only compare what they did with previous attempts to do what they did.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Dr Adequate writes:
They killed six million Jews. They considered it an incomplete victory. THEY LOST. They had killing factories. They stole their victims' shoes, their clothing, their hair, their teeth. When, in the course of human history, have their cost-recovery efforts ever been matched?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Dr Adequate writes:
I find the Holocaust itself depressing, and the fact that the perpetrators tried so hard to be efficient. Discussing this is making me very depressed. I find discussing it slightly cathartic and I find your comments fairly disgusting.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Dr Adequate writes:
Six million was, tragically, a huge success.
They failed in all these aims....
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Theodoric writes:
Before we go rushing off on a tangent about "Nazi efficiencey", let's recap the statement that started the deflection:
Here is an article criticizing idea of Nazi efficiency.quote:I was referring to the efficiency with which millions of people were killed and robbed. Whether they were efficient in any other area is irrelevant to my statement.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
NoNukes writes:
Two-thirds of the target population destroyed.
Give me some way to judge. NoNukes writes:
The bean-counters can take comfort in the inefficiency of the Holocaust while the rest of us remain horrified at its effectiveness.
Effective is not the same as efficient.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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approximately 1.6 writes:
To me, minimizing genocidal efficiency is repugnant. But to me. Grandizing Natzi genocidal efficiency is repugnant. It has nothing to do with being a Nazi "fan". Demonizing the Nazis is dangerous. They are not "somebody else". They are us, under slightly different circumstances.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
NoNukes writes:
Except in the strictly mathematical sense - and if I had meant "in the mathematcal sense" I would have said "in the mathematical sense" - there is no fundamental distinction between efficiency and thoroughness.
No one is minimizing efficiency. Just distinguishing it from brutal thoroughness. NoNukes writes:
Did I call it unprecedented? And calling such action zunprecdented was also wrong. But if there's a prior example of factories designed to systematically steal hair and teeth, I'm not aware of it.
NoNukes writes:
And not even all Germans were Nazis. Who said they were? There was a whole spectrum: True Believer Nazis, Nazis who went along to get along, non-Nazis who collaborated, non-Nazis who conveniently looked the other way, anti-Nazis who helped the Jews. Portraying them all as bumbling fools is what I'm arguing against. They did an extremely efficient/effective/thorough job of what they set out to do
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
NoNukes writes:
I'm not criticizing anybody for using "correct" definitions. I'm objecting to being criticized for using broader definitions.
If you want to make up your own definitions, then it is not legitimate to criticize others for using more correct ones. NoNukes writes:
And so have I.
I've been quite clear about what I mean by efficient. NoNukes writes:
When you're replying to me, the implication is that you're replying to me. You might want to be as careful of your references as you are about your definitions.
ringo writes:
Not everything is about you personally. Yes, that term has been used in this thread. Did I call it unprecedented? NoNukes writes:
If you think "it can't happen here" you're sadly mistaken.
My comment was in response to your statement that the Nazi's are us. They aren't us. At the very least they are not me and you can tell me if they are you.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
approximately 1.6 writes:
That's what Stalin said.
The fact that "we" draw a distinction between US and Them (Natzis) is because we were the good guys and they where the bad guys.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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approximately 1.6 writes:
Stalin was on the side of the "good guys".
If you do not think there was a right and a wrong side during WWII good guys and bad guys....
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