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i was under the impresssion that the pope had read the bible. someone might direct him to read romans chapters 9,10 & 11 as a good source for gaining some insight to his question. the natural mind cannot understand a God that is sovereign and needs not our permission or approval to do His mighty work. apparently it was God's will would be a good answer to the popes question....although one he is not likely to appreciate b/c this messes up the churches stand on works.

So what does this mean, altogether? That there is no such thing as free will? That all human actions are predestined? If that was the case, then we're all just helpless puppets with no moral responsibility for anything we do. Are you SURE you like that answer, Buz?

eric,
God chose Israel as a nation to be His people and make certain covenants with them. by and large they have been a stiff necked lot (according to scripture)and have to a large extent fallen out of Gods grace for the time being (until the fulness of the gentiles). i believe b/c the holocaust was aimed at Jews that God had His sovereign hand in the goings on at that time. and certainly i believe God created each person with free will, but scriptures point out at time that God in His sovereignty overruled mans freewill and accomplish His will through them, as an example the pharoah of egypt as moses was beginning to lead the Jews away. i'm not Gods puppet (but could be if He chose me to be), He wants His people to freely worship Him, that apparently was His plan from the beginning but adam & eve messed it up and we are still paying the price for that faux pas. where you run into problems are, as i prefaced earlier " the natural mind cannot understand a God that is sovereign and needs not our permission or approval to do His mighty work ". to the natural mind it seems that God could be classified as a monster b/c He freely chooses to usurp His authority without respect to mans input, if God acted otherwise then He would likely become OUR puppet and that ain't happening !! is there any saw dust yet ??

The question should not have been why was God silent and allow the evil of the Holocaust but why was the world community silent for so long?

The question is not whether the God of Christians/Jews was silent; rather why we do not see the voice of God in the midst of that dark time.

Were God silent, then the goal of the Nazis would have been accomplished. However, it was not! Therefore, how can anyone ascertain that God was silent?

Shalom

Maybe because 6 million innocent men, women and children suffered years of agony and died in Nazi camps, and no supernatural help protected them?

Sure, the Nazis were defeated, but it sure wasn't with supernatural aid. The only thing that could be considered "supernatural" was the degree of success they Germans experienced, considering they had an insane idiot for a leader.

Nancy's query is so minimal, so poignant. As was Benedict's plaint. Silence on our part is respectful, for a time, in the face of such horror. It is what Elie Wiesel says is the only decent response. I had the great privilege to sit in on lectures by Dr. Wiesel at Boston University, on the topic of Job, twenty years ago. His struggle was reflected through the analogy of the patriarch's suffering, and he exuded a restrained rage tempered with ultimate determination to "Never Forget" and compassion for survivors and victims of all wars, of all atrocities.

Action would have been better than silence, of course, earlier, to try to stop the "Final Solution" from going as far as it did (there's plenty of evidence FDR and certainly Pius knew more sooner and did not mobilize).

What is wrong with asking of one's god: "Why?" The only mind anyone has, of course, is a "natural" one. Should one not use it, therefore? For those who believe in a god, absent or present in times of unspeakable crimes, asking, pleading, is a sign of humanity...of remorse...of grief. To expect answers may be a fool's errand, but the act of asking itself speaks for humanity's strength!

Survivors of the Shoah have every right to demand of their god an accounting, even if I would interpret this as self-therapeutic, and even if the only receive echoes of their own cries of anguish.

If buz is implying the victims of the Shoah in some way deserved "God's Wrath" or some other chastisement, I absolutely must reject such vile thinking! How disgusting! Because they don't accept Jesus they were sent into the gas chambers? Horrible!

Any "god" who would allow, let alone endorse such monstrous depravity is hardly "all-good", though I suppose that god may indeed be "all-powerful". I maintain sheer defiance of such a being, were it to exist, and active, even if useless, defiance would be noble in the extreme.

Freddy, I think you've stated the "problem of evil" quite well. Religious defenses against this problem, known as "theodicies," have never held water, from my explorations of them.

From a secular humanist point of view, there is no real problem of evil as such. Evil exists because nature has no regard for humans, and people are capable of being unbelievably nasty when they decide to. Our only course in the face of evil is to work against it and to recover from the injuries as best we can.

f.niche,
it is quite a leap from my statement " God had His sovereign hand in the goings on at that time."......to your statement......... "If buz is implying the victims of the Shoah in some way deserved "God's Wrath" or some other chastisement, I absolutely must reject such vile thinking! How disgusting! Because they don't accept Jesus they were sent into the gas chambers? Horrible!" but if i had believed that i would have stated it. if you ever read the entire o.t. it is impossible to miss the fact that God did in fact chatise israel many times overs, so why would it be so hard to think that God can't chastise anyone at anytime ?
as i've stated before, God's sovereignty needs not your/mine understanding or approval - He is the Master Potter and we are simply lumps of clay at His disposal, some to honor and some to dishonor. most people only want to see God's mercy and completely ignore His justice.

