Debates
20 Jun 05
22 Jun 05
Originally posted by zeeblebotI will have to take the blame (again) for not creating a very understandable thread I guess.
- did the various nations gain the technological and industrial abilities to wage large scale wars before their populations grew too comfortable to stop supplying enough infantry / willpower to wage those wars?
- alexander the great, genghis khan, weren't those wagers of comparative global wars? WWI and II didn't touch the south or north america continents much, re direct action ...
Forget world war one. It was just a simple, obvious beginning point to the initiation of the thesis. Let's start over.
I think that the destruction of god due to the intellectual efforts of the early 20th, late 19th century contributed to a new and more virulent kind of war. Did the efforts to "eradicate" god from the new century contribute to this new "evil" war? Wars where ideology reign supreme over the old ideas of "empire"?
There are several things to debate.
1 - There is no difference between the colonial wars and the ideological wars.
2 - The influence of intellectuals (such as Marx) had no effect on these wars.
3 - Other reasons lead more naturally to the more inhumane wars of the twentieth. (your point on "technology" fits here?)
4 - Ancient wars were much more brutal than the wars of the XXth, so the basic premise falls flat.
Let's not debate the meaning of a "World" war. I would tend to say that it is interesting, but not germane to the thread. Might be a good thread on it's own right.
My real interest is "Did the intellectual effort to kill god change the "ideological" fanaticism of war?
And please... Let's not get off into religion. This is (hopefully) about the influence of intellectuals and philosophers on the rest of us dumb buggers.
Thanks for your honest attempt, zeeble one. I appreciate it.
Mike
22 Jun 05
Originally posted by jimslyp69Weeee. Touchy ain't we? I wasn't really giving you a bad time. You did that with your cluelessness.
You just can't help yourself can you, you sad b@stard. What's the problem,why are you so pent up, angry and cantancarous? You're just in here because you don't have the guts to mouth off to anyone in real life. Hit the bricks loser.
22 Jun 05
1 edit
Originally posted by sasquatch672Mike - is this post really a ruse that you've concocted to show us that you've read Russians? I only ask because that was Alexei's thesis in the book - your "evil" theme. I stick to Dostoevsky for great themes for Russians.
Mike - is this post really a ruse that you've concocted to show us that you've read Russians? I only ask because that was Alexei's thesis in the book - your "evil" theme. I stick to Dostoevsky for great themes for Russians.
I ...[text shortened]... blically evil. But could he literally have been the antichrist?
I read anyone who seems interesting. I am about average as far as "who" or what I read. As long as it's translated into english. Sadly, I don't have the language skills of a half-assed parrot.
I think that WWI did sow the seeds of the evil that Nazi Germany twenty-five years later. That evil you speak of really needed the cauldron of post-WWI Germany to develop. I find it amazing that people allowed themselves to devolve, even way before the war, into segregating Jews into ghettoes and "rationing" their intake to 184 kcal/day. That's not rationing. That's starvation.
Aw! This is closer to the question I had in mind. "Did the intellectual effort to erradicate God influence the general "tolerance" for biggotry aimed at religion and religious people? Good point.
Europe may have ignored Hitler for as long as possible for a few reasons, and I'm not sure which one is most important. (I'm not getting this out of a text or any other book, so these thoughts are my own even if warmed over.) Certainly other European countries had the power to lean on a weaker nation, for they did just that to Germany. But I think that the European distaste for conflict arose out of ceturies of tribal and feudal wars with no benevolent hegemon to quell the imperial urges of some king or other. So that when fascism and Nazism arose, perhaps European governments other than England were perhaps thinking that they just wanted to contain him.
Thank you. Good thoughts.
But make no mistake - however he got where he got, Hitler's brand of evil was unique and unprecedented in scope. I actually wish to pose a question - if the definition of "The Christ" is what I understand it to be - "The savior of the Jews" - then is it not quite possible that Hitler was the antichrist? There can be no doubt that Hitler was Biblically evil. But could he literally have been the antichrist?
