Genocide

[GuanYuWarGod]

Sometimes genocide is a GOOD thing. When God does or allows it, there is always a good purpose. Remember, God is good, whatever he does is good. I’m sure he had good reasons for drowning infants in the Deluge.

I’m going to remember this for the rest of my life. Reading this makes me feel so … sick. Sorry.

The Old Testament has numerous examples of God personally or commanding mass killings, infanticide, and genocide (among other ‘controversial’ bible events).

Philosophy Question: Is God commanded genocide good BECAUSE God says so? Is it good because we associate moral authority with God?

 

[Poelice]

I’m going to remember this for the rest of my life. Reading this makes me feel so … sick. Sorry.

The Old Testament has numerous examples of God personally or commanding mass killings, infanticide, and genocide (among other ‘controversial’ bible events).

Philosophy Question: Is God commanded genocide good BECAUSE God says so? Is it good because we associate moral authority with God?

It may make us feel sick, but remember, God is so much higher than we are. What seems sick to us but somehow good to Him must somehow be good, even if it seems sick to us.

Remember, God, by nature, is good. This is what godless people forget when they think they can have a morality without a god. He cannot do wrong. This is why him giving the OK for slavery for the Israelites, as long as they don’t break the teeth of their slaves, blind them, or kill them immediately. I don’t remember the verses on top of my head, but I can find them if you want me to.

And yes, God is the ultimate moral authority. What he says is ALWAYS good. He cannot do wrong and He cannot deceive.

 

[Hokomai]

What I mean is: you are saying that God is all loving and thats the end of it.

Quite frankly you sound like a lot of Christians that I know. “My god would never do this or that.” Well, you’ve just invented your own god.

The most likely explanation for the thousands (millions?) of different gods that people have believed in through the ages is exactly what you suggest; we create gods to meet our own needs for explanation, control, and comfort. As Marx said: religion is the heart of a heartless world. The interesting thing for the Christian believer, of course, is that people believe in so many different gods, with so many different characteristics. Only the one you believe in is the right one. People like me who are not believers recognise the social reality of God, and the way social conditions constantly give rise to belief in gods.

 

[Hokomai]

I’m going to remember this for the rest of my life. Reading this makes me feel so … sick. Sorry.

The Old Testament has numerous examples of God personally or commanding mass killings, infanticide, and genocide (among other ‘controversial’ bible events).

Philosophy Question: Is God commanded genocide good BECAUSE God says so? Is it good because we associate moral authority with God?

I am also upset by attempts to justify these things. Am I right in thinking that most if not all of these stories are excluded from the readings at Mass?

 

[Calgar]

The most likely explanation for the thousands (millions?) of different gods that people have believed in through the ages is exactly what you suggest; we create gods to meet our own needs for explanation, control, and comfort. As Marx said: religion is the heart of a heartless world. The interesting thing for the Christian believer, of course, is that people believe in so many different gods, with so many different characteristics. Only the one you believe in is the right one. People like me who are not believers recognise the social reality of God, and the way social conditions constantly give rise to belief in gods.

It’s neat that you bring up Marx, one of the high priests of the most violent and deadly religion in the world.

My concern is that people tend to forget about God being righteous and just. People also forget about His wrath.

I’ll be more specific about people creating their own god: My aunt is a leader in the methodist church. She believes that homosexuality is okay and is perfectly allowable for Christians to partake in. When I point out the sections of the Bible that refute this she says that the Bible is so old and been translated so many times that you can’t trust what it says.

When I point out evidence that the Bible is accurate she simply shuts down the conversation with: “My god wouldn’t say those things.”

 

[Tenofovir]

The most likely explanation for the thousands (millions?) of different gods that people have believed in through the ages is exactly what you suggest; we create gods to meet our own needs for explanation, control, and comfort.

I don’t think it’s the most likely explanation. I don’t know what metric you’re using but could you explain what makes you say it’s the most likely explanation? Just because people project and have wishful thinking or take advantage of religious systems (Hint: people take advantage of everything.), there is no God? It’s like saying we should not have money because counterfeit money exists or we should not have prices because everyone has a desire to see their own price (value) on a thing they wish to buy.

As Marx said: religion is the heart of a heartless world.

I’m offended. I lost relatives to Karl Marx’s ideas.

The interesting thing for the Christian believer, of course, is that people believe in so many different gods, with so many different characteristics. Only the one you believe in is the right one. People like me who are not believers recognise the social reality of God, and the way social conditions constantly give rise to belief in gods.