Eric:

Could you please define evil for me?

Anything that harms humans.

Eric:

Thanks for the definition. Now for the big question. WHY is it wrong to harm humans? Is that just an opinion? Could that definition change in the future?

It's wrong to harm humans because that reduces our ability to survive as a species. In other words, it is a self-serving definition from a purely objective point of view... the universe has no need of humanity. But for humans, it will always be in our best interest to continue to exist, if we can manage it.

Eric:

Why should I care about the survival of the species? If it would benefit ME PERSONALLY to harm another human being, why shouldn't I, especially if I knew I could get away with it?

Hm. You really have that deeply self-centered a point of view? You know, most humans grow out of that by the age of 3 or 4 and start to get the sense that reciprocity is a far more effective strategy for survival than pure self-centered attitudes.

Just a notion to consider...

Eric:

Very funny!

Humor is a good device to avoiding answering the questions. Nice work!

Why SHOULDN'T I be self centered?

I wasn't being funny, mon. And I wasn't avoiding the question. I thought I answered it. There's a difference between simple self-interest and enlightened self-interest. If you are a hermit living in a cave as a society of 1 person, there's no need for reciprocity, obviously. But that sort of life is far more difficult than living in a society. When you live with other humans, cooperation makes life far easier. Personal survival is enhanced most effectively in this way.

Now, would you care to explain how you view all of this? I expect you're trying to get me to see that one needs a holy law-giver to define the difference between "good" and "evil." But if you're working on a different tack, do be kind enough to let me know...

Eric:

I'm not working on a "tack". You stated above that evil exists. I am merely asking questions to find out how it is defined and if there is anything that compels me or anyone from committing evil. You seem to be using the "survival of the species" argument for doing good. My question is why I or anyone else OUGHT to care more about survival of the species than the survival of ME?

Fair enough. I understand that there are many who don't think in those terms, at least not consciously. But there obviously aren't any means to "compel" cooperative behavior... other than the fact that those who don't cooperate with the other members of their community tend to have a harder time surviving personally, and antisocial folks tend to have a harder time reproducing. So that if one doesn't care about the well-being of one's progeny (assuming there are any), contraints on behavior are admittedly weak in these terms... but antisocial behavior does tend to end in individual cases simply because no one is immortal.

On the other hand, social necessity is recognized by the majority of humans who do care about the long-term safety of the community (and consequently of the species), and they tend to impose sanctions against those who would harm the social order of things... providing a means of constraining those who don't give a darn otherwise.

buz, you wrote:

"[the Jews] have been a stiff necked lot ....and have... fallen out of Gods grace (until the fulness of the gentiles).... the holocaust was aimed at Jews [and?] that God had His sovereign hand in the goings on at that time."

Here's how I read that:

"Jews have been unwilling to accept Jesus, unlike the Gentiles. Thus, God may have used the Nazis to teach them a lesson."

That, in my book, is vile.

f.niche,
i have previously stated that the natural mind (i.e. the mind which receives not the things of God through the Holy Spirit) finds it nealy impossible to understand a God that can do anything He chooses to do without the consent of a mere human being - thus you think it is vile that God may have chosen the germans to chastise the jews. i think it not vile, rather i see it as God being his sovereign self and usurping His will. most people only try to understand Gods mercy but reject the idea that He is a God of justice as well. so i recon you'll just have to stay offended and think God is vile.

Buz-

If your god demanded that a friend of yours, who had been, unknown to you (do we know every friend's deepest thoughts? Oh, I know, you are going to say "God knows"), "stiff-necked" toward this same god (maybe secretly worshipping in another religion or not at all!)...

...what if this god of yours made it so your true, dear friend be eviscerated, gassed or burned alive in a trench of lime by some madmen? What if he or she were rounded up with every other person who had a similar "stiff neck", but wasn't necessarily easy to "pick out" by race or religion...

...would you demur so quickly to the judgement of this god?

...What if it were your daughter or son? Mother?
Wife (or husband)?

...What if this god had seen something in your soul that displeased this god and this god decided to have such horrors visited upon you? Or even just to test you, like Job? Maybe all the carnage enacted against friends and family, was, actually, to test you and your absolutely obedient, sycophantic faith? After all, your god is inscrutable and may have rewarded all the victims of his plot after their horrible suffering...but it is a glorious way to test you in this here-and-now!

