What do you consider to be the most abhorent atrocity in human history?

[Eran of Arcadia]

Let's put apart the fact that the scribes of the day are willing to lie about Joshua's attempted Genocide of the Canaanites for a moment, as preposterous as that it is, and focus on surviving letters of communication between the Canaanites and Egyptians that ask for help against the Israelite invasions, and the Archeological evidence that shows two cities to have been destroyed and subsequent Israelite artefacts that are deposited there.

Now I ask why would the Jews claim such a war happened when it would of been in there best advantage, if they were going to lie, to cover up the atrocity? Are you really telling me it was all just a fairy tale?

Gotta love the bible some of it's literal some of it's alegorical some parable, but if there's anything in there which is meant to be historical fact then it's lies(my question is how do we tell? Or is this decided by what is convenient or least troubling to your beliefs?) Cmon pull the other one it's got bells on, too much corroborating evidence to dismiss it as a fantasy.



It's Temujin, and everyone on God's Earth knows that, besides he was the only Genghis Kahn, and the only man to sweep across Asia into western Europe? Was that not clear enough?

From my understanding (and I was just reading this in my history textbook the other day) the Israelites did indeed destroy a few cities, as was the practice in those days, but didn't initiate a wholesale slaughter as claimed. In fact, the point of putting it in the Book of Joshua was to show Israel's failure in wiping them out, which later prophets would put as the cause for Israel's idol worship.

And for what it's worth: My entire faith does not depend on the Bible, certainly not the Old Testament. If the Bible makes a historical claim that is not backed by the evidence, I see no problem with rejecting it without discarding everything that the Bible says.

 

[Phlegmak]

Overall, it's way too hard for me to come up with a single worst atrocity. The first thing I thought of was Bush's war in Iraq. Even though we'll be seeing the effects of that for generations, it's hard for me to say that's the most atrocious thing.

Sidhe: Yup you've hit the nail on the head with those wretched bankers. I have to deal with these punks everyday and you're on it totally. Are you familiar with the influence the Rothschild banking family had on the British Empire? Well worth a read up for confirmation on your points. That's for you too Lambert.

This made me think of something I ran into. Before the Iraq war started, I asked my investment broker if she was against or for the war. She was in favor of it. I asked why. She said wars are good for business. I'm summarizing of course, but that's what she said. No mention of freeing Iraqis, or capturing Saddam, or attacking terrorism. Just that it was good for business.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

The 2003 invasion of Iraq cannot be even close to the biggest atrocity ever. Do you really think that this is the first time that an unjust war was started on faulty pretexts? It's not even the first time the US has done it - we picked a fight with the Mexicans so we could take half their territory, and we picked a fight with the Spanish to sell newspapers. Not to mention all of those other countries that have invaded each other and so on.

 

[El_Machinae]

She said wars are good for business.

I can't see how it's good for long term business, just short-term. She was expecting to make good commission as people switched investments over to different strategies. But long-term, war can very easily be the broken-window fallacy.

To answer the OP, I'd have to say the on-going genocides. Mainly because you and I are, today and right now, doing piss all to stop it. We can't change that holocaust happened, we can save people's lives. And we aren't.

 

[IglooDame]

The 2003 invasion of Iraq cannot be even close to the biggest atrocity ever. Do you really think that this is the first time that an unjust war was started on faulty pretexts? It's not even the first time the US has done it - we picked a fight with the Mexicans so we could take half their territory, and we picked a fight with the Spanish to sell newspapers. Not to mention all of those other countries that have invaded each other and so on.

Indeed. If nothing else, US vs. VietNam beats US vs. Iraq hands-down in every "atrocity-related" category. And neither of them are even on the same page as the various genocides and democides that are in the poll.

 

[Sidhe]

From my understanding (and I was just reading this in my history textbook the other day) the Israelites did indeed destroy a few cities, as was the practice in those days, but didn't initiate a wholesale slaughter as claimed. In fact, the point of putting it in the Book of Joshua was to show Israel's failure in wiping them out, which later prophets would put as the cause for Israel's idol worship.

