posted
I'm fairly certain this is a repeat of a topic that's gone around several times before, so, argue about it if you want, I don't care, but please answer my question regardless.
Who is the most evil person you can think of in the recorded history?
Or, if you don't believe that anyone is evil, who is the person who has commited, or caused to be commited, the most horrific events in recorded history?
posted
Hitler for obvious reasons Stalin for obvious reasons Pol Pott for obvious reasons Julius Ceaser for obvious reasons, though he did much to civilize Europe too. The Great Khan for not so obvious reasons. If he hadn't conquered Persia and then the rest of the Arabic empire, Islam would have died a quick death or remained in the Arabian peninsula and Indonesia would be mostly Buddhist (how many buddhist terrorists are there?). Does the amount of destruction equal evil?
Of course I trade all those people in for the inventor of the snooze alarm. There is nothing quite so evil as getting your hopes up of falling back to sleep and then having the damn thing go off again.
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I throw in a vote for Celia on this one, she can be quite sinister and/or vindictive. She makes the other candidates look like care bears.
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Celia isn't evil. She only claims to be. She is actually quite caring and nice. Although if her and Hitler got in a fight, I would put my money on Celia.
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posted
Not sure if it really fits, but the god of the old testament is well-nigh the personification of my conception of evil.
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I'm not sure why everyone is noting dictators exclusively, for me a person being responsible for large scale acts doesn't make him more evil than someone who does them personally.
My point is that most dictators committed their crimes against humanity mostly because they were power hungry and ambitious. Some serial killers and child molesters for me are far more 'evil' than anyone who has committed famous atrocities. For example, Stalin was a fairly cold and uncaring man, but I doubt he could have taken a knife and brutally murder a little girl with his own hands. That to me is evil personified.
Of course Hitler and other leaders were responsible for the death of millions of children. I think Hitler had a deranged enough view of his acts to think he was actually doing the world a favor by exterminating the Jews, who he thought were less than human. So while I think Hitler was directly responsible for the greatest act of evil ever committed (the Holocaust), he himself would lose the title of "Most Evil" to someone who knows he is doing great evil, and not only does the acts anyway, but commits them because they are evil. I'm not a big crime buff, but I'm sure there have been child molesters and serial killers that fit this description (not just crazy, but evil).
[This message has been edited by Xavier (edited November 06, 2002).]
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I'd like to dispute your reasoning for Genghis: doing something that ultimately results in evil does not make one evil. Heck, the muslim empire in its early years was a much more benevolent place than christian europe at the same time.
And terrorism really isn't a symptom of religion. Evildoers use the power structures available to them. Religion is often one of these, just as government also is.
I think I shall go with Chairman Mao. The man was more ruthless and unrelenting than Stalin, and his policies certainly killed more (comes from having a larger population to work with, largely).
posted
All Republican politicians are evil. Just ask Eddie Whiteshoes for confirmation on this truism.
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I'd be really interested in reading more about your theory that Islam would have either died or become fairly inconsequential, had it not been for the Mongol invasion. I've always been of the opinion that Islam as a whole would have been a richer, more open minded movement had it not been for the Mongol invasion. Do you have any links, book suggestions, or the like?
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The height of Islamic power was held (by a Western view) during the mongol invasions, these invasions and rapid conquest by an infidel has created within the Islamic Arabic community a xenophobia which we still see today. A second impact is that the new mongol empire allowed a much larger dissemination of Islamic thinkers/missionaries to spread throughout Asia which we see today in the largest Islamic country in the world, Indonesia. Islam is also arabic based (note that as a general rule we do not read the bible in Aramaic, we read it in our native tongues), Arabs and Islamicists feel that in general the Arab tongue is the one that really gives the correct view of Islam, so many of the mullah's throughout the world are Arabic and almost all speak Arabic. Hence, if you have a xenophobic religious leadership that "interpets" you religious writings for you, you will generally end up with a more strident xenophobic religion being preached and practiced.
posted
Well, I definitely agree with you about the Mongol invasion bringing about a more xenophobic mindset in Islam as a whole. Pretty much shut the door on scientific development and social progress in the Islamic world too, as I understand it. I wasn't aware that it had let to the spread of Islam to areas such as Indonesia though. I'll have to do some research.
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posted
Mongols certainly spread Islam to India, but even before the Mongol invasion Islam had spread from Persia (Iran) to Spain.
