Hugo Chavez, fiery Venezuelan leader, dies at 58

[JackyB]

Cor Cordis I have been reading many of your posts on differing threads and I admire the way you have the knowledge and ability to respond to the respective issues. I have no doubt that people will continue to accuse you of being insulting and intolerant and generally this from people who have no problem in behaving the same way. Too many Catholics in this day and age have been duped into believing that compromise is the answer to peace, all around is growing confusion because we are too afraid to voice the truth and our weakness gives strength to the enemies of truth.

 

[Walcot]

It’s not merely “slanging” and “insulting” for the sake of slanging and insulting, it’s truth that happens to cause you insult that you interpret as slanging.

But you’re free to correct it by explaining your impression of Americans.

I certainly enjoy the aftereffects of Confession after I have sinned. So in that sense, yes I do “enjoy” the Sacrament Of Reconciliation. And yes, I have sinned against you. I’m sorry.

It’s your story to tell.

Truth. Hmm truth is a word thet’s bandied around a lot. Substitute your ‘opinion’ for ‘truth’ a few times in these threads and we come nearer the truth.
I’m not going to be an apologist for suicide bombers…listen to the videos or read what they say to find out what they are, but you sure do have to have strong convictions to lay down your life for them.
You and JackyB use the word tolerance as though it’s a dirty word. But it’s tolerance that has kept the relative peace we’ve been lucky enough to be living in in the west since WW2. Convictions are OK until they promote violence against those who don’t share them. At the moment it’s Islamist extremists who are inciting physical violence…once upon a time it was Chritians.
You though, are just resorting to verbal violence Cor Cordis, with your string of invective against your present government and their supporters. But with the gun talk on this thread it sounds like you’ll be more than willing to use violence against your fellow Americans, although you claim to abhor the civil conflict which ripped your country apart once before…“Praise the Lord and pass the ammo…”
Were you as belligerent when you were an atheist? Was your ‘truth’ different then? It sounds as though you’ve been taking lessons from those experts the Hitchens brothers.
In short, you disguise insulting language as ‘the truth’ and then finish with ‘don’t be so uptight and defensive’!
YOU HAVE TO SHARE THIS PLANET WITH OTHER PEOPLE. What’s the non violent way forward? Love, tolerance, good example, debate? Jaw jaw or war war?

 

[Walcot]

Oh, and stating that I had a nihilistic socialistic upbringing was not intended to offend but is a ‘truth’ that you are in possession of and are at liberty to bandy about??

 

[liturgyluver]

**

However, given the overwhelming evidence, it is quite clear that most Germans tolerated**

evil.

And I’m not making that determination simply as a third party who is far removed by time. I have personally known several war veterans who saw the concentration camps up close and personal, complete with all the nauseating sights, sounds, and smells. It is virtually impossible to keep such horrendous nightmares a confined secret. I’ll say it again, impossible.

And as those veterans recalled after they breathed in the smoke and ash of human corpses in the gas ovens:

“How exactly do the people in the nearby towns NOT hear about this? Not to mention, how do they not SMELL this?”

Impossible.

None of the extermination camps and gas chambers were in Germany, but were located in Poland. The barbaric concentration camps in Germany had a completely different purpose, but the deaths there in the few weeks before the war were because of Typhus and other disease rather than the systematic extermination in the Eastern camps.

These required the complicity of the Poles, Hungarians, Slovaks etc. The Danes and Norweigians alone helped evacuate their jewish population.

You and I can only speculate how much the german civilian population knew about the mass executions.

But this thread has wondered. Let it go back to the points raised in the OP!

 

[Walcot]

bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r5s2d

Hugo Chavez was mentioned in a favourable light by this Venezuelan musician/conductor Gustavo Dudamel in an interview I listened to on the radio a couple of days ago. Chavez supported Dudamel’s work with poor children involving them in music. He said Chavez turned up in person to support their concerts. Just a small thing I know, but an indicator of his concern for the poor, from a Venezuelan…

 

[JackyB]

