God and Hitler

Author: Bones

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#1
Bones
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Why did an omnipotent God allow 6 million Jews to die, while knowing that many of those victims were whispering begging Him in their final moments. 

I've always wondered how Christians can remain convicted of an omnibenevolent God after an event such as WW2, but never gotten a straight answer. On all occasions I have asked this question, I have always received some fluffy stuff about the contrast of evil and good, suffering and whatnot. The following are common answers, all of which are amusingly poor. 

GENERAL ANSWER:  Without evil, there cannot be good. 
Response 
  1. Sure, the good of good can only be appreciated once the opposing feelings have been felt. But surely, the death of 6 million Jews is a bit of an overkill. A large proportion of the Jews themselves, who were likely praying to the every God who did not spare them, were likely decent human beings, many of whom were decent citizens. 
  2. Even if the Holocaust did raise awareness of to evil, it still does not justify the actual event, Jew's are not lab rats who are observed for an outcome.  
GOTQUESTIONS.ORG ANSWER: God’s permission is not the same as His approval. God allowed Adam to eat of the forbidden tree, but He did not approve of the action. In the same way, God’s allowing the Holocaust in no way suggests His approval of it. 

This seperation of permission and approval is appallingly weak. In fact, in watching the Holocaust happen (how can an all loving being even watch something like this occur..?), God would be committing criminal negligence. He, being the Father of humanity (Proverbs 23:22: "Listen to your father, who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old) has an obligation to care for mankind. Consider the following legal definition of criminal negligence. 

Would a reasonable being, who is able to prevent the Holocaust, allow this event to occur? Would this constitute a "great falling short of the standard of care?" Sure sounds like it to me.  

Consider the response from gotquestions.org, parallel to my own example. 

SETTING: The Holocaust. God is able to prevent this from occurring at no cost. 
P1. God did not approve of the Holocaust, he simply gave permission for it to occur. 
P2. Therefore, he did not approve of it. 

SETTING: A shallow pond. I am able to prevent a child from drowning at no cost. 
P1. I did not approve of the child drowning, but I have permission for it to occur. 
P2. Therefore, I did not approve of it. 

Clearly, for a being to be in the position where they are able to prevent an event from occurring at no cost of their own, their personal view on the emotion can be the only factor which convinces me from doing otherwise. From a realistic point of view, how can God stand watching the Holocaust occur?  He knows he can stop it. He knows it will cost him nothing. Why not spare the Jews?

Jehovah’s Witnesses ANSWER: 
Myth: It’s wrong to ask why God allowed the Holocaust.
Fact: People of great faith have questioned why God allows evil. For instance, the prophet Habakkuk asked God: “Why do you allow violence, lawlessness, crime, and cruelty to spread everywhere?” (Habakkuk 1:3, Contemporary English Version) Rather than rebuke Habakkuk, God had the questions he asked recorded in the Bible for all to read.

This is literally like me saying, Oh you don't approve of me allowing a child drown? No problem, you can send through a debateart.com question to me via my profile for all to see. 


#2
Nevets
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There is no factual knowledge based answer for this question and is all just a matter of opinion. Imao
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#3
Bones
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@Nevets
The question is why God allowed this to happen. The answer is"wow, this exposes the contradiction within Christianity, guess God is a hoax".
#4
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@Bones
The question is why God allowed this to happen. The answer is"wow, this exposes the contradiction within Christianity, guess God is a hoax".

Just so I understand, your sense of this as a contradiction is because you presuppose the label of "omnibenevolent" as a descriptor of God, right?
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#5
Bones
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@rosends
I have not presupposed anything, God being supposedly "all loving" is one of his well known characteristic, praised by the Christians. 

Why does a an all powerful God who apparently loves us all not defend the 6 million victims of the holocaust?
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@Bones
It is a "well known" characteristic within that particular belief system and you are asking your question focused on the contradiction, then, within that particular belief system. Just trying to get a sense of the parameters.
#7
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@Bones
God also allowed approximately 6 million jews plus blacks, gypsys and anyone else who wasn't his superior race, to live. 
#8
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@Bones
Surely it is Jews, as opposed to predominantly Christians, who truly should have lost their faith after what occurred there.

