It might be that God is not so much evil as mad.
It might be that God is not so much evil as mad.
Donovan Collection:Quote:
Originally Posted by prickly_pete
Analysis of Hitler's Personality
Special Collections Donovan Analysis of Hitler's Personality
Dr. Henry A. Murray
Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler:
With Predictions of His Future Behavior and Suggestions
for Dealing with Him Now and After Germany's Surrender
Introduction
Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler
In 1943, the Allied forces wanted to understand Hitler's psychological makeup in order to predict, to the extent possible, his behavior as the Allies continued their prosecution of the war and to anticipate his response to Germany's defeat. The Allies were also seeking to understand the German national psyche to gain an understanding of how to convert them into a "peace-loving nation." This report was written for the OSS by Dr. Henry A. Murray, pre-war Director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic. Dr. Murray obviously was forced by circumstances to psychoanalyze his subject from a distance. He gathered information from a variety of second-hand sources, such as Hitler's genealogy; school and military records; public reports of events in print and on film; OSS information; Hitler's own writings; Hitler biographies; and "Hitler the Man - Notes for a Case History," an article written by W.H.D. Vernon under Dr. Murray's supervision. From these resources and his "needs theory" of personality, Dr. Murray created a psychological profile that correctly predicted the Nazi leader's suicide in the face of Germany's defeat.
With the benefit of hindsight and more than 60 years of scientific advances, one can appreciate this analysis of Hitler's personality and also catch a glimpse into an early application of personality psychology by one of the discipline's founders. Dr. Murray's Explorations in Personality (NY: Oxford Press, 1938) established personality psychology as a behavioral science. Murray explored a theory of personality in which the interplay of 20 psychogenic needs of varying strength produced distinct personality types. Murray pegged Hitler's personality as "counteractive narcism," a type that is stimulated by real or imagined insult or injury. According to Dr. Murray, the characteristics of this personality type include: holding grudges, low tolerance for criticism, excessive demands for attention, inability to express gratitude, a tendency to belittle, bully, and blame others, desire for revenge, persistence in the face of defeat, extreme self-will, self-trust, inability to take a joke, and compulsive criminality. Dr. Murray concluded that Hitler had these characteristics (and others) to an extreme degree and lacked the offsetting qualities that round out a balanced personality.
The language of needs theory may seem unfamiliar to today's readers since personality theory moved on to new terminology and theories. However, Dr. Murray's writing style and descriptive language make this report as intelligible to the lay reader of today as to the World War II era psychologist.
Cornell Law Library is pleased to share this report, part of our Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection, in its original format.
Sources: AdolfHitler.ws: Historical Archives, NoBeliefs.com (Freethinkers), and Kimmo Nummela's Life Of Führer In Pictures.
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Okay, Hitler was a little like God, what does that prove? Either God is good or evil or mad, that's all there's to it.
Yes, this would explain why the problem of evil still exists because the problem of God still exists. Although God is merely a figure head for all this, removal of the head does not entirely eliminate the body.
Yeah....just like Walt DisneyQuote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
Walt Disney was neither good nor evil nor mad, he was indifferent.Quote:
Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC
God seems to be a ''mixture of opposites'' as is Man!! Virtue cannot be thought to exist without Evil.
Reason and Passion
By Kahlil Gibran
(1883 - 1931)
And the priestess spoke again and said: Speak to us of Reason and Passion.
And he answered, saying:
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.
I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.
Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.
Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows -- then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason."
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, -- then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."
And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.
For the sake of the argument, which stems from purely theological reasoning -we're talking about God after all-, it's nonesense to impose God the concepts of good or evil; good or evil would be defined from God and not the opposite. That doesn't solve anything though.
Doesn't this idea display an a priori assumption about the nature of God?Quote:
Originally Posted by mazHur
While typically eastern concepts of God may be consistent with this idea, in the West there is a long tradition that views Evil not as an independent force contrasting with Good, but rather as existing only as a corruption of what is Good.
If God is beyond good and evil, where is he then? Nowhere, cloud cuckoo land!Quote:
Originally Posted by Arrowni
Eastern outlook in this matter differs from religion to religion, even from sect to sect.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Idiot
Yes, as absence of light means Darkness, lack of Evil means Good or vice versa.
God seems to have created all and everything in Pairs, such as light and darkness, good and bad, light and heavy, curse and blessing, low and high, peace and terror, etc etc. Viewing any of these traits in isolation will tend to confuse the divine nature of God.....which human mind is not capable of comprehending at all!
It is said that those who do not believe in God or the Creator are typically confused people who are not even capable of knowing themselves, lest God!!
In the East, it is said that the Only way to find God is to die first (perhaps for His sake!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
Oh, that's okay then because I don't plan on dying.Quote:
Originally Posted by mazHur
Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
God is the sempiternal axiomatic argument, you cannot really ever argue in a logical fashion by questioning your own axioms. Obviously God -if there's any- cannot be argued.
Death is a visitorQuote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
which comes to All
without notice
without schedule
like it or Not!