And for what it's worth: My entire faith does not depend on the Bible, certainly not the Old Testament. If the Bible makes a historical claim that is not backed by the evidence, I see no problem with rejecting it without discarding everything that the Bible says.

Akk ok so we are meant to ignore the entire book of Jeramiah because it's BS(honestly in your bible what messages are we suposed to believe, if they lie wholeheartedly about history, which parts are BS and which are true? You can't have your cake and eat it) And history says they did more than that, archeology presents two cities, Egyptian texts suggest an attempt at genocide, go do some research please.

I would imagine your history book is some sort of fundemetalist claptrap. I apologise if you don't live in a mostly fundementalist community in advance, but really I tire of the fundementalist rewriting of history are you really so insecure in your faith that you need to claim that muslims follow a different God, the world is 6000 years old and that whatever message you find troubling can be rewritten in text books? JH Christ, I honestly have no idea where they dig this stuff up form, this is historically accepted?

Are you even able to think for yourself, or do you have your religious bigots hand you everything on a plate? In order to forgo the truth? Good lord the more claptrap you hear the less you can take these people seriously, there just existing in a world of delusion and bigotry, it's quite sickening, mostly because I get the message from Christians I know that is completely opposite. They just say yeah it happened as joshua said it did and say that times were different, Joshua was living in a time where war and hate lead to genocide. They don't try and rewrite the bible to present new messages, this is just why bother talking to fundies, they'll pervert everything to fit there BS. No wonder fundementalists argue more amongst themselves than they do with the majority body of their christian faith, there constantly pulling stuff out of their arse?

Only the stuff in the bible we say is true is true: the message is sound because we can change whatever message we wish to fit whatever facts we deem fit: believe: we have the message and we will change it at will, gospel is gospel, but the rest of the bible is subject to change according to our ideology, oh and sooner or later we'll pervert gospel too, just give us something to argue against and we'll claim that compassion is only tennable for true believers la la land

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Akk ok so we are meant to ignore the entire book of Jeramiah because it's BS(honeslty in your bible what messages are we suposed to believe, if they lie wholeheartedly about history, which parts are BS and which are true? You can't have your cake and eat it) And history says they did more than that, archeology presents two citites, Egyptian texts suggest an attempt at genocide, go do some research please.

I would imagine your history book is some sort of fundemetalist claptrap. I apologise if you don't live in a mostly fundementalist community in advance, but really I tire of the fundementalist rewriting of history are you really so insecure in your faith that you need to claim that muslims follow a different God, the world is 6000 years old and that whatever message you find troubling can be rewritten in text books? JH Christ, I honestly have no idea where they dig this stuff up form, this is historically accepted?

Are you even able to think for yourself, or do you have your religious bigots hand you everything on a plate? In order to forgo the truth? Good lord the more claptrap you hear the less you can take these people seriously, there just existing in a world of delusion and bigotry, it's quite sickening, mostly because I get the message from Christians I know that is completely opposite. They just say yeah it happened as joshua said it did and say that times were different, Joshua was living in a time where war and hate lead to genocide. They don't try and rewrite the bible to present new messages, this is just why bother talking to fundies, they'll pervert everything to fit there BS. No wonder fundementalists argue more amongst themselves than they do with the majority body of their christian faith, there constantly pulling stuff out of their arse?

Only the stuff in the bible we say is true is true: the message is sound because we can change whatever message we wish to fit whatever facts we deem fit: believe: we have the message and we will change it at will, gospel is gospel, but the rest of the bible is subject to change according to our ideology, oh and sooner or later we'll pervert gospel too, just give us something to argue against and we'll claim that compassion is only tennable against believers la la land

Good heavens man, have you ever read any of my posts? I am no fundamentalist. The book to which I referred is called, I believe, Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths by Karen Armstrong. It does take a look at Jerusalem in religious terms, but I think that it is historically valid. From what I can see, all known archeological evidence indicates that the Israelites wiped out some cities, but not in the massive scale suggested by the Book of Joshua.

