Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

asterix · Joined: 26 Jan 2003 Posts: 1654

On a point of order: You cannot criticise anything without judging it.
One nation's "truth" is another nation's lies.
"History is bunk." Henry Ford

Grumbeliot · Joined: 21 Apr 2004 Posts: 2

Hitler was a killer. He had too many reasons against the Jews, but they don't justify such a mass killing.

coffeedecafe · Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 140 Location: michigan,usa

it is hard to properly define truth, but truth itself is more obtainable than any useful moral code or even humanity in man without it.
and yes, judgement is a neccessary part of criticism. henry ford made good cars, for instance, yet if i were to check the writings of different authors regarding his life, i would find areas of disagreement between them.
the dictionary would probably define truth as that which is, or seems, true.
to say truth does not exist, or is unknowable is to remove from you the abiblity to tell apples from lemons. we have senses, and we use them. we gather witnesses and weigh the value of each testimony.
history is not bunk, it is only under=reported. the full scope of truth is unknowable because its scope is so vast. whatever we learn that is accurate witness of the creator and his universe is truth. the rockets to the moon were guided my mathematic truth.
and though our intellects cannot absorb all truth, we can recognize truth in kind. truth presents itself differently than evil. hitler was evil.
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coffeedecafe

Anxious Heart · Joined: 02 Dec 2003 Posts: 91

@coffeedecafe
That's what I wanted to know. You define truth in the empirical way with a touch of God.
So this statement was useful to understand your thoughts above. It is senseless to discuss about something, if we mean to different things Wink

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"An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind." Mahatma Gandhi

coffeedecafe · Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 140 Location: michigan,usa

yup, i am imperical. i just keep trying to stack up facts like bricks to make fireplaces and benches and garden edgings, but i have long since admitted that the world of soil and the world of ideas both extend beyond my grasp. Crying or Very sad

that is not such a bad thing. my responsibility now is my ability, and no farther. then the 'touch of god' is the hands where i place everything that must be handled by a greater.
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coffeedecafe

Anxious Heart · Joined: 02 Dec 2003 Posts: 91

coffeedecafe · Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 140 Location: michigan,usa

i can't blame the typewriter for that one, it was a plain old mispelll.
glad you liked it anyway. the direction Rolling Eyes

the direction my thoughts were heading maybe i should have gone with 'empyrean' instead. thats just above emu in my dictionary.
sure, if you want to start a topic- you go first!
i'll try to keep up with you if i can.we are a way off hitler aren't we?
i don't think he can be dicussed easily without turning to words like good and evil.
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coffeedecafe

Birthe · Joined: 03 May 2004 Posts: 5 Location: germany

I think Hitler was the most terrible, crazy, brutal ashole .. I can't understand the people, who believe in his lies till today!! I'm from Germany and I'm very often at demonstrations against Nazis and faschism .. many people do so too , but often there are people, who can't understand us und they only think we would create chaos . I think the people must have more information, what they can do agains this Neo-Nazis. join & support your local antifa

coffeedecafe · Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 140 Location: michigan,usa

unfortunately he is not the only one who has used persuasion to hurt multitudes for the sake of their own ego. i do not even give him the credit for being unique. he was just one more failure in a long line of want-to-be geniuses.
trying to rule from hate toward success is not reasonable or intelligent
he tried to find a group to blame when he was shown to be an inadequate leader.
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coffeedecafe

Nausicaa · Joined: 03 Jun 2004 Posts: 14 Location: Italy

well,I'm Italian and I know lots of things about it.Italy and germany were together,weren't they?in my opinion Mussolini and Hitler were quite similar,they were both dictators,extreme right party,and they were allied.i think that the genocide has been the worst thing in the whole history...what a fool thing!!NOBODY has the right to kill peaple..and after all,I don't think that the Germans are much better than the Jews!!what do they have of so important and better to have the right to kill the Jews???the Jews were honest and right peaple,their only one defect was that they were too rich and so,the Germans,sure to deserve the Jew's beans,killed them in a horrible and disgusting way..i think that neither an animal would deserve to be killed like this!that's really obscene!
and Hitler was totally mad..and Mussolini,too.he became friend of Hitler,sure to be allied with the most important,and when the Americans arrived,he changed his preference and stabbed in the back Hitler...and so the germans killed lots of italian innocent peaple....and that't shameful..all the war has been shameful...
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I'm 15 from Italy,high school student and I play the piano in an academy.I love the music

coffeedecafe · Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 140 Location: michigan,usa