Philosophically there can only be one God, the God of classic theism. That God and the God of the Bible are synonymous. We have proof that Jesus is that God by virtue of His miracles and Resurrection. All the gods - such as Thor, Jupiter, Vishnu, etc fail because they’re created gods, in that, even if they were real gods, they would be parts of the same universe, created with the atoms of this universe, as is the hypothetical Russel’s tea pot. Only God is outside of the universe, existed before the universe, is transcendent and is Being Itself. No other god, from the millions of gods you can cite will meet these criteria. God is necessary. So comparing gods to God does not work, once you understand classic theism.

 

[Raskolnikov]

Tenofovir:

I’m offended. I lost relatives to Karl Marx’s ideas.

Ideas don’t kill people, people kill people.

Calgar:

My concern is that people tend to forget about God being righteous and just. People also forget about His wrath.

Conversely, they also tend to forget that God is not the micromanager of all things in the world. Chaos and evil are unfortunate biproducts of freedom. But the plea for providence to step in and smite a particular evil from the earth before it runs wild, or the indignation at him not having done so, though often understandable, ignores the other side of the same coin: they might try and imagine i, every time time they chose to sin, God stepped in and imposed physical punishment accordingly. Having one’s cake and eating it too, is what many people want.

 

[Tenofovir]

Ideas don’t kill people, people kill people.

What drives people though? What motivates people if not ideas or thoughts?

Karl Marx was a proponent of actual genocide, and his ideology led to genocide in the Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Cambodia, Korea, China, Cuba etc. So yes, I can be offended when relatives of mine died in the name of Marxist ideals and Marx is whitewashed and seen as some sort of luminary worthy or respect.

 

[Raskolnikov]

Hokomai:

The interesting thing for the Christian believer, of course, is that people believe in so many different gods, with so many different characteristics. Only the one you believe in is the right one. People like me who are not believers recognise the social reality of God, and the way social conditions constantly give rise to belief in gods.

Plurality of opinion is not peculiar to religion. You would be hard-pressed to find a political, philosophical, or moral belief that is integral to your way of life and the way you think that s not subject to substantial disagreement, that many people would likewise explain as the result of your ‘social conditions.’ Some of your most cherished beliefs, in fact, are likely only held by a minority and are explained in such a way by the majority; does that diminish the confidence with which you hold them though?

I happen to think that everyone, even self-described ‘non-believers,’ “believe” in something. To call oneself a ‘nonbeliever’ is to arbittrarily exempt oneself from a category, to imply that one’s beliefs are fundamentally more credible or objective or scientific than supposed ‘believers.’ Marx was a prime example of this, claiming to have discoviered a ‘scientific’ socialism, which was therefore exempt from the social economic forces he claimed explained all his opposing ideologies. He was quite wrong, of course, and any student of history can see clearly that Marx was as influenced by his conditions as the ‘bourgeois economists’ against whom he waged his intellectual war.

 

[Raskolnikov]

What drives people though? What motivates people if not ideas or thoughts?

People are not motivated by ideas alone; they are as much motivated by material desires or by thirst for power, often under the pretense of an idea. And, of course, one cannot always assume that they truly understand the the idea for which they are killing. People have killed, perhaps even sincerely, in the name of Christianity, or freedom, or love. Ideas should be given a fair trial, so to speak, before condemned as responsible for what is supposedly done in their name.

Karl Marx was a proponent of actual genocide, and his ideology led to genocide in the Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Cambodia, Korea, China, Cuba etc. So yes, I can be offended when relatives of mine died in the name of Marxist ideals and Marx is whitewashed and seen as some sort of luminary worthy or respect.

I don’t think that Marx ever actually advocated genocide. I do think that his ideas necessitated oppressive dictatorship if ever put in place, even if he didn’t wholly understand that.

Some relatives of mine were themselves victims of Stalin’s wrath. They were Pomeranian German peasants who were killed and expelled from their homeland in the late 1940s in ‘revenge’ for the Nazis because they belonged to the “perpetrator race.” I also have Ukrainian in-laws who fled the Ukraine after the holodomor. So I’m well aware of the havoc wreaked by the ideas of Marx, Lenin, et. al. But that doesn’t make Marx personally responsible for such actions, considering that he had been dead for half a century when they were committed.

Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, leading critic of Marxism, made this point in one of his books, that one must distinguish between the moral responsibility of a peson fr committing an action, and the intellectual faultiness of a person’s idea for having led to terrible actions being committed by others. If I were to say or write something, I certainly would not want to take responsibility for some nut killing someone because of it long after my death; and though I might in such a case never write or utter the statement if I knew the havoc it would cause, I could not hope to have the foresight to be able to know how people will interpret what I hypothetically say or how they will respond to it. So while one can (rightly, I think) severely criticize Marx’s ideas for their faults and their effects, I don’t think he can be held personally responsible for what was done in their name after his death without his explicit participation.