The reason they didn't is that they need God to be true and it's more of a tradition and culture thing for their ethnicity than a theological religion. This is also how Muslims are able to maintain their religion throughout changing times. If Muslims actually stuck to the Qur'an, Hadith and Sharia Law ethos, we'd have a brutal world war 3 on our hands already (no, I am not misinformed, I have read the Qur'an and grasped what is taught in the Hadith, it is terrifyingly violence-encouraging, sexist and homophobic to say the least).

The culture and ethnicity of most Jews, Christians and Muslims (actually also Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and basically all religions where you're 'raised into it') are able to adapt away from their scripture because they claim birthright to the religion and see it as part of their identity (to speak against the Theology is considered hate speech against the ethnicity very often). This is why it is superior to push the ethnicity to adapt away from the nastier parts of their religion, rather than nitpick and force them to admit they are incorrect to be following it.

You can call me an asshole for my stance here, you can definitely call me manipulative but this strategy gets world peace, your strategy gets theological wars.
#9
zedvictor4
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@Bones
Because GOD isn't actually a floaty about bloke who cares..

The best that GOD is, if at all, is the fundamental principle of creation, matter  and material evolution which includes humanity....And maybe re-creation.

One might suppose that the whole material progression thing is purposeful, and therefore there is actually a purpose to humanity. Nonetheless this does not necessarily bestow any special favours upon us as individuals or as a species. If 6 million people perish because of our own stupidity then so be it, as long as we fulfil our evolutionary purpose, which would seem to be the proliferation of inorganic knowledge and technology.

GOD the bloke stories are old hat and outdated.....It's just that the power of memory has a tendency to make some of us nostalgic for the golden olden days, and still needful of other-worldly imaginings.
#10
fauxlaw
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@Bones
The answer is"wow, this exposes the contradiction within Christianity, guess God is a hoax".
Since you already seem to know the answer [you don't] why ask?

One might ask if God is the author of the Bible, by his own hand. No, he is not. Men wrote the sundry books of the Bible. Men then transliterated and translated, sometimes accurately, sometimes not, men being fallible as they are. Should you expect a perfect book out of that kind of treatment? No, you should not. Can you yet determine the will of God? Yes. Ask him.

Why does a an all powerful God who apparently loves us all not defend the 6 million victims of the holocaust?
Why assume omnipotence is the only choice of mode for God to act? Do you use all the power you possess all the time? No, you do not. Why, then, expect it of God? Was God responsible for the events of the Holocaust, or were men? Must God always meddle in the affairs of men, or does he expect us to work out our issues ourselves, using the gift of free agency God gave us? Does a child grow and learn lessons for him or herself if a parent always steps in and acts for the child rather than letting the child make mistakes and make their own corrections, with his help if needed and asked for? Should we expect that God will act for us on all occasions? No, he expects our own actions; the best way to learn for ourselves. Does he always step in to correct issues that get out of our control? No, that would deny our free agency. What purpose have we in life if every situation we get into beyond our control is corrected for us rather than our struggle, if we even apply ourselves? Mostly, we expect God to fix our troubles. M0ostly, he expects us to fix them ourselves because, mostly, virtually always, our troubles are caused by us, not him.
#11
Polytheist-Witch
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@Bones
GENERAL ANSWER:  Without evil, there cannot be good. 
I feel this is the biggest piece of garbage we tell ourselves to be lazy. You can so have good with no evil.  There are all kinds of spiritual and natural principles and laws. Evil is not a single one of them. Love is and evil is part of the ego that keeps us from loving. It's a self serving scape goat to do things to others you don't like. It's got nothing to do with god, gods, or spirit. 
#12
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@RationalMadman
you wrote,
 The reason they didn't is that they need God to be true and it's more of a tradition and culture thing for their ethnicity than a theological religion. 

I'm not sure exactly what that means. Many Jews DID lose their faith after the Holocaust (for an interesting discussion of that, watch the movie, "The Quarrel" -- here with subtitles and grainy video). What do you mean by the religion not as a theological one?
#13
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@rosends
No idea what you're referring to in terms of Jews losing faith. Judaism, post-Nazis, was still very prominent amongst the ethnicity. That's what inspired them to make Israel.

