# gobear and Christianity **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 7, 2005, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427 "2005-03-07T20:57:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Good\_Egg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/96bed5/32.png) [@Good\_Egg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Good_Egg)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/221 "2005-03-10T04:08:23Z")
You are a wise man, Tris. (What does Shirley have to do with this?) ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/222 "2005-03-10T04:42:20Z")
From **Nazi Terror; the Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans** , Eric Johnson, P. 451: > [@](#): > > . . . in the survey about the experiences of ordinary people in Nazi Germany that Karl-Heinz Reuband and I administered to a random sample of Cologne residents in 1993, we fopund that a significant plurality of the aging German citizenry finally are ready to admit that they did become aware of the mass murder of the Jews as it was taking place before the end of the Second World War. In fact, depending on how one chooses to interpret the figures, between slightly under one-quarter and well over one-half of the 188 people who answered the survey divulged that the mass murder of the Jews had not been kept secret from them during Hitler’s reign. So we have confirmation that a large segment of the German people at least knew aobut the Holocaust as it was happening and kept silent. So far, so good. But were trhe German people actively complicit in the murder of the Jews? From **Hilter’s Willing Executioners** , Daniel Goldhagen, p. 167: > [@](#): > > Some figures on the institutions of killing and their personnel, incomplete as they are, convey the magnitude of the German system of destruction. A recent study of all varieties of German “camps” (including ghettos) has identified a total of 10,005 positively, with the full knowledge that many more existed that have not yet been uncovered. Among the ten thousand camps (not all of which housed Jews), 941 forced labor camps designated especially for Jews were within the borders of just (today’s) Poland. An additonal 230 special camps for Hungarian Jews were set up on the Austrian border. The Germans created 399 ghettos in Poland, 34 in East Galicia, 16 in small Lithuania. So just the known forced labor camps and ghettos reserved for Jews totaled over 1,600. In addition to these, there were 52 main concentration camps, which had a total of 1,202 satellite camps . . . Auchwitz, by itself, with its 50 satellite camps, had 7,000 guards among its personnel at various times. In April 1945, 4,100 guards and administrators were stationed Dachau alone. At the same time, the Germans had over, 5,700 people staffing Matthausen and its satellite camps. One estimate concludes that 50 guards were necessary for every prisoner in a satellite camp, a ratio of ten to one. If anything resembling this ratio is applied to the more than 10,000 camps with its millions of prisoners, or even to the smaller of camps which housed Jews, it becomes obvious that the number of people manning the system of destruction was enormous. Part III to follow. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/223 "2005-03-10T04:43:57Z")
> [@Good Egg](#): > > You are a wise man, Tris. (What does Shirley have to do with this?) Shirley, being well known for good works qualifies as at least a good candidate for authority on the subject. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/224 "2005-03-10T04:52:45Z")
> [@](#): > > One estimate concludes that 50 guards were necessary for every prisoner in a satellite camp, a ratio of ten to one. If anything resembling this ratio is applied to the more than 10,000 camps with its millions of prisoners, or even to the smaller of camps which housed Jews, it becomes obvious that the number of people manning the system of destruction was enormous. If that estimate is to be believed, the six million prisoners held by the germans must have been guarded by sixty million adult Germans. I wonder where they got their army? Stop digging, man, you’re already in deep enough! Tris ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/225 "2005-03-10T05:23:19Z")
> [@](#): > > You stated, and confirmed you meant, that a vast majority of Germans were Nazis between 1933 and 1945. The 9% figure is a Nazi party number, and it appears to be rather generous: Geobbels recorded 450k party members in 1933, and census data from that year numbers the population at 67MM. Do the math. No, I said that the German people were complicit in the holocaust, not that the German people were all members of the Party. Second, you say “follow the link,” there is no link. you have not sourced your 9% figure. But reading Alan Bullock’s **Hitler and Stalin. Parallel Lives** , (mine, not the library’s), we find on p. 314: > [@](#): > > Opportunism and idealism, fear and fatalism, all contributed to the flood of applicants to join the ranks of the victors, no fewer than 1,600,000 new members (twice the previous total) between January 30 and May 1, 1933, when a ban was placed on further enrollments. So taking your unsourced figure of a total German population of 67M with a Party membership of 2,400,000, we get 3.5 percent. Damn, I guess there weren’t any Nazis in Germany! But wait, according to **The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich** , Richard Overy, Party membership was re-opened, and by 1945 totalled 8M, approximately 11% of the population. Not a staggering amount, but more than your figure (for which you provided no cite). I guess you didn’ need a Party card to turn a blind eye to the racial hygiene laws or to fire your Jewish employees, or employ slave labor from a local camp. So, I provide cites, **Waverly** provides none, but I’m the intellectually lazy one. Funny how that works. And I we **Leander** a post, but it’s not done, and I’m tired, so he’s going to have to wait. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/226 "2005-03-10T05:27:40Z")