I will also note that it is not really necessary to choose between a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible and rejecting the whole thing, but that is a religious issue and this is a historical thread.

 

[Sidhe]

Ok I'm provoking, but I really want to know why the bible suggests genocide when history suggests otherwise, what reason would there be for doing so? Also it was attempted genocide that they claimed they had to do in the name of God; why would God ask them to destroy an entire race? It just doesn't make sense? Why is the bible so full of inacuracy?

The fact is if you look at the attacks on Cananites you can see there intentions to destroy them whole heartedly, the fact that they rewrote the history to say that they did means? Think carefully

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

The ruthless destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria, setting back sciencetific achievement centuries.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Ok I'm provoking, but I really want to know why the bible suggests genocide when history suggests otherwise, what reason would there be for doing so? Also it was attempted genocide that they claimed they had to do in the name of God; why would God ask them to destroy an entire race? It just doesn't make sense? Why is the bible so full of inacuracy?

The fact is if you look at the attacks on Cananites you can see there intentions to destroy them whole heartedly, the fact that they rewrote the history to say that they did means? Think carefully

As far as I can tell, the writer(s) of the Book of Joshua wanted to remind the Israelites that they got their idol worship from the Canaanites. They are suggesting that this wouldn't have been a problem if they had wiped out the Canaanites.

As for why this inaccuracy? Well, remember that history in those days was prone to exaggeration and glorifying one's own nation (so glad we are past that ) so it seems natural that if a historian wanted to criticize a nation for picking up bad habits from another, they would say that they were supposed to have wiped them out.

Although I also think it could have been, theoretically, an order from God. If God gave us life, He could decide when to take it away, and if it served His purpose that a particular group died all at once rather than over a generation, so what?

 

[Sidhe]

Well exactly but what your saying is blasphemy, your saying that the bible lied outrageously in the cause of propoganda?(in previous times making half a claim of that would get you burned for a heritic) If you think about it would not the people who included these books in the bible knowing full well they were out and out lies of had serious doubts about doing something so morally lacking. The message of intolerance of corrupting evil influences of other races is not so damming as the one that the people who wrote the bible were capable of out and out bare faced lies. What else about the bible is sheer nonsense I wonder?

You can't have your cake and eat it, either the bible is all 100% true, or you make it clear it is a parable or alegory, or it has no credence as a religous text, after all how are we suposed to know what message to follow when the examples given are lies?

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

This is of course a question to which there is no correct answer. Everyone will reflect their own bias in answering. I’ll be showing mine in all its seedy glory below.

One thing I want to mention first is that these atrocities need to be assessed and evaluated within the prevailing moral context of their time if we’re to understand how ‘atrocious’ they really were to the people who suffered them.

It’s very easy for us to sit at our PCs today and say, “bashing people over the head with a club is an atrocious way to do business” or “putting someone’s head on a pole outside a conquered city is atrocious”. These activities were often, simply, what people did. They were the norm. So the sight of a head on a pole may be atrocious to our eyes today, but let’s bear in mind that this was common practise to state your arrival as the new overlord. Genghis was not alone in his bloodthirstiness or massacring of enemies, but he was a whole better than anyone else of his time at it. So we remember him as an atrocious barbarian and forget how sick and twisted everyone was in those times.



I would say that truly atrocious acts are those they stand out markedly from the prevailing moral consensus of the time. They are acts which set new precedents in how utterly depraved, twisted and malicious the human race has become.