Most Evil, not counting Bob (he is EVIL under all that nice humor. Evil people always pun just out of sure sadistic pleasure) I would have to say Caligula.
Jeffry Dalmir is evil as well.
I think Charles Manson is just silly. If I say that loud enough and he hears it, boy would that pi...upset him.
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Of course, it would be a terrible oversight if we didn't acknowledge the effects of the religious based attacks on Moslems made by the filthy, ignorant christians of the time.
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Do you think so Squick? It seems to me that while the Crusades certainly had an impact on Islam, the Mongol invasion absolutely shattered the Islamic world--it seems to me like the difference between getting punched in the chest vs. being run over by a truck. I'm doing a little research to confirm that I'm not just exaggerating the effect of the Mongol invasion, or minimising the effect of the Crusades, but I'm fairly certain that this is the case.
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posted
The crusades were a love tap, on the first crusade achieved the main goal of capturing Jerusalem, after that it was all down hill. Christianity lost the middle east, christianity lost Tyre too, christianity even lost Malta and the momentum eventually cost christianity Constantinople. It wasnt until 1492 the last moors left Spain, so I am not sure exactly how scary Christianity was to the Muslims. Mongols on the other hand, they took it all, or at least everthing they wanted.
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posted
Noemon, I suggest you look at the transformation in attitudes towards religions other than Islam in the wake of the Crusades. If you're talking about Islam becoming a religion of us versus them, then the Crusades were of major impact on them.
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posted
I think that the most evil people aren't necessarily the ones we hear about. Anyone who molests and kills children takes an immediate top of the list for me.
I also would like to take up Squicky's gauntlet (as making such a silly statement as his in this forum can be construed as nothing less than a flung gauntlet):
So Squicky: why do you think that the God of the Old Testament is evil?
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Well, it's worth noting that the God of the Old Testament DID commit genocide no less than three times, and has promised to wipe out most of the population of the planet at some time in the future. Seems pretty nasty.
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Jacare, It may seem silly to you, but it's my sincere belief. In my opinion, Yahweh, if you analyze him as a he is protrayed as a literary character, is a selfish, immature entity that wants non-thinking slaves to worship him and defines good as whatever he thinks it is. Were I to want to define a realistic, evil god, that's pretty much what I'd come up with. Yahweh is the god referred to in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
edit: Specific examples: In the Garden of Eden, god gave a comfortable living in exhange for worship and no free will. As it is written, when man and woman gained free will, God threw them out of the garden because he was afraid of them, that they would eat of the tree of life and become his equal.
Later, God incited jealousy in Cain against his brother Abel. He was a contributing cause in Abel's death.
In Exodus, God continuously hardened Pharoh's heart so that he would not let Moses' people go and God would have an excuse to rain more plauges down on the largely innocent populace. His final act was to slaughter innocent children. We've had plenty of threads here already about how this type of terrorism is about the pinnacle of evil.
Later on, God commanded the Israelites to visit the Caananites with all manner of atrocity for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
God upheld the iniquitous, such as David, Lot, or Joseph, as long as they were doing his bidding. He unjustly punished the innocent if they got in his way.
God played a game with Job's life. After wrecking it, he gave him a new wife and family and all the other stuff back and thought that this made everything ok.
God meted out incredibly harsh punishments for not following his seemingly abitrary laws. He never explained any of them, other than, you do it because I'm god and will smite you if you don't.
That's how I see Yahweh, if you take him literally as he is written. You're free to disagree with me, but I'd ask that you then explain why what I see as incredibly evil things are actually signs of a beneficent deity.
[This message has been edited by MrSquicky (edited November 06, 2002).]
That's exactly the sort of information I'm digging for at the moment (when I'm not doing my actual work, that is). If you have any links or book titles you'd care to pass on, it would be much appreciated. I'm trying to find that information about both sets of invasions of Muslim territory.
Unfortunately, most of my knowledge of this subject came from various classes I took as an undergraduate, the notes for which were lost when my parents' house burned, along with handouts that would have contained bibliographical information, so I'm having to start from scratch.
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Islam did not consider the Crusades a major issue given that they won almost everytime. Islamic tradition was more open with the crusades than it was after the mogol hordes hit. I would have to say that the crusades really didn't have nearly the impact on an "us versus them" with christianity as the mogols did on an "us versus everyone".
