The God Hypothesis, Atheism, and
the Holocaust Religion
copyright 2008
The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin Company,
Boston . New York, 2006, 406 pages.
Distinguished biologist and widely admired author, Richard Dawkins,
is well known to most educated people. Since his authorship of
the classic book, The Selfish Gene, and other works on evolutionary
biology, he has become one of the most widely read scientists of our
time. No matter what you might think of him personally, there
is no doubt that he is a persuasive and gifted writer, so much so that
the Wall Street Journal said his “passion is supported by an
awe-inspiring literary craftsmanship.”
In addition to being the Professor of the Public Understanding of
Science at Oxford University, he is also a philosopher of a sort, belonging
in the tradition of the “systems-builders” of the past, like Aristotle,
Aquinas, Spinoza, Hegel, and Marx. All of these thinkers built
quite different philosophical systems that attempted to explain all
of human existence.
Evolutionary Darwinism is the foundation around which Dawkins built
his atheistic philosophical system. He believes human existence once
presented the greatest of mysteries, but it is a mystery no more.
Evolutionists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace solved it.1
In his latest book, The God Delusion , Dawkins explains
his atheistic outlook in great detail. “Natural Selection not
only explains the whole of life,” the biologist-turned-philosopher claims,
“it also raises our consciousness to the power of science to explain
how organized complexity can emerge from simple beginnings without any
deliberate guidance [p.116].” In his view, the theory of divine
creation has been supplanted by Darwinian natural selection, the all-embracing
explanatory principle that accounts for how humanity came into existence
and acquired its most salient characteristics.
No one to fear controversy, Dawkins has demonstrated intellectual
courage, for he has dared to critique one of the most powerful political
entities in the world today, the Jewish-Zionist power elite. Recently,
he said that Jews “more or less monopolize American foreign policy.”
Religious Jews may be a relatively small group, but they “are fantastically
successful” in lobbying the US government, he added.2
The reader may reject his atheism, but the evidence certainly supports
his views on Jewish political power.3 To be expected, he was verbally
attacked by prominent Jewish leaders.4
The God Hypothesis and the Atheist Hypothesis
Near the beginning of his tome, Dawkins provides a working definition
of the God hypothesis: “[T]here exists a superhuman, supernatural
intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and
everything in it, including us [p.31].” He contends this is a
scientific hypothesis about the ultimate nature of the universe, and
deserves to be analyzed as skeptically as any other scientific theory
(p.2).
Of course, the same principal applies to his atheistic system.
It is a scientific hypothesis about the universe, which we should carefully
scrutinize.
With this being said, let us examine some of Dawkins’s case against
the God Hypothesis.
Dawkins’s Fallacy of Faulty Analogy: God and the Celestial Teapot
Dawkins claims that the God Hypothesis is on the same level as the
theory that a celestial teapot circles the sun in elliptical orbit between
the Earth and Mars. The theory is absurd, but not subject to falsification.
The teapot is simply too small to be detected by even our most powerful
telescopes or scientific instruments (pp. 51-53).
That is, one cannot absolutely disprove the theory that there is
a teapot circling the sun, but it is very, very highly unlikely that
such an entity exists. He claims the God Hypothesis is in the
same boat. One cannot absolutely disprove the God Hypothesis,
but it is very highly unlikely that the God Hypothesis is true.
This is an example of the “fallacy of faulty analogy.” As the
logician Alex Michalos pointed out, the fallacy of faulty analogy is
committed when the compared or analogous things have more important
differences than similarities.5
One can build a serious case to show that the God Hypothesis is plausible
and believable, but one cannot build a serious case to show that the
“teapot-circling-the-sun” hypothesis is plausible and believable.
Although neither hypothesis can be scientifically disproved, one can
show the former has supporting reason and evidence; the latter has no
good supporting reason and evidence. For example, philosopher
and theologian Richard Swinburne has made a good case showing that a
belief in God is both rational and acceptable.6 No one has built
a similar case showing that a celestial teapot may exist.
Ergo, the God Hypothesis is crucially different from the “Teapot-Circling-the-
Sun” hypothesis, and to compare them like Dawkins does is to fall prey
to the “fallacy of faulty analogy.”
