H O L O C A U S T

Holocaust, Men and Gods

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THE ATROCITIES PARADOX ‑‑ VENDETTA ‑‑ BIBLICAL PANDORA BOX -- God of Israel and Zoroaster

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THE ATROCITIES PARADOX

Ancient and modern history shows countless examples of individuals considered noble and heroic because they selflessly obeyed their leader's orders to fight for a cause they personally opposed.

Obviously, the fighting resulted in killing someone they did not want to kill.

The Japanese admiral Yamamoto, for instance, is considered a noble hero also by the Americans, for he was against the war that he conducted because of his loyalty to the emperor.

His devotion to the emperor and fatherland is still considered heroic today (1989). He attacked Pearl Harbor in spite of his feelings against the war. He knew that the aim of his attack was to destroy people and things he thought should not be attacked. He achieved his aim admirably, or infamously, depending on our interpretation.

Later, at Nürnberg, the international court of the victors condemned to death those who had executed orders to kill Jews. Their claim that they were only executing orders was considered unacceptable, because their duty was to oppose orders against their conscience and against humanity.

Apparently, killing Jews in a concentration camp was considered more barbaric that killing innocent city dwellers with bombs or any other means.

It is hard to measure the difference in atrocity, barbarism, cruelty, primitivism.

The difference may be obvious to some, but not to all.

Bombing from an airplane seems impersonal, for one cannot see the people dying below. But they die not less, they suffer not less, not less innocently. The act is not less barbaric. We do know what we are doing, even if we don't see all the details.

Also killing with a rifle is more "impersonal" than killing with a sword.
But we know it is just as much killing and suffering as the other.

In 1985, the movie "Harvest of Despair", twice awarded at the 28th International Film & TV Festival of New York, reflected an important 3‑year research project by the Harvard University and a book by the Oxford University Press.

This project revealed that the Soviet government deliberately starved anywhere from 7 million to 15 million Ukrainians in 1932‑ 33, because they did not cooperate with the government.

The number of victims cannot be ascertained closer, because the Soviets destroyed the available evidence, although they admitted that their census showed 7 millions missing.
A British physician, Dr. W. Horsley Gantt, who was there at the time, testified that Soviet officials had estimated the victims at 15 million.

Even here, the massacre is mentioned with hardly any more horror than the massacre of 7‑15 million mice, because it is too much to properly react to it.

Harvard's James Mace stated: "(The massacre) remains as the least understood cataclysm of this century, a tragedy that has disappeared from the public consciousness so completely that it represents the most successful example of the denial of genocide by its perpetrators."

On the other hand, when an American is discovered by Jewish investigators to have been a guard of a camp where Jews were detained in World War 2, he is extradited back to the country where he came from, even if we cannot prove that he killed anyone.. We arbitrarily ignore the fact that he was an insignificant underling who was obeying orders he was told were correct.

Apparently, being a guard of a concentration camp where Jews were killed is a worse crime than killing non‑Jewish people.

It certainly makes American headlines much more successfully than the incredible massacre of 15 million Ukrainians...

It certainly makes the headlines much more successfully than the Germans who killed 20 million Russians...

It certainly makes the headlines much more successfully than the communist Ethiopian government that is still now (1989) causing massacres of millions of non‑complying Ethiopians by starvation.

Why don't we pursue them and others who committed atrocities not less barbaric, and against even more people, than against the Jews?

Students, dogooders, black racists, feminists, civilrightniks grow furious and righteous about unrest in South Africa, about nuclear plants, about the endangered American eagle, about not enough blacks in bank management... But they remain cold about the Ukrainian genocide, the massacres of the Russians, Laotians, Ethiopians, which were and are even worse than the "Holocaust".

Why?

Now, let's read the sworn affidavit by Friedrich Graebe, manager of a German construction firm in occupied Ucraine, read to the Nuerenberg Court by the Chief British Prosecutor, Sir Hartley Shawcross, on 7/27/1946, about the following event of 10‑5‑1942:

"Without screaming or weeping the people undressed, stood around in family groups, kissed each other, said farewells, and waited for a sign from another SS-man, who stood near the pit, also with a whip in his hand. During the 15 minutes that I stood near I heard no complaint or plea for mercy.

