# Is Absolute Pacifism Dangerous **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 10, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721 "2010-10-10T21:19:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/81 "2010-10-13T20:37:52Z")
Shouldn’t a god be honest? That would seem to preclude empty threats. Do gods bluff? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/82 "2010-10-13T20:45:35Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Shouldn’t a god be honest? That would seem to preclude empty threats. > > Do gods bluff? Vulcan didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/83 "2010-10-13T20:52:00Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Do gods bluff? Ask Abraham. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/84 "2010-10-13T21:40:33Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > > [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > > > Do gods bluff? > > Ask Abraham. Do gods change their minds? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/85 "2010-10-13T21:44:10Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > > [@Czarcasm](#): > > > > Ask Abraham. > > Do gods change their minds? Yahweh changes his mind several times in the Old Testament. He repents of making mankind, deciding his creation is not in fact good any more and has to be exterminated. Then after the Flood, he says, “Nah, that’s a bad idea. If I wipe 'em out entirely I won’t have anybody to torture. Note to self: fire next time.” He repents of requiring Abraham to slit Isaac’s throat. And Abraham makes a good try at getting him to spare Sodom and Gomorrah; he just blinks too soon. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/86 "2010-10-13T21:47:37Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > > [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > > > Do gods change their minds? > > Yahweh changes his mind several times in the Old Testament. He repents of making mankind, deciding his creation is not in fact good any more and has to be exterminated. Then after the Flood, he says, “Nah, that’s a bad idea. If I wipe 'em out entirely I won’t have anybody to torture. Note to self: fire next time.” He repents of requiring Abraham to slit Isaac’s throat. And Abraham makes a good try at getting him to spare Sodom and Gomorrah; he just blinks too soon. I haven’t read the bible in a lot of years, so thanks for the reminders. That pretty much blows the whole omniscience thing out of the water. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/87 "2010-10-13T21:58:49Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > > > Yahweh changes his mind several times in the Old Testament. He repents of making mankind, deciding his creation is not in fact good any more and has to be exterminated. Then after the Flood, he says, “Nah, that’s a bad idea. If I wipe 'em out entirely I won’t have anybody to torture. Note to self: fire next time.” He repents of requiring Abraham to slit Isaac’s throat. And Abraham makes a good try at getting him to spare Sodom and Gomorrah; he just blinks too soon. > > I haven’t read the bible in a lot of years, so thanks for the reminders. That pretty much blows the whole omniscience thing out of the water. Continuing my policy of arguing multiple sides, I’ll fanwank it. In the Sodom/Gomorrah thing, Yahweh may simply have been humoring Abraham. He’s kind mean, as you may have noticed. Also, the meaning of _omniscient_ is kind of iffy. It can mean “capable of finding out anything one wishes to know,” for instance, or “knowing everything that can be known,” as opposed to the ususal “conscious at at times of all events and their implications, both past, present, and future.” If (a) is the meaning, then perhaps Yahweh simply elected not to count the righteous men in the cities of the plain till after he and Abraham were done haggling, so as to make it more interesting. (Or perhaps Mary, pre-existent in Heaven, was lounging around in her nightie and he was distracted.) If (b) is the meaning, it may be that the future does not in fact exist until it happens, and thus it was not possible even for Yahweh to _know_ how he was going to react to Abraham’s willingness to murder his own son until the knife was right at the kid’s throat. Or, again, maybe he just decided not to look at that particular instant of space-time. As Mr. Roark pointed out, knowing everything is frightfully boring. Also I’m not sure there’s any claim in the OT that Yahweh is omniscient in the “conscious of all events at all times, etc” sense. In other news, if the Bible is even 4% true, I am so going to hell for that next-to-last paragraph. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2010, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/88 "2010-10-14T01:18:28Z")
Or perhaps God was a statistician, and there was not a significant enough percentage of the righteous around to make special arrangements for. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2010, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/89 "2010-10-14T16:06:44Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > > [@Zeriel](#): > > > > In my opinion, that’s true if and only if we can know with 100% certainty that said threats wouldn’t be carried out. That is, had the moneylenders stayed, would Jesus have then proceeded to get Biblical on their bitch asses? We can’t ever know. > > Wouldn’t you think Christians would assume the best of their leader, and not the worst, in the case of ambiguities like this one? > Unless, of course, they _want_ to follow an aggressive Christ figure. What’s “best”? Aggressively stopping evil isn’t bad, after all, in many moralities–my own included (this, incidentally, is why I’m occasionally a really shitty Buddhist). It’s not like the attack is unprovoked from Jesus’ perspective. And as Boyo Jim said, I’d think less of a God that used empty threats, so believing the best of him means holding him to his word. ---
