fsks@unc.UUCP (Frank Silbermann) (04/29/85)
In net.flame, Ken Arndt and Laura Creighton are debating whether morality can be defined without religion to back it up. Laura Creighton believes that a secular morality is possible. To show that "god-less" moral system is inherently arbitrary, Ken is playing devil's advocate, and taking the idea of relativistic morality to its logical conclusion. Since someone reposted Ken's outrageous hypothetical position into net.religion.jewish, I thought I'd also re-post my reply here: In article <decwrl.1827> arndt@lymph.DEC writes: > >Laura Creighton claims that the Jews were no threat to the Nazis. > >See what happens when you don't read history? > >The whole POINT of the Nazi killing of the Jews was that they WERE a >mortal threat to Germans and the German state, if not to the whole world! >That was the rationalization for the camps and the killing. The Jews were >subhuman, lice on the body of the human race. Along with the Slavs, etc. The Nazis believed that the Germans (and some other northwest European nationalities) were racially superior to the Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, Turks, etc. They believed that Germany's greatness depended on developing a homogenously Nordic racial makeup. However, in the early part of this century, many Jews in Germany began converting to Christianity and attempting to assimilate into the general population. From the Nazi perspective, this was intolerable. As long as Jews remained in German dominion, their very existence was a threat to German racial purity. The only solutions were: A. Kick the Jews out. B. Kill them all. The Nazis considered kicking the Jews out, but there was no place to send them. Hence, plan B. In summary, Ken is right. From the Nazi perspective (such as it was) the Jews were indeed a threat. >Now you can argue that the above wasn't so - they weren't a threat - but >the Germans didn't just throw a dart and pick on the Jews. Or perhaps one >could argue that the Germans really didn't believe the Jews were a threat, >despite their statements, but hated them for some other reason. Good point. There were other reasons for persecuting the Jews. Hitler wanted to unite all the German peoples (Prussian, Austrian, Sudaten Czech, etc). Included were people of varying religious denomination, social class, dialect, custom, etc. So what's the most effective way of uniting people? FIND A COMMON ENEMY. By stirring up hatred against the Jews, Hitler gave the German people a common cause to fight for. A Japanese diplomat, impressed by the effectiveness of this tactic, lamented the absence of Jews in Japan. Finally, persecuting people can be fun. It gives one a tremendous feeling of power. You can take out all you agressions without disturbing the rest of society. This is analogous to the male tradition of visiting prostitutes so as to maintain the chastity of the other women. Why the Jews? A. They numerous enough to be noticeable. B. They were few enough that they couldn't fight back. C. There was ample precedent. > >But don't discount so easily the idea the the Germans were immoral people, >the SS I mean, when they killed. They DID have moral standards - just not >yours perhaps! They said over and over again to each other and to the >world that they were moral men building a new world for mankind. A sort of >'pro-choice for mankind' movement. Getting rid of the subhuman element that >was killing the human race. See, once you define something as non-human, >well, there goes the ball game for that group. And one can maintain a nice >'moral' stance and kill without feeling guilt. Sure it may 'look' like a >human child, boy, man, but it really isn't . . . BANG! NEXT! > >Mengle didn't experiment on PEOPLE! That would be immoral. He merely did >the same thing we do today (actually less) with bunnies, birds, monkeys, etc. > And fetuses (feti?), I assume. Is that what you're trying to get at? Several Orthodox rabbis believe that if you throw out the idea that God instituted morality and laws, that any behavior (even Nazi behavior) is permissible. This explained their early decision to join Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority movement. Of course, Jews have always exclaimed many of their problems would disappear if only the Protestants and Catholics would behave like Christians. Frank Silbermann