tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post579169271104770208..comments2024-03-18T17:17:00.423+13:00Comments on Not PC: Two millennia of European antisemitism explained -- and more!Peter Cresswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699845031503699181noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-23945972117261727152008-04-16T04:32:00.000+12:002008-04-16T04:32:00.000+12:00Religion as disguise for the main idea of determin...Religion as disguise for the main idea of determining which group: jews, christians, or muslims dominate for the world's wealth is how all logical and sane people should view their conflict in any nation on earth.<BR/><BR/>Who dominates whom is the only topic of merit, and the real issue.<BR/><BR/>Otherwise, who cares?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-81004059553540938592007-06-30T10:05:00.000+12:002007-06-30T10:05:00.000+12:00I got an email about Blog Against Theocracy on 4t...I got an email about Blog Against Theocracy on 4th July, the theme is separation of church and state:<BR/><BR/><I>Red State Rabble thinks separation of church and state is not only essential to our democracy, but that it also reflects the original intent of the framers of the Constitution. In short, it's patriotic. RSR will be participating, and we hope readers who have blogs of their own will too. Details are here: <BR/>http://www.au.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=23201.0&dlv_id=12741&JServSessionIdr011=jsi95s76g4.app13a </I>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-83336023059577348372007-06-28T11:50:00.000+12:002007-06-28T11:50:00.000+12:00"a logically inclined person might conclude religi..."a logically inclined person might conclude religion may contribute fuel but it is not the prime mover in warfare."<BR/><BR/>I've always thought so. I believe wars have always been fought for two reasons: land and resources. Religion has invariably been the *emotive* excuse used by the hierarchy to incite the masses in order to achieve those two goals. And my, how it worked.<BR/><BR/>But does this apply to the current Islamists? Personally, I believe the hard-liners are first and foremost fighting a holy war like the crusades of old. Ultimately, convert or else ...<BR/><BR/>(Though I guess the spoils of war would be an added bonus!)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-53777987109698322032007-06-28T10:50:00.000+12:002007-06-28T10:50:00.000+12:00Also, what about Japan in Asia during WW2?Tojo et ...Also, what about Japan in Asia during WW2?<BR/>Tojo et al. weren't Christian but they still found motivation to slaughter with grim enthusiasism.<BR/>------------<BR/>Nazis - included good Protestant and Catholic boys. Killed millions. <BR/><BR/>Imperial Japan - included no Christians at all. Still killed millions.<BR/><BR/>Allied armies - included good <BR/>Protestant and Catholic boys. Defeated Nazis and Japanese.<BR/>-------------<BR/>Looking at the religions of the Nazis, Allies, and Japanese, a logically inclined person might conclude religion may contribute fuel but it is not the prime mover in warfare. The prime movers across history always been fear, deprivation, ego and greed.<BR/> <BR/>Ah, sweet ego inspired by voracious greed. There's your bloody thread between tyrants.Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10765006817084523046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-51965294299875853412007-06-27T22:41:00.000+12:002007-06-27T22:41:00.000+12:00Is there nothing the rotund Trotskyite Chris Hitch...Is there nothing the rotund Trotskyite Chris Hitchens isn't an expert on?<BR/>------------<BR/>I'd like to point out that objectivists, a group that profess to treasure and respect individual liberty, seem to be very quick to stereotype millions of people, Christians in this case, or power-bill defaulting South Auckland polynesians a couple of weeks back, as the collective monolith of irrational undermen. <BR/><BR/>That would point to a 'humanism' with a mineral heart of concrete and steel, which isn't paricularly human at all.<BR/>-------------<BR/><BR/>Frankly, it's jejune to point out Christian animus towards Judaism as a contributor to the Holocaust. It 's obvious.<BR/><BR/>Also obvious is the Allied armies that defeated Nazism were Christian (at least as Christian as the facists)... where does that fit in the calculation?<BR/><BR/>Could it be more, what's the word, 'complicated'?<BR/><BR/>By the by, I wonder how many Jews, Christians, and dissidents died under atheist Communism. <BR/>Don't worry, people don't read books on that topic they just name trendy bars after the perpetrators and tote red-stars.Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10765006817084523046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-60760677117061183762007-06-27T21:12:00.000+12:002007-06-27T21:12:00.000+12:00Of the track a bit perhaps, but there is ample evi...Of the track a bit perhaps, but there is ample evidence that the Vatican gave material assistance to fleeing Nazis escape from Germany to South America.<BR/><BR/>Is this relevant to this particular discussion?