Truth. Hmm truth is a word thet’s bandied around a lot. Substitute your ‘opinion’ for ‘truth’ a few times in these threads and we come nearer the truth.
I’m not going to be an apologist for suicide bombers…listen to the videos or read what they say to find out what they are, but you sure do have to have strong convictions to lay down your life for them.
You and JackyB use the word tolerance as though it’s a dirty word. But it’s tolerance that has kept the relative peace we’ve been lucky enough to be living in in the west since WW2. Convictions are OK until they promote violence against those who don’t share them. At the moment it’s Islamist extremists who are inciting physical violence…once upon a time it was Chritians.
You though, are just resorting to verbal violence Cor Cordis, with your string of invective against your present government and their supporters. But with the gun talk on this thread it sounds like you’ll be more than willing to use violence against your fellow Americans, although you claim to abhor the civil conflict which ripped your country apart once before…“Praise the Lord and pass the ammo…”
Were you as belligerent when you were an atheist? Was your ‘truth’ different then? It sounds as though you’ve been taking lessons from those experts the Hitchens brothers.
In short, you disguise insulting language as ‘the truth’ and then finish with ‘don’t be so uptight and defensive’!
YOU HAVE TO SHARE THIS PLANET WITH OTHER PEOPLE. What’s the non violent way forward? Love, tolerance, good example, debate? Jaw jaw or war war?

No, sorry you don’t get to say what you think I mean, ever. The tolerance the people have been expected to bear in the west is wearing thin and there are many signs that the people are restless with a possibility of violence in the future, many of these people have seen everything they own turn to dust and still unelected institutions like the EU override elected governments while expecting tolerance from the gowing number of poor and jobless. To get back on topic that Chavez died in the good grace of the church is a good thing.

 

[Cor_Cordis]

Cor Cordis;10495154:

None of the extermination camps and gas chambers were in Germany, but were located in Poland. The barbaric concentration camps in Germany had a completely different purpose, but the deaths there in the few weeks before the war were because of Typhus and other disease rather than the systematic extermination in the Eastern camps.

These required the complicity of the Poles, Hungarians, Slovaks etc. The Danes and Norweigians alone helped evacuate their jewish population.

You and I can only speculate how much the german civilian population knew about the mass executions.

But this thread has wondered. Let it go back to the points raised in the OP!

Some of the Poles, Hungarians, and Slovaks undoubtedly share some of the burden of blame as well, however, it was not their nation that created, instigated, and nurtured this nightmare.

You might take the time to actually read the news article I posted.

It was just published just 2 weeks ago. And it is consistent with the eye witness accounts of victims and soldiers who have long maintained that some of the extermination camps, were in fact, located in Germany, and that the overall systemic confinement, abuse, torture, and extermination was well known to the German citizenry.

I challenge you to look at the newly developed map which greatly expanse the scale of the state instituted horror, and then explain to me just HOW exactly it was NOT integrated as common knowledge?

The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking

"The documented camps include not only “killing centers” but also thousands of forced labor camps, where prisoners manufactured war supplies; prisoner-of-war camps; sites euphemistically named “care” centers, where pregnant women were forced to have abortions or their babies were killed after birth; and brothels, where women were coerced into having sex with German military personnel. "

…

The maps the researchers have created to identify the camps and ghettos turn wide sections of wartime Europe into black clusters of death, torture and slavery — centered in Germany and Poland, but reaching in all directions.

…

The numbers astound: 30,000 slave labor camps; 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 concentration camps; 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps; 500 brothels filled with sex slaves; and thousands of other camps used for euthanizing the elderly and infirm, performing forced abortions, “Germanizing” prisoners or transporting victims to killing centers.

In Berlin alone, researchers have documented some 3,000 camps and so-called Jew houses, while Hamburg held 1,300 sites.

Dr. Dean, a co-researcher, said the findings left no doubt in his mind that many German citizens, despite the frequent claims of ignorance after the war, must have known about the widespread existence of the Nazi camps at the time.

“You literally could not go anywhere in Germany without running into forced labor camps, P.O.W. camps, concentration camps,” he said. “They were everywhere.”

 

[liturgyluver]

liturgyluver;10497059:

Some of the Poles, Hungarians, and Slovaks undoubtedly share some of the burden of blame as well, however, it was not their nation that created, instigated, and nurtured this nightmare.

You might take the time to actually read the news article I posted

.

It was just published just 2 weeks ago. And it is consistent with the eye witness accounts of victims and soldiers who have long maintained that some of the extermination camps, were in fact, located in Germany, and that the overall systemic confinement, abuse, torture, and extermination was well known to the German citizenry.

I challenge you to look at the newly developed map which greatly expanse the scale of the state instituted horror, and then explain to me just HOW exactly it was NOT integrated as common knowledge?

The article does not say that there were extermination camps in Germany - and in any case is poorly written and researched.

 

[Walcot]

No, sorry you don’t get to say what you think I mean, ever. The tolerance the people have been expected to bear in the west is wearing thin and there are many signs that the people are restless with a possibility of violence in the future, many of these people have seen everything they own turn to dust and still unelected institutions like the EU override elected governments while expecting tolerance from the gowing number of poor and jobless. To get back on topic that Chavez died in the good grace of the church is a good thing.

