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Goodbye Jesus

"The Problem of Morality" ?


ag_NO_stic

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On 1/23/2018 at 4:50 PM, mymistake said:

Yeah, Frank Turek is wrong.  For humans, survival of the fittest means survival of the tribe.  Humans live and survive as a team.  That team is mother, father, brothers, sisters, grandparents, babies and so on.  That is where we get our love for family.  Our survival depended on it.  And this is where we derive our sense of morality from.  Long before any Bible passage had ever been dreamed up, humans lived in tribes and cherished families.  Actions that helped the family and tribe survive were deemed moral while those that harmed the tribe were deemed immoral.  Religion copied and claimed the morality that flowed from our socialization.

 

So then something like homosexuality was deemed immoral mainly due to the dead end aspect for procreation within a tribal setting, or something to that effect? Leading to the bible's treatment of homosexuality as immoral? That seems like a good case to analyze this against. 

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1 hour ago, Joshpantera said:

 

So then something like homosexuality was deemed immoral mainly due to the dead for procreation within a tribal setting, or something to that effect? Leading to the bible's treatment of homosexuality as immoral? That seems like a good case to analyze this against. 

 

 

My comments were specifically about the roots of our morality back during pre-history.  By the time the Bronze age rolled around we had a number of civilizations and various cultures developing.  When we started living in cities we needed politics.  So you can see how that would add complexity to the underlying roots.  While the Hebrew culture was rejecting homosexuality the Greeks and Japanese (and I am sure many others) were far more accepting.  My guess would be that the personal attitude of the earliest clan leader plays a big roll in what that clan will accept or reject as normal.  If the Hebrew clan leader hates pigs then the Hebrew god will hate pigs and raising pigs becomes a sin.  If an early Japanese rice plantation owner has a gay son then the lower people on the social ladder have no say.  I would say our social morality evolved in complexity alongside our culture.  

 

But isn't there a greater outrage for violating our root morality over the social morality that evolved later?  In Paris, Cal we just found parents who had chained up all their kids to starve and torture them.  It just grabs the headline because that is not what parents are suppose to do.  It is a betrayal of that root morality.

 

Anyway, just my two cents.  Take it with a grain of salt.

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13 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

So then something like homosexuality was deemed immoral mainly due to the dead end aspect for procreation within a tribal setting, or something to that effect? Leading to the bible's treatment of homosexuality as immoral? That seems like a good case to analyze this against. 

 

12 hours ago, mymistake said:

 

 

My comments were specifically about the roots of our morality back during pre-history.  By the time the Bronze age rolled around we had a number of civilizations and various cultures developing.  When we started living in cities we needed politics.  So you can see how that would add complexity to the underlying roots.  While the Hebrew culture was rejecting homosexuality the Greeks and Japanese (and I am sure many others) were far more accepting.  My guess would be that the personal attitude of the earliest clan leader plays a big roll in what that clan will accept or reject as normal.  If the Hebrew clan leader hates pigs then the Hebrew god will hate pigs and raising pigs becomes a sin.  If an early Japanese rice plantation owner has a gay son then the lower people on the social ladder have no say.  I would say our social morality evolved in complexity alongside our culture.  

 

But isn't there a greater outrage for violating our root morality over the social morality that evolved later?  In Paris, Cal we just found parents who had chained up all their kids to starve and torture them.  It just grabs the headline because that is not what parents are suppose to do.  It is a betrayal of that root morality.

 

Anyway, just my two cents.  Take it with a grain of salt.

 

Another thing to consider is the lack of scientific education that formed some of these base beliefs and root moralities. If homosexual intercourse was being practiced without issue and then there was a period of famine, a series of coincidences could lend to a belief that "god is frowning upon ____." Think about the rain dances to please the gods, worship of the sun, etc. This lack of access to knowledge we have now can cause some straaaange (to us) rituals and belief systems.

