Is belief the root of all evil?

I don't concern myself much with forgiving them -- forgiveness is worthless if it's not sought by the perpetrator.

Empathy is hardwired into us, that's been shown by a lot of cognitive science research. The question here is why would someone just follow orders when they're obviously so deviant from how humans instinctively value and therefore treat one another.

And oh, they knew it too, which is why Stangl (on Himmler's orders) dug up and burned all of the mass graves, razed the camp, and planted a field of lupins, so that no one would find it.

His beliefs were an application of his anger, not a cause of it.

When tested, humans (and animals!) have a consistent aversion to seeing or causing suffering among others, including those whom they do not know. It's well known that humans have strong inhibitions against violence, but desensitization (through exposure, experience, or a permissive 'group' culture) makes it easier. It is also known that the SS einsatzgruppen firing squads who killed 1.5 million Russian Jews developed major problems with alcoholism and suicide; this suggests that the 'perverse' act of shooting defenseless people by the millions into mass graves registered as so unconscionable to them that they couldn't reconcile the ideology with the act.

And therein is the problem. Moral theory may not have absolute foundation, but we DO have a moral instinct that exists at some level beneath any ideology.

Why people always want me to find excuses to forgive this depraved beast, Hitler beats me?, he lived a grand life of wealth, absolute power while humans due to his COMMANDS died in unspeakable fear, terror, horror, starvation, murder, rape, burning, slavery, medical experiments using twins, making lamp shades out of human skin

I really like the Hebrew scriptures eye for eye vengeance command, especially for inexcusable monsters in human flesh like him

He was not insane he was just a calculating evil man full of too much power, but he can never shrug off accountabily, I agree with Trumans statement "The Buck Stops Here"

May his soul never rest in hell

Answer, please, is the life in abundance, in wealth good? Is the death evil? If humans died in unspeakable fear and sorrow that was due to their own misunderstanding of good and evil, not because of Hitler. He lived a silly life that I would never prefer to live, yet not because of "god's" punishment. Wealth and power are good, you're telling me! I am recalling Buddha who was a prince and left his house because he understood all illusoriness of wealth and power; Leo Tolstoy almost commited suicide living in his abundance.


What is better: love or hatred? Allow me to remember Epictetus: "This man did harm onto himself trying to do that to me. And now, because of his stupidity, I should do harm to myself?!"
Hitler was "just a calculating evil man". When, I ask, became he that "evil man": when he was born, or when playing with his mates? When? and How? To understand why he did all those things is to forgive him. And that forgiveness is necessary not for him, because he paid for all and now he just does not exist, but for thee. Just because love is better than hatred.

There was nothing silly about Hitler, I did not say anything about gods punishment, I only stated my own opinion about this monster and I will not retract one word of that statement

It is nice and easy to speak of love and forgiveness from the remoteness of space and time , speak to the few survivors of the holocuast and you will get a wake up call , to reality

Hitler was intrisnsically evil , and you would have quickly changed your opinion about him if you were a Jew living in the hell holes of his death camps

I was alive during the war, do you want me to love him?? do you think god just patted him on his behind softly, saying Oh! you have been a naughty boy, but I still love, come to daddy!! Oh!!!!!1 please all this satirical lovey dovey makes me ill.

How do you know he does not exist, his soul exists in hell and that is the heritage he brought down onto himself

"There is a sin for which there is no forgiveness, in this life or the next"

You are right love is better than hate, forgiveness frees the soul from anger, but judgment looks at the deeds even human judgment would have extinguished his life by the death sentence

If we humans could not forgive him , he would have been executed if captured by the allies in WW2

But he will or has faced his own judgment before god, what defense could he have at the seat of divine authority?

Hitler's utter obsession, which he wrote and screamed about from Mein Kampf up until his suicide 20 years later, was that the Jews were a plague, an infection.

Doesn't this tend to support my view? To say the Jews are a plague or an infection is to rationalise them as a lower order of being.