**Author:** ![Hold\_Fast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58f4c7/32.png) [@Hold\_Fast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hold_Fast)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/90 "2010-10-14T16:35:00Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Is absolute pacifism, that is not offering violence even for self-defence or even when many people are threatened immoral? Although its an idea that’s been advocated by many idealists (such as Tolstoy) if actually implemented by a population not protected by people who do not adhere to absolute pacifism they’d be doomed once the next enemy came over the hill. Pacifism, at least in the form of a socities policy, is another one of those ideas that is wonderful and well meaning, but absolutely fails to take reality into consideration, so much so to the point of becoming an immoral idea. Allowing Evil to be done when you are in a position to end, or at least check it, is just as wrong as doing the evil yourself. As a couple people have mentioned, it would only work if everyone on earth was a pacifist, and of course didn’t bear the human trait of tending to have a mad desire for power. You’ll notice that throughout history, you can’t really find a pacifist society unless there is a bigger social group within the same general society that is non-pacifist, and does all the fighting that is required for the pacifists to mantain their lifestyle. A great example is King Philips War in the early American Colonies. A good portion of the people living in New England at that time where puritan pacifists. However, as soon as large numbers of indians began pillaging and raping in puritan towns, the colonial resistance soon found new pools of men to recruit from, and recieved an influx of men and material for the war effort. After the course of a few years, you’d be hardpressed to find many puritans living in New England. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/91 "2010-10-14T16:35:06Z")
I didn’t say I would think less of such a god, I simply asked if a god would make them. I do agree that it would seem to be a poor disciplinary practice, but I’m not a god nor a parent. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/92 "2010-10-14T17:49:19Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > Allowing Evil to be done when you are in a position to end, or at least check it, is just as wrong as doing the evil yourself. I disagree with this. Also, doing evil to fight evil isn’t really a winning policy. > [@](#): > > As a couple people have mentioned, it would only work if everyone on earth was a pacifist, and of course didn’t bear the human trait of tending to have a mad desire for power. You say this like such a world is impossible. I disagree. The existence of people like me gives the lie that violence is _necessarily_ innate. It’s just a habit that can be overcome. > [@](#): > > You’ll notice that throughout history, you can’t really find a pacifist society unless there is a bigger social group within the same general society that is non-pacifist, and does all the fighting that is required for the pacifists to mantain their lifestyle. A great example is King Philips War in the early American Colonies. A good portion of the people living in New England at that time where puritan pacifists. Got a cite for that? I’m not really used to thinking of Puritans as pacifists at all. Maybe you’re confusing them with Quakers (who were actively persecuted by Puritans). ---
**Author:** ![Hold\_Fast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58f4c7/32.png) [@Hold\_Fast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hold_Fast)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2010, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/93 "2010-10-14T23:54:31Z")
[quote=“MrDibble, post:92, topic:556721”] > [@Mrdribble](#): > > I disagree with this. Also, doing evil to fight evil isn’t really a winning policy.You say this like such a world is impossible. I disagree. The existence of people like me gives the lie that violence is _necessarily_ innate. It’s just a habit that can be overcome. Well if you disagree, let me pose a simplified version of what I’m talking about. Lets pretend some guy blindfolds a toddler, and tells the kid to run straight ahead to his mom. Now your standing right there as well, and see that there is no mom around, and all that is ahead of the toddler is a cliff. You realize the man is clearly trying to murder the kid…and so committing an evil/immoral act. Now would you step in and stop the kid from running to his death? I would certainly hope so…for letting the kid continue to run with the view that that other guy is killing the toddler and not you–and so clears you of any responsibility–I would think that would very obviously be on immoral side of things. And I’m not sure where the “doing evil to fight evil” thing came from…I don’t think I was either condoning such things or even infering…you’ll have to get back to me on that one. And, unfortunately, such a world **is** impossible. I’m happy for you for surpressing any urge to violence you may get from time to time. I, for the most part, am able to as well. But to pretend that somehow we are going to just happen upon a world with human beings who no longer feel hatred, no longer envy the things of other, and no longer have a desire for power is a grave mistake. For as long as we have these tendancies in our nature, there will _always_ be someone out there who is willing to use violence to obtain such things. I think its an extrordinary view that violence is simply a “habit” of humans. > [@](#): > > Got a cite for that? I’m not really used to thinking of Puritans as pacifists at all. Maybe you’re confusing them with Quakers (who were actively persecuted by Puritans). No, actually; that is unless you’ll take my professors words as a cite. The way he basically explained it is that a good portion of puritans that were initially living in America were pacifists. It wasn’t until after King Philips War that the idea of puritan pacifism all but disapeared, and puritans in a way lost their sense of identity. With that, you get such things as the Salem Which Trials–extremely religious people lost, to a certain extent, their extemly moral side(as atrocites of pillaging and raping were commited by both sides) and when you have the combination of extremly “religious” and yet extremly immoral influences, you get such tragidies as, again, the Salem trials. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2010, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/94 "2010-10-15T01:18:59Z")
