Serious Question: YHWH and The Holocaust

[derekcfpegritz]

All of my recent research into the Holocaust has...well, it's made me question a lot of things. About the unimaginable stupidity of humanity, and the utter brutality that can and will emerge from anyone at even the slightest provocation. But in all my readings, there is one question that I've never really seen asked, or answered.

If anyone reading

Comments

[rapier1]

The question you are asking has been asked pretty much since the beginning of time. If you go back and read the book of Job you'll see its all about this single question - especially if you notice that the happy ending was added on by another writer. If you'd like a more modern interpretation of it take a look at James Morrow's Towing Jehovah, Blameless in Abaddon, Only Begotten Daughter and so forth. These aren't theology books but very entertaining novels that focus on issues like the purpose of God, what suffering means about God, etc etc etc

[derekcfpegritz]

You've prettymuch justified exactly why I'm an atheist.

But I do agree: the whole "kind, loving god" thing is a misconception born of modern utopian thinking and not an accurate representation of god as depicted in...well, any scriptures, Eastern or Western. Still, that doesn't excuse him/her/it from responsibility for his creations, because if I recall correctly, the Bible does depict him as interested in the lives of his creations. After all, how do explain the so-called miracles depicted in the scriptures?

So...what happened, then? Did god just stop giving a shit after 65 AD? Where are the miracles today? Why isn't Yehovah smiting the filthy, stinking Palestinians who have claimed the Promised Land of his people for themselves? Why isn't Jesus smiting all the homosexuals in the United States or curing the sick in the Oncology Ward at Children's Hospital? Why hasn't Allah gifted the Iraqis with the supernatural ability to purge the infidels (that is, US) from their lands?

If there was a god, I think Morrow got it perfectly right

[rapier1]

I don't think that Morrow was arguing that God just 'died' in Towing Jehovah as much as God was fulfilling a crucial step in our own progress. At some point we need to put down the idea of God as some great bearded buy in the sky. The following books pretty much made that clear. God didn't 'die' from neglect but the image of God died to let us move past the sort of magical thinking where we put all responsibility on someone else

[martygreene]

I think an important aspect of a lot of this is what one interprets G-d to be. I take a fairly non-traditional standpoint (as far as Judaism goes) and believe less in an entity and more in a conciousness. I believe more in G-d as a part of all rather than all being a creation of G-d, if that makes any sense to you.

[derekcfpegritz]

That makes a lot of sense, actually, as that's the concept of godhood described by American Transcendentalism (Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are the best examples), which is itself founded in the philosophical pantheism of Immanuel Swedenborg. Check his stuff out some time--you'd probably really like it.