I watched a family of about 8 persons, a man and a woman both about 50 with their children of about 1, 8 and 10, and 2 grown‑up daughters about 20‑24.

An old woman with snow‑white hair was holding the 1‑year old child in her arms and singing to it and tickling it.

The child was cooing with delight.

The couple were looking on with tears in their eyes. The father was holding the hand of a boy about 10 years old and speaking to him softly; the boy was fighting his tears.

The father pointed to the sky, stroked his head and seemed to explain something to him.

At that moment the SS-man at the pit shouted something to his comrade. The latter counted off about 20 persons and instructed them to go behind the earth mound. Among them was the family which I have mentioned. I well remember a girl, slim and with black hair who, as she passed close to me, pointed to herself and said, "23".

I walked around the mound and found myself confronted by a tremendous grave. People were closely wedged together and lying on top of each other so that only their heads were visible.

Nearly all had blood running over their shoulders from their heads.

Some of the people shot were still moving. Some were lifting their arms and turning their heads to show that they were still alive.
The pit was already two‑thirds full. I estimated that it contained already about 1,000 people.

I looked for the man who did the shooting. He was an SSman, who sat at the edge of the narrow end of the pit, his feet dangling into the pit. He had a tommy gun on his knees and was smoking a cigarette.

The people, completely naked, went down some steps which were cut in the clay wall of the pit and clambered over the heads of the people lying there, to the place which the SSman directed them.

Then I heard a series of shots. I looked into the pit and saw that the bodies were twitching or the heads lying motionless on top of the bodies which lay before them.

Blood was running from their necks."

Even a sick‑genius imagination cannot provide a worse horror scene.

The SS-man with the feet dangling into the pit, on the other hand, was causing less death‑per‑blow than a "flying fortress" pilot releasing bombs on a city, an officer or bureaucrat ordering the destruction of a village, execution of hostages, or withholding of vital supplies to a population of millions.

If we stop and research any of those occurrences, we find in most of them not less horror than in the above described scene.

Compared to many of them, death in a gas chamber would be merciful.

Many of the worst crimes consist of willful, slow, sadistic torture toward a liberating death for thousands or millions of people in a manner that doesn't make the headlines simply because "it ain't newsworthy".

Instead of the corrected persp ective, we have the monstrosity of a senator berating a presumably misguided patriot with the thunderous admonition that "a soldier has the duty and respo nsibility of disob eying illegal orders".

That is, let every soldier consult with a battery of lawyers before obeying every order he receives...

Then, kill, kill, kill if it is legally tenable. Just like the SS-men.

But then: Whose law? Of what country?

What if the laws change into retroactive new ones?

Then, why should the SS-man worry about what legality?

Is our reasoning better than his resigned insensitivity?

It is not inconceivable that the executed innocent Jews may be better off than that the live SSman who has to remember that horrible scene..., and that he contributed to it...

Probably, the whole matter is so incomprehensibly horrendous that it falls into the surrealistic insignificance of unforgettable things that are not even known...

We have twisted its meaning and concentrated it where it does not belong.

Obviously, it was horrendous. But we should not believe that it was unique in its barbarism.

It is dangerous to ignore that the German perpetrators are not worse than the authors of massacres and genocides that happened in biblical events, in the 11th-13th century Crusades, in the 30‑Year War (1618‑ 1648), in Northen Europe, and countless wars, genocides and massacres in all continents and centuries.

The Russian communists massacred scores of millions as if they were rats.

The Chinese communists massacred scores of millions as if they were flies.

Withdrawal of our troops from Vietnam was followed by atrocious massacres of probably more people by the Vietnamese than were ever killed in the Holocaust.

Horrendous genocides by blacks against scores of millions of blacks are suppressed history in today's Africa.

We don't open our eyes because we blind ourselves with the hatred we love to nurture.

