How many of you believe that you are a more worthy candidate for salvation than Hitler was?
Bear in mind that, unlike Hitler, none of us here have the power of a modern state at our disposal, so the amount of harm we can do is in that sense limited by the grace of God.
If we get angry with someone in this forum, for example, we might say something nasty, but we are in no position to send the Gestapo after the person who offends us. Nor are we in a position, such as Hitler was, where our own weaknesses and prejudices can easily be transformed into political terror. The same weaknesses and prejudices may in fact be there, but we do not have available to us the same means of expressing them that Hitler had available to him.
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," said Lord Acton. But few of us have experienced even the temptations of political power, much less the temptations of "absolute" tyrannical power.
So how many here are utterly confident that in Hitler's precise circumstances you would have come off any better than he did?
Just wondering.
By: T. Talbott
If I had been born Hitler, I don't believe there would have been a Holocaust. People make choices.
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Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it. ~Chinese Proverb
When I was young and clever, I wanted to change the world. Now that I am older and wiser, I strive to change myself. ~
If I had been born Hitler, I don't believe there would have been a Holocaust. People make choices.
If you had been shaped by the same heritage, culture and temperment you would have just as likely done as he did.
__________________ For it is written, "As I live, says the Lord every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God. (Romans 14:11- NASB)
I do believe that these things shape us all. BUt you are basically saying he had no choice.
Not at all, he made those choice because of who he was, shaped by those things.
__________________ For it is written, "As I live, says the Lord every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God. (Romans 14:11- NASB)
I don't know. Millions were shaped by the same heritage, culture, and temperament without becoming "Hitler".
But they did not become the leader of one of the most powerful nations on the earth, therefore their deeds are not as notorious.
__________________ For it is written, "As I live, says the Lord every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God. (Romans 14:11- NASB)
But they did not become the leader of one of the most powerful nations on the earth, therefore their deeds are not as notorious.
Crak, he was making choices and forming opinions far more evil than most long before he became the leader. I don't think you can put the cart before the horse. Hitler was "Hitler" before he assumed power. You may even argue that that it what drove him to power.
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There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Chuck Norris lives in Houston.
Either the United States will destroy ignorance, or ignorance will destroy the United States. – W.E.B. DuBois
Crak, he was making choices and forming opinions far more evil than most long before he became the leader. I don't think you can put the cart before the horse. Hitler was "Hitler" before he assumed power. You may even argue that that it what drove him to power.
Agreed, again those choices and opinions would not have made a great impact had he not become Fuhrer.
__________________ For it is written, "As I live, says the Lord every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God. (Romans 14:11- NASB)
But they did not become the leader of one of the most powerful nations on the earth, therefore their deeds are not as notorious.
Anyone who kills thousands of people is going to become notorious because of their deeds.
Hitler was born a human being just like the rest of us, faced with the same choices as many others born in the same era, in the same culture. Many others chose good instead of evil, which leaves Hitler without an excuse.
Hitler could have chosen good, and when he chose evil, he could have chosen later to repent. As far as we know, he did neither.
He wasn't born helplessly evil. He was born with a choice. Therefore, God will hold him responsible for his choices, just as He does us.
Hitler was not unsavable. He could have chosen to repent. Did he? I don't know. It doesn't appear that he did.
It's the same as Peter and Judas--both betrayed Christ, but Peter repented, and Judas was either too proud to repent, or didn't have enough faith in the grace of God to repent. Either way--one repented and was forgiven, and another died without repenting. Basically the same sin, two different results.
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"God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours."
--David Livingstone
"To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither,
To see no possession but you may possess it—enjoying all without labor or purchase—
abstracting the feast, yet not abstracting one particle of it;…."
--Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Song of the Open Road
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