So you don’t believe in tolerance any more…is that it?
Do you live in Europe, that you’re so anti-EU, and have first-hand experience of living under it? It’s just that we don’t tend to hear that sort of rhetoric over here. Of course you don’t have to answer that…or anything.

 

[Cor_Cordis]

Truth. Hmm truth is a word thet’s bandied around a lot. Substitute your ‘opinion’ for ‘truth’ a few times in these threads and we come nearer the truth.

Ah yes, Moral Relativism: The nihilistic philosophy of Pontius Pilate.

Pilate said to Jesus, “What is truth?” - John 18:38

So you are insulted that I label you a nihilist, and in the process of chastising me, you inadvertently display your nihilism. :ehh:

Well played sir. golf clap:clapping:

I’m not going to be an apologist for suicide bombers…listen to the videos or read what they say to find out what they are, but you sure do have to have strong convictions to lay down your life for them.

You and JackyB use the word tolerance as though it’s a dirty word. But it’s tolerance that has kept the relative peace we’ve been lucky enough to be living in in the west since WW2. Convictions are OK until they promote violence against those who don’t share them. At the moment it’s Islamist extremists who are inciting physical violence…once upon a time it was Chritians.

Actually, you use “conviction” as if it were a dangerous word.

And therein lies your confusion: You are mistakenly limiting the word “conviction” to the confined and negative connotation of “bad judgement”, at the exclusion of the possibility that it can also represent good, sound, and moral judgement. You make the philosophical assumption that any position strongly held, must necessarily be bad and immoral based solely on the strength of it’s conviction.

But tell me, how could WWII have ended if the Western Allies “tolerated” the evil philosophies the Axis powers?

Both sides were strong in their convictions, but alas it was the “tolerance” of the Nevall Chamberlain mindset that actually allowed the evil to spread and flourish.

Thank God for the decisive convictions of Winston Churchill.

And I see you finally got around to the old canard that the hypocritical Christians were also violent and therefore any and all of Christian moral authority is null and void.

Well yes, it is true that Christians have done bad things.

But many times the violence was justified and morally correct because it was within the moral precepts of the scriptures and the discerned understanding of Christ’s Words. And at other times it was incorrect and immoral because it went against the moral doctrines of His Words and Spirit.

Mistakes were made by the Church. And they always will be. Such is the inherent broken nature of a human institution. But the fact that the goodness and completeness of the Church survived all those trials and brokenness, is in and of itself, a living testimony of the Divine love upon which Christ instituted His Church. “And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it…”

"When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for its corner-stone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob, a coward – in a word, a man. Peter. And upon this rock He has built His Church, and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it. All the empires and the kingdoms have failed, because of this inherent and continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men and upon strong men. But this one thing, the historic Christian Church, was founded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. For no chain is stronger than its weakest link." -G.K.Chesterton

 

[Cor_Cordis]

Cor Cordis;10497535:

The article does not say that there were extermination camps in Germany - and in any case is poorly written and researched.

Nor did it exclude their existence within the German borders. But simply looking at the sheer volume of numbers and locations on the map it is most certainly implied:

The numbers astound: 30,000 slave labor camps; 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 concentration camps; 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps; 500 brothels filled with sex slaves; and thousands of other camps used for euthanizing the elderly and infirm, performing forced abortions, “Germanizing” prisoners or transporting victims to killing centers.

In Berlin alone, researchers have documented some 3,000 camps and so-called Jew houses, while Hamburg held 1,300 sites.

Dr. Dean, a co-researcher, said the findings left no doubt in his mind that many German citizens, despite the frequent claims of ignorance after the war, must have known about the widespread existence of the Nazi camps at the time.

“You literally could not go anywhere in Germany without running into forced labor camps, P.O.W. camps, concentration camps,” he said. “They were everywhere.”

Tell me, is the good Dr Dean wrong?

Do you possess some exclusive expert knowledge that these people do not?

Or does your “convictions” make you “intolerant” to the pertinent facts? Walcot wants to know.

 

[Cor_Cordis]

You though, are just resorting to verbal violence Cor Cordis, with your string of invective against your present government and their supporters. But with the gun talk on this thread it sounds like you’ll be more than willing to use violence against your fellow Americans, although you claim to abhor the civil conflict which ripped your country apart once before…“Praise the Lord and pass the ammo…”

Well, first of all, “verbal” is not “violence”

Words can incite violence, but words in and of themselves are NOT physical action.

But if words **are **violence by the sheer weight of their premise and implications, then YOU are clearly inciting violence when you label my words as “violence”.