If we want to hate the Germans ‑or anyone‑ let's hate the whole mankind: it is much simpler. No?

Well. Then are the Jews making too much of their problem?

NO! They are right in persisting, until they stop at least the evils perpetrated against them.

It is the rest of the world (including Jews too) who are virtually ignoring the other incredible massacres, other horrors and countless other evils perpetrated all over and all times, to such a nightmarish degree that we lose our ability to react.

And wars, horrors, slaughters, genocides continue unabated, while we mow our lawns, chat with the meighbor next door, make love, rob a bank or watch a sunset.

VENDETTA

Mahatma Gandhi said: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind".

I agree. That means that, if someone informs you he has just tortured and murdered those you love most, you will have to forgive him.

We must recognize, we are not sufficiently evolved yet.

An inescapable truth is that the criminal and the victim share the same human nature.

That is, they share the blame for the crimes as they share the merit for the virtues.

The word "Holocaust" (Jewish/Greek/Roman sacrifice by burning animals to the divinity) has been adopted by the Jews to designate the slaughter of millions of them by the Germans.

The crime is undoubtedly horrendous beyond description. But to pin it on the Germans with the current pretense that "only the Germans" can do such a thing" is against any , anthropologic, psychological and moral evidence.

The present thirst of retributio n against the Germans is somehow as barbaric as any self‑perpetuating feud between warring factions.

We must have the courage to recognize that, given the same circumstances, the same psychological and emotional traps, we may be tempted to act no better than the Germans, simply because we share the same human nature and weaknesses.
History proves it in thousands of cases in which other nations or groups of people perpetrated similar or worse crimes, only in much smaller scale because the technological means were not available, which the Germans used against the Jews in World War 2.

BIBLICAL PANDORA BOX

In June 1967, I happened to be in Duesseldorf, Germany, when the 6‑day Israeli/Arab War broke out.

Curious as I was about the reaction of the German public, I bought as many newspapers as I could, from the prestigious Frankfurter Allgemeine to the most parochial local "Blatt".

I listened to the radio, TV, to old (former Nazi sympathizers and Jew‑haters) and new acquaintances.

To my amazement, all, without exception, paraded a monolithic enthusiasm for the Israelis, as well as animosity toward the Arabs.

Their pro‑Judaism was as extreme as their former anti‑Srmitism...

A few days later I was in Bruxelles, Belgium, only a few hours drive West.
There, finally, I could read and hear pro‑Arab, as well as pro‑Jews opinions.

That kaleidoscopic scenery of individual thoughts was not only more human, but certainly blessed with the inner freedom that was blocked out in the German pre-war and post-war uniformity.

Since the German obliteration of different individual feelings toward Israel is not a problem of pure logical analysis, I was tempted to seek a psychological oversimplification as sweeping as the one attributing the German (and now American, Russian, Japanese etc.) compulsion for power and pre‑eminence to a national complex of inferiority.

It was obvious to think of a German guilt complex or feeling (they are different, psychoanalitically, but both will do in this context).

Yet, this conclusion, by itself, was insufficient to justify what I sensed as impending in an unforeseeable future: an eventual anti‑ "Jew‑loving" backlash the Germans may emotionally need to free themselves of a scapegoat‑position.
In fact, theirs is a burden they should not carry alone but share with most Christian and Muslim nations: deep seated anti‑Judaism.

The anti‑"Semite" would rather ignore than overcome his hostility toward the Jews. Thus, he avoids contacts with the Jews also for a reason he fears: the danger of discovering that there is no reason to hate them.
But this discovery lurks even without direct contact; and he feels downright rotten, because the abhorrence persists nevertheless, like other feelings inculcated -intentionally or not- in early childhood.

So, he contrives to hide it even from himself, through anxious displays of pro‑Jewish endeavors, to the point of overdoing it.

Since a complex generally manifests itself through the opposite of its cause, the pro‑Jewish ostentations by those who hide thus their anti‑Semitism (from themselves as well as from others) transform the anti‑Semitic feeling into an anti‑Semitic complex.

