2007-07-30 12:01:24 · 15 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
((I NEVER WANDER))
2007-07-30 12:06:07 · update #1
I couldn't agree more. I'm an atheist, but was born Jewish. I am surprised God's inaction during the Holocaust alone doesn't turn all Jews into Atheists. What more proof of the illusion of God do you need than having Hitler toast 6 million of his "chosen" people? With friends like these, who needs enemies?! (I'm sure the believers will chime in with their automated robotic answer: "God work in mysterious ways", or "Man has free will to do evil and God can't intervene". What B.S.!
The current world population of Jews is 14 million, only slightly higher than the 11 million from 1900*! We can thank Hitler and not any imaginary God for that.
If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good.
— Morris Cohen
The central problem of Christianity is: if the Messiah has come, why is the world so evil? For Judaism, the problem is: if the world is so evil, why does the Messiah not come?
— Seymour Siegel
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
— The Riddle of Epicurus (ca. 341-270 B.C.E.); Greek philosopher
Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; Or he can, but does not want to; Or he cannot and does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. But, if God both can and wants to abolish evil, then how come evil is in the world?
— IBID
Christians say that – without exception – their God answers all of their prayers; it's just that He sometimes says "yes" and other times "no," "maybe," or "wait." Of course the same could be said of the rain-god,"Bob."
— Rev. Donald Morgan
How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of surfeit, he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an authority which declares, "God wills it thus." Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
— Napoleon Bonapart (1769-1821)
A great many men believe in providence until they get caught in a railroad accident.
— Lemuel K. Washburn
(Providence: "The care, guardianship, and control exercised by a deity; divine direction; especially, the foresight and care which God manifests for his creatures; hence, God himself, regarded as exercising a constant wise prescience.")
To be clear, the problem is not the imaginary God concept. The problem is religion...
I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so
— Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941
Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of Almighty God: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.
— Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 46
Christ was the greatest early fighter in the battle against the world enemy, the Jews... The work that Christ started but could not finish, I will conclude.
— Adolf Hitler
What shall we do with ... the Jews? ...set fire to their synagogues and schools and bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them.
— Martin Luther (1483-1546)
2007-07-30 12:08:51 · answer #1 · answered by HawaiianBrian 5 · 2⤊ 2⤋
I'm assuming you've already made up your mind before asking your question, but will attempt to answer you. God didn't intervene because man didn't intervene.
Let's assume you're an atheist and for you the Bible is pure fiction. If you read the Old Testament, you'll find many examples of God creating disasters in which people die by the thousands. Why? We're told John the Baptist baptised Jesus, yet he was still beheaded. Why wouldn't God intervene? When Jesus was betrayed and eventually crucified, God didn't intervene. Why? Because in the Bible, God does not intervene to stop what Man can stop.
So, if you're an atheist, the question doesn't become what good is God for not intervening in the Holocaust, but what good is mankind for not intervening. For people of faith, the result of the Holocaust is carrying the pain from the murder of millions.
2007-07-30 19:21:01 · answer #2 · answered by David B 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
He was waiting for His followers to step up and protect the victims. Some ask "Where was God." But the question should be, "How did the Christian culture allow such an atrocity to occur?" Perhaps "turning the other cheek" doesn't work as well as "the law."
A genocide is taking place today in Darfur, Sudan. Will the Christian community step up to the plate to protect the victims?
.
2007-07-30 19:20:42 · answer #3 · answered by Hatikvah 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If Hitler and all them won. Eradicated all non-Aryan and ended all the reign of every religion in the world except their own. Then their god would win. Which in hindsight is probably the same god everyone else worships. Simply speaking, god's don't fight gods... people fight in the name of their gods. If you want a happy ending, just say the united states winning and whoever else won - won because their god won. But then you really have to take in account that all the people fighting against the Germans weren't christains. And some of them we hate now, so...
Read a bible, god intervening = bad for everyone. Its sort of like when your drunk belligerent father trys to break up a fight between you and your brother.
2007-07-30 19:10:39 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
If God had not intervened through men fighting against Germany then all the Jews would have been destroyed. God was there crying and going through all the horrors right along with His people and one day He will pour that wrath upon all of those that hurt His people and denied His son.
The Bible says that when we call upon the name of the Lord we shall be saved. Jesus is the name of the Lord and I am sure that many people called upon Him and are safe in Heaven today in spite of what Hitler tried to do.
2007-07-30 19:08:15 · answer #5 · answered by debo h 1 · 1⤊ 3⤋
Perhaps it is difficult for you to understand how the Holocaust was an act of love. I don't understand it either. Still, that is what christians contend, and they claim to know how loving their god is.
2007-07-30 19:05:10 · answer #6 · answered by Fred 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
God cannot always save us from the problems we humans inflict upon ourselves... much like you cannot save someone falling down from a building or you can't stop your own wound from bleeding all by your lonesome.
The thing is... we humans have a knack of doing things that would be a pain for us.
God doesn't want us to go kill of each other in the name of self...
... but do we listen?
We don't! And after all the bloody mess, who do we humans blame? "Oh, it's God's fault because He didn't stop us!" Really?
- AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM -
2007-07-30 19:27:09 · answer #7 · answered by Reliant 1 · 1⤊ 2⤋
The Jews had to come back to their land to start the final countdown. God told the Jews to stay in their land and never leave but they didn't listen to God. The Holocaust was terrible but it fulfilled the Bible by Israel forming a nation just as Ezekiel said.
2007-07-30 19:06:36 · answer #8 · answered by dawgfan2880 2 · 2⤊ 4⤋
God is the reason theres war and death and
feeble attempts of man to take his place.
Isn't history a beaming light of factual failure
of the man that wants to have all the marbles just loses them in the end?
2007-07-30 19:29:56 · answer #9 · answered by PENMAN 5 · 1⤊ 2⤋
ggeez I mixed up the quesitons *sigh*
I'm going to be honest - I don't understand all the ways of God.
You will hear that the holocaust wasn't his fault - it was the will and wim of man.
God knew what was going on. He sent many armies to combat what was going on.
I have relatives who fought in the war, were injured and died for what they believed in. THat's where I tend to place my focus.
((((((IWF))))))))
:)
EDIT: dr.M why are you so cranky - lighten up :)
2007-07-30 19:03:56 · answer #10 · answered by Ramjet 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