At this time, science and philosophy cannot prove nor disprove the
existence of God. However, speaking from a strictly scientific point
of view, one can show that the God Hypothesis remains a plausible scientific
hypothesis, along with other rival, atheistic theories.
Dawkins’s “A Priori” Fallacy
One of Dawkins’s most important arguments is that God Himself, if
He exists, would by logical necessity need something to explain how
He came into existence. Here is his argument verbatim: “Any Designer
capable of constructing the dazzling array of living things would have
to be intelligent and complicated beyond all imagining. And complicated
is just another word for improbable—and therefore demanding of an explanation.
A theologian who ripostes that his god is sublimely simple has (not
very) neatly evaded the issue, for a sufficiently simple god, whatever
other virtues he might have, would be too simple to be capable of designing
a universe (to say nothing of forgiving sins, answering prayers, blessing
unions, transubstantiating wine, and the many other achievements variously
expected of him). You cannot have it both ways. Either your
god is capable of designing worlds and doing all the other godlike things,
in which case he needs an explanation in his own right. Or he
is not, in which case he cannot provide an explanation.”7
His argument boils down to this. If God exists, He would be
unimaginably complex, and thus by logical necessity , there must be
something over and above God which in turn would be needed to explain
God’s existence.
There is a very simple refutation of this claim. The agnostic
philosopher, Bertrand Russell, once pointed out that it is within the
realm of the possible that the universe just exists and needs no explanation:
“I should say that the universe is just there, and that’s all.”8
Likewise, the theist can rightly say: “I should say that the infinitely
complex God is just there, and that’s all, and He needs no explanation.”
In a word, if God exists, He does not need an explanation. For
Dawkins to claim that, by logical necessity, God does need an explanation
is to engage in fallacious reasoning. Let us examine this issue
in greater detail.
As the 18th century philosopher, David Hume, showed, there
are “matters of fact and existence” and “the logical relations of ideas.”
Logical necessity and proof only apply in the latter sphere. We
can demonstrate by logical necessity, a priori , that “if A is larger
than B, and B larger than C, then A is larger than C” because the contrary
involves a logical contraction. That is, the proposition--“A is
larger than B, and B larger than C, but A is smaller than C”—is, a priori
, by logical necessity false, because it involves a logical contradiction.9
On the other hand, “matters of fact and existence” are not knowable
by logic alone, but only through the various avenues of experience.
As Hume wrote: “[T]here is an evident absurdity in pretending to demonstrate
a matter of fact, or to prove it by any arguments a priori . Nothing
is demonstrable unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing
that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction.”10
Let us again read Dawkins’s statement: “Either your god is capable
of designing worlds and doing all the other godlike things, in which
case he needs an explanation in his own right.” That is, by a
priori , logical necessity, God allegedly needs something to explain
His existence.
To make the statement—“an unimaginably complex God created and designed
the universe, and He existed for eternity and needs no explanation”--involves
no logical contradiction. Contrary to what Dawkins falsely claims,
God does not need an explanation. If God exists, there is no a
priori , logical necessity that demands that God needs an explanation
for His existence. He may simply be eternal and timeless.
Period.
Indeed, in regard to what brought about the universe, Dawkins admits
that some type of superhuman entity may even be responsible. In
his own words: “It may even be a superhuman designer—but if so, it will
most certainly not be a designer who just popped into existence,
or who always existed [p.156].”
Once again, this is an a priori argument. He is saying
that, by absolute necessity, God could not be a Being who always existed.
As we noted previously, David Hume showed the fallacy in this species
of argument in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
Matters of fact and existence are not knowable by logic alone but only
through the various avenues of experience. Nothing is a priori
demonstrable unless the contrary implies a contradiction.11 Dawkins
is saying that God, by absolute a priori necessity, could not
be a Being who always existed. But the contrary implies no contradiction.
To say that God always existed does not involve any logical contradiction.
He/She/It could be a Being that just always existed. Period.
