Subject:
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Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap in California)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 20 Oct 2003 21:45:51 GMT
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Viewed:
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1136 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
snip
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The fundamental distinction occurs at the point at which one is able to
recognize a different person as sufficiently similar to oneself for this
empathy to be a dominant factor. During WWII, this has taken the form of
dehumanizing Germans and Japanese civilians into Huns and Nips. In the
current “War on Terror,” we’ve seen attempts to paint the “enemy” as some
kind of inferior inferior idol-worshipper, or “evil-doers” or even simply as
“terrorists.” Either way, the intent is the same: to reduce empathy for the
“enemy” so that it’s easier to justify firebombing their cities and innocent
civilians into oblivion.
So that’s the essence of it. I do not believe in any metaphysical, “good” or
“evil,” but I accept that humans have developed certain basic and
near-universal concepts that enable us to judge the actions of certain
particularly “good” or “evil” individuals in terms of those concepts.
Dave!
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Now that was a tremendous ST:TNG ep when Jean Luc was being tortured by the
Cardassian--can’t remember the quote right now, but when I heard it, it was a
“Wow!” moment.
And I concur with all that you said above--we don’t need a universal ‘evil’ or
‘original sin’ to commit atrocities, or a universal good, or ‘God’ to commit
acts of kindness.
However, that said, this certainly does not deny the existence of God.
Dave K
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