Human, All Too Human - Martin Heidegger- Part 4 of 6

[lovecraftianbeatles]

I am sorry, but my favorite philosophy professor ever is right when he says that fascism is the greatest form of inauthenticity.

[selvmordspilot]

I forgive Heidegger what he did, but that he did it to himself, how could i forgive that?

[thegreatestbak]

...ws dead so they could take more power, wealth, etc etc.

[heart4moocows]

I can't reply to all of this... but, in my opinion, you made some good points regarding the Communists and some not so good points regarding the Nazis.

As a Christian, I find offensive your statement that Christians hate Jews simply because they don't share *some* of our beliefs. That simply isn't true, and it contradicts Christ's philosophy. The Jews are the scapegoat of history. It has much to do with rotten politics as it does with rotten theology.

Good talking with you, though. =)

[thegreatestbak]

If I seemed to imply that it is the explicit teachings ofthe biblewhich condonethe hatred ofthe jews, then I apologize. This is not what I meant to say. I think it is religious belief in itself, which demands an absolute knowledge of one position that causes different religious groups to be hostile with one another. The jews are the scapegoats probaby because the are such a small and persistent group. Its not that they dont share common beliefs, its that they identify differently. Protestants an

[thegreatestbak]

..d catholics had different interpretations of christianity and there was plenty of wars among these two groups. I respect your point of view in the sense that I think I have learned something from debating with you. It was nicetalkingto you too. :)

[bayreuth79]

It would, of course, be problematic for Christians to "hate Jews", not least because Christ himself was Jewish as were the apostles. However, I do think you could make a reasonable, but not air tight, case that, somewhat paradoxically, the New Testament itself contains a polemic against the "Jews" and that that has inevitably contributed to, while necessitating, anti-semitism. +Random Thoughts+

[profeticpapa]

@bayreuth79 I think it would be more accurate to assume that the new testament's polemic against the Jews was really due to "editorial" work of later editions as they sought to make Christianity a "new" religion. I can see this especially in the lines where there are accusations as "you... the Jews". These type of lines are absurd and nonesensical if you think that the accuser in the story was a jew and never thought of himself anything bu t Jew.

[thegreatestbak]

....a violent upbringing. There is a clear difference between killing people who are another religion (not based on logic or evidence but on faith), and purging groups of people who are a threat to communist revolution. I am not saying he was right to do this, only that he thought that what he was doing would lead to worldwide socialism and accepted that violence was necessary. Stalin was deified so his actions ironically had a religious impulse. The same applies to all communist regimes thus fa

[thegreatestbak]

The Catholic Church confiscated Jewish land, property and wealth. Even the current pope was once a member of the Hitler Youth. The holocaust should be blamed on CHRISTIANITY and not the GERMAN people, who were simply victims of totalitarian wind-warping. It has been proven through study after study that people will do anything an authority figure tells them. Hitler grew up an anti-semite, but if you read MEIN KAMPF he has very positive feelings for the Catholic Church and formed a partnership

[heart4moocows]

So you are saying that the Nazi ideology is more Christian than German? That is ridiculous. Nazism was German NATIONAL socialism. The Germans were thought to be the Aryan master race, and the Jews were thought to be the most inferior of races. This thinking which inspired the Holocaust comes from Helena Blavatsky's theosophy and the scientific racism of social Darwinism -- not Christianity. Your statements only reflect your personal contempt for religion.

[thegreatestbak]

No, im not saying Nazi ideology is more Christian than it is German. I am saying that Nazi ideology was heavily and chiefly influenced by the corrupt nature of religious belief advanced by the Catholic church. The germanic, paganistic racist ideology you refer to was just an outcome of nationalism...which also goes hand in hand with religion. It doesnt matter what the Germans paganistic beliefs were, the point of them was simply to unite the people under one ruler and obviously they could

[thegreatestbak]

not attribute it openly to Catholicism. The direct support of the Catholic church for Hitler and the Fascists (and in Italy and other East European Countries). The misinterpretation of Darwinian theory as well as any Theosophy are irrelevant because they are mangled ideas that are only a backdrop for a larger purpose. By scapegoating the Jews, the Catholic Church assumed greater power. Even if it can be said that Nazism was a pagan belief system, Hitler himseld was a Catholic and all the

[heart4moocows]

If you've made up your mind that Hitler was some devout Catholic who sincerely held to the teachings of the Church and was simply applying his Catholicism, and if you think that pagan nationalism somehow sprung from Christianity, then I don't think I can convince you otherwise.

