What grave sins Jews commited to deserve the Holocaust?

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by entelecheia, Dec 7, 2012.

  1. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Actually, I think the story of Job needs to be questioned for relevance right away, on account that the events are motivated by a manipulative exchange between God and Satan.

    Job 1:

    8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

    9 “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. 10 “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11 But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

    12 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”


    Satan challenges God to test Job's faith - and God complies?!
     
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  3. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    So you are just going to outright evade supporting your claim that, "According to the definition of God with which Job was operating, God indeed seemed to be inefficient in managing the Universe." Instead, you are cross-posting from a GIA thread, and essentially dismissing the entire reference you were trying to use to make your original point.

    God decided that no one was beyond testing. Simple as that. That Satan brought it to his attention is immaterial, as Job was blessed beyond what he had known previous to his testing:

    12 The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters. ...

    16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation.
    -Job 42​

    So Satan's purpose in pointing this out completely failed. He neither proved Job unrighteous nor did anything more than cause temporary woes. God gave Satan the rope to hang his own machinations.
     
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  5. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

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    Are you guys actually debating the minutiae of a translation from a text written 2000 years ago in a practically dead language which has been re-translated.....


    Really????
     
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  7. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

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    True that. i.e.


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    "... the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil..."
     
  8. andy1033 Truth Seeker Valued Senior Member

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    Like i said earlier, the history of the world is that it is run by what we perceive to be the devil, but jesus christ came to save us.

    I wrote earlier why the holocaust happened, and using dark energy to make a country, no wonder it has so many problems. What about others who also use dark energy, as you cannot make a deal with the devil as the saying goes.

    Thats why israel has so many problems, is that it power and energy of creation came from the darkness. The holocaust in ww2 was used as a sacrifice to create israel, but it was created in darkness.

    Thats why israel brings so much darkness, as others can access darkness too. (darkness just symbolises evil, what ever that means)

    Israel(jewish state) is just a group doing voodoo against another group doing voodoo, i.e islam. Thats why so much darkness comes out of the situation.
    I do not care for any of these groups, i am just stating that israel was created out of darkness, i.e the holocaust, and its brought more darkness.
     
  9. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    That same Satan who, per you, came out of nowhere -

     
  10. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Complains Job:

    3 After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 He said:

    3 “May the day of my birth perish,
    and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’
    4 That day—may it turn to darkness;
    may God above not care about it;
    may no light shine on it.
    5 May gloom and utter darkness claim it once more;
    may a cloud settle over it;
    may blackness overwhelm it.
    6 That night—may thick darkness seize it;
    may it not be included among the days of the year
    nor be entered in any of the months.
    7 May that night be barren;
    may no shout of joy be heard in it.
    8 May those who curse days[a] curse that day,
    those who are ready to rouse Leviathan.
    9 May its morning stars become dark;
    may it wait for daylight in vain
    and not see the first rays of dawn,
    10 for it did not shut the doors of the womb on me
    to hide trouble from my eyes.
    11 “Why did I not perish at birth,
    and die as I came from the womb?
    12 Why were there knees to receive me
    and breasts that I might be nursed?
    13 For now I would be lying down in peace;
    I would be asleep and at rest
    14 with kings and rulers of the earth,
    who built for themselves places now lying in ruins,
    15 with princes who had gold,
    who filled their houses with silver.
    16 Or why was I not hidden away in the ground like a stillborn child,
    like an infant who never saw the light of day?
    17 There the wicked cease from turmoil,
    and there the weary are at rest.
    18 Captives also enjoy their ease;
    they no longer hear the slave driver’s shout.
    19 The small and the great are there,
    and the slaves are freed from their owners.
    20 “Why is light given to those in misery,
    and life to the bitter of soul,
    21 to those who long for death that does not come,
    who search for it more than for hidden treasure,
    22 who are filled with gladness
    and rejoice when they reach the grave?
    23 Why is life given to a man
    whose way is hidden,
    whom God has hedged in?
    24 For sighing has become my daily food;
    my groans pour out like water.
    25 What I feared has come upon me;
    what I dreaded has happened to me.
    26 I have no peace, no quietness;
    I have no rest, but only turmoil.”


    Only someone who believes that God is inefficient in managing the Universe, or that God is unfair, can complain like that.


    Look then from chapter 38 onward, where God speaks to Job:

    /.../
    “Do you give the horse its strength
    or clothe its neck with a flowing mane?
    Do you make it leap like a locust,
    striking terror with its proud snorting?
    /.../
    “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom
    and spread its wings toward the south?
    Does the eagle soar at your command
    and build its nest on high?
    /.../
    “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?
    Let him who accuses God answer him!”
    /.../
    “Would you discredit my justice?
    Would you condemn me to justify yourself?
    Do you have an arm like God’s,
    and can your voice thunder like his?
    Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor,
    and clothe yourself in honor and majesty.
    Unleash the fury of your wrath,
    look at all who are proud and bring them low,
    look at all who are proud and humble them,
    crush the wicked where they stand.
    Bury them all in the dust together;
    shroud their faces in the grave.
    Then I myself will admit to you
    that your own right hand can save you.
    /.../
    No one is fierce enough to rouse it [the leviathan].
    Who then is able to stand against me?
    Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
    Everything under heaven belongs to me.
    /.../

    In the end, God is putting Job in his place. Which is awkward, given that God started out by saying that Job is blameless.


