Watchhing the PBS special, I generally found Freud a thoughtful soul and obviously intelligent. However he made a major gaff which at first seems like profound insight and, on a moment's reflection is the product of a naive world-view.
Freud wants to believe so badly in human progress without God that he says of the Nazi's:
"A few hundred years ago they would have burned me, but now they are satisfied with burning my books."
Now just think about that. Was he where the Nazi's could get at him or around when they started the Holocaust? No. Would they have gassed and incinerated him if he had been? Of course they would have.
Here is the greatest irony- that his sister was later gassed and cremated in a Nazi death camp.
We are reminded, watching the program, of the things we discuss here, and which I think we discuss more thoroughly in some cases.
In this example I am reminded of the world-views of skeptics which so desperately want to find a ray of hope in history as Freud tried to do. Their faith that some "enlightenment" will prevent Armageddon is reallly more naive than the typical Christian worldview. We know human nature, from experience, from history and from the Bible.
The reality is that the Nazi's would have burned Freud in a second if they had had the chance in the 1940's and to agree with Freud is to ignore history in order to stay in your bubble. Freud died in the 30's and his and Bertrandt Russell's wishful thinking had absolutely no effect on history. In fact the century they thought to "enlighten" was the bloodiest, most murderous century in history by far, and not just from war but from the "enlightened" atheist dictators who murdered, starved, or worked to death 40,000,000 more people.
Rad
Freud wants to believe so badly in human progress without God that he says of the Nazi's:
"A few hundred years ago they would have burned me, but now they are satisfied with burning my books."
Now just think about that. Was he where the Nazi's could get at him or around when they started the Holocaust? No. Would they have gassed and incinerated him if he had been? Of course they would have.
Here is the greatest irony- that his sister was later gassed and cremated in a Nazi death camp.
We are reminded, watching the program, of the things we discuss here, and which I think we discuss more thoroughly in some cases.
In this example I am reminded of the world-views of skeptics which so desperately want to find a ray of hope in history as Freud tried to do. Their faith that some "enlightenment" will prevent Armageddon is reallly more naive than the typical Christian worldview. We know human nature, from experience, from history and from the Bible.
The reality is that the Nazi's would have burned Freud in a second if they had had the chance in the 1940's and to agree with Freud is to ignore history in order to stay in your bubble. Freud died in the 30's and his and Bertrandt Russell's wishful thinking had absolutely no effect on history. In fact the century they thought to "enlighten" was the bloodiest, most murderous century in history by far, and not just from war but from the "enlightened" atheist dictators who murdered, starved, or worked to death 40,000,000 more people.
Rad