I have a hard time answering this. Being an atheist, I don't believe in god, so he couldn't really have a "royal" son in my way of viewing it. But-- should we all agree on that basic starting point then the "anti-god, anti-christ" might well be what I am looking for in starting this thread. Marx... Sartre and his existentialism in the mid-century -- solipsisim of the early century.
Could the "new evil" I speak of... if it exists be because there was much more effort taken to kill God than to think of the consequences? Especially in war?
22 Jun 05
Originally posted by zeeblebotYea. But what influence of the "philosophers" impacted that and all wars?
you're welcome ... i thought Hitler was protestant ... nominally ...
plus both sides in the Civil War were probably very God-fearing ...
That is the question.
Look. I am just sick and tired of "Intellectuals and Philosophers" taking the high road without having to consider the consequences of their relativly mindless blather.
The whole point is that "words do matter" and the mindless killing of god had consequence. I just want bbarr and his ilk to 'spain to us why it is ok to kill god and not offer a substitute mechanism for "mercy".
22 Jun 05
i think they tried but they're not realistic, including awareness of large systems and their (the systems'😉 lack of controllability ....
saw a post recently about the iraq war, not sure who posted it, where apparently everything would have gone a lot smoother if bush had just followed the poster's (and most of the pundits) ideas ... conveniently excluding the metrics and the expertise to which bush and the military have access and they don't ...
22 Jun 05
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I wonder what the "philosophers of God" in the sixteenth century would have done if they'd had the same access to nuclear weapons that the supposedly secular politicians of today boast? I suspect that global thermonuclear war would have been a perfectly acceptable solution for Reformation and Counter-Reformation scholastics.
22 Jun 05
Originally posted by TheBloopI'll try not to go too far off the post (unlike American soccer).
The reason Europeans (particularly Western Europeans) hate the US is that they are really no longer relevant on the world stage... the US dominates the world in every way imaginable (except for the actual conquest of land, that's Europe's history, not ours)... whether it's economics, military, or technology... the Europeans are irrelevant, and what's wo ...[text shortened]... he United States... but remember, you heard it here first.... it ain't gonna happen.
So maybe you're not the best at Everything.
But I can only imagine that you have, in fact, never been to Europe.
Europeans don't hate the US, it is only tired opinions or superiority
that we find sad and pathetic. I don't have children but when I read
stuff like this it sounds like the slapping of adolescent eagerness
through the bedroom door of ignorance.
23 Jun 05
Originally posted by StarValleyWythey gotta make a living somehow ...
You are more kind than I.
I think the mindless drones just don't give a shit. As long as they "kill god". See bbarrs constant mocking of "god" in his every post.
Silly turds. That is the point. What glory has all that pseudo brain power if they just instigate mayhem? With no solution to mercy?
23 Jun 05
Originally posted by oddbobmaybe oddbob's only been reading every fifth post ... statistically out of the millions of RHPers who read this thread a nonzero proportion of them should come to the same conclusion ... the ones that skipped all the anti-US posts ...
I'll try not to go too far off the post (unlike American soccer).
So maybe you're not the best at Everything.
But I can only imagine that you have, in fact, never been to Europe.
Europeans don't hate the US, it is only tired opinions or superiority
that we find sad and pathetic. I don't have children but when I read
stuff like this it sounds like the slapping of adolescent eagerness
through the bedroom door of ignorance.
24 Jun 05
Originally posted by AmauroteBetter late to the conversation than never, I suppose.
I wonder what the "philosophers of God" in the sixteenth century would have done if they'd had the same access to nuclear weapons that the supposedly secular politicians of today boast? I suspect that global thermonuclear war would have been a perfectly acceptable solution for Reformation and Counter-Reformation scholastics.
I have said in several old threads that we have to cut the Islamofacists a little slack because their religion is 700 years younger than christianity, just as christianity is a couple thousand years newer than Judism.
To see what Islamofacists "ARE" like... don't think little soft puffy thoughts of kindness and understanding. Think catholic "Inquisition".