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”There is absolutely no rationalistic explanation for the Holocaust except for the fact
that it was a Divine decree … why it happened is above human comprehension –
but it is definitely not because of punishment for sin.”
From: Texts & Writings - Jewish Books - Learning & Values (a Jewish website)
This is the prevailing Jewish attitude, due to either total ignorance or denial of the simple truth.
The truth of the situation is explained from Old Testament Scriptures below ...
Through one man (Adam) came the sin nature, and it was passed on
“… for there is no one who does not sin …” (2 Chronicles 6:36).
“I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” (David, Psalm 51:5).
“… all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags (women’s menstral cloths!)” (Isaiah 64:6).
“… for behold, each one follows the dictates of his own evil heart ...” (Jeremiah 16:12).
Jesus told His disciples that they were evil: “If you then, being evil …” (Luke 11:13).
Does a totally Holy God want evil sinful souls to be with Him in Heaven for all of eternity?
The penalty for sin is separation from God
“But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you,
so that He will not hear.” (Isaiah 59:2).
“For you have hidden Your face from us, and have consumed us because of our iniquities.” (Isaiah 64:7).
Enter the beginning of God’s solution to man’s problem
“The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above
all the peoples on the face of the earth … Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God,
the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations
with those who love Him and keep His commandments” (Deuteronomy 7:6-9).
“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant,
then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people …” (Exodus 19:5).
Their covenant with God was conditional, and would also affect their descendants.
God gave them His Law to follow, and gave them a critical choice
This began with The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17).
And God promised to bless them: “… if you obey the voice of the Lord your God,
to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in the Book of the Law
… I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you
life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life (by obeying),
that both you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:10-19).
Their covenant with God was conditional, and would also affect their descendants.
They repeatedly broke their covenant with God, who warned of the dire consequences
“… and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.
Then My anger shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them,
and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured. And many evils and
troubles shall befall them … I will heap disasters on them …” (Deuteronomy 31:16--32:23).
Check out some of the gruesome details here: Ezekiel 5:5-17, Ezekiel 20:5-9.
“Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you …
because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His statutes
and His commandments ... And they (the curses) shall be upon you for a sign and
a wonder, and on your descendents forever.” (Deuteronomy 28:45-46).
Moses prophesied: “For I know that after my death you will become utterly corrupt
… And evil will befall you in the latter days …” (Deuteronomy 31:29).
Their covenant with God was conditional, and would also affect their descendants.
God left them in their original state of spiritual blindness/deafness
“Now Moses called all of Israel and said to them: ‘You have seen all that the Lord
did before your eyes … Yet the Lord has not given you a heart to perceive
and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.’ ” (Deuteronomy 29:3-4).
“And He said, ‘Go, and tell this people: Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ...” (Isaiah 6:9-10).
Sin >> spiritual death >> separation from God >> spiritual blindness/deafness
God dispersed them throughout the world
“Then the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other” (Deuteronomy 28:64).
“… when I scatter them among the nations and disperse them throughout the countries.” (Ezekiel 12:15).
God promised a new, and better, and more personal covenant
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant
… not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers (Israel & Judah)
… I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God,
and they shall be My people … for they shall all know Me … For I will forgive their iniquity,
and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
“For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into
your own land (1948) ... I will (future) give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you
… I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My
judgments and do them … you shall be My people, and I will be your God.” (Ezekiel 36:24-28).
This has begun … with the Messianic Jews (in Israel and elsewhere).
The New Testament confirms the truths of the Old Testament
For example:
Matthew 13:13-15 … Jesus is referring to Isaiah 6:9-10
John 12:37-40 … John (v.40) is referring to Isaiah 6:9-10
Romans 11:7-25 … Paul is referring to Isaiah 29:10, Deuteronomy 29:3-4, Psalm 69:22-23
For the same reason that God lets you do whatever you want to do.
Everything that happens in this world is God's Will. Otherwise, "it" wouldn't happen.
It is a sad conclusion to think that God's Will is only "good," which has to be defined in human terms. We humans do not understand what is divine good. We have come up with the definition of what is good and what is bad, and we try to live by those artificial definitions through laws, ethics, and conscience.