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40 minutes ago, ag_NO_stic said:

 

 

Another thing to consider is the lack of scientific education that formed some of these base beliefs and root moralities. If homosexual intercourse was being practiced without issue and then there was a period of famine, a series of coincidences could lend to a belief that "god is frowning upon ____." Think about the rain dances to please the gods, worship of the sun, etc. This lack of access to knowledge we have now can cause some straaaange (to us) rituals and belief systems.

 

Education seems to be creating some pretty strange belief systems nowadays too. 27 pronouns? 

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2 minutes ago, Vigile said:

 

Education seems to be creating some pretty strange belief systems nowadays too. 27 pronouns? 

 

Correction: Education based in Biology.

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21 hours ago, mymistake said:

My comments were specifically about the roots of our morality back during pre-history.  By the time the Bronze age rolled around we had a number of civilizations and various cultures developing.  When we started living in cities we needed politics.  So you can see how that would add complexity to the underlying roots.  While the Hebrew culture was rejecting homosexuality the Greeks and Japanese (and I am sure many others) were far more accepting.  My guess would be that the personal attitude of the earliest clan leader plays a big roll in what that clan will accept or reject as normal.  If the Hebrew clan leader hates pigs then the Hebrew god will hate pigs and raising pigs becomes a sin.  If an early Japanese rice plantation owner has a gay son then the lower people on the social ladder have no say.  I would say our social morality evolved in complexity alongside our culture.  

 

I suppose I was going on the simplistic notion of the Jews as tribal desert nomads, eventually settling into agriculturalist life. So the tribal aspect of the Jews was on my mind. The only way it may play into it would be along other older tribal issues that carried on into the eventual bible writings periods. I was just thinking that procreative aspects may have had something to do with it, seeing as having as many children as possible was a primary concern with group, apparently. Along with no shortage of wives and concubines. I'm sure you see the angle. I'm just curious if that could have anything to do with it. 

 

 

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On 1/23/2018 at 9:23 PM, LogicalFallacy said:

That video was the first ever Atheist/Theist debate I ever watched.

 

I remember thinking That Turek got his arse handed to him. It was also my first into to the great Christopher Hitchens and the almighty Hitchslap.

 

 

No this is entirely wrong. There is no indication that any morality is objective thus Turek fails in his assertion. He does not demonstrate his claim.  What's more it depends on how he defines morality. What is morality? These best definitions I've heard come from Harris et al who state that at its most basic morality is about human wellbeing and flourishing. When you break it down, anything that is referred to as moral, the person means its good for humans, if its immoral then its bad for humans.

 

 

I would add that a persons morality derives from the same sort place as a persons religion. As disillusioned points out, this is our societal norms. If you are born in western culture, you grow up with western moral norms. If you grow up in Saudi Arabia you'll have different, and what we'd say, at times harmful moral norms.

 

 

 

Me too, like I said above, it was my first ever debate I watched.

 

 

By the way, there is a young up and coming atheist on youtube called Cosmic Skeptic (Alex O'Connor). Hi actually did a radio debate with Turek on this subject. Well worth a look.

 

 

 

 

When he put Turek in his place as an "agnostic theist," Turek immediately wanted to change the subject and move on. That was hilarious. 

 

 

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On 1/24/2018 at 10:17 AM, ag_NO_stic said:

I can almost hear every apologist I've ever met clucking their tongues and saying to you, "but GAWD wrote it awn yer hawrt."

 

This ultimately is metaphysical subjectivity. When I was in the game, I mean really in it, the idea of eternal hell made me sick. If God was writing morality on my heart, it would make sense that he would give me a good dose of hell is morally good. If God's ways are all good and we are appealing to a higher authority, then all morality is based on God's will; and if God is writing this law on human hearts, how is it there are a lot of different definitions of what is moral, especially within the church?

 

It would make sense if everyone who came to Christianity all believed the same thing, I mean right down to the "T." Imagine if everyone who really came to the faith, no hoaxes, then the Holy Spirit really came upon them and there was never any disagreement about anything. Every church taught the same thing, believed the same thing, did church the same way. That to me would be an indicator of God actually being personally involved. The mere fact that the 1st century church was divided on about everything indicates there is no divine unity.

