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I'm currently learning about the Holocaust in school right now...for the millionth time, and every single time my teachers spoke about it, they were like "Oh, what a tragedy, Hitler is "evil" and "The Holocaust was such a "bad" time in history and Hitler is in hell right now next door to Stalin." Yes people died, and yes they were put through a tough time. That doesn't mean that it was "bad" or "evil" though. In fact it was brilliant. Most human beings would go insane with that kind of power, but Hitler remained calm and organized. He documented everything extremely well while also getting rid of and hiding evedince from the world. He exterminated more than 12 million people with almost no deaths or wars starting on his side. For those of you who believe in moral, here is a little lesson. There is no "good" or "bad", there is just conscious and subconscious. "Bad" and "good" are just words substituted by religion that describes an inner feeling produced by a series of punishments and rewards given throughout childhood by your parents and adults by following or disobeying certain customs. Now if you were to consider anything corrupt, then I would face religion. Religion is the most corrupt thing ever created. They tell you to follow a certain list of rules that are considered fit for society. Well this list contains prejudice against those seemingly impure or outside of your religion. Yet, your religion instructs you to respect everyone, and that "god", the figure head supreme being, "loves" all and instructs you to do the same. Every symbol of religion instructs you to follow this code. Take Santa for example, it is told that if you are "bad", you will not recieve any presents. Another example is the devil. First of all, the devil was originally a pagan god. Pfft religion tells you not to steal, and here they are stealing another religion's god and calling it "bad". Anyway, religion says that if you do not follow these "strict" rules, then you are a "bad" person and will rot in hell with the devil. To tell you the truth, if there were such a thing as heaven and hell, I would choose hell in an instant. Heaven is described to be this perfect utopia where nothing goes wrong. If I were to be stuck somewhere thats perfect for all of eternity, than I would go INSANE!!! Now don't take me wrong, I don't believe in such a place. This would be going against the laws of nature. There is no possible way to have a perfect anything because of perception.

Am i correct in my reading that you are saying (in the second half),

1.that there is no right or wrong(good and bad),
2.religion says there is a right or wrong,
3.therefore religion is evil?

I guess what i dont understand is how you can make a good or bad judgement on religion, if you dont belive that there is a good or bad?

Also basically halfway through your post i notice religion becomes synonymous(sp?) with christianity, so i will treat it as such for the rest of my response.



I am glad to see that you understand the true call of all christians, to love everyone (we're also called to love God). But please don't think that true christianity seeks to seperate the pure from the impure. The true message of Jesus, was that the kingdom of God (not to be confused with heaven) is for everyone, the rich, the poor, jew, non jew, the king and the leper. Any christian who tries to tell you that they have it all down is lying, christianity is a religion for people, real people who are struggling through life, but who really want to find the truth.



ohh, santa is not really a religious figure (though he did start that way). In its modern form its a creation of parents to get their kids to act right. As for the devil, yes its true the idea of the devil was not originally a part of judaism, but was in fact taken from Persian Zoro-Astrianism, but I hardly feel that an exchange of knowledge can be classified as stealing. Nor do I believe its non Judeo-christian origin make it any less valid.



It is true that there are those who believe and teach that if you do not follow strict rules, you get a one way trip to hell etc. etc. But I do not think this is a true reading of the scriptures. In fact one of my favorite pastors once pointed out that Jesus only speaks of hell to the hypocritical religious leaders who thought they had it all down, but to the average "bad person" who was really seeking the truth, he had infinte patience. I'm not going to take the time to talk to you about my beliefs on heaven and hell (It's definetly not something i claim to have figured out ....at all).

If you would like to talk about this more, or have any questions you would like to ask me, feel free to PM me.

Thanks and God Bless,

_Pearl.

Its easy to see things from such a simple perspective when you dont live it, what I believe is simple (and if you read Schopenhauer "on the basis of morality" it would help you a lot) while it is impossible to assert that there is a "universal guideline of morality" it is true to say that even the most sadistic, morbid people in the world did not start that way. Most psychopathic tendencies you develop through years of some kind of abuse, basically saying "what you did to me Im going to do to all of you". If you simply assert that good and evil are constructs of religious zealots who only wanted subjugation you're missing the beauty of what the world is, its love or rather passion, for whatever it is that you may want, to simply label it as a caprice is down sizing everything every philosopher has accomplished.

So, we're praising Hitler for his organization in the face of supreme power.




Yet condemning religion for it's strict organizational structure?



Hitler killed because of religious beliefs (Judaism), eugenics (genetic backgrounds), lifestyles (Gypsy and Homosexual). He built a culture around the worship of an "ideal" Aryan race and if you were impure then you were sent off to a prison camp or killed. This is something that you harp on religion for.



One way Hitler avoided war and infighting within Germany was through an intense propaganda and brainwashing campaign that led most people to idealize him in such a fervent way as to border worship.



Now, I'm not the biggest advocate of Christianity. I believe that there are more peaceful forms of religion and that like most Western concepts it involves an unnatural separation of the body, mind, and spirit. But, I do think that your post is a wee bit hypocritical and confused. Hope that helps.