> [@](#): > > You stated, and confirmed you meant, that a vast majority of Germans were Nazis between 1933 and 1945. The 9% figure is a Nazi party number, and it appears to be rather generous: Geobbels recorded 450k party members in 1933, and census data from that year numbers the population at 67MM. Do the math. No, I said that the German people were complicit in the holocaust, not that the German people were all members of the Party. Second, you say “follow the link,” there is no link. you have not sourced your 9% figure. But reading Alan Bullock’s **Hitler and Stalin. Parallel Lives** , (mine, not the library’s), we find on p. 314: > [@](#): > > Opportunism and idealism, fear and fatalism, all contributed to the flood of applicants to join the ranks of the victors, no fewer than 1,600,000 new members (twice the previous total) between January 30 and May 1, 1933, when a ban was placed on further enrollments. So taking your unsourced figure of a total German population of 67M with a Party membership of 2,400,000, we get 3.5 percent. Damn, I guess there weren’t any Nazis in Germany! But wait, according to **The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich** , Richard Overy, Party membership was re-opened, and by 1945 totalled 8M, approximately 11% of the population. Not a staggering amount, but more than your figure (for which you provided no cite). I guess you didn’ need a Party card to turn a blind eye to the racial hygiene laws or to fire your Jewish employees, or employ slave labor from a local camp. So, I provide cites, **Waverly** provides none, but I’m the intellectually lazy one. Funny how that works. And I we **Leander** a post, but it’s not done, and I’m tired, so he’s going to have to wait. To **Tris** : the camps weren;t staffed solely by Germans; they also employed Poles, Ukranians, Letts, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Croats, Hungarians, and so on to staff their camps, but Germans also staffed the camps. And you forget that they didn’t hold 6 million prisoners–those went up the chimney. I’ll have to see what the total prisoner population was. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/227 "2005-03-10T05:31:00Z")
OK, maybe I’m making a stupid assumption, but I’m trusting that everyone here accepts that the Holocaust happened, right? If I’m arguing with Holocaust deniers, I’m walking out on this. You’re with me on that much, right? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/228 "2005-03-10T05:34:35Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > And I we **Leander** a post, but it’s not done, and I’m tired, so he’s going to have to wait. Me too, when you get to it, regarding that run-through on salvation theology; I’d appreciate seeing your reactions to it. And if it isn’t asking too much, what **Sol Grundy** said in his 6:14 PM 3/9/05 post really deserves to be dealt with. Take your time on responding to me; I have a vague idea what it’s like to bear the brunt of a pile-on, and you do have a life beyond the boards. But I feel that it does place a different picture on what your major issue with Christianity (other than the vile behavior of many Christians) seems to be, so I would like it tackled at some point. ---
**Author:** ![Talon\_Karrde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/229 "2005-03-10T06:47:42Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > I apologize–that last post was over the top even for me. Actually, I thought it was kind of mild for you. I think my post was over the top, and I should be the one to apologize. Anyway, I misunderstood the part directed toward **Solgrundy** , I thought you meant “you” in the general sense directed toward all christians and linking what he said to a persecution complex among all christians. > [@](#): > > Yes, I do. I certainly know Church history, Scripture, and Patristic writings better than most of them.Yes, I do. I certainly know Church history, Scripture, and Patristic writings better than most of them. > > No, you just don’t like hearing a harsh voice that doesn’t fall for your mythology. I don’t doubt that you are very knowledgable, but don’t seem to really understand, because you don’t want to understand. Since you sort of took back the second part, I’ll respond to it as if it were worded more nicely: I have no problem with you not being a christian. Even though it makes me a bit sad, I don’t even have a problem with you if you _dislike_ christianity. I don’t blame you, I don’t like what christianity has become. It’s not your fault if you don’t like it. What I do have a problem with is when you let your hostility toward christianity spill out toward christians. I’m not talking about bashing high profile people, that’s fine, but your posts about christianity indicate that you don’t view christians as individuals, but as a group. That’s