This raises other issues as well. In Dawkins’s Climbing
Mount Improbable, he defined "improbability" as the probability
that something very complex would spontaneously come into existence
by chance.12
Dawkins may not be able to label God as "improbable." If He
always existed, He never spontaneously came
into existence by chance. Thus, he cannot label Him/Her/It
as "improbable".
Evidence Consistent With the God Hypothesis
Centuries ago St. Augustine hypothesized that God Himself created
Time as we know it; this has become a part of the God hypothesis.
The agnostic philosopher, Bertrand Russell, described St. Augustine’s
theory of God and Time: “Why was the world not created sooner?
Because there was no ‘sooner.’ Time was created when the world
was created. God is eternal in the sense of being timeless; in
God there is no before and after, but only an eternal present.
God’s eternity is exempt from the relation of time; all time is present
to Him at once. He did not precede His own creation of
time, for that would imply that He was in time, whereas He stands outside
the stream of time.”13
As Dawkins points out, modern physics hypothesizes that time and
space had a beginning. In his own words: “The standard model of
our universe says that time itself began in the big bang, along with
space, some 13 billion years ago [p. 145 ].” This model, while
it certainly does not prove the God hypothesis to be true, is consistent
with it.
The God Hypothesis and the Problem of the “Infinite Regress”
Dawkins says that the God Hypothesis aggravates the problem of an
infinite regress. Simply stated, the theist says that God created
the Universe. Dawkins then asks: “Who or what created God?
What caused God to come into existence?” Let us develop his argument
more thoroughly.
The Universe began at some point and we posit that something must
have initiated it. Dawkins expounded that this something, which
caused the Universe to form, must have had an ultimate cause as well.
If we insist on everything having to have a cause, an origin, a creator,
that same dogma must be applied to God as well, must it not? Who
created God? That logic ends in an infinite loop of “who did it?”
Dawkins concludes: “God presents an infinite regress from which he cannot
help us to escape [p.109].”
But Dawkins admits that time and space had a beginning at the “Big
Bang” (p. 145). British physicist and mathematician Stephen Hawking
also points this out in his popular work on modern cosmology and physics.14
That is to say, there may have been no time prior to the Big
Bang. As David Hume pointed out in his essay on “causality,” one
characteristic of cause and effect is that they must be contiguous in
time and space. That is, for A to cause B, A and B have to be
contiguous in time and space.15 But if there was no time and space
prior to the Big Bang, one may not be able to say that there was a contiguous
cause that preceded God; there was no “before God” because there
was no time dimension.
Far from aggravating the problem of infinite regress as Dawkins claims,
the God Hypothesis may solve it. If God exists, and He
is timeless and eternal, and He always existed, then it solves the problem
of the infinite regress. There simply was no infinite regress.
God simply always existed, and that is all there is. This theory would
be consistent with the theory of the Big Bang that says that time and
space as we know it were created at the Big Bang, and there may not
have been any space or time prior to the Big Bang. Contrary to
what Dawkins writes, the chain of causes that brought about the universe
could end in a finite loop with God at the beginning
Dawkins rightly comments about how our minds may not be equipped
to rationally understand the ultimate nature of reality: “Our imaginations
are forlornly under-equipped to cope with distances outside the narrow
middle range of the ancestrally familiar. We try to visualize
an electron as a tiny ball, in orbit around a larger cluster of balls
representing protons and neutrons. That isn’t what it is like
at all. Electrons are not like little balls. They are not
like anything we recognize. It isn’t clear that ‘like’ even means
anything when we try to fly too close to reality’s further horizons.
Our imaginations are not yet tooled-up to penetrate the neighborhood
of the quantum. Nothing at that scale behaves in the way matter—as
we are evolved to think—ought to behave. Nor can we cope with
the behaviour of objects that move at some appreciable fraction of the
speed of light. Common sense lets us down, because common sense
evolved in a world where nothing moves very fast, and nothing is very
small or very large [pp. 363-364].”
Could not the theist make a similar statement in regard to the God
Hypothesis? The human mind is simply not equipped to totally rationally
comprehend a Being that simply had no beginning.
