Re: logic makes a comeback

Bill Hamilton (hamilton@predator.cs.gmr.com)
Fri, 13 Jun 1997 10:38:06 -0400

At 5:31 PM -0400 6/12/97, Pim van Meurs wrote:
>I guess this makes nazism ok since the errors were corrected ?

I don't _think_ so. Does anyone else?

Hitler was a cynical opportunist. I doubt he held any religious views at
all. He used Christians, and perhaps he used atheists too. He was a
master of motivation by repetition and deceit (advertising texts today
still teach some of his motivational principles -- a point of embarrassment
to some advertising professors). It's not surprising that he was able to
deceive Christians for a time. And by the time many people realized how
evil he was, he had the coercive power of the state at his command. And of
course that helped him prolong his reign. But Jim's point -- which Pim
missed -- was that eventually Christians _did_ deal with nazism. If we are
to evaluate moral systems by their ability to _prevent_ evil from ever
occurring, then all moral systems fail.

Bill Hamilton
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William E. Hamilton, Jr, Ph.D. | Staff Research Engineer
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