The over-solicitous eagerness of many western nations to simply hand over to the Jews the Palestine territory was the result of an anti‑ Jewish complex rather than of logical processes.
Indeed, giving someone a country occupied by somebody else (albeit by barbaric "right" of invasion) is a barbaric practice that revolts any modern civilized people, or a rationalized crypto‑psychotic move.

An Egyptian diplomat in Rome once told me that, instead of an Arab land, we could have offered the Jews any of the sparsely inhabited areas which abound in the Western Hemisphere, where they could enjoy a better climate, natural resources, and water lacking in Palestine.

He added: "As to the historical and religious significance of Palestine and Jerusalem, if you took the trouble to examine reality, you would recognize that,
(a) historically, Arabs and other Semites have been in Palestine before, with, and after today's Jews; not for a limited time; and they never left, like the Jews {historically incorrect}.
(b) Religiously, then, the Muslims should possess Jerusa lem and its land not less than the Jews, who are also Semites, or any others, in the common interest.

{historically incorrect}.

First, Jerusalem is holy to the Arabs too.
Second, Islamic religion includes and honors the Jewish prophets and Jesus in its own worship {incorrect}.
Jews and Christians scorn each other and Islam as well...

It isn't funny to see how generous you are at the expense of the Arab property and blood. What you really want is to get the Jews out of your hairs and put them in ours...".

{probably correct}

"…For instance, look at Passover. Every year, the Jews celebrate the massacre of innocent Egyptian babies by God, who spared the Jewish children because they were protected by lamb's blood painted by the Jews on the doors of their houses…
Think of it: they celebrate every year such a horrendous massacre of Egyptian innocent "first born" just because they are Egyptian, in spite of what the Egyptians may feel about it!. Why don't they stop at least this barbaric celebration? The more their scholars come up with new explanations to give it an acceptable meaning, the more they insult the world's intelligence, to say the least..."

What can we say?...

Well, there is a blatant "deconstructionism" of history that at least any scholar should know. We may want to forgive the "common man", who is bamboozled by the biased which caters to the "eighth graders".

First, the Jews were the oldest indigenous Palestinians, 3 thousand years before Islam started to exist in the eigth century of the Christian era.

The Muslims conquered Palestine by armed invasion (followed by "religious" conversion by the sword).

The Palestinians who claim the "right to return" demand return of properties that had been taken by force (and enjoyed for centuries) by the Muslims from the Jews.

What if the Jews counterclaimed (with the interests)?

What if all nations claimed restitution of lands and whatever they lost in wars against other nations?

Jerusalem is claimed to be a holy place for the Muslims.

But the holiest Muslim places are Medina and Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, since approximately after the years 730 a.d., whereas Jerusalem and many places in the area hade been holy places for the Jews for millennia before there ever was

a Muhammad (this and other spellings), a Koran and an Islam.

On the other hand, go to a mosque and listen to the fanatical anti-West, anti-Christian, anti-American (=Satan), anti-Jewish ranting by Muslim "scholars".

Each the Muslim and the Jewish side sounds convincing and sincere, but neither can understand or convince the other.

But what about our own twisted popularized quasi-theology?

Did " god of the Jews" mean "pro-Jews" and "against-non Jews"?
But both the Bible and the Koran describe him as the same god...

Whether we adopt a pro‑Arab perspective or any other, we are still faced with one question:
what is the reason for which the Jews, more than anyone else, have always been the target of persecution, hatred or spite, almost anywhere and anytime in history?

On the other hand, why do all the official Muslim clerics we interview say that Islam is against violence and terrorism, while the Muslim (Arabian or not) crowds show a compact support for the terrorists and virtually all their crimes against Israel and U.S.A.?

Then, we should notice a typical subject for a "developing branch" of psychology, "Victimology", concerning the reasons why some people are prone to be victims.

