Oh, yeah, definitely. But then Yahweh is said to act in mysterious ways. Ways that are well beyond the capacity of mere mortals to comprehend.
And the beauty of either a leap of religious faith or a staunch belief in a God/the God, is nothing beyond that ever has to be demonstrated. It’s the faith and the belief itself that motivate the behaviors that bring about the actual consequences for all the rest of us.
And, just out of curiosity, what is your own religious path, if any?
And wouldn’t any path to any God or No God religious denomination, have to account for things like Hitler?
That’s why some like Harold Kushner argue that one explanation for this is that God is loving, just and merciful, but He lacks the actual power to bring it about.
Yahweh is a Tanakh character and when Christians want to make war or kill they go back to the Jewish Bible, Jesus saying a bunch of inconvenient stuff, so I can’t really see how the Jews have no corrupted their religion, given what bothers you. You are referring to Yahweh.
Of course religions are not about peace and love, and they didn’t pretend to be, in general, until the monotheisms came in with all their contradictions. Pagans had gods of war and infighting and conflicts even in ‘the heavens’. They had human gods.
The God of the Hebrew Bible not only wipes out all but a small remnant of living things by the flood, he commands that the Israelites commit genocide against the people of Canaan. When the chosen King, Saul, fails to comply with God’s genocidal commandment, it results in his replacement as king by David.
Christian theologians and Talmudic scholars employed various hermeneutic strategies for rationalizing God’s Old Testament behavior. The early Gnostic viewed Yahweh as the evil demiurge who put himself in the place of the real God, who presumably is identified with the Platonic Good and thus would be free of anything like genocidal tendencies.
Bible historians describe the Hebrew scriptures as evidence of a conception of God that evolves from that of a tribal deity toward that of a universal God. The process of conceiving of God in a way that is universal and that everyone can subscribe to, if possible, hasn’t yet been fully realized.
This is than just rationalized as the part where the faithful should fear God as well as love Him.
My point is that whether as an “evil demiurge” or as the “real God”, how do the faithful explain things like the Holocaust? Other than as Kushner did. What’s left after that other than His “mysterious ways”.
Same with the No God Eastern faiths. There they are: Adolph Hitler and his Nazis. How does that factor into “the universe” and its ontological/teleological foundation.
Then the part where whatever someone’s beliefs are here, the only way to attain immortality is through one or another religious leap. And that is made to order for rationalizations.
Again, the manner in which “I” construe religion down through the ages is that, first and foremost, it revolves around connecting the dots between the behaviors one chooses on this side of the grave as that pertains to the fate of “I” on the other side of the grave.
After all, it’s not for nothing that so many religious denominations feel the need to go out and save souls.
Here one can “say” anything. One can “believe” anything. But there either really is a God/the God up there bent on judging what we do down here or there is not.
And, if there is, one way or another the Holocaust figures into it.
And, come on, why on earth do you suppose religions were invented if not to insist that not only is there a reason for Nazis and for everything else but you damn well better accept our reasons…or else.
The “or else” part varying from one denomination to the next. Just as with the part about “Judgment Day”.
There is a difference between participating/opposing the Holocaust and explaining why there is a Holocaust. You asked about the latter : “how do the faithful explain things like the Holocaust?”
That’s your view of religions and everything “damn well better” fit that view … or else.
From my perspective, the most important difference of all is still the gap between what any particular individual/mere mortal did to participate in or oppose the Holocaust, and whether or not there is a God/the God up there ready, willing and able to judge it. Same with conflicting explanations. With God there is the official explanation. The only one that counts in regard to your fate on the other side of the grave.
Really, why do you suppose there are millions and millions of religious adherents here on planet Earth who take this part very, very seriously?
Thus…
Huh?
I challenge you [or anyone] to cite a single post of mine in which I argue that others had better share my own view of religion “or else”.
Or else what?
Again the irony being that over and again I note that my own value judgments here are no less existential fabrications rooted in dasein. That I am not able to demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to think like I do. That, given the way I do think about all of this, “I” am a fractured and fragmented individual who has thought himself into believing that his own existence is essentially meaningless and that all too soon “I” will topple over into the abyss that is oblivion.
Indeed, I’d better come across a frame of mind that changes this…or else. [-o<
Over and over, you try to fit every religion into your preconceived ideas about religion.
Or else … you don’t know what people are talking about. You revert to restatements of your interests. You tell people that they do not need to read your posts or to reply to your posts. You repeat the same questions that you just asked.
is not a value judgment, it is an assertion of fact. In a rhetorical question form, with a period at the end. The issue of the reasons why religions were invented is a question about what is or was factually not about beauty or morals.
So
Is irrelevent, since it has to do with value judgments. what is good and bad. Not what is or was or isn’t or wasn’t.
For a discussion of how iamb is trying to hijack this thread…
Religious people of poor moral judgement will lie quite easily about a god they do not know.
As to me. I am a Gnostic Christian that came out of the Catholic/Christian tradition. I use the more mystical writings put into Jesus’ mouth.
Those fit, given that we hold no supernatural beliefs.
Here is the real way to salvation that Jesus taught.
Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