To assign an "evil" empire merely skirts the real issue. The real anti-Christ is the individual. Either I allow God to be God today, or I will be God today. This is a choice that is made every moment of life.
Do we really want a God to be making this Earth paradise or a heaven?
Isaiah more or less asked the same question when pundits of his day were proclaiming that "God is with us" and "we are in the right." His answer, however, was not very encouraging. If we really want God to be with us, then we better be ready for a "hot" time: we are going to be purged with the hottest fires possible.
God really doesn't care about what is going on in this world. IT cares about the spiritual side. "Ask": sure. God listens and often grants a prayer or too. But to expect God to do something? Ha-ha! The joke is on us, even as the OT prophets tried to point out. We humans do not "deserve" anything just because we decided to sing "I believe in you and God, so tell me that I'm saved." Expecting God do do anything is akin to the Roman/Greek device of the Deus ex machina: "We made a mess of everything, so please, o divine being, make everything right."
Did 6 million Jews deserve to die? Did 9 million Russians deserve to die under Stalin? Did several million Burmese deserve to die under Pol Pot? Did Serbs and Croats deserve to die? Do thousands of Syrians deserve to die?
Deserve. Interesting choice of words. No, I would say that they did not deserve death as punishment. But, in a world of cause-and-effect, then I suppose that they warranted death as the effect of their actions.
The world created Hitler. The world created Stalin. The world created Pol Pot. The world created Al-Assad. And since we are all belonging to this world, we are responsible for every horrible thing happening in this world.
As one of my favorite theologian-professors stated: if we want to destroy the planet, God isn't going to lift a finger to stop us. A couple of folks get together to pray and top the destruction, we have the promise of ITs help.
But it all comes down to us, not God, if we want to make the world a better place.
It all starts with treating the people closest to us differently, with a lot more love. We break the perpetual chain of abuse that we inherited from our parents, schoolmates, workmates, society, religion, government, and anywhere else we want to lay blame for our character.
"I'm not going to do this anymore. And if the world doesn't like it, it can go bleep-bleep itself. Because this is where the buck stops!"
Imagine if 7 billion people used this as their creed. What would the world look like?
bible god is an evil monster who cannot handle rejection the jews in the holocaust are not responsible for the sins of their ancestors. punishing people for the sins of their ancestors is immoral and goes against the concept of personal responsibility
Wow - that's a pretty racist and religiously bigoted OT!
Thanks for explaining why you think it was okay for the Holocaust to happen, evagelist-77! The world could do without your brand of racist, superseding evangelism - and thankfully, such a view is no longer one shared by the majority of Christians.
It still worries me, however, that people like you exist, Evangelist-77.
While I do not share Meester-Chung's view of "bible-god" having a hand in any of this, he is correct in stating that corporate responsibility is a long-dead system, and as I must constantly remind many Christians concerning the Words of God as spoken through Ezekiel: "The soul that sins, only he shall die".
Will anti-semitism on the part of certain uneducated Christians never end?
Wasn't Hitler democratically elected?
I guess Germany's political & economical climate at that time has caused the German people to look away which made the holocaust possible.
The Germans not wanting to know the price they paid for Hitler's modernisation of Germany can be considered evil. But I guess that is no more evil as us not wanting to know that our clothes are dirt-cheap because they're made by childlabour.
I guess ignorance is indeed bliss.
True mis-use of the geological facts: now THAT'S EVIL™!
How about explaining simple (and as even the insurance companies call them…) "Acts of God"?
How about the S. Pacific tsunami that killed at least 250,000 innocents? Or the Haitian earthquake? Or the Japanse tsunami last year? What on earth did any of those god-created events (or so we're told...) have to do with Free Will? Or some dictator's thuggery?
"Well, God works His miracles in mysterious ways, my child!" Trust in God's mercies, yep!
Apparently God is not in a giving mood these decades. Else perhaps he just doesn't give a rat's pehtoot? He has clearly demonstrated the most callous disregard for innocent human life ever witnessed on this planet in recent years.