Cromwell came from a pacifist tradition? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2010, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/95 "2010-10-15T07:20:11Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > Well if you disagree, let me pose a simplified version of what I’m talking about. […]I would certainly hope so…for letting the kid continue to run with the view that that other guy is killing the toddler and not you–and so clears you of any responsibility–I would think that would very obviously be on immoral side of things. That wasn’t what I was disagreeing with - I was disagreeing that it was \*just as \*evil, because it’s not. I wasn’t saying that it wasn’t morally dodgy. Certainly I agree allowing evil to happen _and doing nothing_ is morally bad. But that’s certainly not what I am proposing. I am proposing that one doesn’t fight evil with evil, and call it good. > [@](#): > > And I’m not sure where the “doing evil to fight evil” thing came from…I don’t think I was either condoning such things or even infering…you’ll have to get back to me on that one. If you believe, as I do, that doing violence to other sophonts **is inherently an evil act** , regardless of situation, then yes, you are condoning such “lesser of two evils” morality. > [@](#): > > And, unfortunately, such a world **is** impossible. I’m happy for you for surpressing any urge to violence you may get from time to time. I, for the most part, am able to as well. But to pretend that somehow we are going to just happen upon a world with human beings who no longer feel hatred, no longer envy the things of other, and no longer have a desire for power is a grave mistake. You misunderstand me. I don’t think we will “just happen” on such a world _either_. It is a world we would have to actively make. > [@](#): > > For as long as we have these tendancies in our nature, there will _always_ be someone out there who is willing to use violence to obtain such things. I think its an extrordinary view that violence is simply a “habit” of humans.\Many of our animal instincts (Opportunistic infidelity rather than monogamy, for example.) are things we can overcome when no longer necessary. I believe violence is another.\No, actually; that is unless you’ll take my professors words as a cite. No, actually, I won’t. > [@](#): > > The way he basically explained it is that a good portion of puritans that were initially living in America were pacifists. That’s why most men were in citizen militias, then? The New England Confederation (established a generation before King Philip’s War) was a military compact much more than a political one. And the Pequot War was 40 years earlier - and yeah, those were some [pacifistic Puritans](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic_massacre)… > [@](#): > > It wasn’t until after King Philips War that the idea of puritan pacifism all but disapeared, and puritans in a way lost their sense of identity. With that, you get such things as the Salem Which Trials–extremely religious people lost, to a certain extent, their extemly moral side(as atrocites of pillaging and raping were commited by both sides) and when you have the combination of extremly “religious” and yet extremly immoral influences, you get such tragidies as, again, the Salem trials. The Pilgrims started offing “witches” 44 years before the Salem Trials. The first person executed in Massachusetts Bay Colony was a witch. The Salem Trials were nothing new, Puritans had always been exactly like that. Look at England when they got in charge there. America was no different. I still think you’ve conflated Quakers and Puritans in your head. One of these was generally a pacifist creed, but were in no way the majority or even all that tolerated outside Rhode Island by the other. Quakers were hanged on Boston Common decades before the War. Not really all that pacifist, no? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2010, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/96 "2010-10-15T07:26:39Z")
Sorry, I bollixed up the quote tags in that fourth block… ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2010, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/97 "2010-10-15T12:15:05Z")
Someone correct me if I am wrong here, but isn’t ‘Pacifism’ one of those things the US right wing uses to describe all and any opposition to its next gun-totin’ plan? ---
**Author:** ![may\_be\_ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c5a1d2/32.png) [@may\_be\_ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/may_be_ignorant)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721/98 "2010-10-15T20:13:35Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > > [@pravnik](#): > > > > How are they going to physically restrain him to jail him? > > Nonviolently, I’d assume. Maybe trick him into jumping into a glue vat or something. Tell him there’s a tied-up virgin in it. :):D:rolleyes:😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-absolute-pacifism-dangerous/556721.md?page=4)