The Holocaust Collides with God

The following is a recording of an event that took place to me last Friday night:

I sit in the synagogue, my prayer book before me. It is open, but I do not read from it. Instead, I am reading a book by Viktor Frankl titled: Man's Search for Meaning. It begins with him describing his experience as a prisoner in the concentration camps. It is raw. His goal is not to sadden the heart -- it is to psychoanalyze the mental state of the prisoner -- yet my heart is weeping.

Along with the sadness, I feel rage. When confronted with the Holocaust I am usually left in rage. So incomprehensible is it's horror that I become enveloped in a childish anger which stems, I believe, from a sense of helplessness.

As I read the heart wrenching words, behind me I hear the congregation has begun singing the "kabalat shabbat," the prayer welcoming in the Sabbath eve.

"Come! -- Let us sing to God, let us call out to the Rock of our salvation." 

The room is full of song.

I read how Viktor had to endure tortures beyond my wildest imaginations, and wave after wave of praise for the great Almighty God, wash over me.

"Sing to God a new song, sing to God -- everyone of earth. Sing to God bless his name, announce his salvation daily." 

I feel as though I want to scream. "Salvation?" What of the children he let be gassed; what of the men and women who starved? Why didn't he save them?

"...righteousness and justice are his throne's foundation."

When babies are murdered can he who let it happen, can he who could have prevented it, be called just?

The songs wash over me, filled with devotion and love. The men sing with full hearts. They pour out their undying love for God. And I sit enraged.

I do not see why anyone would want to praise a being who although able to save lives, allows them to suffer and die? I do not believe in God, but even if I did, why is he deserving of my love? If he truly exists, and is the master of all things, surely I must fear him, perhaps obey him, but praise him?!

Ah yes, what of the goodness he supposedly bestows upon me? Perhaps for that I should praise him? Well, consider a doctor who saved my life, but who lets the man in the hospital bed beside me die in agony, even though he could have prevented it. Should I praise such a doctor?

Perhaps I do not understand his plan? Perhaps there is a great master plot of which I am ignorant? Perhaps. So over the murdered babies I should rejoice? Over death of the innocent I should be filled with glad song? If God is good, and his actions are all ultimately good, then why be sad over a Holocaust? It is all for a master plan of goodness.

Perhaps, he is punishing us. Perhaps the children were murdered because their parents didn't follow in-step with the will of God? I know you don't think that any just God would be guilty of such haphazard punishment, at least I hope you don't.

This post was written as a record of the emotional feelings that sprang to my mind as these two worlds -- the darkness of the Holocaust and the praising of God -- collided. I know that any religious person, who has ever considered the question of evil and God, has his own answers for the challenges mentioned above. I do not mean to come off as arrogant or as claiming that religious people are not sensitive to the horrors of the Holocaust or of any other human calamity. I know many of the faithful struggle in the face of evil, and that they have felt deep anger at God for his seeming complacency.

No, these are not new questions. They are not some great inpenetrable logic that erases the probability of God.  Alas, they are but outpourings of a sensitive agnostic heart. Please read them, not as an offense to belief, but as a challenge. These are not the words of a hater of religion, but of a hater of suffering.

It is these questions and others written in this blog that distance me from the God that is worshiped today.

I will leave off with the question of God and evil, with the powerful challenge of the Greek philosopher Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

I Do Not Believe, I Hope

While walking alone last Friday night I thought deeply about a world with no God. I thought about the rational way to live in a world void of a god. Would there ever be cause worth dying for? Is there really a reason to try and make the world a better place? And probably most awakening question: In a world where death is the inevitable end, is there any reason to fall in love? Indeed one could extrapolate that: Is there any reason to continue to live?

As I walked alone, I contemplated the utter loneliness of a godless world. The dark street enveloped my mind. It became apparent to me why man would believe blindly in God, and has for many centuries. To face this world as what it is, a material and rather brief existence, is to become aware that the calling of your conscience is a product of chemicals reacting in your brain, and not whispers from a world beyond. It is to grasp that the grave for which we are all bound is approaching rapidly and is truly the end. There is no god looking down and guiding the world to some sublime paradise. There will be no resurrection of passed loved ones, no destroying of the evil, and, worst of all, no purpose for anything that ever was or ever will be.

Thankfully, science has yet to prove unequivocally that God doesn't actually exist, and for the sake of mankind, I hope never will.

I do not believe in God. That is to say, I do not know without doubt that above us is a supernatural Being who is attentive to the world and cares about it's continual existence.

However, in order to continue to strive towards greatness, to have a rationale for my moral actions, I feel the need to hope there is a God. To hope that there is a purpose to my existence, a reason for me to continue to be. Otherwise, I see no reason to love, to laugh, to battle evil, to sacrifice... to be. That hope is what makes all of life meaningful.

 I don't know how long this hope will last. It is hard for me to make an argument for God. All his actions seem non-sensible. Why create a world, then wait billions of years to connect to man, hide yourself from them, and let evil destroy your world? Is it all to test the devotion of the lucky ones born to families of believers? How are we to know which god you are? Are you the popular one of the last few centuries, or perhaps a forgotten god(s)?

The more I learn about evolution (which is very little at this point) the less God is needed to explain the mysteries of the world.

Yet, I hope.

All that being said, I see no reason to believe or trust any of the religions that claim to know God's will. There is no reason, and it is in fact ludicrous, to accept that one preacher knows the will of God more than the next! Why should I live by a set of statues whose divine origin cannot be proved? Religions have always capitalized on man's need for there to be something more than this world and have created elaborate structures to nurture that need. Perhaps a lot of people need that?  Perhaps, to keep that "God hope" alive one needs a structure that claims to be divine? Perhaps, even I will need one eventually?

So to sum up, no, I do not believe that God exists, I hope God exists.