this _way_ over 15 yr old piano player who plays for love of it and sometimes for church will now respond:
much of history is forgotten. the farther back it is the less it is told. hitler and mussolini, and saddam of today were adolescents in the arts of fear and lack of love for the human race. we can point to attilla the hun, stalin, lenin,mao, nebuchanezzar of babylon, alexander the pompous- who told daddies little pet alex that he was so great he had a right to disrupt the lives of the people of so many nations? napoleon, others. some remembered for a little while, some already forgotten. that is a good thing.
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coffeedecafe

glenda · Joined: 29 Jun 2004 Posts: 21 Location: China

Hitler is cool but cruel.
I don't like him because he's not nice-looking. Cool

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Innocent is beauty.
Truth is love.
I love music.
Music is larger than life.

coffeedecafe · Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 140 Location: michigan,usa

i think cruel cannot be cool. as far as good looking, that is putting your opinion of the value of the gift on the appearance of the wrapping paper. what a farmer sows is what he will harvest. the seed of cruelty is a poison that seeps into the life of the sower. the worship of power is only slightly less harmful.
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coffeedecafe

guDga · Joined: 17 Aug 2004 Posts: 15 Location: lithuania

1. What is your nationality?

Lithuanian

2. What do you know about the Holocaust?

for a while, Lithuania was in nazists hands, so there was a holocaust in my country. I have once read a very good book written by a Lithuanian who survived in a concetration camp called something like �holy forest� or �holy wood�(I do not know how in german) . he wrote that book with sarcasm and irony and I think he survived that camp only by being yronic. I am afraid it is not translated into any other languages.

Maybe at least some of you will know this, but I would like to talk about concentration camps a little. when people would come to a concentration camp, all of their things would be taken from them. The guards would get as much of them as they can. Asthat writer writes, they would very carfuly search everyone, undress them and search for their treasures in prisoners mouths, hands and etc. Guards would even get prisoners golden teeth out of their mouths! Every prisoner would get a mark showing if he is jewish, political prisoner and etc. They would sleep in barracks where they did not even have space to move. Every night 3 or 4 people in each barrack would die. every morning guards would carry the bodies of those who have died to burn. it is said, that they would send the ashes to the relatives, if they want, but trully it was, that when they burn them, they would get all the bodies in one place, burn them and then just get some ashes from a pile and send them. If relatives would send some food for their loved ones, there was a very small chance that they would get it, because prisoners who had to work with mail would get as many things as they can and guards would take some too.There are much more things about that, but I have written enough.

3. What is your honest opinion about Jews?

I have know opinion. they r people like everyone else is and they are not any special.

4. Do you believe that there are any races/nationalities/people that are superior to others?

no.

5. Do you think a country can have a right for a genocide (the act of killing a large group of people from the same nationality), under certain circumstences?

no.

6. What were you taught in school about Hitler?

i am still in school right now and we have learned only general things yet.

7. What is your honest opinion of Hitler and the nazi ideology?

i will not surprise anyone by saying that he was a psychophat

8. What do most people in your country (as far as you know) think of Hitler? Of the Jews?

as far as i know most people in my country are not racists, yet jews are the most hatd nayion in here. I personally do not know anyone who would despite them.

9. The true definition of Judaism is a religion; however, in Europe it used to be viewed as a nationality, even a race. How do you yourself view it? Majority of people in your country?

of course it is a religion, yet to most lithuanians a jew is a race.

10. If you were a non-Jewich German living in Germany during the era of the Third Reich, do you think you'd have become a National Socialist? If so, please explain why.

right now i would say no way, but back then, who knows? people looked at him with different look back then, he WAS a heroe then.(at least to some)

11. how do you think Germany (as well as other members of the axis) should deal with the actions carried out by the nazis during the third reich? Do you think it should pay reperations? Strongly support Israel? Strongly teach children against racism? do nothing? anything else?

what has germany got in common with this? all the countries that were under the hand of nazis now are paying for the jews because of that. Lithuania is no exeption. although those , whose loved ones died now got money, but what can money do against the pain of loss.

P.S.(about jews and Jesus) Let us say some new psychophat starts to slay jews because they killed Jesus, but let us also say that Jesus comes to life againand let me remind you, that Jesus was a jew, so he would probably live as a jew again. Let us now say, that the psychophat kills Jesus because his ancestores once killed him. Would that make sense?

P.P.S. I just wanted to say that Jesus was a jew so jews should not be killed for him and beside�s, Jesus wanted to die for us. If he did not, he could have easily avoided that, because he knew what was going to happen.

P.P.P.S. sorry for mistakes