The two main reasons I see (in a non-scholarly way, perhaps) , and which I have discussed with my Jewish friends without much disagreement, are: the "chosen‑ people" attitude and the non‑proselytizing:

God of Israel and Zoroaster

The Jews are probably the people with omemof thehighest percentages of outstanding men and women in most fields of cultural endeavor.

They are as old as recorded history.

This alone could support the claim that they are "superior". But of their own doing, not because any god chose them against other peoples.

When Moses brought us the 10 Commandments, neither he, nor his god thought that there was only one god.

The First Commandment suggests it.

Besides, the various Semitic tribes had, and kept having for a while after Moses, various preferred gods:

the Moabites had Chemosh (toward whom Naomi and Ruth felt loyalty), Milcom was the god of Ammon, Baalzebub the god of Ekron... Tammuz was very popular; also Baal and Moloch...

Moses sang: "Who is like unto thee, o Lord, among the gods?"; Solomon proclaimed: "Great is our god above all gods"...

From biblical evidence, we have that Yaveh, god of Israel, wanted a people all for himself, like any other regular god, and chose the Jews.

Therefore: "God of Israel".

As he was a thick‑skulled, jealous, petty, sadistic god, like other gods of that time, he dictated the orders and rules which are so abundantly described in the Old Testament.

He ordained slaughters and genocides that would successfully compete with the feats of the Nazis and Genghis Khan (Numb. xxxi, 1‑ 18; Deut. vii, 16, xx, 13‑17; Joshua viii, 26, x, 24f, xii). To wit:

NUMBERS, XXXI, 1‑18:

"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying: 'Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites.....' ...and they slew all the males... And they slew the kings of Midian... And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones... And they burnt all their cities.. And Moses said unto them: '...kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man...'

DEUTERONOMY, VII, 16:

"And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them..."

DEUTERONOMY, XX, 13‑17:

"And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it (a city that does not surrender) into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword...
Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.
But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth;
But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites;"

JOSHUA VIII, 26:

"For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of A'i."

JOSHUA, X, 24f:

"...when they brought out those kings unto Joshua... Joshua... said..., 'put your feet upon the necks of these kings...
Joshua smote them, and slew them, and hanged them... until the evening. ...
Joshua took Makkedah, and smote it with the edge of the sword... them, and all the souls that were therein; he let none remain. ...
Then Joshua passed... unto Libnah... and he smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein; he let none remain in it.

And Joshua passed... unto Lachish... and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein....
Then (king) Horam... came up to help Lachish; and Joshua smote him and his people, until he had left him none remaining...
And... Joshua passed unto Eglon... and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein...

And Joshua went...unto Hebron... and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof, and all the cities thereof, and all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining. ...

And Joshua returned... to Debir... and the king thereof, and all the cities thereof; and they smote them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining...

So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded.
And Joshua smote them from Kadesh‑barnea even unto Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon."

JOSHUA, XII:

"Now these are the kings of the land, which the children of Israel smote, and possessed their land ..."

(the list is certainly impressive, as well as horendous).

If we merely consider the God‑ordered genocides of "the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites", there is no reason to assume that the Jews would have consider God's order void if the Hittites,

or the Canaanites, or any of the other peoples had been 6 millions or more...

Even the minor Biblical atrocities are appalling.

Gideon alone slaughtered 120,000 people in capturing two cities.

Considering the times, the scarce populations and inefficient/limited means, this feat alone beats even the Nazis.

So far as the sacred Book and the sacred deeds of the "Chosen People".

According to the Bible, however, the Jews were not the best people chosen by the only god in existence, but simply the people chosen by one, of hundreds of gods, who decided to adopt them instead of other peoples (who were already "taken" by other gods anyhow).

Then came Zoroaster (Greek name for Zarathustra.).. in Persia (today's Iran), probably 600 years b.c., or earlier.

Legends describe him as born by divine conception from a virgin, with a career resembling that of Jesus (who came about 600-700 years later), with a long (ca. 30 years) withdrawal from society, devil's temptation in the wilderness, etc.