With this in mind, I’d like to offer the following:

If I had to cast one vote and one vote alone, it would be for this first one…

- Our current system of global trade: We abolished slavery a long time ago, yet we still enslave whole communities and populations with this imbalanced trade relationship. By ‘enslave’ I mean that these people have no hope of escape from a life of famine, lack of water, lack of power, warfare, disease and so on. They have no hope of escape and the situation is ours in the making every time we step down to our local supermarket and pick up that super cheap deal that we ‘just gotta have’. It’s not quite so obvious as a Holocaust but this twisted, unjust trade system we have has killed and continues to kill more people than Stalin, Mao or Hitler ever managed. And it’s happening today. How many people died from such a system while I was typing these words I wonder?

- People Trafficking: This is our modern day equivalent to slavery and it’s a direct result of the point above.

- American Segregation and South African Apartheid: Again, this ran right up into the 1960s in the first case and the 1980s in the second!! After all the work of so many in the Enlightenment, after millennia of religious leaders preaching ‘love to all’, after the colonial era had fallen away and after movements like the Suffragettes – these two countries still believed it justifiable to treat whole sections of their own population like animals. That’s atrocious in my book.

- Hiroshima & Nagasaki: For all the American propaganda about those ‘evil’ Soviets, it was the US who dropped the bombs, not the evils Ruskies. They were the ones who wiped out whole cities, communities and generations. For all the ‘evil’ propaganda, the Soviets never stooped so low as to unleash such godlessness on others. Once more, a totally new immoral precedent was set with this act and we are still living with the consequences of that today ie. Iran.

- Gitmo: ~ I won’t go into detail for obvious reasons but the treatment and flouting of widely accepted laws and morals is once again, atrocious. It bucks sharply against the prevailing moral views of its time.

- Enron & Corporate corruption in general: This is quite atrocious but perhaps is unworthy of the list under my criteria, unworthy because this does not seem to conflict that much with any prevailing moral view atm. It just is the way. But this affects millions of people’s lives around the world in highly detrimental ways.

Well, my full views are in post #98, but I want to address a couple of these.

Regarding the nuclear bombs. I think you are breaking your own rule here and using modern day PC against something that happened during a horrible war. More civilians died during the Battle of Okinawa than during either of the bombings; far more civilians died during the war in fire bombing of other cities, the European holocaust, the Japanese rampages in various Asian cities, etc. I can list a few dozen worse attrocities just from WW II; it was a total war and it was horrible. Yep, big, nasty bomb; but not nearly as attrocious as many other things that occured during just WWII.

Agree with you on modern human slavery as one of the top events because we all sit fat, dumb and happy ignoring it; but not on all the reasons it occurs. While I agree that American segregation was attrocious and is worthy of making the list, it is again putting modern PC on events from half a century ago. It has been a long process for minorities to get their just rights that took way too long; and we still have a long way to go for real equality. While this is a horrible event, I don't consider it nearly as bad as sitting fat, dumb and happy at home while genocides (or mass murders if someone wants to quibble) take/took place in Bosnia, Rwanda, East Timor, Sudan and other locations.

 

[HawkeyeGS]

Other: War. What else could it be?

 

[Rambuchan]

Well, my full views are in post #98, but I want to address a couple of these.

Regarding the nuclear bombs. I think you are breaking your own rule here and using modern day PC against something that happened during a horrible war. More civilians died during the Battle of Okinawa than during either of the bombings; far more civilians died during the war in fire bombing of other cities, the European holocaust, the Japanese rampages in various Asian cities, etc. I can list a few dozen worse attrocities just from WW II; it was a total war and it was horrible. Yep, big, nasty bomb; but not nearly as attrocious as many other things that occured during just WWII.

Sorry to be brief but I've addressed this already. It's not about the number of people killed, that's deceptively sensational. It's about:

- The manner in which they were killed: Ghastly solar blast of radiation, often leaving horrific, Frankenstein-like after effects on the pitiful survivors. No one was doing this kind of damage to civilians with their weapons until those bombs were dropped. Exactly the same reasons why we were so keen to stop Saddam from using those chemical weapons, wherever they are now.

- The precedents that were set in doing so: No one had dared to drop an A bomb before, that's what puts in its historical context. But today, nations like Iran can now say, 'well he did it, I have a right to also.'

