Would it be more divine to kill Hitler or to forgive him?
remember :
If you dont kill him, he wont stop killing, and the only way to stop him from killing the weak and the innocent is by killing him! the man has no heart and no emotions, thousands of children wrote him letters of love, that didnt stop him!
and If you dont forgive him , you are undermining the virtue of love and forgiveness! If you kill him, you are commiting the same crime that you are punishing him for!
so...Would it be more divine to kill Hitler or to forgive him?
please think on this question and then answer.
your time and answers are well appreciated! thank you.
2006-09-04 14:54:23 · 16 answers · asked by . 4 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
kill him
2006-09-04 14:55:55 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
An interesting question, but I dont see that killing someone as undermining love & forgiveness all the time.
Killing someone out of revenge or anger is stupid, and unacceptable, however, we know that Hitler was a maniac, bent on killing millions, so the question becomes, does the taking of one life to save many more balance up. I think it does, and I think it is a far greater act of love and kindness to spare the people Hitler affected by killing him (IF that really would spare those people), then let him live.
If killing him was not going to prevent or protect the people he killed (ie The Jews, The Slavs etc.) then it wouldnt be justified, because it would simply be an act of revenge, or hatred, though.
Unfortunately, the world isnt black & white, and one size fits all morals do not work.
2006-09-04 22:14:07 · answer #2 · answered by azza 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Forgiveness is not our choice to make. It is our responsibility to act in the better interest of those who cannot act for themselves. In this, as it is a higher virtue, would be best to act and kill Hitler, and leave the forgiveness, of both Hitler and ourselves, to a higher understanding (god, or what have you). The question of divinity is in this sense answered-to forgive is implicitly divine in your question, and so is the act of killing. Because we can clearly kill, this is a viable option. But can we truly forgive, or is that the task of another, higher, being? Because of this, we are left with the only choice of killing Hitler, simply because we are not capable of truly embracing forgiveness. So, even if it is not a higher virtue to kill Hitler like I stated in the beginning, it doesn't matter, because we, as humans, cannot comprehend forgiveness in it's fullest sense.
2006-09-04 22:40:00 · answer #3 · answered by amiaigner 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Love and forgiveness are irrelevant to the situation , feelings of this sort should never affect peoples ability to be objective when it comes to make decisions like the one being discussed.
If knew that Hitler is a person who will kill a bunch of innocent people (at least most of them keep in mind it is possible that some of them were bad people too) I would not hesitate to kill him for one second. It is important to keep in mind that it doesn't matter the persons intentions or their mental problems or anything like that. The truth of the matter is that he is indeed a bad person and he deserves to be stopped otherwise he will cause a lot of damage. So to your question my answer is : I will kill him.
2006-09-04 22:37:33 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I read your question over and over and it seems you left out the clarity of this classic question...do you kill him before his reign of murder and terror or after it has begun? Your 1st paragraph states that he won't stop killing...indicating he has already begun his legacy of hate and murder. In that case...easy, kill him even if it means your own life would be lost.
Now, if he hasn't started killing yet, a tougher question. But since we know what has to happen it would seem the obvious answer would still be to kill the bastard.
There is however one empirical consideration. Most students WWII and the Nazi command realize that if Hitler had let his well trained and dedicated generals run the war at worst, the Nazi's would have sued for peace prior to D-Day and kept control of Europe and north Africa, possibly to this day. This is substantiated by the July 20, 1944 plot to assianate Hitler by major leaders of his Wehrmacht's at the Wolfsschanze. Obviously it failed and his personal security was increased to prevent further attempts. By the way, most people don't realize that this was the 3rd attempt on his life.
So, who is to say killing Hitler; the obvious choice in my book; might actually have shaped most of the world as he had wanted. When you put all the parts into play the decision isn't so clear.
Me, I wouldn't hesitate to bullet the trigger before or after he started world devastation.
2006-09-04 22:53:46 · answer #5 · answered by iraq51 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"undermining the virtue of love and forgiveness"
You are asserting that those have an innate virtue.. That is an assumption based on your perspective..
As such, other perspectives will have much less trouble accepting the trade-off of kill one to save millions..
This kind of scenarios are like two weights connected by a rope and hanging from a pulley: no matter where you cut the rope, both weights will fall..
Is there really a point to this mental exercise?
:-)
2006-09-04 22:48:00 · answer #6 · answered by Andreba 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If I had my opportunity Hitler would be just another SIDS statistic of the late 19th Century.
Lets see........ kill 1 to save 10s of Millions ........ You mean there's actually a choice there?
Then we could add Stalin, Pol Pot, The Emperor of Japan(pre WW2 to the list just to name a few.
If to forgive is divine then I'll leave that to God.
2006-09-04 22:45:42 · answer #7 · answered by pejon60 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
More divine to kill as it would be the slaying of one to save millions. I don't think forgiveness should be the mandatory thing that some people think it should be if ones actions are truly unforgiveable.
2006-09-04 22:21:06 · answer #8 · answered by LadyRebecca 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You are right.
It is definitely more divine to forgive Adolf Hitler,
but I'm not divine at all. I'm not the better person
than a pacifist...I'm glad that he committed suicide.
Otherwise I would hope that he'd be killed the
same as Mussolini.
2006-09-04 22:04:06 · answer #9 · answered by chance 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Kill him so he could kill no more, would have been good, but we did not get that chance. He was a monster, and deserved to die. Just think what this world would be like if succeed in what he was doing, cloneing people to make the "Perfect Race" That would have been his goal.
2006-09-04 22:19:15 · answer #10 · answered by Dotties 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Killing one to save millions, no thought there. Kill Hitler.
2006-09-04 22:00:26 · answer #11 · answered by mysticideas 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