For the first time in history, he successfully introduced the idea of the one and only god (Ahura‑Mazda) for all, countered by theevil (Ahriman).

This was revolutionary for mankind, because it was more natural, for human beings, to believe in as many gods as there were ideas, phenomena, unknowns, peoples, and places (still now some Christians manage to preserve polytheism in many disguises).

This monotheistic idea was adopted by the Jews; and so, in later books of the Old Testament, the Jewish god became God the‑one‑and‑only.

Yet, the definition of the Jews as the "chosen people" remained unchanged. This caused an enormous change in the meaning: God, the One and Only, had chosen the Jews, of all people on Earth, as the best, the dearest to God, the most meritorious of His love and favors: THE SUPERIOR RACE.

Most modern rabbis and religionists assure us they disagree with it.

Indeed, their intricate explanations are remarkable examples of rococo rationalizing.

But the populace -on both sides- is not that sophisticated.
The same populace whose crass prejudiced patriotism and tribalism are easily aroused by demagogues.

With such presumption as "the Chosen People", any people is bound to become, or give the impression of being, chauvinistic, overbearing, racistic, dangerously exclusive.

They end up being considered almost like a cancerous growth, wherever they live, and, therefore, the obvious scapegoats for whatever befalls their neighbors.

Non‑proselytizing by the Jews may well be a considerate live‑and‑ let‑live position toward other religions, and welcome by them.

But only on the surface.

When it is interpreted with a "chosen people"
presumption (instead of "the

only people God could choose, because the others already had other gods") Jewish and non‑Jewish populace mistake it as designating the Only existing God and the jews asthe people He preferred against all others on Earth. Labeling God and Jews that way is a holier-than ‑thou ticking timebomb on both sides: pro- and anti- Israel.

In the hands of unrestrained leadership, the state of Israel risks embarking on that dangerous route, as discernible in their reactions (as justified as they may be) to Arab provocations.

Incidentally, the Muslims' presumption of being "the only righteous people in the world" has even more absolutistic and exclusive hubris].

Are the Jews so accustomed to their role of victims ‑first of their god, then of other nations‑ that they are setting themselves up for future persecutions, by creating a biblical one- dimensional state in the middle of the cybernetic age?

Well, the Muslim are no better...

On the

other hand, how can the Jews remain the only people without a home, a government and an army?
Like the Palestinians?

Or did we overdo in favor of their demagogues, to atone not only for Hitler, but also for our refusal (mixed with a subconscious wish they would all disappear for ever, like our relentless conscience) to help the Jews when their mortal danger during WW2 was so evident?

Or should we deplore the use Christian and Jewish demagogues make of the Bible (and the Muslims of the Koran)?

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The Book.

Without the Bible, we wouldn't have created the Israel Pandora Box in the 20th Century.

We don't know of any book that inspired as many troubles to mankind as the Bible (and now the Koran even more).

Many say that the book is innocent: our interpretations are the trouble.

The Bible is a magnificent work of history, myths, religion and ethics.
Thus, the evils were caused by faulty interpretation, notaby the book itself.

How is that an omnipotent and loving god was unwilling or unable to inspire a book that even humans can produce: that is, one that would be interpreted the same way by everybody, in all times and in all languages?

We, humble humans, can produce such books: books of mathematics, geometry, physics, most sciences, grammars, geography, history, travels, cooking, narratives, most information (including procedures of reproductive love-making), etc.

Even irreproachable "Dark Age" Bible "professionals" like Peter the Hermit and pope Urban II caused horrible evil when they started the Crusades (1096 to 1291 A.D.): a series of senseless carnages of innocents, unprovoked criminal wars (like those of Islamic conquest, which were not less horrible), and stupid failures that covered the Christian nations with a feeling of infamy.
Again, that is another historical distortion, because the Crusades were much less barbaric than the continuous massacres by Muslims against the "infidels", because Islam conquered not by theology and loving missionary work: they converted the "infidels" with the sword, as it was natural with the continuously warring and marauding of the ubiquitous (North Africa, Arabia and Sahara primarily) Bedouin tribes (Mohammed was a Bedouin) and caravanes against each other.