    You brought up Job as an example of an innocent person who faced hardship through no fault of their own.
    Some of us argued from the beginning on that this cannot be the case.


    Those blessings were just material things. Things that, given their nature, are subject to aging, illness and death.

    Had the point been made that Job eventually attained enlightenment and went beyond aging, illness and death, beyond greed, anger and delusion, that would be a higher blessing.


    So earlier, you said it is irrelevant that it was Satan who challenged God to test Job's faith.
    But here, you are suggesting that God tested Job to prove Satan wrong?


    Needless to say, God being omniscient, knew how things would develop anyway, so on His part, no testing is necessary to find out how things stand.
    So we're left with the conclusion that God tested Job to:
    a) teach Job a lesson,
    b) teach Satan a lesson,
    c) set a didactic example for anyone hearing about the testing of Job and how it came about,
    d) the whole story is a hoax.
     
  11. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

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    Per me? No. That's p[er] you...I never said they "came out of" nowhere. You asked where these spiritual forces hostile to God come from. To which I replied "Nowhere." Got that?
     
  12. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

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    Job began running his mouth (understandable but inexcusable), and eventually God took him to task. Job got the message, repented, and in the end God blessed him even more than at the beginning. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear".
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2012
  13. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, now you want to hedge your bets toward fairness, since I already said:

    Nowhere does Job complain about god's efficiency.

    Job clearly does not understand the purpose of being tested, and naturally questions it. It proves that Job is not righteous merely for the selfish benefits in provides him, as Satan suggested. This is why the blameless are not beyond testing, which is the whole point of Job.

    So you are still asserting that everyone who faces hardship deserves it? Including the Jews in the Holocaust and the newborn?

    Nonsense. What was take from Job was replenished in abundance, as well as him learning that he was not beyond testing.

    It is irrelevant, as the lesson was for man, not Satan. Satan merely played the role of man's doubt.

    Like I said, to teach man a lesson.
     
  14. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    Religion forum. Deal with it.
     
  15. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Then let's recap: What is the source of "spiritual forces hostile to God"?
    How come "spiritual forces hostile to God" exist?
     
  16. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    This isn't simply my assertion, it's what logically follows.
    If people don't deserve whatever happens to them, then God is unjust, or inept, or malevolent.

    Within Christianity, the problem of theodicy can be resolved only by resorting to "God works in mysterious ways," and/or by accepting a considerable amount of apparent violence, ill will and injustice as appropriate.

    Hindu theism, via concepts of karma and reincarnation, doesn't have to resort to such solutions in order to resolve the problem of theodicy, as karma and reincarnation explain how come things happen to people.
     
  17. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    Wow. So you are definitely saying that the Jews deserved the Holocaust.

    And no, it does not logically follow. Misfortune can befall the undeserving because we live in a world of causation. Simple as that. Everything that is allowed to happen does so simply because there is no external, inexplicable influence upon the closed system of our universe. Now whether that is because of hard determinism or free will is perhaps up for debate.

    One of your first problems is that you are focusing on theodicy (seeking to make god's existence probable) instead of simply whether the notions of god and evil are logically compatible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga's_free_will_defense). And you probably should refrain from making ignorant statements about theodicy without first consulting some references on the subject. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy Or do you have something that supports all arguments of theodicy boiling down to "God works in mysterious ways"?
     
  18. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    I have a different way of looking at this. Say you were a computer programmer who was trying to develop AI or artificial intelligence. You share a huge computer with many other scientists. One day an AI anomaly appears. You notice the anomaly, not because it follows the script of the programming, but because it departs from it. Even though it goes left, when you say go right, it is good because it is a sign of AI. It is not important at this point for it to do your bidden, for it is just learning to crawl. You need to be patient.

    As the anomaly evolves, and you let it walk, it starts to gain more and more control over the large computer. It even starts to become a pain in the butt and change the content of programs. The rest of the scientists, who also use this computer, are upset because the AI is messing with their research and erasing their files. But as the creator, this is excellent to you, because the AI constantly amazes you.

    But eventually, although the AI anomaly is evolving, it is causing problems for everyone else. You don't see it exactly as evil like the rest of the scientists; because it is your creation. The book of JOB was about God and the AI, letting the AI evolve, even though JOB is losing his research. After the book of JOB, God does not destroy the AI, but extracts him from the bigger computer, and gives him another computer all by himself; lord of the earth, The AI remains, but you don't see God fully taking the side of his AI again.
     
  19. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    So now you want to address the problem of the Holocaust from an entirely secular, non-theistic perspective?


    Okay. You've dropped the ball too many times.
    No point talking to you if you don't read what I write.
     
  20. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    That is not a strictly secular perspective.

    So you have nothing. I call you on your bullshit and you capitulate. So be it.
     

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