My point about when religions become less theological and more ethnic is scenarios where if you attack the religion, it can count as a hate crime and you can be silenced (if those of the ethnicity thst typically adheres to that religion deem it offensive).

We have a situation where you cannot, literally cannot, in any mainstream or publicanmer attack most religions without being called a racist (not just Judaism but Judaism is particularly severe in how strongly it attaches gebrtic race, sociological ethnicity and theological religion.

This is a big issue. The term Islamophobe is infact one of the best examples of a wrong semantic term becoming mainstream. It refers to a hatred and gostility towards arabs, kurds, turks and North Africans (some others too but primarily those). What it refers to is racism and usually white supremacy. Islam is something we cannot admit we dislike or discuss the problems of without us being labelled islamophobic with racist, anti-ethnic connotations.

The fact apostacy is punishable by death abd that many families will completely disown you if you break away from the religion mean it has become an artificially attached part of someone's genetic, innate identity.

You should not be incapable of becoming an atheist or changing religion from the onr your family and culture pressured you into conforming to while growing up. If you're being blackmailed to remain part of it, that is the real evil, not others discussing issues with the theology.
#14
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@RationalMadman
First, many Jews, as I stated, did lose their faith after 1945 so your claim "Surely it is Jews, as opposed to predominantly Christians, who truly should have lost their faith after what occurred there." should account for the truth that many Jews DID lose that faith.

 As a side note, the founders of Israel were mostly not religious - they saw their religion as an ethnicity, but they were balanced by a respect for religion in a faith-based way. Some of the really religious groups didn't accept the validity of the state of Israel at all.

But there still was and is a chunk of Judaism which sees faith and God as central - the religion is as theological as can be so I'm still not sure what you mean when you say that "it's more of a tradition and culture thing for their ethnicity than a theological religion".

An attack on the religion is like an attack on any other subgroup -- if it singles out a group based on identity and membership, then it is labeled as what it is. If you feel a label is wrong, then use a proper label.
#15
ludofl3x
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I find questions like this one, believers easily wave off with some form of "mysterious ways" defense. I'm sure that's really comforting to the many jews who lost family members.

#16
FLRW
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@Bones
Maybe God hate Jews. He did kill his only son who was a Jew. Also Hitler's troops wore belt buckles that said "God is with Us".
#17
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@rosends
A religion is supposed to be an idea, a theory, a theological thesis that is believed by its adherents.

Instead, it has become something that certain ethnicities have claimed somewhat ownership of and any attacks on the theory and ideas of a religion get twisted to be an attacks on the ethnic culture and racial groups involved with the religion.

That is wrong. It should be held separate. You should not be born and raised as anything other than smart and considerate, you should get to make your own mind up about which god is real or fake and which set of values you feel most aligns with you.




#18
BrotherDThomas
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.
FAUXLAW, the runaway from biblical axioms, and now the #1 Bible fool upon this forum, and the #1 record holder of running away from godly posts as shown below, and who has called Jesus a LIAR many times, and goes against Jesus in taking care of the poor, says that the Bible is a FRAUD, and calls the Christian faith as DISHONEST, and still wants to be called a Christian, and has run away from 18 posts to him in one thread alone,

IN YOUR UNGODLY POST #10 YOU AGAIN POST BLATANT LIES!  "One might ask if God is the author of the Bible, by his own hand. No, he is not."

What part of this inspired by Jesus passage don't you understand where Jesus as God did write the Bible: “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men" but as what it really is, the word of God.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

It matters NOT in whether Jesus did not write the Bible with his own hand, understood continued Bible fool? Huh?   Once again you call Jesus a LIAR, and remember I told you that you only needed to commit the Unpardonable Sin ONCE which you did many times before, understood?  Therefore, seemingly you want to make sure you're going to Hell upon your demise by calling Jesus a LIAR many times by committing the Unpardonable Sin over and over again.  OMG, priceless Bible stupidity one your part AGAIN!

.


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#19
Bones
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@fauxlaw
The answer is"wow, this exposes the contradiction within Christianity, guess God is a hoax".
Since you already seem to know the answer [you don't] why ask?
I am interested to see what (incorrect) responses I will receive. 

