The Holocaust (Shoah)
 

How does one sustain faith in God after the Holocaust? By the way it should be calles The Shoah. Holocaust means a burnt offering to God. I don't think that is what it was.

Presumably becase it was all part of God's great plan, which we as mere humans cannot hope to comprehend?
Or maybe because God endowed us with free will, and people choose to be evil?
Or maybe these two points are one and the same?

Well - for the first time in over two thousand years, there are are Jews living (somewhat) peacefully in Israel again.

That would not have happened but for the holocaust.

That seems like quite a jump. Can you elaborate some?

there are many books written on this subject, and it's hard to make a paraphrase of the answer.

Largely, i believe we are in control of our own actions, and that our sin brings pain to ourselves and others. i don't think there is a scale at which suddenly God kicks in...God allows us the free will to hurt people a little, and similarly allows us to hurt a lot.

i cannot speak but of my own experience on the next part...but no matter how grim life has been, i have seen love and mercy breaking back in to the world. Some survivors share that sentiment. Some do not. I can't give you an asnwer...this is the faith part of the question.

Sure - without getting political about it, the formation of Israel after WWII by the United Nations was based largely on the reaction of a shocked and guilt-ridden Western world. <i>"The poor Jews - how could we have let this happen?"</i>

Now - you can argue with that if you want, but I firmly believe the United Nations would not have supported the formation of a Jewish state except for the scope of that tragedy.

Even given that, they still had to fight against incredible odds to keep their newly-created state.

So - the jump is this: God lets the Holocaust happen, knowing that the result of all that suffering will be that the surviving European Jews will finally have a homeland to return to. After all - it's the Land He Promised them, right?

Hey - this is Philosophy, not the Scientific Method.

If the Native American Indians had done a better job of defending their land from white Europeans; would they, too, be considered genocidal racists?

I'm trying to follow your analogy.

The only 'genocidal racists' mentioned so far have been the Nazis.
Are you saying the Nazis were just defending Europe against a Jewish Invasion?

If so, I think you made a wrong turn somewhere - <A HREF="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=38"><i>Tilted Politics</i></A> is over <A HREF="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=38"><i>here</i></A>.

I don't believe in god

but with my heritage I would've been gassed anyways.

this doesn't make me want to believe in god.

I agree with what others have said, God gave us freewill, he will not intervene in any of our problems. You may think that is cruel, but would your kids grow up if you constantlly sheltered them and didn't let them live their own lives?

If somebody tried to go after any family-member of mine, I'd kill that person, period.

I don't see being gassed alive as an educational step towards maturity and adulthood.

It was just an analogy, I think youw ould have a right to go after the bastards that go after your family. I would too. I'm just saying that God loves you but will not interfere with freedom of choice.

I am a very devout Jew, and while it is true that the Shoah did dishearten many thousands of Jews, the answer is very simple, but many choose to stray from it, which makes it complicated. The Holocaust was NOT part of God's great plan. He did not choose for the Holocaust to happen, even though He knew that it would. Evil is a man-made emotion that we have Adam and Eve to thank for. Hitler was not acting out of some God-given destiny, he did it out of pure hate, which is one of the tennents of free will, which was given to us by God. We have the right to choose between good, which leads to God, and hate, which leads away from God.

This forum is philosophy, not religion or politics. The biggest philosophical farces are the propaganda-style uses of terms like: religion, racism, genocide, diversity, and peace. The native Americans were subjected to "peace" talk. Just give us a "piece" of your land like a good socialist, give us a "piece" of your culture...don't be racist, and access to your "pieces" that look like Ann Coulter. Only cultures that are allowed to be separate by choice are ever equal. Without that, we are in a state of cultural and economic warfare. I assert that as a philosophical statement. Real, authentic peace has been unknown for some time now.

God did not do that, Man did that.
That is how you have faith in God.

...which brings us to the obvious question: how do you know?

Isn't it weird that every time someone is saved (from a burning building, from drowning, whatever), people thank God; but if someone is hurt (injured, murdered), people never blame God at all.

Kinda dubious, if you ask me. :)

Is it just me or is this holocaust craze starting to gain a certain zealous glow?

