Original Sin?

Old news, unless you never heard of it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/8996576/Adolf-Hitler-nearly-drowned-as-a-child.html

Quote:

Newspaper clippings have emerged detailing how a child – who experts believe was Adolf Hitler – was rescued from a river in Passau, Germany, in January 1894.


The infant is not named in the article, which was uncovered in a German archive, but it matches a story recounted by priest Max Tremmel in 1980. He said his predecessor Johann Kuehberger told him he had rescued Hitler when the Nazi leader was a child. Residents of Passau, where Hitler grew up, also claimed the priest's story was true.


The account of the incident remained uncorroborated until recently when the article emerged.


The Donauzeitung-Danube newspaper described how "a young fellow" was pulled out of the River Passau by a "brave comrade" after he fell through thin ice. The priest is said to have dived into the icy water after spotting the child struggling to stay afloat in the strong current.


Anna Elisabeth Rosmus, a German author who lived in Passau, said the tale was known by most people in the town in book Out of Passau, Leaving a City Hitler Called Home.

Quote: Evenbob

For most people, life is mundane and
boring.

Maybe it is because they think life is all about productivity.

Quote:

Your definition of life is straight out
of a fairy tale. romance/swashbuckling
adventure/drama/sad/happy/funny/
suspenseful. Seriously, you watch way
too much TV.

No, I hardly watch TV. It is because I believe in God and read the Bible.

Quote: FrGamble

Maybe it is because they think life is all about productivity.

It because most of life, even today, is
doing the same mundane things every
day. Getting up, taking a shower, eat
a hurried breakfast, spend all day at
a job you feel nothing about, hurry
home, more chores, pray for the
weekend. Spend all evening in front
of the TV because at least the people
on the screen have a life.

It was far worse before modern times.
90% of people lived on farms and were
busy from sunrise to sunset, just eeking
out an existence. Some of them, especially
women, actually worked themselves to
death. You think they sat around wondering
if they were happy? They went to church
just to hear they might eventually get
out of this awful existence with a reward.
Poppycock of course, but that's why religion
was invented, to spread the poppycock.

Your exaggeration of both modern times and past times are both so depressing. You know faith in God is not only about the gift of eternal happiness in Heaven, but about finding happiness and meaning right here and now. You might consider it.

Quote: FrGamble

Your exaggeration of both modern times and past times are both so depressing. .

Exaggeration? If anything, I downplayed
it. Even Thoreau said 'most men lead
lives of quiet desperation.' I'll bring it
up again. Why do you think movies and
TV are so popular everywhere in the
world. If most people led happy and
exciting lives, they would have no use
for outrageous fiction.

Life has no meaning, how could it. So religion
steps in and makes one up. This is one
thing all religions have in common, they
attempt to give meaning to something that
is meaningless. Life means what you want it to
mean, outside of that there is no meaning at
all. None.

Quote: Evenbob

Exaggeration? If anything, I downplayed
it. Even Thoreau said 'most men lead
lives of quiet desperation.'

I found this explanation of that famous line from Thoreau that you might find helpful. It is from Sparknotes:

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.


This sentence, which appears in the first chapter, “Economy,” is perhaps the most famous quotation from Walden. It sums up the prophetic side of Thoreau that many people forget about; he was not just an experimenter living in isolation on Walden Pond, but also a deeply social and morally inspired writer with an ardent message for the masses. His use of the word “desperation” instead of a milder reference to discontentment or unhappiness shows the grimness of his vision of the mainstream American lifestyle. He believes that the monomaniacal pursuit of success and wealth has paradoxically cheapened the lives of those engaged in it, making them unable to appreciate the simpler pleasures enumerated in Walden. But the unpleasantness of American life, according to Thoreau, is more than simply financial or economic, despite the title of his first chapter. “Desperation” is also a word with deep religious connotations, the “lack of hope” that, according to Dante (one of Thoreau’s favorite writers), was inscribed on the gates at hell’s entrance. The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan’s Protestant spiritual classic and a bestseller in the New England of Thoreau’s day, features a hero who passes through a bleak lowland called the Slough of Despair on his way to meet God. By asserting that most humans have gotten stuck in despair, Thoreau is implying that they are unable to continue farther on their pilgrimage toward true redemption.

Quote: FrGamble

I found this explanation of that famous line from Thoreau that you might find helpful. It is from Sparknotes:
.

More baloney. In Thoreau's time, more
than 90% of Americans lived in rural
farming areas. They didn't sit around
contemplating their navels, they tried
to live season to season, no different
than farmers anywhere in the world.

Regardless if you don't like that academic explanation you shouldn't quote someone who vehemently disagrees with you, especially one like Thoreau who can do so beautifully. He is not commending or even neutrally describing the situation of quiet desperation in so many people he is saying this is horribly wrong. You seem to just accept it and say it is normal what you should be doing is raging against boring lives as not how we are supposed to live.

Quote: FrGamble

what you should be doing is raging against boring lives as not how we are supposed to live.

It's a fact everyday life is boring, it's
repetitive, no way around it. 'Supposed'
to live? There's not a way we're supposed
to live. We work, we raise families, we
work. Round the world in every country,
that's life. Boring, mundane, broken up
by some TV and a movie here and there.

Only difference between now and then is,
we have labor saving devices to help us.
Gives us more leisure time to be bored in.
Like going to church and being bored
to sleep by a minister.

Quote: Evenbob

It's a fact everyday life is boring,

It is absolutely not a fact.

Quote:

Gives us more leisure time to be bored in.
Like going to church and being bored
to sleep by a minister.

good one.