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Last week I attended a briefing given by a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. His stories were quite horrific. It’s hard to believe that things so inhumane happened less that 70 years ago.
After the survivor had finished sharing his tear-jerking stories, he opened the floor for some questions. After dodging the bullet for more than twenty questions, the inevitable question finally made it’s appearance:
Did the Holocaust/Auschwitz experience strengthen your relationship with God?
The man turned away and paused. After nearly one minute of silence, he finally turned back to his audience, prepared to give his answer.
I don’t believe in God, he loudly announced. How could I? How could I believe in a God who would allow something this sick to happen? How could I believe in a God who would ignore the pleading of innocent children begging for their lives? Where was your God through all of this?
My mouth dropped.
This lady wasn’t done. She was back for more.
Right, but overall, would you say that you grew closer to God as a result of your experience?
Sigh…
Another attendee asked,
Do you think the world has learned its lesson since the Holocaust?
The survivor didn’t take long to answer this one.
Look around the world. Kenya. Rwanda, etc. The world hasn’t learned anything.
Wow.
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strikes me that his reaction lends credence to the myth that a non-believer does secretly believe in a god/s, but that they’re just pissed at him/her/it. maybe that was why he got the follow up question. what do you think, Bill?
having said that, i can’t decide if the second question was asked through ignorance…or possibly just plain rude.
I wouldn’t think the person was deliberately being rude, but maybe ignorance isn’t the right word… It seems some people really can’t wrap their minds around the idea that someone doesn’t believe in God, for any reason. Not believing in God doesn’t make sense to them. They can’t believe anyone could not believe. Which doesn’t make any sense to me, because I find not believing to be very easy, especially when you consider explanations like those offered by this survivor. Several people, entirely too many people, have comparable and I think perfectly legitimate reasons for not believing in God. I, fortunately, cannot relate, but I can certainly empathize. Perhaps some people, this lady for instance, who cannot relate also cannot empathize? ::shrug::
I can’t imagine what must have been going through his head after she repeated her question, after what he said. It must have been very frustrating and confusing.
What was his reaction, Bill?
Well, to try and understand, you would have to turn it around to something you DO believe and would have trouble imagining someone else not believing. I admit I have trouble understanding how anyone does believe in God; it is outside the limits of my empathy or imagination.
People like this person or Ayaan Hirsi Ali tend to make me feel embarrassed to complain about anything at all.
Ben:
Well said man. I can’t agree with you more. And to think, just last night, I was mad because Red Lobster took too long to bring me my food.
I do struggle a bit with the willingness of some to blame God for the depravity of man, but we each deal with tragedy differently I guess.
Here is an interesting .mp3 on the subject. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Obviously the 2nd question was…. stupid. I find it hard to believe there isn’t more surrounding that to put the 2nd question in more context. Or maybe the questioner was just a jerk and wanted to be able to quote a simple yes/no answer, rather then the far more real answer they got back.
That being said, there are many people who cannot wrap their mind around the thought that a loving God would let bad things happen to innocent or good people. Reading the Bible shouldn’t give you this expectation. Whatever the reason or justification, God has allowed bad things to happen from the start. God could have stopped Eve from taking the fruit, or Adam from eating it. God could have stopped Cain from killing Abel. God could have stopped the Egyptians from killing every Hebrew child around when Moses was born. There are countless other examples throughout the Old Testament, and history in general. Countless horrors occur every day even now. How could a loving God allow these things to occur?
On the surface, I can understand how people would have issue with these events, and not be able to accept that there is a God who would allow these things to happen. But I would ask… what would you have God do? One of the driving tenants of Christianity is, as there have been many discussions about, free will. There simply cannot be free will without the opportunity for atrocity. God gives humans power over other humans. Without this what choice do we have in anything? Without a choice, what use are we? There cannot be free will without the freedom to act wrong as well as right, and a God who steps in to interfere with every wrong action, or even just the ones that get too wrong, doesn’t allow that freedom.
My father in law was a German soldier during WWII. I’ve never discussed religion with him but he has talked about the war once or twice. He is horribly embarrassed and ashamed of the many terrible things that happened. Things that were done on both sides of the conflict. He always seems to come back to the same point though: What could he have done? To speak up would lead to his death and the death of his parents and sister so he was forced to go along.
He spoke to me about one time when he spoke to an police officer who had just hanged a man he knew. He tried to explain that the man was innocent and hadn’t committed the crime. I’m not sure what the crime was. He was told that someone had to be punished and if he didn’t shut up it might be him next time. Can you imagine living like that? I can’t.
I do know that if I did worship a God in those days I would wonder where he was too. If I did believe in God I think I would grow to hate him.
Fortunately I don’t and so am free to hate the oppression and socio-political circumstances that led to the war instead. This allows me to learn from the mistakes of our ancestors rather than pass the whole thing off as God’s will and end up making the same mistakes all over again. In that I think the world has learned its lesson. Or rather is learning its lesson.
@Zaphoid
But, then how does miracles occur? Aren’t miracles exactly that, God intervening in our world?
For example, if some madman was to bomb a school, but a whole class full of children wasn’t even touched due to the roof collapsing perfectly and stopping the explosion and fire from reaching them. A lot of people would call this a miracle.
But isn’t God then stopping the bomber’s action to murder these school children? If he can do that without stopping free will, then why would God ignore the, “pleading of innocent children begging for their lives” like the Auschwitz survivor said?