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-72184723795946982622007-06-27T18:00:00.000+12:002007-06-27T18:00:00.000+12:00This is about as long a bow to draw as the Muslim/...This is about as long a bow to draw as the Muslim/Taleban/whatever claim that the injustices against the palestinian people are what makes their righteously outraged dimwits set fuzes on bombs in public places in Bali and London.<BR/><BR/>Its bullshit. One of the first signs of people going troppo is hearing voices and then getting their clothes off; one of the first signs a despot or demagogue is becoming a loose unit is he starts to rail on about the four-by-two's and how they are the source of all the evil in the world. The next step is to have a go at anyone who disagrees, normally the christian church.<BR/><BR/>If you want to have crack at Christians, go for your life, join the queue. They have been taking it on the chin for two milleniums.<BR/>Just to make it clear, form the queue under a banner that says "anti-Christ, [a jew]"<BR/><BR/>Don't blame christians for the holocaust, there's far too many of them buried under crosses all over Europe that gave all they could to bring that evil to an end. Sheet it home to those that had no god but themselves.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-29533636218198587932007-06-27T12:57:00.000+12:002007-06-27T12:57:00.000+12:00PC, The "fundamental" reasons for anti-Catholicism...PC, <BR/><BR/>The "fundamental" reasons for anti-Catholicism among Atheists and the Left also still exist. They include a fixation on history (like Muslims) to support their positions. That includes making up the odd myth like the flat earth and distorting the Galileo story. <BR/><BR/>I was also careful to say only that the Church spoke out against anti-Semitism, as I'm aware of the controversies. However, you cannot argue with Einstein's comments and those of the NYT of the early 40s that prove my point.<BR/><BR/>http://tinyurl.com/2lemxf<BR/><BR/>Also, the vicious Muslim anti-Semitism of today wasn't that much of a feature ealier as Jews were treated with more amused contempt than hatred. Yes, the Koran is bloodthirsty about them, but many Jews held good positions in the various Muslim hierarchies. Today's breed of anti-Semitism was introduced from the West (after the Enlightenment), from Nazism, formation of Israel and probably from general Muslim frustration of their lowered status as the West forged ahead.<BR/><BR/>I can see more reason for modern Muslim anti-Semitism and anti-Westernism in this frustration, and wounded pride that the former dhimmis are now the superior cultures than in other reasons.<BR/><BR/>JCAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-4000903406618356832007-06-27T11:59:00.000+12:002007-06-27T11:59:00.000+12:00Lucyna, You need to look more carefully at the his...Lucyna, You need to look more carefully at the history of Nazism, at what I'm claiming, and at Goldhagen's argument.<BR/><BR/>And you need to rethink your view fairly seriously if you think anti-semitism played no part in the destruction of six million Jews.<BR/><BR/>Let's look again at the argument in this context. What Goldhagen argues and what I wrote is that "the <I>genesis</I> of nearly two millennia of European anti-Semitism <I>from which that genocide sprang</I>" was a "corollary of Christianity."<BR/><BR/>As I said, the word "genesis" is intentional. Those two millennia provided the fertile ground for genocide, which at the end of the Nineteenth Century saw Germany and most Germans enmired in anti-semitism. "To be German is to be anti-semitic," was a statement that characterised the time.<BR/><BR/>That's the point really at which my post was directed, at the movement which was the genesis for what became the Holocaust.<BR/><BR/>To this fertile ground for which they felt themselves the natural inheritors, the Nazis then added another ingredient that helps explain your other point about the planned destruction of the Poles, and the Gypsies, and the Russians, and also homosexuals -- an ingredient, indeed several, that actually made those two millennia of fundamental hatred become even more virulent.<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://stephenhicks.org.nz" REL="nofollow">Stephen Hicks</A> explains this point in his superb '<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/Nietzsche-Nazis-Stephen-R-C-Hicks/dp/B000JMJQGS/sr=8-1/qid=1170805440/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-7298457-0791921?ie=UTF8&s=dvd" REL="nofollow">Nietzsche and the Nazis</A>' (I highly recommend this DVD presentation if this area is of interest). The Nazis were inheritors of the ideas of Hegel and of Marx -- the young Hegelian. <BR/><BR/>From Hegel, whose influence in late nineteenth century Germany cannot be overstated, they imbibed the idea that the individual was literally nothing - that the collective, the State, is "a truer reflection of reality, a higher manifestation of the Absolute." [ref: Leonard Peikoff, 'Ominous Parallels.'] <BR/><BR/>They imbibed too Hegel's notion of the World Spirit ("Weltgeist") which they were convinced was guiding them in a sacred mission; that this "mission" was the culmination of some sort of historical necessity. It was their mission, they thought, to bring a solution to this two-thousand-year old "Jewish Problem."