History heros

1. who in history is most influential in your life in a good way

2. who in history is most influential in your life in a bad way

Hmmm...good question. Most influential? Whoever stood up for what they believed in order to change the world in a good way. Not Hitler, who believed he was purifying the world at whatnot...craziness. Dunno...I love history, but I don't know enough about it to answer this completely.

The most influential in a good way is two people. Jack Black & Kyle Gass. They used the power of rock to defeat Satan himself.

The most influential in a bad way is God. I'm not going into details but I think he is a jerk.

1) Otto von Bismarck. He just plain out rocked the hell out of the world. Father of the Vaterland.

2) Adolf Hitler. Ass hole nearly killed the Vaterland.

Do you have an interest in the Sengoku period ?
I love to read about Japanese history, one peice that stays with me was a couple of clan leaders that committed sepuku only to have the result of the battle swing their was unexpectedly.

My parents, for both questions.

I'd have to agree with Kevin. Good answer/s. Except...I wouldn't consider my parents 'historical figures.' Ha!

That's hard to say. Plenty of writers have affected me greatly, but for the most part, they're still alive. What makes someone historical? I bet I sound like an idiot...

I'll go with--

For better: Leonardo DeVinci, Socrates, or maybe Ghandi

and

For worse: Jesus

Good answer alex, otto von bismarck was a great leader for germany

Well known historical figures, aside from my sadly historical parents.

Sylvan Muldoon--who was a man who in the 50's was dying very slowly in hospital, and instead of wasting away he started to investigate from his bed the subject of lucid dreaming and Outer Body Experiences. In the space of 5 months before he died he wrote a book on the subject, which at the time was rather unusual reading matter, slammed by the church. It changed the thinking on the subject though.

William Soutar -- A scottish poet, who like Mr Muldoon was bedridden for many years before his death with a rare condition of the spine. Confined to his room in the town of Perthshire in Scotland, even though he knew he was slowly dying and would never have a decent normal life, he never list his faith in humanity, or the worth and preciousness of life. He wrote uplifting and insightful poems and diary entries every day up until his death, including a collection of childrens stories and poems. Check out "Diary of a Dying man " for a collection of his work.

Thank you David. Yea, von Bismarck has long been my hero or idol if you will.

You never did tell us your opinion on the best and worst historical person to affect your life.

The best....oh man. i would say john adams. he started with nothing and he and his family did so much with our country. the "colossus of independence" he had the closest idea of what our government is now. he became a diplomat to the netherlands, france, and great britain. he wrote the massachussets state constitution. he became president and was a negotiator for the signing treaty to end of the american revolution. but most of all i liked his style. little things like signing letters putting a period behind his name as if to say "john adams the end"

my worst....i would have to say joseph stalin, killer of millions upon millions of russians. his war strategy during world war II was to just throw millions of men at the enemy with no strategy, thus killing more of his soldiers than was necessary. his purges killed so many innocent citizens and ethnic groups that hitler had nothing on stalin. stalin once said this line: "the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of thousands is just statistics"

Yes. Stalin was a horrible person. I'm convinced that if 'Onkel Adi' (Uncle Adolph) hadn't have started World War Two that Stalin would have. And yes the Soviet's were horrible with tactics and grand strategy. Granted they did what they could with their limited railroad and roads but that doesn't really jusitify clearing minefeilds with their infantry. And the 'victory rights' Stalin gave to his troops at the end of the war was atrocious. A state given blanc cheque that allowed Soviet troops to rape, plunder, burn, murder what ever they wanted that officially lasted for three days (but lasted longer). I utterly detest that the West could justify an alliance with that craven bastard even if they were at war with a mutual enemy. We should've taken advantage of our early nuclear advantage and used Germany as a bulwark against Communism in exchange for economic help to rebuild Germany and military protection. Oh well. Who's to say we would've been successful?

"For worse: Jesus"
how can Jesus have influenced you negatively?
he didn't do anything wrong.
his followers, maybe.
some of us Christians can be pretty cruel but
Jesus, what did he ever do to you?

1. Jesus, there i said it.
honestly though, the man sacrificed his life so the human race wouldn't have to suffer disconnection from our creator. He died then came back to life. and when he was living (pre-resurrection) he redefined the way we thank. He changed our perspective. He out-witted the religious leaders (who were incredibly intelligent) and changed the publics view on religion. and to reiterate, he died for the good of mankind, then literally beat the hell out of death.
dudes.
Jesus was a beast.

2. King Nero, he scares me.
you might as well have called him the anti-christ as far as Im concerned. responsible for thousands of early-christians' lives, even if you're not a christian, that guys was a pretty mean.

He was pretty darn humble about it though.

For feeding humans to man-killing lions?

I like how you can say "king Nero deserves some kind of humanitarian award"

but if you said something like that about Hitler, you'd get some weird looks.

Oh i know youre just kidding budd.

JESUS - influenced my life in a GOOD way

Gandhi(both)

Jesus. There is not really any proof that he even did anything that he ever did the whole 'death and raised from death' thing. Hell there isn't even proof that he existed. For all man knows he could be a story tale. Wouldn't that be interesting? If the Bible was just a story book of the ancient days. I'd laugh my ass off at all the people from then to now that followed it and died for it if it were a story book.