If we didn't have Nazi's, what would we compare evil people to?

Question

If the Nazi's (an evil and disgusting regime) had never existed, then what would we call a person we felt was just as evil as them?

The point? How do you know what evil is without a comparison?

So it looks like most of you would just choose another evil group of people from history and use that as a comparison, is that right?
Except of course for Jibba, who is a drowning in a sea of cultural relativism.

Answer 1

When we compare ourselves,by ourselves,we often don't seem so bad,however,If we all compared ourselves with Jesus,then we would understand our hopless condition without his righteousness.

We are all in this together and though it is true that few of us embody the level of depravity of a Hitler,Stalin,or Pol Pot...none of us could cast the first stone at anyone....Thank God for his mercy and grace.

The more accurate guage,would be in comparing evil with good.

Answer 2

I think we need those examples of real evil to make the mistakes we all make look less evil. I mean, how many times have you heard someone excuse some real villain by saying "Well, he wasn't as bad as Hitler"? They count up the number of dead and compare, or they consider how brutal the deaths were, and they can't find an example of one as bad as Hitler.

So what? Does that excuse them? Does that make their crimes less criminal? You could use Stalin or Idi Amin or Osama ben Laden, but the difference is not significant. Evil is evil, and we must fight against it. Comparisons are useless.

Answer 3

Well, lets see... how about those who led the spanish inquisition, the people of Sodom and Gamorrah, the Hitites, the Vandals, the Persians, the Romans, the Huns, the Mongols, the Celts, the English, the Americans, Rosie O'Donnell. There have been evil men all throughout history. The Nazis were only one of many! Take your pick.

Answer 4

nah there have been other mass murders like the nazi's it was just the most recent and ended up with a world war, odds are we would just find another group. Humans can naturally find someone who has hurt them and put them in as an evil. odds are you could probably think of someone you personally know who you could say evil is like them

Answer 5

There are plenty of people every bit as evil as nazis. There are islamicists that torture and behead people because they wont convert to Islam. There are Hamas snipers that shoot at Jewish schoolchildren. (They had to erect barriers around many of the playgrounds) They are unspeakable acts of violence in Africa. The nazis are just referenced often because they were the most successfull in the shortest amount of time.

We know what evil is because God has shared it with our souls and gives many examples in Scripture.

The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the alien, denying them justice. -Ezekial 22:29

They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane my holy name. -Amos 2:7

Answer 6

I suppose we'd compare them to the inquisitors. Calling someone a Nazi just has a certain ring to it.

Evil is any act committed that leads to the destruction of another, without necessarily leading to their death. An abusive husband who breaks his wife's spirit, or an abusive parent who destroys any chance of a child leading a normal life is every bit as evil as a mass murderer.

Answer 7

There is a lot of Genocide like Saddam Hussein, Osama Binladen, Stallen from Russia was almost just as bad back in the same days as Hitler, he just wasn't talked about as much.
Also there is some bad Genicide in Africa to and still going on now.

Answer 8

You can compare Nazi-era Germans today with all liberals, all gay men who do not whack off their male thing, women who don't raise the toilet seat up, all atheists, all people of another color or race, Canadians, the owners of Wal-Mart, all 71-year-old disabled Shakespearean actors, and children who live in California and do not call their dad on the other side of the continent, dammit. Did I say Canadians?

Answer 9

Funny thing about the nazis is that they weren't all that different from the british, they even tried to immitate them. Just read some about Churchill, his view on mentally retard people and the iraqi kurds for example. An inherently racist fellow, yet he is not considered "evil and disgusting".

Answer 10

'Good' is a perfect comparison to evil.

But if you really want an event in history, try the crusades (known as the professionalised slaughter). "Attempts by European Christians to impose their vision of religion upon Jews, Orthodox Christians, heretics, Muslims, and just about anyone else who happened to get in the way.

Taking the heads of slain enemies and impaling them upon pikes appears to have been a favorite pastime among crusaders. I myself fail to find the fun in that, but I have been cautioned not to judge people living in another time by my own modern standards. Chronicles record a story of a crusader-bishop who referred to the impaled heads of slain Muslims as a joyful spectacle for the people of God.

When Muslim cities were captured by Christian crusaders, it was standard operating procedure for all inhabitants - no matter what their age - to be summarily killed. It is not an exaggeration to say that the streets ran red with blood as Christians reveled in church-sanctioned horrors. Jews who took refuge in their synagogues would be burned alive, not unlike the treatment they received in Europe."