One might ask if God is the author of the Bible, by his own hand. No, he is not. Men wrote the sundry books of the Bible. Men then transliterated and translated, sometimes accurately, sometimes not, men being fallible as they are. Should you expect a perfect book out of that kind of treatment? No, you should not. Can you yet determine the will of God? Yes. Ask him.
Sure, small details may be changed here and their (even this is quite a significant issue with the bible), but surely omnibenevolence, one of Gods four omni's, is not a mistranslation. 

Why does a an all powerful God who apparently loves us all not defend the 6 million victims of the holocaust?
Why assume omnipotence is the only choice of mode for God to act? Do you use all the power you possess all the time?
We are discussing not only Gods ability to do anything, but his (unlimited goodness) omnibenevolence.Sure, I do not use all my powers all the time, but if I was infinitely good and all powerful, it would be a contradiction to my characteristics if I do not do anything. 

Was God responsible for the events of the Holocaust, or were men?
Yes. “ God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27. IF there is a God who created man THEN Hitler is not responsible for what he did. Consider the following. 
 
  1. Everything which led to Hitler doing what he did was foreseen by God. 
  2. God, being all powerful knew why Hitler did what he did, and refused to help or enlighten him. 
  3. God knew that Hitler would kill 6 million Jews and he refused to a)defend the Jews, b)at least inform them to be ready c)stop Hitler d)make Hitler understand why his philosophy is incorrect. 
Must God always meddle in the affairs of men,
Well he certainly expects you bend your knees and pray to you. Consider the many Jews who died who were true Christians. Many of them were likely praying, begging for forgiveness, begging for God to save them and their children, not knowing that "God doesn't meddle in the affairs of men. 

Moreover, if God doesn't meddle with men's affair in even the Holocaust, then what is the point of prayer? If he won't even stop 6 million Jews from dying, why would he listen to a Christians prayers for happiness and generous Christmas gift. 


or does he expect us to work out our issues ourselves, using the gift of free agency God gave us?
Our own issues? Hitler was the Jews issue?

Does a child grow and learn lessons for him or herself if a parent always steps in and acts for the child rather than letting the child make mistakes and make their own corrections, with his help if needed and asked for?
Are you seriously saying that the Holocaust was a lesson? This analogy is seriously faulty. If you had a child who was armed with an assault riffle at their pre-school class who made it clear that they had intentions to kill everyone in sight, you, as the teacher, would never say "damn I gotta let him learn for himself and correct his mistake, guess these kids are dying now". With this example, the flaw in this answer becomes clear. Why do the students need to bare the consequence of a single student have a warped vision of morality? If anything, it is the kid who needs teaching, not his victims. The same can be applied to Hitler. He is the one who needs to learn, not the Jews. Why didn't God put something in his path, whether it be a guardian or friend who would help him see the errors in his ways?

Mostly, he expects us to fix them ourselves because, mostly, virtually always, our troubles are caused by us, not him.
Well tell that to the dead Jews who are fertilising in the soil right now. Tell them to fix themselves. 




#20
Castin
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@rosends
The question is why God allowed this to happen. The answer is"wow, this exposes the contradiction within Christianity, guess God is a hoax".

Just so I understand, your sense of this as a contradiction is because you presuppose the label of "omnibenevolent" as a descriptor of God, right?
Omnibenevolence is very commonly presupposed in the notion of God, at least in the Christian world I live in. I am curious -- do you define God this way, personally?
#21
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@RationalMadman
A religion is supposed to be an idea, a theory, a theological thesis that is believed by its adherents.

That is certainly one aspect to religion though not the only one. Judaism as a religion is that plus a set of rules governing every aspect of life and behavior, from birth to death. This includes demands of belief and of action.

You should not be born and raised as anything other than smart and considerate, you should get to make your own mind up about which god is real or fake and which set of values you feel most aligns with you.