Yes it was horrible, no it was not inunderstandable, yes it was a huge loss of human lives, no it was not an unique peak of human cruelty. I don't believe holocaust should be forgotten or trivialized now or in the future, but it shouldn't outshadow other similiar crimes against humanity either. Or: (god forbid) be used to justify an illegal occupation of a people and their country (HI ISRAEL, HOW ARE YOU???).

Currently, the memories of holocaust is being defiled not by people who trivialize it, but by omgCRAZY! people earning money off the event, like zionists.

BLIND FAITH. all you need

It's interesting to see that we still don't count the Romani, disabled and homosexual victims of the holocaust.

Hey, I guess we still don't like 'em.

We do count the countless other sufferers of the Holocaust, I'm not trivializing that at all. The reason that the Jews are typically thought of when the Shoah is referenced, is because you can simply not deny that 7 MILLION of them were murdered. By comparison, the other groups don't touch that. It's a matter of numbers, not politics. The Jews were Hitler's original target during that time, homosexuals, Romanis, and the disabled were brought into it much later.

interesting you say that. not quite true though. Operation T4, a sterilization and euthanasia program targeted the mentally ill as one of Hitler's first acts. the experience they gained doing that allowed the mass gassing of other victims. Homosexuals were linked with political prisoners, who were targeted for internment early on.

As I recall, all "undesireables" were targeted by Hitler from the beginning, it was just that the Jews were by far the largest/most easily identifiable group.

Only half of the people who died were Jews.
There are entire small ethnic groups that no longer exist because the Nazi's decided they were less then human.
Goering bragged that by 1950 nobody would remember their names and he was part right.
We have to remember everyone, the disabled, gay, communist, Quaker, etc. in order to truly understand the broad scope.
The job that Judaism has taken on is to make sure nobody forgets.

Sorry, but I still get the feeling that the other groups are not important enough to be mentioned when I read your replies.

The reply that "6 million is a lot, more than the others" just goes to show that WE STILL HAVEN'T LEARNED A FUCKIN THING from the atrocities. Because we are STILL looking at people from an ethnic point of view after they've been slaughtered.

the manner in which they died makes ethnic idenitity key, xenu. does it do any service to the victims to say that the nazis killed a lot of people and that we don't know why? They killed because of race...and so that's part of what we remember.

Chavos, your response is actually exactly what I'm talking about.

You speak of ethnicity only; this includes the Jews and the Romani.

Which means you don't count the disabled and the homosexuals.

I'm going to do my best not to lose my temper, and then i'm going to quit this thread.

I do count them...but ignoring the racial component of the Shoah is madness. I cannot forget the tattered prisoner's uniforms, with the gold stars of david... Nor can i forget the pictures of smoke rising over mental institutions, the only evidence that those who were thought to be broken were liquidated.

i'm just not going to get in to some sort of pissing contest over whether or not remembering the racial component of the Shoah disservices the victims. its a stupid fight, and i'll have no part of it.

Like it or not, certain people or events are linked more closely to other people or events.

Look at 9/11 - Almost every poster or sign or computer icon that represents 9/11 shows the WTC towers. Does this mean we've forgotten about the Pentagon, or 4 planeloads of passengers and crew? Of course not.

The Jews will forever be linked to the holocaust. Without them, it would have been just another case of "war crimes as usual." You know - one group that nobody has mentioned is Russian soldiers (and civilians) They were hated so much by the Germans that few of them ever made it to a POW camp.

There were many victims of the holocaust - the Nazi Hate machine was all-encompassing.

Hey, I'm not trying to piss anybody off here.

Hitler killed 6 million Jews.
But how many times have you heard "Hitler killed six million people"? Whenever somebody says that, it means the other groups have been forgotten.

When people say "Hitler killed 8 million people", I'll be happy.

Either way, this is just my 2 cents, and they're not an attack on anybody.

Hey , if anyone gets a chance, read "When bad things happen to good people" blaming God doesnt do any good (but blaming the premises for others to use god as a form of leverage is great)

made me cope with the Idea of god taking my mom... didnt help me cope with the a-holes who told me that it was justified and i shouldnt be sad cuz of his great plan and the fact that he wanted my mom more than me.