what I meant when I called you foolish. When you say “christians do not believe in love”, you right there dictate the attitudes of tons of people you do not even know. Even exempting liberal christians does not make it right. My parents are conservative christians, and it angers me that you say they do not believe in love. If you said “Christianity does not believe in love” I’d think “Well, he’s going too far but he has a point”. If you said “Christianity does not consider love to be important”, I’d fucking agree with you. (Capital-C Christianity is what I use to refer to modern christian culture). Heck, I guess I wouldn’t make too big a deal if you said “Christians do not believe in love” as long as you made it clear that by ‘Christians’ you mean the group. I hope that I made this clear, and if you don’t agree you can at least sympathize. ---
**Author:** ![Talon\_Karrde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/230 "2005-03-10T06:55:49Z")
> [@Psycho Pirate](#): > > You are missing the fact that **Diogenes** is woefully ignorant when it comes to the Bible, yet he loves to spout off his misunderstandings as fact. Actually, he knows the bible very well and I’ve learned from what he has said about it on the SDMB. I don’t know why you say he loves to spout misunderstandings- from what I’ve seen he seems like the person who doesn’t like to reveal his entire hand, and will argue with other peoples’ interpretations instead of throwing his own opinions around. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/231 "2005-03-10T08:13:05Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#): > > **Gobear** Seems to think that having an opinion differing from his on the exact meaning of a scripture he feels is entirely false makes you a heretic. Given a start like that, consensus doesn’t seem likely to me. 😕 Isn’t he right? > [@Dictionary](#): > > \*\* Heretic: \*\*A person who holds controversial opinions, especially one who publicly dissents from the officially accepted dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/232 "2005-03-10T10:02:37Z")
I was under the impression that I had clearly thrown up my hands in frustration and made as graceful an exit from the thread as I’m capable of. As my name is still getting mentioned, apparently I didn’t make that clear enough. **I give up.** I had already promised myself not to get involved in these types of “discussions” and I broke that rule when I jumped into this thread. Even if I wanted to get pulled into another round of pointless back-and-forth and repeating myself, I lost track of where this thread was going sometime around the Holocaust. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/233 "2005-03-10T10:22:04Z")
Goodness, gobear. I turn my back for a day… [quote] **gobear** : How am I stereotyping? Are you saying that we may criticize the GOP, and the Democrats, and communism, and radical Islam, but somehow Christianity is somehow above criticism? Bollocks. You have every right to criticize the people whose behavior harms you. But don’t you think it is unfair to criticize others who fall under the same “label” but who are not harming you? When you decide to make broad statements about “Christians” that are true of only _some_ Christians, you have done a great disservice to some of your most vocal champions. > [@](#): > > As a gay man, especially, I get enraged when a Christian tells me I have no right to live and love. As a _Christian_, a femininist, and a straight freedom-loving crazy Southern woman, I am overwhelmed with grief and indignation when I see anyone, \*especially another Christian, \* denying you the fulfillment of love. > [@](#): > > **gobear** : Christians are on TV, in politics, at public ceremonies… At least you don’t have to keep having to explain over and over again that \*\*No, you are not “that kind of Christian…”\*\*and that just because you live in a red state does not mean that you want the Ten Commandments perfectly balanced on top of the Washington Momument and… Oh! Yes! Excuse me! {b]Nashville IS a blue city! Yeehaw! \*\* And I really don’t have to go to New England for a blast of intellectual stimulation…And _some_ Republicans and Communists and Moslems have fascinating minds too. (And Oskar Schindler was a Nazi.) > [@](#): > > Christians get far, far more access to communicate their beliefs than do secular atheists, but let one obstreperous atheist talk shit about the dominant religion, you act persecuted, as if the lions are at the door. Only if that person – atheist or otherwise – doesn’t differentiate among Christians. Just as it is bigotry to imply that all men are alike and all Americans are alike and all Iraqi insurgents are alike, it is erroneous to imply that all Christians think and believe alike. Not only are branches and denominations different, but a person is not even required to be a member of a church to be a Christian. > [@](#): > > I appreciate the support your half of the church is giving gay people. Thanks for that. We have lost our fellowship in the Anglican Communion because of it. But it is a worthy issue to stand on. I’m glad we took the side of love. ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/234 "2005-03-10T11:17:41Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > No, I said that the German people were complicit in the holocaust, not that the German people were all members of the Party. Second, you say “follow the link,” there is no link. you have not sourced your 9% figure. But reading Alan Bullock’s **Hitler and Stalin. Parallel Lives** , (mine, not the library’s), we find on p. 314: No. Sorry. Here is what you said. > [@](#): > > Gobear: > Could we please drop the “not all Germans are Nazis” line of argument from all threads henceforth? Germans are not Nazis today because they lost the war in 1945 and had their noses rubbed in the Holocaust. But in from 1933 to 1945, the vast majority of non-Communist, non-Jewish Germans were Nazis–read Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners. The Germans, as a nation, were collectively responsible for gassing and incinerating millionsof innocent men, women, and children. > And don’t give me “But Uncle Horst didn’t know about the camps”–yes, he did. The Germans knew what was going on, what had happened to their neighbors, what “resettlement to the East” really meant. > > So let us drop that line of reasoning. In that time and that place, an entire nation, with a few notable exceptions like Oskar Schindler, was guilty of murder. Sorry about the first link. I must have gotten my intolerant links confused. Here it is. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=146671&perpage=50&highlight=Gobear%20religion&pagenumber=2](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=146671&perpage=50&highlight=Gobear%20religion&pagenumber=2) I’m sorry you went to the library to re-checkout Goldhagen’s work. Were you aware that he also thinks the Jews themselves were culpable in their own murder? That he thought Germans were pathologically mentally ill? That he routinely substitutes the word Nazi for German in his cites? In other words, he’s a member of the tinfoil hat club. But you should know this, because I brought it to your attention last time. Read more: [http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=2&ar=2](http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=2&ar=2) I don’t have the time to review the Johnson’s work, but I don’t have any reason to believe it isn’t scholarly. I’d really like to dig into how his survey was done. Not surprisingly, there are scientific ways to conduct surveys, and there are non-scientific ways to conduct surveys. However, I’m not going to have the time. > [@](#): > > So taking your unsourced figure of a total German population of 67M with a Party membership of 2,400,000, we get 3.5 percent. Damn, I guess there weren’t any Nazis in Germany! But wait, according to The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich, Richard Overy, Party membership was re-opened, and by 1945 totalled 8M, approximately 11% of the population. Not a staggering amount, but more than your figure (for which you provided no cite). I guess you didn’ need a Party card to turn a blind eye to the racial hygiene laws or to fire your Jewish employees, or employ slave labor from a local camp. So I give a 9% figure for 1933, you find an 11% figure for 1945, and you think I fabricated the number to make a point? Curious. Will you admit that neither amount is a vast majority? That’s the freaking point, not that we are 2% off. Again, refer to you idiotic original statement. Census numbers: [Population of Germany](http://www.tacitus.nu/historical-atlas/population/germany.htm) Sorry, my hard copy texts here must be off by 1MM. Guess that makes me dishonest. Sorry, no links available, but if you try to get a bottom up estimate of party membership, figures vary for 1933. I’ve seen as high as 850k. I suspect that top down estimates like your 11% and my 9% use a models based on the number of people voting pro-Nazi, which was 40+ percent in 1933. You like 11%? Fine with me. Just admit it isn’t a vast majority, and that you spewed hyperbole. ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/235 "2005-03-10T11:21:40Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > You posted to one where I (rightly)pointed out that Hinduism practices racist discrimination as a sacred duty. You must have forgotten the part where a practicing Hindu told you that today’s Hindus don’t hold discrimination as ‘sacred’. I give up. All you have done is reinforce my belief that you never learn. You are irredeemably ignorant, and I pity you. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/236 "2005-03-10T12:04:37Z")
> [@Waverly](#): > > You must have forgotten the part where a practicing Hindu told you that today’s Hindus don’t hold discrimination as ‘sacred’. > > I give up. All you have done is reinforce my belief that you never learn. You are irredeemably ignorant, and I pity you. No, what’s ignorant is your odd insistence that Party membership=complicity in the holocaust. do you really think that only Party memebers ran the railroads or used slave labor or helped turn in their neighbors? And as I pointed out in the other thread, the [url=“[Dalit activist released in Pakistan - International Dalit Solidarity Network](http://www.idsn.org/Dalit)”] themselves say that they suffer religion-based discrimination. who do i believe, you or them? What’s funny is I go to the sources to get information, you just parrot your assertions, yet you claim i’m ignorant. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/237 "2005-03-10T13:00:38Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > You, **Leander** , **Waverly** , and **Sol Grundy** aren’t exactly proving me wrong, are you? Heh. Despite it being pointed out several times, and despite being plainly obvious, loving someone doesn’t mean you can’t argue with them, or even call them out when they’re acting like an ass. Your insistence that Christians who respond to your ridiculous insults with anything other then complacent acceptance or polite disagreement (neither of which you seem to be capable of understanding) are somehow hypocrites or un-Christian is asinine. On the other hand, more heated argument doesn’t seem to make much of a difference either: you repeatedly ignore counterarguments, and either don’t respond at all or respond with some kind of ad hominem based on your fucked up understanding of Christianity–which you’ll defend as an attack on “ideas” and not the person, and when you get called on it the whole cycle repeats. I think **SolGrundy** has the right idea. ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/238 "2005-03-10T13:29:39Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > No, what’s ignorant is your odd insistence that Party membership=complicity in the holocaust. do you really think that only Party memebers ran the railroads or used slave labor or helped turn in their neighbors? No I don’t. And I’ll thank you to point out where I said so. I was speaking directly to two of _your_ sweeping generalizations: 1) the vast majority of Germans were Nazis, and 2) The entirety of the German nation knowingly participated in the holocaust. I don’t have a thesis of my own; I question yours. I’m going to highlight this, because I don’t seem to be able to state it plainly enough for you: **I don’t have preconceived notions regarding Germany, Hindus, Christians, or the price of eggs in Chicago. I question _your_ assertions, and if I provide factual information in the course of doing so, it is just to demonstrate that you have over-generalized. Simple as that.** I think you know this. You continually attempt to assign me a position, a religion, even a violent temper, long after you have been corrected, because it it’s a tool of convenience. In this thread alone, I’m a Nazi apologist, a Christian zealot, a vandal… anything that you can slap a label on and paint with a broad brush. And I have earned this deceitful contempt for what? For flogging my own agenda? I think not. I don’t have one. No, it’s for the unforgivable transgression of pointing out your stereotypes and generalizations where I see them. And you, you contemptuous, small, unworthy human being, have wasted enough of my time. Rebut to your heart’s content. I quite literally have better things to do than wrestle pigs - you know the rest of the saying. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/239 "2005-03-10T14:19:21Z")
> [@Talon Karrde](#): > > Actually, I thought it was kind of mild for you. I think my post was over the top, and I should be the one to apologize. > > Anyway, I misunderstood the part directed toward **Solgrundy** , I thought you meant “you” in the general sense directed toward all christians and linking what he said to a persecution complex among all christians. > I don’t doubt that you are very knowledgable, but don’t seem to really understand, because you don’t want to understand. > > Since you sort of took back the second part, I’ll respond to it as if it were worded more nicely: > I have no problem with you not being a christian. Even though it makes me a bit sad, I don’t even have a problem with you if you _dislike_ christianity. I don’t blame you, I don’t like what christianity has become. It’s not your fault if you don’t like it. > What I do have a problem with is when you let your hostility toward christianity spill out toward christians. I’m not talking about bashing high profile people, that’s fine, but your posts about christianity indicate that you don’t view christians as individuals, but as a group. That’s what I meant when I called you foolish. When you say “christians do not believe in love”, you right there dictate the attitudes of tons of people you do not even know. Even exempting liberal christians does not make it right. My parents are conservative christians, and it angers me that you say they do not believe in love. > > If you said “Christianity does not believe in love” I’d think “Well, he’s going too far but he has a point”. If you said “Christianity does not consider love to be important”, I’d fucking agree with you. (Capital-C Christianity is what I use to refer to modern christian culture). > Heck, I guess I wouldn’t make too big a deal if you said “Christians do not believe in love” as long as you made it clear that by ‘Christians’ you mean the group. > > I hope that I made this clear, and if you don’t agree you can at least sympathize. It’s hard to fault Gobear when nobody…not even the christian community…has agreed on what a christian is. Anyone – _anyone!_ can call themselves a christian because the rules are so loose as to be meaningless. You don’t even have to follow christ’s example…you just have to _want_ to aspire to his example…and poof! You’re a christian, as long as you believe. It appears to me that Gobear is referring to christians who follow christian doctrine, which clearly (at least from what I’ve seen here) uses power and fear…not loving acts for their own sake…to guide the flock. If you’re a christian who _doesn’t_ follow christian doctrine (and there are TONS of 'em), then you might have a bone to pick with him. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427/240 "2005-03-10T14:20:58Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > Heh. Despite it being pointed out several times, and despite being plainly obvious, loving someone doesn’t mean you can’t argue with them, or even call them out when they’re acting like an ass. Your insistence that Christians who respond to your ridiculous insults with anything other then complacent acceptance or polite disagreement (neither of which you seem to be capable of understanding) are somehow hypocrites or un-Christian is asinine. On the other hand, more heated argument doesn’t seem to make much of a difference either: you repeatedly ignore counterarguments, and either don’t respond at all or respond with some kind of ad hominem based on your fucked up understanding of Christianity–which you’ll defend as an attack on “ideas” and not the person, and when you get called on it the whole cycle repeats. I think **SolGrundy** has the right idea. Say what? I respond to counterarguments, yet not one of you has done so to my arguments. The Dali Lama/ Fred Phelps example has been completely ignored, and as for _ad hominems_, just look at every post made by **Leander** , **Waverly** , you, and **Sol Grundy** –you haven’t said “Gobear is wrong,” what you have said is, “Gobear is an asshole for saying things that offend us.” And if my understanding of Christianity is “fucked-up” then PROVE IT! **Leander** is the only poster of the 4 of you who has provided cites to bakc up his position, which is why he is the only one I respect. Note that I’ve responded politely to **Tris** and **Polycarp** , both of whom disagree with me but have been nice about it. You act like a jerk to me, you get it back in spades. > [@Waverly](#): > > I don’t have preconceived notions regarding Germany, Hindus, Christians, or the price of eggs in Chicago. I question your assertions, and if I provide factual information in the course of doing so, it is just to demonstrate that you have over-generalized. Simple as that. But you **haven’t** provided factual information. You say that that Hinduism does not discriminate against the Dalits. I provide a link to a site that says the contrary. You have merely repeated your assertion, but you have provided no factual information to prove me wrong. Saying “Somebody in the linked thread said you’re wrong” doesn’t count–I’d like something a little more solid. To contradict Goldhagen’s book, you just provided a a link to a negative review. I can provide links to positive reviews, but what does that prove? **Unlike you, I go to the source material.**. If you want to prove Goldhagen wrong, then go to the book and read it. Then go to other books that agree with his conclusions, and prove them wrong. Don’t evaluate books by what I or any reviewer say, **read it for yourself and then come back and prove me wrong.** > [@Gobear](#): > > No, what’s ignorant is your odd insistence that Party membership=complicity in the holocaust. do you really think that only Party memebers ran the railroads or used slave labor or helped turn in their neighbors? > > > [@Waverly](#): > > > > No I don’t. And I’ll thank you to point out where I said so. You wrote > [@](#): > > How many Germans were knowing participants in the holocaust? Some? That’s axiomatic. A significant percentage? I don’t know. Nearly all? I kind of doubt it without more proof than your emphatic say-so. I provide evidence to bolster my claims from more than one source. You provide zero counter-evidence to disprove my claims, only bothering to quote a book review that disputed one of my sources. > [@](#): > > I was speaking directly to two of your sweeping generalizations: 1) the vast majority of Germans were Nazis, and 2) The entirety of the German nation knowingly participated in the holocaust. I don’t have a thesis of my own; I question yours. Denying my claims is ia thesis of your own. The anti-thesis of “The majority of Germans were complicit in the Holocaust” is “The majority of Germans were not complicit in the Holocaust.” That’s what you’re claiming, in only indirectly by contradicting my claims. Furthermore, you keep insisting that I claimed the vast majority of Germans were Nazi party members, but that’s just not so. I _do_ maintain that the German nation bears collective guilt for the Holocaust and that they cooperated with it, both actively (as in every major German manufacturer using slave labor) or passively (not resisting the Nuremberg laws, not protecting their neighbors and employees.) Your bizarre insistence that the Holocaust was perpetrated by a tiny minority isn’t even supported by common sense, let alone the factual record. > [@](#): > > In this thread alone, I’m a Nazi apologist, I said I assumed that everyone (not just you) was with me that the Holocaust happened. I do not believe you to be a Nazi apologist. > [@](#): > > a Christian zealot, And I apologized, but you don’t mention that, do you? > [@](#): > > a vandal You strike me as the sort of untrustworthy person that would vandalize a car. It’s another way of saying I don’t respect you. > [@](#): > > And you, you contemptuous, small, unworthy human being, have wasted enough of my time. Rebut to your heart’s content. I quite literally have better things to do than wrestle pigs - you know the rest of the saying. Right back at you. And although I am contemptuous (of you), the word you meant to use is “contemptible.” I’m always glad to have a chance to educate the ignorant. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobear-and-christianity/293427.md?page=13)