It wasn't a misinterpretation of Darwinism; it was a misapplication of it. Anti-Semitism has been present in Catholicism since the Middle Ages, and it was also present in early Protestantism --

[heart4moocows]

But you make it sound like the Catholic Church had been secretly plotting the Holocaust. That's simply ridiculous. You can't hate religion so much as to pin the blame for the Holocaust on Christian theology. And yes, many religious people WERE persecuted because they did not affirm atheism under the institutional atheism of the USSR and the Khmer Rouge. 20 million killed under Stalin (twice as many as under Hitler), 2 million under Pot in the course of four years. Atheistic state policy.

[heart4moocows]

Religion is, by nature, a reverence for the Ultimate. And sometimes radicals kill for what they regard as transcendent. If they do not acknowledge God, then people will transcendentalize something else: race (Nazis), the state (Communists), science (naturalists), people (humanists). If people don't acknowledge the God who is transcendent by nature, they will elevate something else into His place and make it their god. It's human nature -- we are naturally religious. History demonstrates this.

[thegreatestbak]

people cannot be 'transcendentalized' they can only be given more importance. Be careful not to lump humanism in with religion. Religion believes in attributing importance to faith which is not base don reason. Humanism is based on reason and logic and its appliction and realizing the essential and visible importance of human life. Saying that Religion is reverance for the ultimate does not mean that it is the only ultimate. You are right to suggest that people look for patterns (religion)

[thegreatestbak]

....but that doesnt make it true. To transcendentalize science is impossible because there is nothing to transcend by definition. Rather, the scientific method can be advanced more clearly and with more focus if not for people who make religion important. This is because science is base don evidence. Religion is definitely in our history, but to say that it is built into us is another question (genes, etc.). Anyway, to call Science god does not mean people will split into factions...in fact s

[thegreatestbak]

the advancement of science only happens because people routinely prove eachother wrong. You have to go through rigorous peer review to get anything done. Once something is accepted, 90-100 percent of scientists accept it and build on it. With religion, people begin fighting over interpretations...and by nature power struggles ensue because nowone can agree. The conversion of people is based on power...this is how the muslims gained followers and why the crusades happened. The catholics wanted je

[thegreatestbak]

A misapplication implies that Darwinism (actually this is an antiquated term that shouldn't be used at all) is some kind of philosophy. It is different to say someone is darwinian but to practice darwinism doesnt actually mean anything. If it is anything, it is some kind of interpretation, one that Darwin would have termed a misinterpretation because Hitler believed that Darwin's thesis was that different kinds of RACES of humans can be better than other kinds rather than speaking of individuals

[thegreatestbak]

2. Hitler was not necessarily a DEVOUT Catholic, but being so is, again, unnecessary because he used the financial backing and implicit and explicit intentions of the church as impetus to target jews. Hitler admitted to being a Catholic in Mein Kampf and speaks of reverance for the foundations of Christianity. You are right to say that Christianity in all its forms has led to anti-semitism, but being that Jews were targeted because of their opposing religious views, it becomes a unifromly

[thegreatestbak]

...religious problem. The christians hated the jews because they didnt believe in their same beliefs. Religion convinces people that they have ABSOLUTE knowledge. This kind of dogma grants people permission to do just about anything in the name of god. Jews hate muslims, christians hate jews, etc. Paganism in germany was not the reason for antisemitism. It was because of NATIONALISM (reinforced by christianity) and a faltering economy following WW1 that Germany searched for its pagan roots.

[thegreatestbak]

the Germanic people believing that their germanic roots gave them some kind of superiority was a product of intensified nationalistic feelings which were reinforced by institutions like the church. The nazis needed an intermediate philosophy to rationalize hatred of the jews. Paganist views (NAZISM) were simply an intermediary...an excuse for the church to slaughter the jews. One added to the other. You are also right to say the communists purged non atheists..but this is not because of religion

[thegreatestbak]

...this is because leninism (and stalinism and trotsykism) depended on freeing the proletariat from nationalism and religion in order to free them from docility. Lenin knew that the only way to accomplish this was by force. The especially brutal version of communism reinforced by the russians was exported to other nations, who used the same model. You also must take into account the backwardness of Russia, the transition to industrialism was especially harsh. Like I stated before, Stalin had