A "loving god" that creates or allows blatantly evil acts or conditions (think of the Jewish children torn from the arms of their mothers and cruelly shot, decapitated or worse!) and then coldly hides behind ivory towers of inscrutability is, I would sincerely hope, unthinkable, even if that god is also said to be "just". There is no justice in what I have described. None worth the name, at least. Your weak defense of such an idea, buz, reeks of the same banal acceptance and even silent applause that made the majority of Germans complicit in those evils. Remember Hannah Arendt's phrase about the "banality of evil".

Or perhaps you would say the Gestapo was carrying out a particular god's will... the very one you credit with chastising the Jews...and so the Gestapo, the Nazis, Hitler were all somehow therefore noble in their extermination of millions? The Holocaust in your book, then, was no evil at all? Does this make you a Jew-hater and accessory to future Holocausts?

Would you like to see Iran wipe Israel off the map, as threatened? What better way for this jealous, insecure god to mop up the whole infidel mess: have the Muslims and Jews destroy one another and then unleash the atheist Commie Chinese on the Buddhists, and finally we'll go in as the Christian Knights in armor (or hoods) and convert them with fire! Glory to god.

My guess is you actually know much better than this.

We are the ones who make ethical judgements, and no god can simply contradict what a well-developed conscience would accept as clearly horrendous and unjust behaviour.

We judge any god, in fact. People are always judging the gods of other religions, but never stop to realize we have formed our own judgements about the demands and actions/inactions of "our own" god(s). If your god asked YOU to commit some heinous act as vengeance upon some infidel or "stiff-necked" person, in some baroquely vile way, would you immediately take arms? Or would you stop and consider this demand filtered through your own conscience?

You certainly would. You would. You would try to square this god's mandate with your own sense of right and wrong. Whether you then performed the dirty deed is moot: you would have made a sovereign decision, influenced by your life and experience, learning and culture and sheer genetic predispositions, but it will have been your decsion. Otherwise, who is culpable in this life? Who would not be able to claim "God told me to kill"?

See Kai Nielsen's brilliant short book "Ethics without God".

f.niche,
yes and no..............

"We are the ones who make ethical judgements, and no god can simply contradict what a well-developed conscience would accept as clearly horrendous and unjust behaviour."...........................

you believe this b/c you have no belief in God.

the God i find in scripture is the great "I AM". He is beyond your comprehension (apparently) and thus really beyond discussion. i can co exist with you as an athiest or non believer and perhaps you can do the same of me as a believer.? and frankly you are much too intellectual and i probably have more faith than intellect. i do not find it necessary to have all the answers to the tough questions one might ask me concerning God and His sovereign ways, He actually can defend Himself quite well without my help. i will gladly share what i believe in my heart and you will do likewise, so i guess you and i will be just like me and eric - ususally nothing but sawdust (sandpaper and wood).

So, buz, would you perform a horrendous act of murder or other crime, if your god required it of you? You wouldn't question that directive? Your bile has many stories like this, doesn't it? The Christian and Jewish scriptures aren't alone in this: Hindus have the
Bhagavad Gita. Duty above all.

That was an unintended typo, "bible", not "bile".

I dunno, Freddy. Having read the whole Bible, I think there are plenty of places in it where it earns the other name. Check out Numbers 31 or 2nd Samuel 24, for instance. And there are a number of Psalms that no one ever reads for very good reason. 58 and 68 have some cool, ultra-violent imagery; 137 is a real shocker...

Ah, but it was merely a Joycean slip on my part.

I assume the god of the "OT" meant every word, and not metaphorically or polyvalently.

As if human beings really needed scripture to justify their Darwinian urges.

In the words of buz, "the Holocaust was aimed at Jews (and?) that God had a hand in" it. Does this mean God was aiming to kill Jews en masse? And in such despicable manner...factories of death?

I will you, buz, until you either admit your god is one with no compunctions about such atrocities, thus not all-good, or that maybe he/she/it is not all-powerful; or perhaps he/she/it started something over which he/she/it no longer takes direct control (closer to Deism?).

Buz, you seem to favor the former option: that this god is quite capable of being malicious and hateful and horrid, but for some sort of grand higher purpose, or that the victims somehow deserve their fate. And far be it from us to question the ethics of such a god. Maybe we should rather imitate this god's example, and go on killing sprees against those who offend us, like some monstrous spoiled brat, resembling nothing if not the Columbine-style teen massacres?