<BR/><BR/>To this they added Marx's idea of <I>the fundamental conflict of collectives</I>, but -- under the influence of Nietzsche, and of their own primitive psychologies -- in their mind the collectives in fundamental metaphysical conflict were not those of <I>class</I>, as they were for Marx and Engels and Lenin, but of <I>race</I>.<BR/><BR/>The Nazis literally and in <I>fundamentally philosophical terms</I> were convinced they were the master race, that they were on a mission inspired by the Weltgeist, that this race would save the world from the evils that overwhelmed it (Bolshevism, Judaism) and that they would (and should) conquer, kill and enslave the sub-human races that neighboured them in order to find 'Lebensraum' and their own place in the sun.<BR/><BR/>Thus was born a brew as evil as it was powerful. A philosophical toxin that inspired the Holocaust, a brew just as toxic as the gas, the bullets and the starvation by which the actual killing was done.Peter Cresswellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10699845031503699181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-39064352364660166832007-06-27T11:16:00.000+12:002007-06-27T11:16:00.000+12:00JC, 1) To the extent that religion is taken seriou...JC, <BR/><BR/>1) To the extent that religion is taken seriously, the fundamental reasons for that mistreatment still exist. (The use of the word "fundamental" is intentional.)<BR/><BR/>2) I'd be very careful about invoking the Church's or the Pope's role during WW2. There's nothing to be proud of there. Goldhagen again: <I>"Throughout the period of Nazi rule, as the government and people of Germany were subjecting the Jews of Germany and those of the conquered countries to an increasingly severe persecution that culminated in their physical annhilation, the German Protestant and Catholic churches, their governing bodies, their bishopes, and most of their theologians watched the suffering that Germans inflicted on the Jews in silence... <BR/><BR/>"Moreover, in the ranks of the clergy at all levels, numerous voices could be heard vilifying the Jews in Nazi-like terms ... acclaiming their persecution at the hand's of their country's government. No serious historian would dispute the anti-Nazi theologian Karl Barth's verdict contained in his parting letter before leaving Germany in 1935: 'For the millions that suffer unjustly, the Confessing Church does not have a heart. To which it could be added, 'and would not havd a heart during the entire Nazi era'."</I> [Goldhagen's references here are Wolfgang Gerlach, 'Als Die Zeugen schweigen: Bekkunde Kirche und die Juden,' and Guenter Lewy, 'The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany.']<BR/><BR/>And <A HREF="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/pius.html" REL="nofollow">Pius XII's own actions during the Holocaust</A> are well enough known, and far from admirable.<BR/><BR/>3) Just to restate the point that prompted this post: Muslims are not just anti-semite they're anti-west, for reasons that are almost identical to the reasons for two millennia of Christina-based anti-semitism. This helps provide part of the explanation for both their hatred of the west, <I>and</I> for their extra-special treatment of Israel.Peter Cresswellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10699845031503699181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-84290491290408859892007-06-27T10:56:00.000+12:002007-06-27T10:56:00.000+12:00Many of those killed by the Nazis were also not-Je...Many of those killed by the Nazis were also not-Jewish. In fact, as part of their final solution, their plan was to exterminate the entire Polish race after they killed the Jews. So, blaming the Holocaust on anti-Semitism over the centuries is a long bow to draw.Lucia Mariahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10485990994973953860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-83156440059970458942007-06-27T10:00:00.000+12:002007-06-27T10:00:00.000+12:00PC,That's OK as far as it goes. Christian treatmen...PC,<BR/><BR/>That's OK as far as it goes. Christian treatment of Jews was appalling. But it's the Pope who has apologised for the attitudes and actions of the Church over the millenia, the Church that spoke out for the Jews in WW2 and before, Christians who defend Israel now, and Atheists and Muslims who are now the anti-Semites.<BR/><BR/>JCAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-43889012102848822222007-06-27T08:46:00.000+12:002007-06-27T08:46:00.000+12:00Tsk PC....don't you know the Nazis were actually a...Tsk PC....don't you know the Nazis were actually all homosexuals with a homosexual agenda?....at least according to loose unit...opps I mean Lucyna and the rest of the God squad...?<BR/><BR/>The "Pink Swastika" reveals all...;-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com