Posted on 01/18/2019 8:25:20 PM PST by EdnaMode
I would.
I was barely 2 pounds when I was born in 1945.
Huh? It’s the same answer.
I don’t think so. There’s a difference between trying to answer a stupid question, and thereby making it legitimate, instead of telling the person to simply f-off.
It’s not a stupid question. It’s an excellent answer.
Every kid that is born needs to learn this answer, eventually. Even if the question was devious, he gave such a great answer, as you say, that it helps everyone who is confused.
I don’t think that needs to “stop an argument” if the debater is cool and reasoned. “Good, you brought up Hitler. Let’s discuss Hitler. Why and how was he evil and oppose goodness?”
It’s good to use it as a springboard for discussion of such questions as “How could we ever know that we have a ‘baby Hitler’?”
The ultimate answer is that such mysteries are in the bailiwick of God.
If anything, Shapiro could have expanded more — to look at larger social situations to see if they are prone to falling in with a “Hitler” and if they are, evangelize like mad in them. Because the power of God, meek though it appear, can hold fast against the power of Satan. Shapiro, being orthodox Jewish to date, can only approach this question as far as the Old Testament does, and say something like “God will take care of it in the end.”
It’s not wrong to consider such issues. It can well be wrong to consider them shallowly.
Who is going to determine who a “baby Hitler” is? How?
Who is going to change his circumstances? How?
There are secular socialist answers and then there are godly answers.
I think if allowed to elaborate, Shapiro would say that better support for godly, healthy families is the long term answer for heading off more Hitler situations.
Maybe. But it doesn’t have get that complicated. The first answer makes very clear that we just don’t know a baby will become. Sheer terror to pretend otherwise.
That’s true, and it’s a tree we don’t want to be barking up.
We can still consider what changes to a bad answer can yield a good one. Jumping all over Shapiro short-circuits that process.
The problem is that we are in a complicated world and the only truly good answer is the wisdom of God. If you’re vying for snappiest answer, what you want will be different than if you’re seeking to encourage people to consider wisdom.
It’s sad — I am sad — we all should be sad — that one of the starkest historical reminders of the chasm between good and evil has been reduced to a cliche — and then shunned because it was reduced to a cliche.
Fight back — look at this lesson beyond the cliche.
In principle, because of human original sin, something that Christians are in a position to understand, anybody could “act like Hitler” in this world. It’s said that if Hitler had been encouraged to be a little bit better art painter, and his flower portraits aren’t really all that bad, he never would have gotten into politics and found his and his society’s nemesis. So what kind of culture do we want? Flowers, or Holocausts? The answer could determine where the next “baby Hitler” goes.
It’s the ultimate straw man. The only way to be sure there will never be a Hitler is to kill off the entire human race!
One can make things tend away from there being another Hitler through the worship of God.
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