- The effects on the world politics thereafter: Present day non-proliferation wrangling.

You'll see that my all haloed criteria remain unbreached

Agree with you on modern human slavery as one of the top events because we all sit fat, dumb and happy ignoring it; but not on all the reasons it occurs. While I agree that American segregation was attrocious and is worthy of making the list, it is again putting modern PC on events from half a century ago. It has been a long process for minorities to get their just rights that took way too long; and we still have a long way to go for real equality. While this is a horrible event, I don't consider it nearly as bad as sitting fat, dumb and happy at home while genocides (or mass murders if someone wants to quibble) take/took place in Bosnia, Rwanda, East Timor, Sudan and other locations.

Disagree with my bolding and I've pointed out why in the section you quoted. That section reads:

"After all the work of so many in the Enlightenment, after millennia of religious leaders preaching ‘love to all’, after the colonial era had fallen away and after movements like the Suffragettes"

Hardly, modern PC notions. These are old ideas of equality and these two apartheid nations preferred to exist in the distant past, rather than paying heed to the wealth of very fine philosophical, political and social arguments to suggest they shold join the modern world in the treatment of their citizens.

Betazed: Glad I could get you interested in the thread. You ask for more info, but it has been sitting beneath your nose everytime you read a post of mine. Very first link in the signature dude

http://www.globalissues.org/

See the "Trade Related Issues" section on the left of the page that opens. Enjoy!

 

[Dragonlord]

Interesting that the thread topic and the poll don't match!

'Most abhorrent atrocity': Hands down the Holocaust, if only for the cold-bloodedness of that industrialized and bureaucratized murder.. 'nuff said.

Though Stalin's murders come a close second... deliberately causing famine to starve the Kulaks is pretty cold-blooded as well.

'Worst crime': more open to debate IMO... seeing murder as the worst individual crime, you'd have to go for the highest number killed, so I guess Stalin or Mao win that 'prize'

 

[Inhalaattori]

The destruction of native americans and native australians.

I would also consider putting Vietnam War to that list.

- - -

These should not be in the list:

Joshuas attempted genocide of the Cananites - Ever heard armenian genocide? There are thousands of these kind of events in history

The Crusades - Not as violent that has later been claimed. Very complicated series of events where crusaders fought mostly against other christians.

Israels occupation of palestinian territories - totally insignificant

Palestinian Retribution - totally insignificant

 

[classical_hero]

I voted other, i.e. the Japanese Atrocities during world war two. This perhaps one of the most dispicable things ever happened. It appears that most atrocities could come under one big heading, Eugenics.

I must question the inclusion of the Nuclear bombs, because they actually sved more lives than what they killed. Also the "threat" of nuclear war actually good because it meant that both Russian and USA did not attack each other for the fear of MAD. Nuclear war is not possible because it will basically mean the destruction every human and people who want to war know that if they try to use it they will be used upon them so it really is a non issue. I seriously doubt that even without these two bombings, that nuclear energy would still be used and things would be very different had not the Americans discovered its full potential first.

 

[PriestOfDiscord]

I voted other, i.e. the Japanese Atrocities during world war two. This perhaps one of the most dispicable things ever happened.

I must question the inclusion of the Nuclear bombs, because they actually sved more lives than what they killed. Also the "threat" of nuclear war actually good because it meant that both Russian and USA did not attack each other for the fear of MAD. Nuclear war is not possible because it will basically mean the destruction every human and people who want to war know that if they try to use it they will be used upon them so it really is a non issue. I seriously doubt that even without these two bombings, that nuclear energy would still be used and things would be very different had not the Americans discovered its full potential first.

This is also a good point. Nuclear bombs would eventually have been used. After all, the government didn't know how horrible the effects were going to be on a civilian population - they were only being tested in empty desert. Meanwhile, the stockpiles would have kept increasing without any reason to worry about using them in moderation. I'd much rather see the American government witness the horrible effects from the 2 bombs dropped in Japan than say...dozens of bombs dropped on North Korea and China during the Korean War.