After all, you are clearly implying that my speech is presenting a clear and present danger, are you not?

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

How does any of this apply to the topic of the thread?

As Christians, it is our hope that Chavez truly died in the bosom of the Church and being worthy of the promises of Christ. If we don’t believe that, we should be weeping in our hearts for one lost. Either way, no one on earth can speak definitively of the condition of his heart with God at the time of his passing, or anyone else.

*“I think even we are sometimes like these people, who on the one hand want to listen to Jesus, but on the other hand, sometimes we like to stone others and condemn others. The message of Jesus is this: mercy,” he said at the morning Mass.

In both his address and homily, the pope said people should be open to God’s mercy, even those who have committed grave sins.

“The Lord never tires of forgiving, never! It is we who tire of asking for forgiveness,” he said at the Mass.*

-Pope Francis

 

[Cor_Cordis]

Were you as belligerent when you were an atheist?

No. Because a true atheist believes all of life is meaningless. And as such, there is no point in disputing anyone’s beliefs. Everything is worm food.

However, when I mistakenly thought I was an atheist, I was even more belligerent. Much like you are now.

Was your ‘truth’ different then? It sounds as though you’ve been taking lessons from those experts the Hitchens brothers.

My self-delusion of what I though was “truth” was certainly different.

I believed there was no objective truth… until I read Chesterton and realized that that concept was self-defeating if taken to it’s full and honest measure.

And then I read the most insulting thing my intellect had ever suffered. And it was painful in it’s truth:
**
“It is assumed that the skeptic has no bias; whereas he has a very obvious bias in favour of skepticism.”

“No skeptical philosopher can ask any questions that may not equally be asked by a tired child on a hot afternoon.”

-G.K.Chesterton**

The Hitchens brothers are amateurs. (God rest Christopher’s soul)

 

[Cor_Cordis]

In short, you disguise insulting language as ‘the truth’ and then finish with ‘don’t be so uptight and defensive’!

Ah, but my fellow philosopher:

What IS truth?

did I not tell you that I know your mindset better than you probably do?

 

[Cor_Cordis]

How does any of this apply to the topic of the thread?

**As Christians, it is our hope that Chavez truly died in the bosom of the Church and being worthy of the promises of Christ. If we don’t believe that, we should be weeping in our hearts for one lost. Either way, no one on earth can speak definitively of the condition of his heart with God at the time of his passing, or anyone else. **

I fully agree, Prodigal Son.

And may I add: Amen.

 

[Cor_Cordis]

“I think even we are sometimes like these people, who on the one hand want to listen to Jesus, but on the other hand, sometimes we like to stone others and condemn others. The message of Jesus is this: mercy,” he said at the morning Mass.

Uhm… you just cast some stones there.

You clearly condemned some people.

 

[liturgyluver]

liturgyluver;10497606:

Nor did it exclude their existence within the German borders. But simply looking at the sheer volume of numbers and locations on the map it is most certainly implied:

Tell me, is the good Dr Dean wrong?

Do you possess some exclusive expert knowledge that these people do not?

Or does your “convictions” make you “intolerant” to the pertinent facts? Walcot wants to know.

She is talking here about concentration rather than extermination camps. We all know that Germany was anti-semitic and that Jewish people faced immediate and open persecution and eventually expulsion by the Nazis. But none of us know whether the existence of the systematic extermination camps which were well outside Germany.s borders were known to the general German populace. Now, perhaps it’s time to return to the thread.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Uhm… you just cast some stones there.

You clearly condemned some people.

There is no condemnation. I only shared an excerpt from the Holy Father’s Mass.

 

[Cor_Cordis]

Cor Cordis;10497702:

She is talking here about concentration rather than extermination camps. We all know that Germany was anti-semitic and that Jewish people faced immediate and open persecution and eventually expulsion by the Nazis. But none of us know whether the existence of the systematic extermination camps which were well outside Germany.s borders were known to the general German populace. Now, perhaps it’s time to return to the thread.

Ahem.

The documented camps** include not only “killing centers” **

but also thousands of forced labor camps, where prisoners manufactured war supplies; prisoner-of-war camps; sites euphemistically named “care” centers, where pregnant women were forced to have abortions or their babies were killed after birth; and brothels, where women were coerced into having sex with German military personnel.

…

The numbers astound: 30,000 slave labor camps; 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 concentration camps; 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps; 500 brothels filled with sex slaves; and thousands of other camps used for euthanizing the elderly and infirm, performing forced abortions, “Germanizing” prisoners or transporting victims to killing centers.