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  • 1 month later...

I think part of the issue here is that Christians are projecting. They put a good deal of moral significance into how they believe the Earth was created and are assuming the same of a non-Christian. Evolution is not a moral system. The theory of evolution is a statement about what is, not what ought to be. Believing in evolution does not mean that someone accepts total Social Darwinism as a moral position. The concept of morality is inherently unnatural (a statement Christians should agree with given their belief in a "fallen world"). It's a social construct to curb human impulses. Statements about how the world is have nothing to do with ethics. 

 

As for morally evaluating god, it is true that a social darwinian wouldn't have a problem with the god of the Bible. But the Christian god isn't a social darwinian. The way to evaluate someone's morality is on their own terms. Specifically, it doesn't matter so much that the biblical god is recorded as doing things that I think are unethical, but that he contradicts his own moral standards so often. That's what invalidates the whole thing, it was obviously written by people and not inspired by a perfect all knowing god. 

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On 2018-03-15 at 8:51 PM, HisGrace said:

The theory of evolution is a statement about what is, not what ought to be.

 

 

I think this is a very important point, and it is not unique to the theory of evolution. All science is concerned with how things are, not with how they should be. This can lead one to question whether anything should be any way in particular. Personally, I think that all statements about how things ought to be are, ultimately, subjective.

 

I'm not sure I agree, though, that the way to evaluate someone's morality is on their own terms. By that view, we would be unable to condemn the holocaust.

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6 hours ago, disillusioned said:

 

I think this is a very important point, and it is not unique to the theory of evolution. All science is concerned with how things are, not with how they should be. This can lead one to question whether anything should be any way in particular. Personally, I think that all statements about how things ought to be are, ultimately, subjective.

 

I'm not sure I agree, though, that the way to evaluate someone's morality is on their own terms. By that view, we would be unable to condemn the holocaust.

 

Obviously there are limits to the somewhat post-modern perspective I took above, but I think the easy answer to Nazis is that they wouldn't want someone who believed themselves superior to them to seek to exterminate them. The logical flaw in extreme social darwinism generally is that virtually no one is going to view themselves as being inferior and at the bottom of the food chain so to speak. 

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2 minutes ago, HisGrace said:

 

Obviously there are limits to the somewhat post-modern perspective I took above, but I think the easy answer to Nazis is that they wouldn't want someone who believed themselves superior to them to seek to exterminate them. The logical flaw in extreme social darwinism generally is that virtually no one is going to view themselves as being inferior and at the bottom of the food chain so to speak. 

 

Right, but that is not what the Nazis would have argued. They were not concerned with whether or not someone else might see themselves as superior to them. Their system asserted that they were the privileged race, and that others were inferior. Specifically, it asserted that Jews were basically sub human, and should be exterminated. These are specific claims. So if we are to evaluate naziism on it's own terms, then we must conclude that the holocaust was justified.

 

To say that the nazis would not have wanted to be treated as they treated the Jews is specifically not to evaluate their morality on their terms. It is to impose one of our guiding moral principles on them--essentially, to try to hold them to the golden rule. This is not what you suggested we should do, and it illustrates why I think your statement regarding evaluating others morals on their terms is incorrect.

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On 1/23/2018 at 12:27 PM, ag_NO_stic said:

Hi, all! I'm trying to keep melodramatic intros to a minimum....I just always feel like I need to give this long drawn out reason for why I wrestle with things lol.

 

