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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2470 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 1, 2025

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Reminds me of one of my favorite movie dialogues:

Warden: Did you enjoy God’s latest gift?
Teddy Daniels: What?
Warden: God’s gift. [points to the sky] The violence. When I came downstairs in my home and I saw a tree in my living room, it reached out for me like a divine hand. God loves violence.
Teddy Daniels: I…I hadn’t noticed.
Warden: Sure you have. Why else would there me so much of it? It’s in us. It’s what we are. We wage war, we burn sacrifices and pillage and plunder and tear at the flesh of our brothers. And why? Because God gave us violence to wage in his honor.
Teddy Daniels: I thought God gave us moral order. Warden: There’s no moral order as pure as this storm. There’s no moral order at all. There’s just this; can my violence conquer yours?
Teddy Daniels: I’m not violent.
Warden: Yes, you are. You’re as violent as they come. I know this because I’m as violent as they come. With the constraints of society we’re lifted. And I was all that stood between you and me? You would crack my skull and eat my meaty parts. Wouldn’t you? But Cawley thinks that you’re harmless, that you can be controlled. But I know different.
Teddy Daniels: You don’t know me.
Warden: Oh, but I do.
Teddy Daniels: No, you don’t. You don’t know me at all. Warden: Oh, I know you. We’ve known each other for centuries. If I was to sink my teeth into your eye right now, would you be able to stop me before I blinded you?
Teddy Daniels: Give it a try.
Warden: That’s the spirit.

Always wondered if he wasn't based a little on Judge Holden.

It might be, but I feel like this theme of naked violence superseding all other concerns is rather universal. It pops up pretty much regardless of time and place. It's in the Iliad and it's in Roman history and it's in Mein Kampf and it's in The Wild Bunch. There may be situations in which it seems out of place, but none in which it truly is out of place. Like the good book says:

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.

Hard to dispute. If God wanted, we could live in Winney the Pooh physics where nobody gets seriously hurt beyond saying 'oh bother'. An omnipotent can do anything.

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