Well, Paul in the NT did say that Christians should imitate God. Which is what scares the living daylights out of me -- when I see some of them tryingto imitate the God of the Old Testament.

f.niche,
"Does this mean God was aiming to kill Jews en masse? And in such despicable manner...factories of death?"....... i don't believe i can correctly answer this question.
"that the victims somehow deserve their fate".......
i can't argue with that.
"far be it from us to question the ethics of such a god"......this is correct
f.niche is seems your are stuck in the old testament, old covenant. if you have read the scriptures you would have noticed that the way God dealt with people in o.t. times is quite different under the new covenant. it is not my intention to go on a killing spree any time soon - i believe my God is more than capable of taking care to dispense His justice upon those who reject Him and especially those who revile Him, so you see it's not my job !
" like some monstrous spoiled brat"....you are very bold to make such statements, you just ooze hate and resentment in your posts. i suspect somewhere in the future you will not be so bold in Gods presence.
i suggest that you and eric meet for lunch some afternoon, the results would probably please both of you.

Yeah, I've thought the same thing on a few occasions. Freddy, e-mail me some time. We can chat and have a few good laughs...

buz, I have not directed hate, as you deem it, toward any living person. The actions (or criminal negligence) you ascribe to the god-figure you have seem to follow deserve, in my opinion, to be likened to those of a rampaging child. If that is not fair, please indicate the difference between a brat and any respectable, concerned, caring and ethical adult, as reflected in these actions and their consequences. Will this god-figure be held accountable for such acts? Will you be held accountable for your wholesale dismissal of the tragedy that was the Holocaust?

I see you have not disavowed the strong words that this god-figure may well have rightfully, to your mind, directly or indirectly incinerated litte Jewish babies. And that those babies and many wonderful human beings somehow may have deserved such fiendish destruction.

I would rather be boild in defense of the memory of the innocents slaughtered than be as evil in bland acceptance, nay, outright approval, of such posited actions as you are!

Since this god is a figment of your painfully confused mind, allowing you to gloss over the deaths of millions, I do not fear the reprisals you warn of. No sane being would sink so low, and I would pray, sir, to the Buddha or Great Soul or true and real God Almighty for your own eventual realization of the sheer grotesqueness of your attitude toward the Jews, if it made any difference. Instead, I can only hope you come to it by your own recognizance. Good luck.

hahaha--seems my ex-catholicism was showing. "boild in my defense". Ah, the subcscious retains it all, doesn't t?

Oh, and buz, it's been awhile, but I have read the thning cover to cover and in some depth. Wanted to be a Franciscan monk, you see. The brothers kindly steered me away by helping me realize I wasn't buying into the whole virgin birth-resurrection and assorted miraculous stuff. They didn't discouage me from a practice of love and compassion, however.

I apologize for my harsh words. I am sorry. I have known and cared about many Jewish friends, including my major mentors. This issue strikes me to the bone. I have trouble accepting there are those who do not hurt as the survivors continue to suffer over the mass killings of that time...or any time, ours included.

No one of us can, nor could it be expected. But I am at a loss to know how you could seemingly not question, during the Shoah, the absence or, as you propose, the complicity of a god in the name of such a man as Jesus and the teachings he is said to have left history. If a man like Pope Benedict can open himself to such sorrow by asking his god, his internal conscience, why can't you?

f.niche,
i believe you have misunderstood me, i don't believe i have said that i don't have compassion for the millions of jews who perished, that would indeed be cruel for me not to have compassion. this aside, i simply believe in the sovereign will of God and if He chooses to dishonor some for His purpose, then i cannot in good conscience think to advise God on His behavior.
tell me what you make of this.....

Lev 10:1 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not. Lev 10:2 And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
here are two priest (only direct descendants of aaron can be legitamately priests) who offer fire to the Lord but you notice that God sent down fire and killed them. in my flesh i think that seems harsh but in my spirit i believe God has the right to be God without my input. i realize someone such as yourself has a difficult time understanding how i can simply accept these things by faith, but your difficulty in no way hinders my understanding of what i find in scriptures.
i realize you think God is a figment of my imagination and that my mind is painfully confused but this does not stop me from wanting to share my faith in God.
like i stated before, you and i will continue to be sandpaper and wood with the results as nothing more or less than sawdust. i can refrain from being verbally abusive of your agnosticism/atheism and hope you can do the same. and thank you for your apology.

Did you find Primo Levi's "If This is a Man" verbally abusive to god?
Or "Night" by Elie Wiesel?

My anger expressed toward your implication or outright acceptance of Jewish deaths as possible part of some god's plan may sound abusive to your ears, but many people would agree those two writers and others who survived earned the right to say very hard things about just such a vision of any god.

f.niche,
i'm not familiar with either of the pieces you cited - however i certainly agree that anyone/everyone has the right to their opinion.

buz- These two writers are generally accepted as among the most important Holocaust survivor-authors. I'll give you a copy of "Night", if you want. It and Levi's book are widely available at libraries and bookstores.