So, I've been enjoying various debates between believing vs. non-believing "greats." There have been a couple debates featuring Frank Turek (he wrote "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist) and I'm aware of some of the deceptive tactics he uses. Regardless of my distaste for the man, I find the question he posed personally troubling. He basically pointed out that our moral objections to the bible have no grounds outside the bible or a higher being. In an "evolutionary worldview" (lol) it is survival of the fittest, so why we would take issue with the behaviors of god in the bible, etc. I recognize that this is an off-shoot of the "well, where do you get your morality from" argument, but it still struck me as different. He's not saying "Where do you get your morality from," like we're used to hearing, he's saying our moral high ground has no grounds or relevance in a system that celebrates survival of the fittest. Why should I find rape intolerable if it happens in the animal kingdom without the issue of "morals." There are plenty of species where the male forcibly reproduces with the female, it does not appear to be an issue of sentient morality but of animal instinct. I personally hold the view that our morality is socially constructed paired with basic empathy and not wanting to do to others what we would not want to have done to us. Please keep in mind that my education on evolution has been a very slow-going one and is still pretty limited as I work through all the information available in this world. I guess it feels like a bit of cognitive dissonance all over again, I find the behaviors of god reprehensible and yet I feel like I can also acknowledge where Turek is coming from objectively. Do my personal objections simply boil down to the rules we've made for ourselves in Western Civilization? Am I missing something here?

 

I would really appreciate feedback on this, it's bugging me a lot. Thanks for your time!

 

Nice posting and good quandary presented :)

 

Yes, without a God or moral directory of some kind personal moral systems are based upon how we were raised and what we have decided is acceptable and best for ourselves. In our society we must abide morally at the least within the confines of the law or we can be punished for actions outside it. Of course that means that for an atheist whether something is moral or not is a personal decision with no ultimate truth to it. On the other hand our system does not celebrate the survival of the fittest as you mentioned, instead it more often celebrates goodwill and good deeds toward humans and favored animals.

 

I think you described the process of accepted morality pretty well when you said that for yourself that " I personally hold the view that our morality is socially constructed paired with basic empathy and not wanting to do to others what we would not want to have done to us." This is the basis for my own morality and I expect a foundation pillar for many others both religious and non-religious. The bottom line for non-believers is that each person makes their own decisions concerning right or wrong since there is no ultimate truth to it.  IMO there is no more to morality than choices of "feel-good" behaviors, there is no ultimate high ground to it.  In some animals empathy exists, but behavior is generally based upon instinct.

 

To me the Bible is simply an old fable and almost humorous in places concerning the ideas of God's morality, morality in general, as well as the reward and punishment of heaven and hell.

 

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16 hours ago, disillusioned said:

 To say that the nazis would not have wanted to be treated as they treated the Jews is specifically not to evaluate their morality on their terms. It is to impose one of our guiding moral principles on them--essentially, to try to hold them to the golden rule. This is not what you suggested we should do, and it illustrates why I think your statement regarding evaluating others morals on their terms is incorrect.

 

I could be wrong but I took that phrase to mean "look for the hypocrisy".  Nazism, social-darwinism along with similar ideology with heavy racism components, all fall apart under academic examination because racism is subjective.  It's really just a trick that a demagogue uses to rile up stupid people in a population.  "Blame it on that (insert minority group)!"  But in one country the minority getting blamed might be the majority demographic some other demagogue is trying to rile up in a different part of the world.

 

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6 hours ago, mymistake said:

 

I could be wrong but I took that phrase to mean "look for the hypocrisy".  Nazism, social-darwinism along with similar ideology with heavy racism components, all fall apart under academic examination because racism is subjective.  It's really just a trick that a demagogue uses to rile up stupid people in a population.  "Blame it on that (insert minority group)!"  But in one country the minority getting blamed might be the majority demographic some other demagogue is trying to rile up in a different part of the world.

 

 

Nothing really to argue with here. The only thing I'll say is that Nazism, like religious moral systems, was not designed to stand up to outside criticism. These are not things that are supposed to be consistent. They're just demagoguery. They are meant to be convincing only to those who want to believe them. Outside criticism is usually simply dismissed by demagogues. So, looking for hypocrisy and inconsistencies may be helpful to us on the outside, but it is very rarely either helpful or convincing to those on the inside.

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On 1/23/2018 at 1:27 PM, ag_NO_stic said:

Hi, all! I'm trying to keep melodramatic intros to a minimum....I just always feel like I need to give this long drawn out reason for why I wrestle with things lol.

