Quote:
Originally Posted by whogo
The fact is if I went back and killed Hitler I would never have been born and then could not kill Hitler.
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Yup.
One big problem with this discussion is that it's taking the loser's viewpoint. The fact is a tyrannical dictator often comes out a winner, and his followers become winners too. Sometimes the society is changed for the better. Some person's scourge is always another person's liberator.
No one here has yet mentioned Generalissimo Franco of Spain yet, but he was just as much a bloodthirsty tyrant as Hitler, and was buddies with the guy with the toothbrush mustache. Franco was just smarter.
And because he was smarter, he was able to stay a dictator for the rest of his very long life. The same is true with Peron of Argentina, and a slew of others who arose at the same time Hitler. They weren't all drug addled maniacs. The same is true with the dictators who followed the dictators.
There are lots of countries that dictators rule today that have no other tradition of leadership, and they don't all suffer by a long shot.
There were other very long established middle eastern religions around before Muhammed. Christianity was only one of them. The reasons why Islam overwhelmed them all has very sound cultural and geographical reasons, and those reasons still persist to this day. Just like Mohammed, Jesus was only a man of his times,, preaching to his people, and was called a prophet. He's still called a prophet.
If Mohammed hadn't become the prophet, there would have been another prophet. All the religions of the middle east, including Christianity, are full of prophets living and dead. It is a common characteristic of all of them. No one can ever know how the other prophet's prophecy would have changed the region, for better or worse, but it would have still gained dominance.
How about the all the other religions where prophecy isn't a vital element? Like Hinduism, Buddhism, and others? They, too produced tyrants and dictators in the past and still do.
One guy's demon is another guy's saint. It is a biological imperative of our species.
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