In those times, our "infidel" adversaries were temporarily more civilized and rational (by comparison only) than the Crusaders. They even gave us mathematics, astronomy, some philosophy, chemistry and material refinements...

Even the forgotten Greek philosophy, outlawed by the Christian church, came back to us through the Muslims...
The Aristotelian philosophy, which soon became the foundation of Christian Scholastics, was restored by the Arabs Averroes (1126-1198 a. d., in Roman Spain)

The Christians had fallen into the "Dark Ages" of barbarism which afflicted people who were victimized by ignorance and bigotry.

In the name of the Bible, we had the 1618‑1648 a. d. "Thirty‑Year War", among German and other Nprth-European Catholics and Protestants, who matched each other in bestiality, slaughters of millions, cannibalism and other heinous crimes.
This Holy War killed over one third of Europe's population.

We are told that the most religious period of our history went from the fall of the West Roman Empire (476 a. d.) to shortly after the Renaissance: the Dark Ages (aprox, between the 476 a. and ca. 1450 a.d.) .

At the end of the Dark Ages, we needed centuries to come back up to the level of the Romans of over 1200 years before...

These are only a few examples.

We could also mention the genocides perpetrated by the Christians against the pagan "infidels".

We have learned at our dearest expense that no free society, progresses, and justice can be subjected to one exclusivist religion or dogmatic ideology.

We have relegated the Bible to a role of folkloristic worship, which is prescribed as a glitter in social functions, but not allowed beyond that in all our serious endeavors.

We would never recognize it publicly.
Suppose, now, that Druids (their descendents) dispersed in various countries wanted our help to invade most of France and northern Europe countries, and expropriate and oust their inhabitants, because a sacred Druid book justifies it...

We would not even use diplomacy to tell them off...

But our case is of the Jews (of our anti‑Semitic complex), and the book is the Bible (of our superstition‑reason conflict)...

Well, if we, as pious Christians, really believed in the Bible, we would say that Israel is of Jesus, the true God.
We would "remember the Crusades", with Peter the Hermit and "God wills it" for the Christians... (and kill, kill, kill again).

But then, for God's sake, why did we act as if we believed... what we don't truly believe and feel so guilty about?

Will we end up sick and tired of the Bible schizo‑stuff and join a guess-what backlash (if they have nothing better to do), in a psycho‑ religious‑economic asinine Armageddon?

One day, Jesus and Moses will join with Zarathustra, Buddha, Muhammad, Confucius, and Hermes in the hall‑fame of folklore. Probably.

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AT RANDOM:

‑ Why is it that we cannot obtain any scholarly proof that the Jews killed by the Germans in WW2 were not less than 6,000,000? The Holocaust would have not been milder if the victims were "only" 2,000,000. So, why are we not allowed to inquire whether the number was closer to, say, 9,883.991 or 4,556,842, plus or minus unproven 984,448 and unrecorded thousands? Politically incorrect?

‑ Murder, rape, torture, plunder, theft are not more barbaric than relentless vindictiveness of the victims and the condoning of that vindictiveness.

The case in point is the present Jewish feeling of revenge against the Germans (that is nothing compared with the hatred the Muslim are cooking against the "American Satan").
No one can deny the horrendous crimes against the Jews, but the responsibility belongs to the individual direct perpetrators first, then to mankind, not to the Germans alone.

It is fundamentally important to realize that virtually most (if not all) of human species or society has committed ‑or is potentially able to commit‑ similar and worse atrocities.

The Holocaust stands out not because of the Germans, but because the means, special historical mood, and the opportunity were available only to the Germans at a certain time on a certain occasion.

Human massacres of all the available victims with all the available means (what the Holocaust was precisely) were committed not dozens but countless times by countless peoples in countless manners.

In countless cases, if the potential victims had numbered 6 millions or more, and the means to kill them efficiently available, they would have been massacred not less than the Jews by almost any people.

[>5,000]

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