I don’t understand, say, why one would be offended if I were to quote something Marx wrote that I like, such as, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” If one were to approvingly quote, however, “religion is the opiate of the people,” then one could (and should) criticize the statement and its implications; though not necessarily try to use it to blame Marx for the execution of Buddhist monks in Mongolia by Marxist militants, but rather to use the latter example as evidence of the problems that result from that sort of sentiment.

If, of course, one were to approvingly quote Stalin, “One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic,” then to take offense would be quite warranted, as the person quoted was personally responsible for the deaths of millions and uttered the statement perhaps in attempt to justify it. Stalin has no excuse.

 

[Hokomai]

What drives people though? What motivates people if not ideas or thoughts?

Karl Marx was a proponent of actual genocide, and his ideology led to genocide in the Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Cambodia, Korea, China, Cuba etc. So yes, I can be offended when relatives of mine died in the name of Marxist ideals and Marx is whitewashed and seen as some sort of luminary worthy or respect.

Actually, the God of the Bible is a proponent of genocide (e.g. Jericho). I am sure Tenofovir you can find nothing in Marx which advocates genocide. I regard Marx as a thinker worthy of study and quoting, if it is apt.

 

[Hokomai]

Plurality of opinion is not peculiar to religion. You would be hard-pressed to find a political, philosophical, or moral belief that is integral to your way of life and the way you think that s not subject to substantial disagreement, that many people would likewise explain as the result of your ‘social conditions.’ Some of your most cherished beliefs, in fact, are likely only held by a minority and are explained in such a way by the majority; does that diminish the confidence with which you hold them though?

I happen to think that everyone, even self-described ‘non-believers,’ “believe” in something. To call oneself a ‘nonbeliever’ is to arbittrarily exempt oneself from a category, to imply that one’s beliefs are fundamentally more credible or objective or scientific than supposed ‘believers.’ Marx was a prime example of this, claiming to have discoviered a ‘scientific’ socialism, which was therefore exempt from the social economic forces he claimed explained all his opposing ideologies. He was quite wrong, of course, and any student of history can see clearly that Marx was as influenced by his conditions as the ‘bourgeois economists’ against whom he waged his intellectual war.

You are quite right about my views being in a minority, although I would hope none of them are ‘cherished beliefs’. I try not to have beliefs at all, but only to conclude things based on facts. In this I differ from Marx, who in my view did hold to number of things as beliefs, in much the same way as religious people do. His view of ‘inevitable advance’ in society is an example. I also, of course, differ from Christians.

 

[Tenofovir]

Actually, the God of the Bible is a proponent of genocide (e.g. Jericho). I am sure Tenofovir you can find nothing in Marx which advocates genocide. I regard Marx as a thinker worthy of study and quoting, if it is apt.

Marx and Engels advocated genocide of whole races:
books.google.co.za/books?id=F3EmtyNuKfQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

The God of the Bible created all of existence. If He wiped out some of it, for reasons of His own, that would be one thing. But followers of Karl Marx, no better than you and me, and equal to you and me, wiped out millions and destroyed whole nations. Countries like Russia will have to deal with the aftermath of their brutal social experiments for centuries to come.

Marx was a hateful bigot, inspired mass murder and was not much of a thinker. His ideas have led to suffering (you never experienced) and destruction of whole nations. It would have been better had he never existed.

You do not see the hypocrisy - condemning a God you don’t believe exists for imaginary “crimes”, yet willing to disregard mass murder which can be confirmed historically? Come on. That’s absurd.

 

[Tenofovir]

You are quite right about my views being in a minority, although I would hope none of them are ‘cherished beliefs’. I try not to have beliefs at all, but only to conclude things based on facts. In this I differ from Marx, who in my view did hold to number of things as beliefs, in much the same way as religious people do. His view of ‘inevitable advance’ in society is an example. I also, of course, differ from Christians.

Would you say the murders of millions in the Eastern Bloc were advances of society?

(Of course they were seen as advances by the Socialists).

I struggle to see how you can hold such cognitive dissonance in your worldview.

These are beliefs, whether you imagine them based on fact or not.

 

[Tenofovir]

People are not motivated by ideas alone; they are as much motivated by material desires or by thirst for power, often under the pretense of an idea.

The desire to shape the world into one’s own vision can co-exist with a thirst for power.

And, of course, one cannot always assume that they truly understand the the idea for which they are killing. People have killed, perhaps even sincerely, in the name of Christianity, or freedom, or love. Ideas should be given a fair trial, so to speak, before condemned as responsible for what is supposedly done in their name.

Well we do know how Marxist ideas have panned out in practice though.

