-- Tom Vogt:
Weird, a couple thousand years of history disagree with you. until the very recent past, pretty much everyone was sure that killing enemies, unbelievers or other people isn't "evil". probably isn't even "murder".
James A. Donald:
If you are confused about the difference between war and peace, you must be seriously confused about a lot of things.
Tom Vogt:
the above holds true for both, peace and wartimes.
Baloney. That is the "everyone else is doing it" excuse. Not everyone else is doing it. Those that were doing it, were monsters, and decent people had no hesitation in saying so, centuries ago as much as today. See, for example Saint Thomas Aquinas on the persecution of jews. Tom Vogt:
remember that many more non-germans died in WW2 than germans. we really shouldn't use body-count as a measure of truth.
James A. Donald:
Remembering that both german and non german deaths were caused by germans, we should use body count as a measure of evil.
Tom Vogt:
body count not of those who died, but of those who killed? yeah, that works for WW2. does it work for vietnam?
Sure. When the US fled, the killing escalated and spread, rather than diminished, showing that the cause of the war was communist aggression, something that had not been altogether clear before the US was defeated. Tom Vogt:
your point is? that the percentage of "friendly fire" defines what is right and what is wrong?
James A. Donald:
Friendly fire is an accident, an error. The murder of commies by commies and nazis by nazis was planned from the very beginning.
Tom Vogt:
so he who murders his brother is by definition evil? with or without a look at his reasons?
We know well the reasons why commies murdered commies and nazis murdered nazis.
you didn't answer my two core questions,
I have answered them repeatedly, and I will answer them yet again, but I expect you will keep on asking them anyway.
so I'll present them again in a short and easily digestable form:
1.) those you call "evil" will often see things the other way around. how do you resolve this issue without circular reasoning? (i.e. without saying that their judgement doesn't count because they're "evil")
Evil people are likely to do hurtful things (bad things) to me unless I get them first. Normal people will not do hurtful things to me unless I do bad things to them first. Hence my use of nazis, commies, and murder as illustrations and examples of evil. As I would point to the a particular piece of iron to define all iron, to define the category iron, in the same way I point to murder, nazis, and commies to define all evil, to define the category evil.
2.) if "evil" is objective, there ought to be an objective measurement that can be applied to answer the question of a given person being "good" or "evil". name this measurement.
See above. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 8szZeDQTARHFucMutKJJR/1rZ8k8hE1qhaaLa0DW 4c9IgbooyDMdUBDWP+X/wZH4kjYylqNZHDDk06v59