Eudaimon quoted

Whose judgement? I see, my friend, thou art religious man constantly alluding to the bible. "An eye for an eye, a tooh for a tooth...". Allow me to remeber some facts mentioned in this "book of books". When Moses decided to get away from Egypt god perfomed such "miracles" that really makes our blood curdle. I mean murder of every Egyptian firstborn. That resembles Hitler to a great extent. How about, then, their trip to the 'promised land' when they carried out massacre of aborigine tribes killing absolutely everyone? Maybe SS studied their craft on this 'textbook'?
And the most remarkable thing is that Jews NOW consider this horrible "miracles" as an evidence that god "chosen them from other folks". Why, then, to them can't be applied the same measures as they or their god used to do?
That was a lyrical digression. Let us think now what formed Hitler's anti-semitism. First of all, Jews were undoubtedly to some extent guilty of that. Anti- Semitism is present everywhere, in Russia also: it is no mere chance that during our so-called "privatisation" the heads of newborn companies became Jews: Abramovic (the owner of FC Chelsea now), Hodorkovsky, Wechselberg etc. And no wonder that for those who believes that money is good Jews seems to be the root of all evil. Add to that constantly present anti-Semitism oppression of Germany after WWI by GB and France, fear before Soviet Russia (where revolution was carried out by Jews also!) and thou wilt get extremely good soil for the Holocaust. Plus some peculiarities of Hitler's artistic character = Nazism. Whom shall god judge? Everything is natural.
But let us come back to our religion. Who has told thee that there is soul which is subject to god's punishment? We cannot know that; on the contrary, we see that:
"[45] That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
[46] For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
[47] And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
[48] Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
The absence of punishment in the nature shows us how we should live. This is only our weakness that created judgement day and ascribed to the being which is (if it exists) beyond good and evil interference in human affairs

Yes exactly and it is Evil?

My point was that, even if you allow for Hitler's view of the Jewish people as something below his superior race, his desire to actually extinguish all Jewish life cannot be explained as anything other than killing for the satisfaction of killing, i.e. total annihilation has negative pragmatic value. That, whatever morally relativistic stance you take, is immoral, yes.

I agree the term immoral could be used, but the philosophy and acts perpetrated by the command of Hitler was "Evil". Why people shy away from this word when its is the best fit puzzles me

My point was that, even if you allow for Hitler's view of the Jewish people as something below his superior race, his desire to actually extinguish all Jewish life cannot be explained as anything other than killing for the satisfaction of killing, i.e. total annihilation has negative pragmatic value. That, whatever morally relativistic stance you take, is immoral, yes.

I find your post distasteful to the extreme, little Jewish children murdered by the philosophy of a depraved beat is some of your logic
I do not care what god does with Hitler I said "if I had my way he would burn in hell forever", and I also said if this does not happen , I would want the law of eye for an eyes to apply to him in the afterlife

No Jew claims to be a saint, you come over as an antisemitism, Jew have had to struggle as suppressed minorities for thousands of years, there are reasons and excuses for any harm the did

I am sorry, I cannot understand the criterion by wich thou disciminatest moral and immoral. Explain why "killing for the satisfaction of killing" is immoral.

I am sorry, I cannot understand the criterion by wich thou disciminatest moral and immoral. Explain why "killing for the satisfaction of killing" is immoral.

Following the same logic I have shown thee that probably the same principle "an eye for an eye" was applied to Jews.


Ah, how quickly thou excusest Jews! Following the same logic "there are reasons and excuses for any harm Hitler & Co did".
What I wanted to make clear is that in this particular case I see direct causes for such actions. Therefore to me they do not seem to be Evil, as nothing does.

What I wanted to make clear is that in this particular case I see direct causes for such actions. Therefore to me they do not seem to be Evil, as nothing does.

Your contradictory because your posting this thread is in the assumption that you want us to believe in the idea that belief is evil, unless that is that you want us to be evil. I'm not trying to be mean or rude im just trying to make a point that not all belief is evil. Certain beliefs are evil but i don't think anger and evil stem from belief all by itself. Many other things can contribute to rage and anger, one of them being the disbelief. If you just cannot believe in anything because of your distrust in many things that might anger you too. Believing in ideas doesn't cause evil even when the beliefs and made to be empty and false.

I wouldn't say beliefs are the root of all evil. It is imposing them upon people which causes the evil to happen.
Forcing people to act or do or NOT do something in which they want to do is what leads to evil being committed. Not beliefs themselves...

Care to share some of the direct causes?

First of all, Jews were undoubtedly to some extent guilty of that. Anti- Semitism is present everywhere, in Russia also: it is no mere chance that during our so-called "privatisation" the heads of newborn companies became Jews: Abramovicz (the owner of FC Chelsea now), Hodorkovski, Wechselberg etc. And no wonder that for those who believe that money is good Jews seem to be the root of all evil. Add to that constantly present anti-Semitism oppression of Germany after WWI by GB and France, fear before Soviet Russia (where revolution was carried out by Jews also!) and thou wilt get extremely good soil for the Holocaust. Plus some peculiarities of Hitler's artistic character = Nazism.