 

So, I've been enjoying various debates between believing vs. non-believing "greats." There have been a couple debates featuring Frank Turek (he wrote "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist) and I'm aware of some of the deceptive tactics he uses. Regardless of my distaste for the man, I find the question he posed personally troubling. He basically pointed out that our moral objections to the bible have no grounds outside the bible or a higher being. In an "evolutionary worldview" (lol) it is survival of the fittest, so why we would take issue with the behaviors of god in the bible, etc. I recognize that this is an off-shoot of the "well, where do you get your morality from" argument, but it still struck me as different. He's not saying "Where do you get your morality from," like we're used to hearing, he's saying our moral high ground has no grounds or relevance in a system that celebrates survival of the fittest. Why should I find rape intolerable if it happens in the animal kingdom without the issue of "morals." There are plenty of species where the male forcibly reproduces with the female, it does not appear to be an issue of sentient morality but of animal instinct. I personally hold the view that our morality is socially constructed paired with basic empathy and not wanting to do to others what we would not want to have done to us. Please keep in mind that my education on evolution has been a very slow-going one and is still pretty limited as I work through all the information available in this world. I guess it feels like a bit of cognitive dissonance all over again, I find the behaviors of god reprehensible and yet I feel like I can also acknowledge where Turek is coming from objectively. Do my personal objections simply boil down to the rules we've made for ourselves in Western Civilization? Am I missing something here?

 

I would really appreciate feedback on this, it's bugging me a lot. Thanks for your time!

 

Our morality, I think, is based on social consensus around the issue of cooperation being necessary for group survival. If you look at the 10 commandments, they are all just rules for social control, and that which disrupts society is labeled sin. I don't think you need a God to tell you that murder is bad, for example, and plenty of non-Christian societies had laws against it. The same for the rest. Morality is a human construct that needs no authority other than the survival of the group itself. That which disrupts the group (sleeping with your neighbor's wife can lead to murder and confusion about who inherits what, due to murky parentage) is not moral.

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On 23/01/2018 at 8:27 PM, ag_NO_stic said:

Hi, all! I'm trying to keep melodramatic intros to a minimum....I just always feel like I need to give this long drawn out reason for why I wrestle with things lol.

 

So, I've been enjoying various debates between believing vs. non-believing "greats." There have been a couple debates featuring Frank Turek (he wrote "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist) and I'm aware of some of the deceptive tactics he uses. Regardless of my distaste for the man, I find the question he posed personally troubling. He basically pointed out that our moral objections to the bible have no grounds outside the bible or a higher being. In an "evolutionary worldview" (lol) it is survival of the fittest, so why we would take issue with the behaviors of god in the bible, etc. I recognize that this is an off-shoot of the "well, where do you get your morality from" argument, but it still struck me as different. He's not saying "Where do you get your morality from," like we're used to hearing, he's saying our moral high ground has no grounds or relevance in a system that celebrates survival of the fittest. Why should I find rape intolerable if it happens in the animal kingdom without the issue of "morals." There are plenty of species where the male forcibly reproduces with the female, it does not appear to be an issue of sentient morality but of animal instinct. I personally hold the view that our morality is socially constructed paired with basic empathy and not wanting to do to others what we would not want to have done to us. Please keep in mind that my education on evolution has been a very slow-going one and is still pretty limited as I work through all the information available in this world. I guess it feels like a bit of cognitive dissonance all over again, I find the behaviors of god reprehensible and yet I feel like I can also acknowledge where Turek is coming from objectively. Do my personal objections simply boil down to the rules we've made for ourselves in Western Civilization? Am I missing something here?

 

I would really appreciate feedback on this, it's bugging me a lot. Thanks for your time!

 

 

I guess in case of rape in the animal kingdom , I believe animals that do rape do not have empathy... And it is widely known that animals are as not as intelligent as humans.

 

Human rapists do not have empathy either. They do know their actions hurt the other person. It is just that they just don't care. I think these people are called sociopaths and psychopaths. 

 

I believe someone who is evil or want to be evil will not care about a holy book or God even if they are Christians. 

