The blurry line between religious and crazy

I've done some fairly crazy things without God telling me to. I've also decided not to do a few things because they were too crazy.In the end, I don't think religious people are more likely to do crazy things than non-religious people.Religious people may be more likely to credit God with their good decisions and blame themselves for their bad decisions but they're still their own decisions.

What if he's fed up with his life? What if he follows his dreams? What if he rushes in where angels fear to tread?

What's really frightening about the Holocaust, for example, is the cold, calculating efficiency with which it was done. Serial killers and child molesters also seem to lack an obvious appearance of madness.When we decide to mistreat somebody who is "other", we are pretty good at fooling the ones who are "us".

Yes, it was efficient. Don't take Hogan's Heroes too literally. The sad part is that the transport of the Jews "to the East" was the crowning glory of Nazi organization.

Yup. No. You can't do that. You might as well say that it would have been "more efficient" not to start the war in the first place. You might as well say it would have been "more efficient" to be Polynesians instead of Germans.You can only compare what they did with previous attempts to do what they did.

They killed six million Jews. They considered it an incomplete victory.They had killing factories. They stole their victims' shoes, their clothing, their hair, their teeth. When, in the course of human history, have their cost-recovery efforts ever been matched?

I find the Holocaust itself depressing, and the fact that the perpetrators tried so hard to be efficient.I find discussing it slightly cathartic and I find your comments fairly disgusting.

Six million was, tragically, a huge success.

Before we go rushing off on a tangent about "Nazi efficiencey", let's recap the statement that started the deflection:

quote:

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What's really frightening about the Holocaust, for example, is the cold, calculating efficiency with which it was done. Message 27

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I was referring to the efficiency with which millions of people were killed and robbed. Whether they were efficient in any other area is irrelevant to my statement.

Two-thirds of the target population destroyed. The bean-counters can take comfort in the inefficiency of the Holocaust while the rest of us remain horrified at its effectiveness.

To me, minimizing genocidal efficiency is repugnant.It has nothing to do with being a Nazi "fan". Demonizing the Nazis is dangerous. They are not "somebody else". They are us, under slightly different circumstances.

Except in the strictly mathematical sense - and if I had meant "in the mathematcal sense" I would have said "in the mathematical sense" - there is no fundamental distinction between efficiency and thoroughness. Did I call it unprecedented?But if there's a prior example of factories designed to systematically steal hair and teeth, I'm not aware of it. Who said they were?There was a whole spectrum: True Believer Nazis, Nazis who went along to get along, non-Nazis who collaborated, non-Nazis who conveniently looked the other way, anti-Nazis who helped the Jews. Portraying them all as bumbling fools is what I'm arguing against.They did an extremely efficient/effective/thorough job of what they set out to do

I'm not criticizing anybody for using "correct" definitions. I'm objecting to being criticized for using broader definitions. And so have I. When you're replying to me, the implication is that you're replying to me. You might want to be as careful of your references as you are about your definitions. If you think "it can't happen here" you're sadly mistaken.

That's what Stalin said.

Stalin was on the side of the "good guys".