 

[Rambuchan]

Some updates on Global Trade Atrocities:

13–18 December, 2005 saw hundreds of delegates and ministers descend upon Hong Kong for the 4th World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial meeting, one of the most important meetings in the world.

Continuing from the earlier “Doha round” (which was supposed to start off a round of talks on issues to help developing countries in world trade as it was recognized that the global trading system was unequal and unfair for most of the world), this meeting was billed as a “Development Round.”

However, the concerns from previous years remained, including the lack of transparency and democracy in the decision-making processes, and the power that the rich nations have over the poor to distort trade in their favor. The previous Ministerial meeting in 2003 collapsed when developing countries managed to stand up against unfair demands from rich nations. Yet, since then, the same issues have resurfaced as rich nations appear to have hardly moved on their countless promises, pledges and obligations.

Unlike last time however, poor countries were not as unified as before. A weak and unbalanced trade agreement resulted, allowing rich countries to gain many concessions from the poor, with very little in return, which the rest of this article looks at.

That's the intro by Anup Shah. Plenty, plenty more on the fine detail here.

Sorry to not check on who it was who said that "going to your supermarket shelf etc" is not part of all this. Well I'd like to point out that it totally is!

These rich countries mentioned above are doing all this for yours and my benefit (I'm brazenly assuming you're sitting at your PC in the 1st world rather than sitting in the 3rd world wondering whether you're going to make it to your 40th birthday).

Amongst those benefits is the ability for people in the 1st world to walk into a supermarket and purchase, say, coffee for ridiculously cheap prices. I think you'll find somewhere in the Global Issues site, if you really want to look at those horrors of this systematic atrocity, the specific breakdowns on what is paid to the farmer, what goes in duty, what goes to middlemen and what goes to the supermarket. But you already know that the farmer and the government which presides over his enterprise is getting the most measly sliver of the cake.

If I offered you the choice of:

a) A pack of coffee for $2, knowing that it was grown by a man who may not live to see 40, can't feed his family and most probably doesn't have a reliable roof over his head.

or

b) A pack of coffee for $3, knowing that it was grown by a man who got a decent, fair, just cut of your $3. A cut that would mean the difference between a life expectancy of 40 and one of 50-60, that would mean a roof over his head and food on his families table.

Which would you take? Would you save the $1?

Now all that happens because we keep insisting on these low prices. It all happens because we demand that $1 saving over a more ethical, less destructive and quite frankly murderous system of trade relations. Hardly ever do we question what the consequences of our need for cheapness.

I'm rolling a whole lot into one very condensed example but the background to it can all be provided by Anup Shah in the links I've given.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

It's Temujin, and everyone on God's Earth knows that, besides he was the only Genghis Kahn, and the only man to sweep across Asia into western Europe? Was that not clear enough?

It was not Temujin commanding the forces of the Golden Horde that swept across Russia, it was attacked by Batu Khan, Jebe and Subutai (Batu was Temujin's grandson, Jebe and Subutai were generals). So it was the Khans subordinates and relatives that captured Russia.

Thereafter under the title "Genghis Khan", he waged two major successful campaigns against Western Xia in northern China and Khwarezmid Empire in Persia, which solidified the Mongol dynasty that persisted for several centuries after his death through his extended family as Khanates.

No mention of Russia at all. It was his relatives and subordinates that took the fight to the frigid norths.

So do a little bit of research. I found this relatively easily on Wiki.

-----------

Also I was watching a show on Hitler and Stalin on the History Channel last night. It mentioned some numbers (of the people they killed during their reigns), and I thought it would be pertinent to post here:

Adolf Hitler: 10,000,000 killed (10 million) 6 of those 10 were Jewish, the rest were other "undesireables".

Joseph Jugashvili (More commonly known as Joseph Stalin): Killed 20,000,000 (20 million) in his country.