Not one of you fervent believers should forgive Him! If I'd lost anyone close to me in any of these catastrophes, I'd be giving Him "the finger", in fact! If He really is in control as you Christian folks all so lovingly assert, He certainly deserves it!
But of course, all these events really show is that they are proven natural, plate-tectonics-related geological events, and they will continue to happen with some regularity. And they should not be mis-used to frighten innocent but technically naive people into joining in as new Christians.
Wow - that's a pretty racist and religiously bigoted OT!
Even that is an understatement.
Of course such apologetics doesn't explain the sins of Roman Catholics, Roma, trade unionist or just plain old Slavic Christians but hey, who am I to judge.
Fortunately for Christians we have the simple words of Lutheran Theologist Friedrich Niemoller who was himself even though he was an early support of Hitler was interned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau;
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Amy Schumer was sitting on a train next to a delightful little old lady.
The little old lady asked Amy "have you heard the good news?"
Amy asked her what she was talking about.
The little old lady asked if she had heard about Jesus.
Amy told her, I'm sorry but I'm jewish. My people don't believe that way.
The little lady replied, "dont worry, your people just haven't found Jesus yet."
Amy replied, "...........actually.... my people did find Jesus.... maybe you haven't heard the bad news?"
For the same reason that God lets you do whatever you want to do.
Everything that happens in this world is God's Will. Otherwise, "it" wouldn't happen.
It is a sad conclusion to think that God's Will is only "good," which has to be defined in human terms. We humans do not understand what is divine good. We have come up with the definition of what is good and what is bad, and we try to live by those artificial definitions through laws, ethics, and conscience.
To assign an "evil" empire merely skirts the real issue. The real anti-Christ is the individual. Either I allow God to be God today, or I will be God today. This is a choice that is made every moment of life.
Do we really want a God to be making this Earth paradise or a heaven?
Isaiah more or less asked the same question when pundits of his day were proclaiming that "God is with us" and "we are in the right." His answer, however, was not very encouraging. If we really want God to be with us, then we better be ready for a "hot" time: we are going to be purged with the hottest fires possible.
God really doesn't care about what is going on in this world. IT cares about the spiritual side. "Ask": sure. God listens and often grants a prayer or too. But to expect God to do something? Ha-ha! The joke is on us, even as the OT prophets tried to point out. We humans do not "deserve" anything just because we decided to sing "I believe in you and God, so tell me that I'm saved." Expecting God do do anything is akin to the Roman/Greek device of the Deus ex machina: "We made a mess of everything, so please, o divine being, make everything right."
Did 6 million Jews deserve to die? Did 9 million Russians deserve to die under Stalin? Did several million Burmese deserve to die under Pol Pot? Did Serbs and Croats deserve to die? Do thousands of Syrians deserve to die?
Deserve. Interesting choice of words. No, I would say that they did not deserve death as punishment. But, in a world of cause-and-effect, then I suppose that they warranted death as the effect of their actions.
The world created Hitler. The world created Stalin. The world created Pol Pot. The world created Al-Assad. And since we are all belonging to this world, we are responsible for every horrible thing happening in this world.
As one of my favorite theologian-professors stated: if we want to destroy the planet, God isn't going to lift a finger to stop us. A couple of folks get together to pray and top the destruction, we have the promise of ITs help.
But it all comes down to us, not God, if we want to make the world a better place.
It all starts with treating the people closest to us differently, with a lot more love. We break the perpetual chain of abuse that we inherited from our parents, schoolmates, workmates, society, religion, government, and anywhere else we want to lay blame for our character.
"I'm not going to do this anymore. And if the world doesn't like it, it can go bleep-bleep itself. Because this is where the buck stops!"
Imagine if 7 billion people used this as their creed. What would the world look like?
why but a serf would write the above ?
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Wasn't Hitler democratically elected?
But I guess that is no more evil as us not wanting to know that our clothes are dirt-cheap because they're made by childlabour.
True mis-use of the geological facts: now THAT'S EVIL™!
