Tag Archives: the Holocaust

David Berlinski defends God’s role in the Holocaust: “God did not protect his chosen people…[but] did…smite their enemies, with generations to come in mourning or obsessed by shame.”

Here’s David Berlinski defending God’s role in the Holocaust (from page 31 of his book, The Devil’s Delusion): “[T]he thousand year Reich…lies buried in the rubble of German cities smashed to smithereens,…[I]f God did not protect his chosen people precisely … Continue reading

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If God is Rational, Whence the Holocaust and Competing Goods (Such as the Pursuit of Beauty over Ethics)?

Thomist philosopher Edward Feser prefers intellectualism (reason leading the will) to voluntarism (the will leading reason). He thinks that neither desire nor imagination should lead our wills, and claims that God, as the supremely rational being, ought to be our example: … Continue reading

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The Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Holocaust

Here’s the problem concerning the principle of sufficient reason. If one posits that God has a good and sufficient reason for having allowed the Holocaust, the follow-up question obviously becomes, “Well, what is it?” Any particular answer proves woefully inadequate, ludicrous … Continue reading

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God Exists And Evil Is Always For The Best?

Sounding like Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide, the Thomist philosopher Edward Feser recently made the following statement at his blog: [I]t is not just God’s existence but also divine providence which can be known via purely philosophical arguments.  Hence, even … Continue reading

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Occam’s Razor: Why Did the Holocaust Occur?

Obviously, the simplest explanation for why the Holocaust occurred is shit happens. In a world where things rarely go the way that good and reasonable people want them to, the Holocaust, initiated by bad and unreasonable people, is an especially horrific … Continue reading

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Would Anne Frank Have Been A Belieber (A Follower Of Justin Bieber)?

This was reported at The Daily Beast today: [Justin] Bieber visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam this weekend, where he is performing a concert, and wrote a humble little note in the museum’s guest book: “Truly inspiring to be able to … Continue reading

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Did God Die In The Holocaust?

In the 1930s and 40s, a great many Jews in Europe would have exercised their free will in the direction of Adolf Hitler’s head by putting a bullet in it, but God (if He exists) did not give a single Jew … Continue reading

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Could The Holocaust Happen Again?

What were the conditions that made the Holocaust possible, and are those conditions present in the world today? Sociologist Zigmunt Bauman (b. 1925) tackles this two-part question in his book Modernity and the Holocaust (2000 edition). He begins by analyzing bureaucracy. In Bauman’s … Continue reading

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God, the Holocaust, and the Battle for Occam’s Razor

In the Letters section of the November 2012 edition of Commentary is an interesting exchange between an atheist, Itzik Basman, and a theist, Rabbi Joseph Polak, concerning the question of whether, in the light of the Holocaust, God exists. Basman’s … Continue reading

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Zygmunt Bauman On What Made The Holocaust Possible (And Whether Something Like It Could Happen Again)

In Modernity and the Holocaust (2000 edition), sociologist Zygmunt Bauman (b. 1925) explores the question of responsibility: who or what is responsible for the direction of the modern world? He explores this question via the prism of the Holocaust and has a provocative thesis: … Continue reading

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Ask an Interesting Question, Get an Interesting Answer. Zygmunt Bauman’s Question: Who or What is Responsible for Making the Modern World Go Along As It Is?

In The Holocaust and the Crisis of Human Behavior (1980), George Kren and Leon Rappoport write the following: “. . . Auschwitz expands the universe of consciousness no less than landing on the moon” (qtd. in Bauman 11). As you … Continue reading

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Richard Dawkins Won’t Debate William Lane Craig Because Craig Rationalizes Genocide

Though I’d like to see Richard Dawkins debate William Lane Craig, I actually think that Dawkins has given a good reason for not debating him, highlighting the following passage from Craig’s writings in which Craig rationalizes genocide: I have come to appreciate … Continue reading

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Lucretius: Atheism’s John the Baptist and the Progenitor of a Hell Realm

Below is a great (and very contemporary sounding) atheist quote from Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things. Atomism and evolution have always been the poison pills at God’s bedside (or, at least, the religious believer’s). Have you swallowed their implications yet? As an … Continue reading

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Genocide or Justice?: William Lane Craig, the Canaanites, the Holocaust, and Jihad

You’ve got to give William Lane Craig credit. When he believes something, he believes something. The Kool-Aid gets drunk to the last drop. Take the slaughter of the Canaanites by the Israelis in the Hebrew Bible (see Deuteronomy 7:1-2; 20:16-18; and Joshua). Like … Continue reading

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Who Killed the Kennedys?

Given the broad debate over right-wing responsibility (or not) for the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabriella Giffords, I wonder why this story, from August of last year, got so little play. It appeared in the Washington Post: When California Highway Patrol officers … Continue reading

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Muslim Americans and the Ground Zero Mosque: Countering Stereotypes

This recently at the American Prospect website: A 2007 Pew Study on Muslim Americans found “them to be largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the … Continue reading

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Glenn Beck says that the Jews killed Jesus

Isn’t Glenn Beck a lovely human being? Here what he said on Tuesday about Jesus and the Jews: Jesus conquered death. He wasn’t victimized. He chose to give his life. He did have a choice. If he was a victim, … Continue reading

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Author Mitch Horowitz Says Adolf Hitler was Not an Occultist

And an Alternet reviewer of Horowitz’s new book on occultism says that he’s persuasive on this score: He convincingly knocks down the trendy idea that the Third Reich was an occult phenomenon. “However tantalizing some may find it to conceive of … Continue reading

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Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: The View from Anne Frank’s Window (July 22, 1941)

Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House recently put on YouTube rare footage of Anne Frank leaning out of a window to get a look at a newly married couple in her neighborhood: And here’s Anne Frank, at a younger age, in a group photo: … Continue reading

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Existential Confusion for a Sunday

I don’t know how the can opener works either: And the universe is expanding:

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