To fear not pain is to love.Quote:
Originally Posted by mazHur
Of course He can be argued, what is to stop me, you?!Quote:
Originally Posted by Arrowni
Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
Language itself. Axioms are a predefined need for speech to exist, what we call logic is only a sort of language, so you cannot actually argue using God IF He happens to exist.
You can argue something that you think is God, but that doesn't make it God. Whenever any faith talks about God, they're not really discussing any actual divinity, because either 1) it doesn't exist or 2) it's not taking its place as an axiomatic form for all the creation, ergo the thing they are discussing isn't God.
This leaves you with the option of devoting your speech to false gods 100% of the time.
The true believer doesn't believe that his god is false, he believes all other gods are false.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arrowni
Well, you can always justify that by another of the limitations of language, which is the negative language paradox in which by saying no, you're seem to make things bigger instead of shrinking them. The definition is actually a form of exclusion, so talking about God more or less limits what God is, instead of actually helping their case, any people talking about God -again, assuming Its a real concept-, would be minimizing the divinity.
Arguing God holds its water when you discuss against God, if you're actually trying to defend divinity you're better off not using explicit language.
St Augustine struggled over this. He came to the conclusion that there is only good and what perceive as bad is really good corrupted; and it is sin that acts as the corrupting agent.
I think personally that we are pained by evil not because evil is so powerful, but because because good is so powerful that seeing it corrupted damages us tremendously, even if only on sub conscious level.
I have no belief in sin, only a belief in wrongdoing.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZTay
I see what you are saying, Arrowni, but how does one minimalise God in the eyes of a believer? As far as I'm concerned, it can't be done.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arrowni
Don't get hung up on nomenclature Mr Wilson. Wrong doing has a degenerative effect. Take your finest china and use it as a hammer, or your hammer as a spoon. Suddenly they are ruined, all because of wrong doing. And when that wrong doing is upon the soul or body, it is called sin.
so true!!Quote:
Originally Posted by ZTay
I may wish to use a person as a means to my own ends, would that be a sin or wrongdoing? It seems very hard to believe that it would be sinful as the abuse would not be willingly made against my body or soul.Quote:
Originally Posted by mazHur
Abusing, and I assume it's abusive as you admit wrong doing, another person is in violation to what is natural in the soul. What is natural in the soul is all that is good.
Who speaks authoritatively on what is natural to the soul? Also, how do you distinguish between "natural to the soul" and simple desire?
Also, what about people who find it comforting and right to inflict grave harm on others? Is there some interpersonal principle at work here? I personally think that a statement like "What is natural to the soul is all that is good" is more than a little simplistic.
You are right, it is simplistic; but that doesn't mean it's wrong. Insofar as the soul proceeds from God, and God is all good, the soul is all good. And there is a God insofar as there is an orderly universe created within some kind of system. And that God is good insofar as the universe is orderly. And that God is the highest good insofar as God is the source of all good, the first good. So, the soul proceeds from the highest good.
Now, how can it be considered good to inflict grave harm on another soul? Injuring what is good, can never be good.
And who can speak authoritatively on the soul? Any man owning a soul... That is, any man who owns his soul.
For a man to own a soul, he must have a will. As it is impossible to own both, the soul must go.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZTay
A man can will to own his soul the same as a man can will to tell it to go.
Will is the soul of man.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZTay
I think the soul runs deeper than what we actively will. I think we are unexposed to the greater part of our soul, our potential and our true nature. This is why we must will to understand our soul, and through knowledge of it, take ownership.
You can't will to know something that you don't have.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZTay
No, you can't. But you do have a soul. Or at least, essence and pre-disposition. Call it what you will.
I have nothing that I have not willed.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZTay
To be honest, I can imagine many functions in the conception of God that would indicate minimalization, both conscient and unconscious, but I cannot say there is one way that will happen for everyone, such thing is built in the messure of subjectivity. Many people with conceive divinity as a lived experience, in face of which speech has not any real power, the word of those who practice scepticism are dismissed without consideration, as they're treated simply as mere words.Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
In the internal logic of the discussion about faith it makes sense, and in the general balance of things, at least it works as an admission of the limits of argumentation and abstractions to make life choices. But I think the speech of faith is intrinsically an impaired speech, not necessarily in a negative connotation, but words themselves are not capable of leading to truth, because reality is only admitted by revelation.
Anyhow, the conception of divinity for the believer isn't a consistent concept which last through time, it's actually a notion that shifts with the experience and knowledge of the believer; in the same way that theology incorporates new realities in their view of the words despite the fact they never move the core realities of their practice.
The last bastion of faith is arrogance; and the last guard, ignorance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arrowni
Wow! That makes a great quote!!Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
You could argue that modern scientificism works in the same argumentative basis that faith does, except it's aggressive and dismisses any kind of knowledge that cannot be put in speech. Which is to say, arrogance and ignorance are the basis for any human conviction, as soon as it pretends objectivity.Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
Faith's first worldly step is compassionate, while faithlessness is moved by disgust and contempt.
I like this line!!:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Arrowni