[thegreatestbak]

you are right to say I have a personal contempt for religion..that does not mean I have contempt for god (that would be absurd), nor does it make any of my claims untrue. I welcome you to look into it for yourself. My grievance is with ALL religion, therefore i have no bias. I believe ordinary religious folk get duped by their leaders (the pope) into doing outrageous things. I forgot to mention btw:

Stalin, Pol Pot, etc etc-- these men didn't commit the acts they did because they were not relig

[thegreatestbak]

ious..in fact they were deified. It is the religious impulse that carries weight here. Stalin was worshipped like a god even in a state which advanced atheism. You cannot attribute their acts to a lack of belief. Stalin was especially ruthless, but like Genghis Khan, he also had an unusually brutal upbringing. The same actually applies to Pol Pot.

[thegreatestbak]

Your point about Paganism is irrelevant. These paganist views may be racist, but the root of the racism in Germany was Fascism. Roman Catholicism strengthened these views which were actually religious in that they were against the jews as a religion more than as a race. Consider than MOST jews in Europe were not even ethnically jewish. Germany's pre war racism was nonexistent. Jews were very well blended and many germans intermarried with jews. Fascism came about and scapegoated the jews

[thegreatestbak]

nazism was directly supported by the catholic church and hitler was a catholic so that professor is wrong or heiddegger iswrong

[heart4moocows]

You don't know what you're talking about. The religion of the Nazis was an occultic, German nationalism rooted in folklore and theosophy. It is true that Hitler was inspired by anti-Semitic Catholic and Protestant voices, but he was no Christian, either in theory or practice.

[thegreatestbak]

Actually you have it just the wrong way around. Nazism was directly FINANCED and supported by the Catholic church; SS soilders took a CATHOLIC christian oath before being sworn in as soilders. It may have been influenced by folklore and theosophy, but it was mainly Catholic in origin. Anyway, even if you are right, the fact that the Catholic church supported and financed Hitler makes your point irrelevant. The church has not apologized enough for its crimes in the 20th century and never can.

[heart4moocows]

So you're going to hold a grudge against the entire Roman Catholic Church for time eternal simply because they supported him at one point? Hitler's religion was a hodgepodge of religious ideas originating MOSTLY from paganism; theosophy was where his racist Aryanism came from. You make it sound like it was nothing more than modified Catholicism.

[thegreatestbak]

I don't hold a grudge against the Roman Catholic Church merely because of this single act. Actually, broadly speaking, I hold a grudge against ALL religion (islam, buddhism, christianity, judaism, etc) because it is the absolute belief in ideas that leads the religious to perform acts that they would not otherwise if they did not so dearly believe what it says in those books. Religion makes otherwise morally moral people behave in atrocious ways. I agree with Christopher Hitchens t

[thegreatestbak]

hat religion POISIONS EVERYTHING. It attacks us in our deepest integrity and tells us we would not know a moral action by ourselves. The Roman Catholic Church is an especially vicious and backwards form of Christianity. The Protestant version is at least individualistic in its parasitic strain. The Roman Catholic church has committed a huge amount of atrocities and continues to ruin the lives of many people. Ask me for more specific examples. Indeed, the existence of the Catholic Church leads t

[heart4moocows]

Joseph Stalin, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot. Devout Christians or anti-religious atheists? More people have been killed in the name of state atheism than in the name of Christ. The only difference is that such acts of evil are inconsistent with Christian morality. They are NOT inconsistent with materialistic atheism, which implies moral relativism (at best) or moral nihilism (at worst).

[heart4moocows]

Hitchens is not consistent on morality. He calls religion objectively evil, yet his materialism undermines the existence of objective evil.

If people don't hold religious beliefs, they will find something else to transcendentalize and sometimes kill for. The Nazis did it with race. The Communists did it with the state. Naturalists do it with science. Humanists do it with themselves. If they don't believe in a God who is transcendent by nature, they will elevate something else into His place.

[thegreatestbak]

This is simply not true. Hitler was absolutely a Catholic. Even if he wasnt, it doesnt change the simple fact the Nazism would not have come about without direct support from the Catholic church. The holocaust was a religious purge no different than the Spanish Inquisition. It was simply committed on a much larger scale. Anytime you want to unite a people, give them an enemy. It will help them out of a depression..the same thing happened in the U>S> very recently...