Request for Help - Research

Vanity ^ | 4/19/17 | pgyanke

[pgyanke]

Fellow FReepers,

I am working on a new book and could use some expert FReeper researcher/knowledge help. The book is essentially about a history of evil. The 20th Century atrocities are pretty easy to summarize but I want to go all the way back to Cain and Abel.

Would you mind listing off any historical figures or events that you think show great evil down through the ages? I want to be as comprehensive as I can be and not skip things through my own lack of familiarity.

Here is a list of things that come to mind for me:

The Devil in the Garden of Eden
Cain & Abel
Tower of Babel
Sodom & Gomorrah
Haman the Agagite
Moloch
Herod Antipas
Herodias
Abimelchk
Jezebel
Herod "the Great"
Judas Iscariot
Elizabeth Bathory
Talat Pasha
Josef Mengele
Reinhard Heydrich
Osama Bin Laden
Saddam Hussein
Heinrich Himmler
Adolf Eichmann
Maximilien Robespierre
Kim Il Sung
Emperor Hirohito
Emperor Nero
Caligula
Attila the Hun
Genghis Khan
Leopold II of Belgium
Tomas de Torquemada
Mao Zedong
Ivan the Terrible
Idi Amin
Pol Pot
Adolf Hitler
Joseph Stalin
Vlad the Impaler
Fidel Castro
Robert Mugabe
Mohammed
Margaret Sanger
Sultan Ibrahim I

[Hebrews 11:6]

I expect his ambition exceeds his ability, but stretching is how we grow. No question it seems idiosyncratic, but if he’s a believer he’ll have the Holy Spirit along for the ride—and it’ll be fun to hear, once we’re together in the sweet by-and-by, all the details of how they proceeded.

[blueplum]

what was evil about the Tower of Babel? It’s a lesson we seem to have forgotten.

[Hebrews 11:6]

Do you really want the answer?

[Daffynition]

*Evil* from whose perspective?

Some of the people on your list would not necessarily be/have inflicted *evil*, depending on your perspective/motives.

I had a cat that was *evil*, you want his name?

[blueplum]

sure, lay it on me. What was Hitleresque about Babel?

[Hebrews 11:6]

Well, I expect you're mocking me; and "Hitleresque" doesn't apply.

Defining evil loosely as "opposed to God's will," then: God's stated will was for the human race to "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth..." Genesis 1:28

He had a specific number of humans in mind to whom to offer salvation, and they were preventing their birth by their violence pre-Flood, so God had to start over. Once He did, the Tower, representing humans' self-will, continued that defiance: by remaining at Babel and refusing to "fill the earth" as ordered, again they were preventing, by their geographic proximity, the birth of the billions He planned.

[dp0622]

NO?!?!!?!?!??!

Wow!!!

I know nothing of the Mafia outside of NYC.

Holy smokes!!

Has anyone written anything where they mention Reid’s name?

OF COURSE I believe it, but I just wanted to read about the weasel.

That rat

[DaxtonBrown]

I wrote Harry Reid’s only biography (Harry: Money Mob and Influence in Harry reid’s Nevada). It is 45 years of mob stuff right out of movie Casino. He may still get perp walked. It’s on Amazon

[blueplum]

The earth was inherited in thirds by Ham, Shem and Japath descendants. Nobody was preventing births because they were the only people on earth. Related people would naturally group together. There were cromagnons and Neanderthals and lions and tigers and bears and crocodiles wandering around waiting to eat stray loners. And the collective memory of The Flood was probably on their minds, too.

Once there were enough people, The Almighty disbursed them to “fill the earth,” by gifting them courage to face the unknown. By assigning them language groups, who would head off in different directions like the Oklahoma Land Rush, the groups had a higher survivability chance than a loner would. Each group would be large enough to build more than one city. And then hundreds of cities. The more people trusted Him, the more courageous they were in pushing into new lands.

A rainbow was one thing, but the miracle of the tower - the gift of courage - was a huge blessing. There couldn’t have been a more concrete reassurance from The Almighty that there would be no more Heavenly exterminations. People truely could, go forth and multiply. Trust and courage is what spreads Faith. Just as The Almighty planned all along.

[matt1234]

Whoever invented Jar Jar Binks.

[Hebrews 11:6]

I give you credit for imagination, if not for logic. To imagine that the Tower was a "miracle" in the face of God's expressed disdain for it is really something. Humanity's history is one long tale of self-promotion, of which the Tower is an outstanding example--promoting man's works over God's salvation. (See Romans 10:2-3 for Paul's compelling diagnosis.)

It's a straight line from God's Gen. 1:28 command to be fruitful and fill the earth, through their evil refusal to do so voluntarily (their dense proximity to one another necessarily limited births and would increasingly do so), to His forced dispersal. Everything else is wind.