Questions

Hopefully this will be a thread where questions will be asked. Of ourselves.

On another thread I recently spoke of Auschwitz and the events of the Holocaust. It bought to mind the lives of three human beings who lived through those events. Each has their own story to tell. Each as far as I able to tell, from biographies (autobiographies), lived beyond the events with a degree of dignity, and with actions and words that should truly give us pause for thought.

I can think of no more terrible evidence of human evil than the Holocaust. Personally I am thankful that I can reflect like this upon it, and its effects upon human beings, and not to have actually lived through it, and lost those I loved to it, nor been driven to reflect upon it so deeply because of it.

The three human beings were all Jewish (I am aware others died also. of other races and creeds) They were Elie Wiesel, Leo Baeck and Primo Levi. each wrote books after the events.

Leo Baeck had a deep Jewish Faith prior to his experiences in the death camps, and came out of the experience with that faith undimmed, yet perhaps altered. He wrote a book, "The Essence of Judaism", a fine book, and one where he speaks of his love of ALL his fellow human beings, without rancour, without condemnation, even with the words of forgiveness.

Elie Weisel lost his entire family to the ovens. His autobiography is harrowing.........

When Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, the Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a "messenger to mankind," stating that through his struggle to come to terms with "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps", as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace", Wiesel had delivered a powerful message "of peace, atonement and human dignity" to humanity.

His faith was far less formal than Baecks, one could almost see him as having an agnositc edge to his thinking, and he "wrestled with God and with questions" throughout his life.

Primo Levi went into the camps an unbeliever and came out an unbeliever. He resisted in the camps any possible "consolation" of belief. He spoke of once being tempted to pray, when he faced the selection process, where those who failed to pass the test of being fit for further labour were sent straight to their deaths. He resisted the temptation, saying that he knew that if he gave way to it, he would never have been able to retain his dignity afterwards. He could never see then, nor ever afterwards, any way one could reconcile such evil with a benevolent deity.

So there we have it.

To a certain extent, faith, agnosticism, and atheism.

I would be interested in hearing the views and ideas of others.

Please.

Well, I would just say that as I see it, one stance does not necessarily exclude the others. Maybe faith involves wrestling with God, for instance.

Any other thoughts?

What about Bonhoeffer? He wrote some quite fascinating things about his struggle to rectify his faith with the atrocities he was experiencing at the hands of the Nazis. He died a day before it all ended if I remember correctly, very sad.

yes, I once read his "Letters and Papers From Prison". He was executed by the nazi's for his part in an assasination attempt on Hitler's life.

I guess it would depend on the person. Some people no matter what happens to them never lose their faith, others might. So I guess it may not be a wrestling with God so much as it is a wrestling with ourselves.
In other words whatever is going to make us feel better in the end even if all looks bleak initially.

To me a belief in a higher power is comforting in some ways. It gives hope to people in what sometimes seems like a hopeless world.
For others that belief might bring fear instead of comfort, so they may hold a disbelief in a God.

I'd agree that belief in a higher power can be "comforting", yet such a view can be a little patronising. (I do not accuse you of being so)

Many who have believed in a higher power have received no comfort at all. Such a belief can be a radical call to question EVERYTHING that one takes to be true, EVERYTHING that currently sustains ones ego. To take this seriously is not to be "comforted" in any way, shape or form. It would only be so if ones "higher power" is merely a rubber stamp for ones own current assumptions, whereby we only create it in our own image. An idol.

I'd also say that the suffering of some is so great that what they find they receive "in faith" actually transcends the word "comfort", understood in a simple "compensational" way.

Viktor Frankl wrote a book you might be interested in. It's "Man's Search for Meaning". http://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/0671023373

Well that is kinda what I meant only you said it better.
We create whatever will suit us. Even the belief in no God is a rubber stamp of our own image.

Yes, I see that. Thanks. I think my own hang-ups regarding the word "comfort" led me to go off on one to a certain extent.