2006 13
Holocaust Deniers and Creationists
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
Here´s a Wikipedia definition of Holocaust deniers and here´s a Wikipedia definition of Creationism. What do these two have in common? That they are both movements of people who try to fight facts with ideology.
Yes, granted, as a Jew I would rather have dinner with a creationist than a holocaust denier, but the problem I have with Christian fundamentalism which rejects various aspects of evolution, geology, cosmology, and other natural sciences that address the origins of the natural world., as the Wikipedia says, is that as soon as the world begins to accept one type of theory that would not be taught say at Columbia University, where I studied, cause there is no proof for it….anything goes.
A certain brand of Christians or Orthodox Jews will insist that we do not have a common ancestor with the Chimp and another brand of Muslims will say the holocaust is Jewish propaganda. And in a world of “beliefs” there´s not much possibility for facts to arise. Once I had dinner with an orthodox Jewish woman who said she believed a literal interpretation of the Bible meaning that the world was created less than 6000 years ago. What about dinosaurs I said? They lived less than 6000 years ago she said. Now if this woman had dinner with a Holocaust denier, what arguments could she use to convince him that the Holocaust actually took place?
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Ray_ on December 13, 2006 ·
I’m European. Mid twenties. Have no specific feelings for or against race, religion, sex or nationality. I learned that WWII hosted vast athrocities aimed at particular groups, including but not limited to jewish people. I’m okay to whatever numbers, facts or figgures. I’m open to finding other views and am not willing to embrace either.
I have no connection, of any sort, to those athrocities and therefore bear no stigma.
I would like not to be reminded the above issue as if it were my own. Those crimes have no reason to reappear in the future. Keeping the memory alive and enforcing the fear of prosecution if debating the Holocaust will probably not prevent Holocaust v2.0.
Any special treatment given to peculiar groups or individuals seed greef and promote anger.
Please let room for neutralists. The World has more of them than supporters/deniars.
tiberiofonero on December 13, 2006 ·
There were more important (but less popular) holocausts in the past…
USSR, 1921 21,000,000 hit by partly Soviet-engineered famine. (2nd August 1921)
Belgian Congo 1891-1911 11,500,000 blacks died 1891-1911; from 1907 Kongo was a Belgian Crown Domain.
ETC….
[URL]http://users.cybercity.dk/~dko12530/holocausts.htm[/URL]
Antoin O Lachtnain on December 14, 2006 ·
I don’t think there is any point in creating a hierarchy of most-oppressed peoples of the world.
It doesn’t surprise me that there are holocaust deniers. Everybody tries to leave aside the bad things that happened, that they were involved in in the past. We might not all have murdered 11 million Congolese, but most of us have been involved in things we’re not ‘comfortable’ with, to say the least. We have to leave those things aside and move on, for sure, but it is not surprising that some people decide to go too far and completely forget or even deny what has happpened.
Patrick on December 14, 2006 ·
You’re dealing with one very common trait of humanity (and most species): the intelligence of a group of people is determined by the lowest common denominator of that group.
Fanatisism, which you refer to, prays on those lowest denominators. Then a, usually smart charasmatic, leader picks up the hurd as if one mind and leads it around the village, county, continent and now world, to achieve various power and control driven ambitions which goes through his mind, sometimes making it up as he goes along (ring any other bells?). Facts don’t have much importance in the debate that often follow but unfortunately anger, aggression or worse follow as the group/hurd, acting like an amoeba, feels easily threatened by different ideas and will attack all too easily (more bells?).
Thesed people are not interesting and in fact the pope which you should meet out of educatinoal curiosity if you have time (and to give him his cutomised Fonera!) is cool with dinausaurs and chimps before A&E.
Africans are the ones that need and can be helped today and like one guy said remember Congo??
We need to look forward and stop reminding the past more than necessary as another young blogger here says – if nothing else to avoid WW3 in the middle east which Nostra Damus predicted could start if some conflict was not avoided there around the turn of century…
Martin Varsavsky on December 15, 2006 ·
Tiberio,
And let´s hope not too many deny those!
In any case, it´s kind of sad think of more or less important genocides, they are all HORRIBLE
Marcelo Levit on December 17, 2006 ·
“Now if this woman had dinner with a Holocaust denier, what arguments could she use to convince him that the Holocaust actually took place?”
Excellent thought !!!!
For both facts, the answer is SCIENCE.
Ray_ on December 18, 2006 ·
http://www.bestrejectedadvertising.com/html/?page=print&type=banned&id=122
Henk Kleynhans on December 23, 2006 ·
Martin,
When people tell me that the earth is 6000 years old, I ask them to look at some of the brightest stars in the night-sky. Most of these people do realise that some of the stars we see today are millions of light-years away. That means that what we see right now, happened millions of years ago and is only reaching us now.
Of course, the only argument against this is to say that God is tricking us to test our faith, but there’s little evidence in the bible that God tries to trick or fool human beings. Either way, that’s a different debate…
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Abel Elorza on December 13, 2006 ·
Martin,
I shared your wiew regarding that facts must arise over ideologisms…
But, as far as I know, Christianism (at least in the Catholic Church, and the most of its brands) recognize that evolutionism, big-ban, etc, can be true (in fact the official position in this regard is “neutral”).
The only dogma Catholic Church holds is that the human “soul” was “insuflated” by God.
Regards,
Abel