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posted
Islam did not consider the Crusades a major issue given that they won almost everytime. Islamic tradition was more open with the crusades than it was after the mogol hordes hit. I would have to say that the crusades really didn't have nearly the impact on an "us versus them" with christianity as the mogols did on an "us versus everyone".
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posted
That's certainly what I took away from the various classes that touched on the subject Baldar. When you haven't studied something for the better part of a decade, though, it's always a good idea to go back and review the data to make sure you're recalling it correctly (note that I'm not saying that *you* haven't studied this recently--I'm talking about myself).
So, in the interests of speeding up my research, got any references, either web or paper based?
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Noemon, I got a couple of books from the library some time around March 2001 to read up on it, as I was on a philosophical progressions of non-western cultures kick around then. I don't really remember if this is one of the books I read (I'm awful with remembering books' titles), but The Crusades: Islamic Perspecives sounds a lot like it, especially with the poetry analysis.
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posted
*walks over and shakes dkw's hand* We may not always agree, but I must say I admire you very much.
I don't think we know the name of the most evil person who ever lived. I suspect that the most evil person who ever lived did many subtle things that deconstruct the best parts of life. You can kill a person only once, but you can tear him down over and over again. That, IMO, is worse. So I don't think we know the person who has been best at unmaking. Evil is far too sneaky and subtle to be caught for long.
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Squick- interpretation, interpretation interpretation. That is all that it comes down to. So you can see what I mean let us compare your interpretation of "Evil" OT God to mine:
quote:In the Garden of Eden, god gave a comfortable living in exhange for worship and no free will. As it is written, when man and woman gained free will, God threw them out of the garden because he was afraid of them, that they would eat of the tree of life and become his equal.
The Garden of Eden is symbolic of a choice all of us made before we were born to continue in God's presence where all things were perfect or to enter into this world where we would face sickness, evil and death with the benefit that by coming to earth we would learn to choose between good and evil and thus become as God- agents capable of freewill.
The part about kicking them out before they partook of the tree of life can be explained as follows: no unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God. By choosing to undergo the trials of mortal life Adam and Eve would become unclean as they made wrong choices and sinned. In order for them to be able to return to the presence of God there must be a way for them to first become cleansed (the atonement of Christ). If they could have become immortal while they were yet unclean they would in effect be shutting themselves off from the presence of God forever.
quote:Later, God incited jealousy in Cain against his brother Abel. He was a contributing cause in Abel's death.
I assume that you are referring to God accepting Abel's offering while rejecting Cain's. This was not God's doing but Cain's for two reasons: 1) Cain made the offering at Satan's behest showing who he had chosen as his master and 2) Cain made the wrong offering on purpose. The whole point of the burnt offerings was to point the minds of the people to Christ. All of the symbolism of the sacrifice of a lamb was the whole reason for the sacrifice. By making the wrong sacrifice Cain was doing the equivalent of hitting someone with a snowball and calling it a baptism- the whole reason for the ritual was in the symbolism.
quote:In Exodus, God continuously hardened Pharoh's heart so that he would not let Moses' people go and God would have an excuse to rain more plauges down on the largely innocent populace. His final act was to slaughter innocent children. We've had plenty of threads here already about how this type of terrorism is about the pinnacle of evil.
I agree that it is ridiculous that the Lord should harden Pharoah's heart. However, I believe that this is a result of translation/transcription error and that the verses should all read as they do in verses like Ex 7:22 And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments: and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the LORD had said.
As to the children of the Egyptians dying: it depends on how one views death. I personally do not see it as a great tragedy, nor do I think that God views it as such. If you think of it we will all die at some time as it fits into God's time table. It is no more evil for God to kill the children of the Egyptians in one fell swoop than it is for him to kill children one at a time from starvation or disease or what have you that kill children off today.
quote:God upheld the iniquitous, such as David, Lot, or Joseph, as long as they were doing his bidding. He unjustly punished the innocent if they got in his way
I don't know what you mean with this one. David was not only punished by the consequences of his evil actions which came back to rend the country with civil war, he also suffers the fate of all murderers.
I suppose that these examples will do. As I said in the beginning, it all depends on the interpretation of events; more so than the events themselves.
[This message has been edited by Jacare Sorridente (edited November 06, 2002).]
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