That is not a truth in Judaism - as a function of theological supremacy. It might be your opinion about how a religion should be, but its power stops there. So it has no impact on the claim that Judaism is "more of a tradition and culture thing for their ethnicity than a theological religion"
#22
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@Castin
Judaism does not call God "omnibenevolent" without a large asterisk -- that we can't always know the larger plan within which God's behavior is benevolent. The infant can't understand why the shot administered by the doctor was actually a "good" thing. The infant only feels the pain and thinks the doctor is evil. God is a parent, and sometimes a parent spanks a child. God is a boss who makes demands and punishes a lack of obedience. His roles are complex and multi-faceted so we don't reduce things to a single dimension and then measure God against what WE think that role should entail.
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#23
Bones
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@rosends
But unlike a shot administered to a child, the Holocaust has no future value to the dead Jew. 
#24
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#25
rosends
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@Bones
That's part of the unknown in the equation.
#26
Castin
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@rosends
Judaism does not call God "omnibenevolent" without a large asterisk -- that we can't always know the larger plan within which God's behavior is benevolent. The infant can't understand why the shot administered by the doctor was actually a "good" thing. The infant only feels the pain and thinks the doctor is evil. God is a parent, and sometimes a parent spanks a child. God is a boss who makes demands and punishes a lack of obedience. His roles are complex and multi-faceted so we don't reduce things to a single dimension and then measure God against what WE think that role should entail.
This seems to assume that all suffering is constructive suffering. Yet an enormous amount of suffering in the world is destructive suffering. It creates senseless death and pain that never yields any constructive result.
#27
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@Castin
But that judgment of "an enormous amount of suffering in the world is destructive suffering. It creates senseless death and pain that never yields any constructive result" is an expression of our human assessment.
#28
Castin
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@rosends
But that judgment of "an enormous amount of suffering in the world is destructive suffering. It creates senseless death and pain that never yields any constructive result" is an expression of our human assessment.
It certainly is. But if God is so beyond our human understanding that we cannot make a negative assessment of him, then it is equally true that we cannot make a positive assessment of him either. We cannot say he is good or evil, just or unjust. We are simply not smart enough to say he's a good guy or a bad guy. Why then worship a question mark about whom nothing can be definitively known?
#29
Timid8967
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@Bones
Hi

Thanks for the topic but isn't the question flawed in many ways? 

god is not all benevolent, not according to christian thinking.  that is how non-theists like to describe god so that we produce a strawman argument to beat up on. 

the primary and overarching character trait of god is according to christians and I suspect by jews too is that god is holy.  holiness trumps love, power, and knowledge. 

i have found in my discussions with christians that this three pronged god argument always ends up with loose and wooly answers. but that is primarily because i did not want to understand how christians understood god, it was how i understood it and the way i always pushed my questions. suffering is bad therefore god is not real. it is a strawman argument and never changes a christians position because it is a strawman argument.  it however is one of the most asked questions around the world on forum and in discussions- based entirely on a strawman argument - 

 non-theists don't understand god from a christian's perspective and the worst non-theists are those who think they were theists in the first place.  mostly they were theist by tradition or force not out of understanding. there are some exceptions to this. but rare. most leave and get on the bandwagon to justify themselves and have people around to support them. 

i think it would be a better approach for non-theists to stop trying to disprove god by nonsense and start living their lives consistently with their own non-beliefs.  if god does not exist, stop expending all of this needless energy on something that does not require it.  let those who do believe - live their lives consistently.  the problem is that theists and non-theists worlds collide - but why should one have the say over the other - unless - there is someway of determining which should decide?  You can't start with science or with revelation - you cant start with truth or philiosophy - perhaps this is why democracy exists - truth, science, revelation, philosophy does not get in the way - the majority decides - and this is probably pragmatic but workable.  the minorities might suffer - but someone is always going to suffer - perhaps the greatest good argument ought to prevail - as it has with masks.  the minorities in the mask debate are clearly oppressed and disavowed.  there has to be a line somewhere. who is going to draw it. these are the important questions - not why did god permit 6 million people to die? The question really should be - why did the Nazis kill 6 million people - and the answer is science.  why did the Americans permit the nazis to kill 6 million people? Why did the human world at the time permit the nazis to killl 6 milllion people? Or why did america permit the Russians and the Chinese to kill so many millions of people ?   

But noone wants to know that science killed the 6 million jews.  why not? because science is seen as some kind of panacea. 


#30
rosends
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@Castin
We cannot say he is good or evil, just or unjust. We are simply not smart enough to say he's a good guy or a bad guy. Why then worship a question mark about whom nothing can be definitively known?

Maybe so. And maybe faith is that we worship him anyway because we attribute all of existence to him even without understanding his nature.