 

I believe a lot of morality comes from your upbringing, what you are exposed to from an early age and how you are treated by your family and society. I know that there are individuals with a bad upbringing who overcome all that and never become bad themselves.

 

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On 3/17/2018 at 9:53 PM, disillusioned said:

Right, but that is not what the Nazis would have argued. They were not concerned with whether or not someone else might see themselves as superior to them. Their system asserted that they were the privileged race, and that others were inferior. Specifically, it asserted that Jews were basically sub human, and should be exterminated. These are specific claims. So if we are to evaluate naziism on it's own terms, then we must conclude that the holocaust was justified

 

One thing about this statement is that it doesn't start at the beginning. It makes more sense starting from the beginning and then seeing how it unfolded into the eventual holocaust. 

 

1) Jews existed which hold to a belief system of racial superiority - the first genetic humans beings out of which all other races, branched off, and perhaps digressed away from. The Jewish attitude towards, "gentiles," is a glaring factor at the foundation of all of this. 

 

2) Jews, holding racial superiority complexes via their religion and historical views, settled in Europe, including Germany. 

 

3) Hitler, a Roman Catholic knowing of the Jews claims and ideas about racial superiority, took a common christian bias against the Jews and he ran with it. This was taken to claiming the Jews as sub human, not racially superior. As a response to the initial claims of Jews thinking they are superior. 

 

4) This led to building a competitive claim to racial superiority based on the Aryan race, rather than the Jewish race, as the master race. It involved historical revision. 

 

5) After rising to power and first attempting to ship Jews off to new locations, mass killing Jews began taking place. The holocaust is the result. 

 

So from this perspective, the Nazi's were a reaction to the initial action of Jewish people believing they're superior to gentile peoples. But this still shows that on their own terms, the Nazi's would have seen themselves as justified. There's still a problem with trying to justify this, in any case. But because the Jews were hunted down and slain, in large numbers, it's politically incorrect to acknowledge their fault in all of this. There are, in this instance, clearly two sides. And both are mistakenly wrong, each in their own ways. And the collective result of chasing a racial superiority complex led to complete mayhem. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

One thing about this statement is that it doesn't start at the beginning. It makes more sense starting from the beginning and then seeing how it unfolded into the eventual holocaust. 

 

1) Jews existed which hold to a belief system of racial superiority - the first genetic humans beings out of which all other races, branched off, and perhaps digressed away from. The Jewish attitude towards, "gentiles," is a glaring factor at the foundation of all of this. 

 

2) Jews, holding racial superiority complexes via their religion and historical views, settled in Europe, including Germany. 

 

3) Hitler, a Roman Catholic knowing of the Jews claims and ideas about racial superiority, took a common christian bias against the Jews and he ran with it. This was taken to claiming the Jews as sub human, not racially superior. As a response to the initial claims of Jews thinking they are superior. 

 

4) This led to building a competitive claim to racial superiority based on the Aryan race, rather than the Jewish race, as the master race. It involved historical revision. 

 

5) After rising to power and first attempting to ship Jews off to new locations, mass killing Jews began taking place. The holocaust is the result. 

 

So from this perspective, the Nazi's were a reaction to the initial action of Jewish people believing they're superior to gentile peoples. But this still shows that on their own terms, the Nazi's would have seen themselves as justified. There's still a problem with trying to justify this, in any case. But because the Jews were hunted down and slain, in large numbers, it's politically incorrect to acknowledge their fault in all of this. There are, in this instance, clearly two sides. And both are mistakenly wrong, each in their own ways. And the collective result of chasing a racial superiority complex led to complete mayhem. 

 

 

Oh yes, there is blame to go around. No one is blameless. There are two sides to every story. But, I think in some cases one side clearly holds more blame than the other.

 

In this case, yes, Jewish beliefs and preachments doubtless prompted some of the Nazi vitriol. But there's reacting and overreacting, to put it mildly. As you say though, we still need to be on the outside to try and make these kinds of adjudications. The politically incorrect point is very well taken though. We shouldn't try to pretend that things happened in a way they didn't, even if it's fashionable to do so.

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