I don’t think that Marx ever actually advocated genocide. I do think that his ideas necessitated oppressive dictatorship if ever put in place, even if he didn’t wholly understand that.

books.google.co.za/books?id=F3EmtyNuKfQC&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=marx+basques+serbs+bretons&source=bl&ots=sQ97ZTmiXu&sig=1aUClqP5GiaQgEvCDfGZEkLhnyA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Gwj1TtulFsiLhQeg1-29AQ&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=marx%20and%20the%20holocaust&f=false

Some relatives of mine were themselves victims of Stalin’s wrath. They were Pomeranian German peasants who were killed and expelled from their homeland in the late 1940s in ‘revenge’ for the Nazis because they belonged to the “perpetrator race.” I also have Ukrainian in-laws who fled the Ukraine after the holodomor. So I’m well aware of the havoc wreaked by the ideas of Marx, Lenin, et. al. But that doesn’t make Marx personally responsible for such actions, considering that he had been dead for half a century when they were committed.

His ideas led to millions of deaths. These were 1000s of 911s. These things would not have happened without the ideology of Karl Marx. Perhaps other conflicts would have occurred but not what followed.

Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, leading critic of Marxism, made this point in one of his books… I could not hope to have the foresight to be able to know how people will interpret what I hypothetically say or how they will respond to it. So while one can (rightly, I think) severely criticize Marx’s ideas for their faults and their effects, I don’t think he can be held personally responsible for what was done in their name after his death without his explicit participation.

But the plan of genocide was consistent throughout the Communist nations. These were not nuts who perpetrated these deeds. These were socialist programs.

I don’t understand, say, why one would be offended if I were to quote something Marx wrote that I like, such as, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” If one were to approvingly quote, however, “religion is the opiate of the people,” then one could (and should) criticize the statement and its implications; though not necessarily try to use it to blame Marx for the execution of Buddhist monks in Mongolia by Marxist militants, but rather to use the latter example as evidence of the problems that result from that sort of sentiment.

You don’t understand because you’re too distant to the effects. You lived 1000s of miles away and the deaths and misery were pretty abstract to you. I on the other hand lived through the mess (albeit it was much milder in the 80s), as did many relatives and friends, and we lost people. Entire families wiped out in 1939 for example. We will suffer with the consequences of Marx’ ideologies for generations to come. Look how 911 has affected America, now imagine a 1000, 911s, and your best people all gone. Your political systems still infiltrated by corrupt ex-Communists who cannot be weeded out because they had (and still have) millions of functionary supporters.

 

[Hokomai]

Would you say the murders of millions in the Eastern Bloc were advances of society?

(Of course they were seen as advances by the Socialists).

I struggle to see how you can hold such cognitive dissonance in your worldview.

These are beliefs, whether you imagine them based on fact or not.

Um - Marx died in the 19th century. He did not have any views on things that had not happened before he died. I was making the post that I disagreed with Marx on various issues, one (big) example being his believe in inevitable advance, which I think he held as an article of faith, without a true evidence base.

 

[Hokomai]

Marx and Engels advocated genocide of whole races:
books.google.co.za/books?id=F3EmtyNuKfQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

The God of the Bible created all of existence. If He wiped out some of it, for reasons of His own, that would be one thing. But followers of Karl Marx, no better than you and me, and equal to you and me, wiped out millions and destroyed whole nations. Countries like Russia will have to deal with the aftermath of their brutal social experiments for centuries to come.

Marx was a hateful bigot, inspired mass murder and was not much of a thinker. His ideas have led to suffering (you never experienced) and destruction of whole nations. It would have been better had he never existed.

You do not see the hypocrisy - condemning a God you don’t believe exists for imaginary “crimes”, yet willing to disregard mass murder which can be confirmed historically? Come on. That’s absurd.

Your link does not establish your claim that Marx advocated genocide. You are right that I have not concluded that the God of the Bible exists as a being. but I have no doubt whatsoever of His existence as a character in a book, and as an idea in the mind of millions, perhaps billions of people. It is the willingness of these to support an advocate of genocide which I criticise, even though i consider the advocate to be a myth. I’m perplexed, Tenoforvir, that you are happy to accept God wiping out people from time to time, but that you consider he made a mistake in the creation of Karl Marx. Surely if you accept His judgement in casing the deaths of innocent children, you could accept His judgement in deciding it was better that Marx be born?

 

[ringil]

What I mean is: you are saying that God is all loving and thats the end of it.

Quite frankly you sound like a lot of Christians that I know. “My god would never do this or that.” Well, you’ve just invented your own god.

As a Southern Baptist you would be familiar with personally defining a God without divinely given authority as we have in the true Church.

 

[Korbin]

.
Where in the world is this happening right now? Is there a way we can prevent it?

Again, can we identify and discuss present genocide? Please tell me this catholic answers message board is more productive than this.

Merry Christmas!

 

[ringil]

Again, can we identify and discuss present genocide? Please tell me this catholic answers message board is more productive than this.

Merry Christmas!

Genocide is occuring in Darfur and the international community doesn’t care.