Dawkins’s Most Important Argument: The Alleged “Disproof”
of God’s Existence
We must now deal with the most important argument in The God
Delusion , its purported disproof of God’s existence. The
reader should bear with me. In order to perform a thorough examination
of this most important claim, some of what I say is repetitious.
Modern cosmology tells us that our universe burst into existence
some 13 billion years ago, and the conditions seem to have been "fine
tuned" so that the diversity of life would eventually arise. One
hypothesis put forth to explain this fact is the God Hypothesis.
The universe and all life in it were created and designed by a God who
had no beginning. This hypothesis attempts to be an explanation
for the highly improbable leaping-into-existence of the bio friendly
universe that we find ourselves in.16 (Dawkins defined "improbable"
as the probability that something as complex as the universe would spontaneously
come into existence by chance.)
The God Hypothesis proceeds thusly. God designed and created the
Universe, the latter being statistically improbable. That is,
the Universe could not have arisen and organized itself spontaneously
by chance. The theist says that it was organized and created by
God, the ultimate designer. Richard Dawkins responds: “[T]he designer
hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the
designer. The whole problem we started out with was the problem
of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously no solution
to postulate something even more improbable [p.158].”
Elsewhere, he writes “[A]ny entity capable of intelligently designing
something as improbable as a Dutchman’s Pipe (or a universe) would have
to be even more improbable than a Dutchman’s Pipe. Far from terminating
the vicious regress, God aggravates it with a vengeance [p.120].”
Thus, Dawkins concludes, “The argument from improbability, properly
deployed, comes close to proving that God does not exist [p.113].”
British physicist/mathematician Stephen Hawking points out in
A Briefer History of Time that “all our theories break down at the
big bang...”17 In the same book he made a similar statement: “At
the big bang and other singularities, all the laws would have broken
down...”18 Astronomer Robert Jastrow notes that “The religious faith
of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning
under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and
as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover.”19
Dawkins cannot say that the laws of probability rule out the God-Designer-Creator
of the Universe Hypothesis, because the laws of science and probability
were not valid prior to the Big Bang. The theist says that God
designed and created the Universe. Dawkins says that the laws
of probability rule out the theory of a God creating and designing the
universe. But this is fallacious because the laws of science and
probability were not valid before the Big Bang (as modern physics tells
us), so one cannot say that the laws of probability rule out God’s existence.
Thus, Dawkins’s alleged disproof of God’s existence is not a disproof
at all.
Let us examine this issue from another perspective. The laws
of probability as we know them need the space-time dimension that we
exist in to play themselves out in. But as Richard Dawkins admits:
“The standard model of our universe says that time itself began in the
big bang, along with space, some 13 billion years ago [p.145].”
There is no evidence that there was a space-time dimension prior to
the Big Bang. Physical probability is relative to time.
If there is no space-time dimension, then the laws of probability that
Dawkins refers to cannot operate and are null and void.
So, one cannot say that the laws of probability rule out a creator
or designer of the Universe prior to the Big Bang. This destroys
a premise of his argument, and thus invalidates it.
Nothing stated in this essay proves God's existence.
What was shown, however, is that Dawkins’s attempt to disprove
God's existence is plagued with serious problems, if not outright fallacies.
Furthermore, at least some of the findings of modern science are consistent
with the God Hypothesis.
Richard Dawkins, Militant Atheism and the Holocaust Religion
While Dawkins ardently criticizes the world’s traditional
religions such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, he conspicuously
ignores the most powerful religion in the Western world today—the Jewish
Holocaust religion.
Dawkins may rebut me by saying that his book is about the existence
or non-existence of God, and not about the truth or falsity of the Holocaust
doctrine. He may even insist that the Holocaust doctrine is not
a religion at all, and thus, should not be a matter of discussion in
The God Delusion. After all, unlike the religions of Christianity,
Judaism and Islam, Holocaust ideologists do not claim a Divine Being
revealed their doctrine to man.
If Dawkins and his militant atheist followers take this position,
they are sorely mistaken. Throughout the book Dawkins lists what
he believes to be the salient characteristics of religions (pp. 199-200).
It is important to note that of the eight characteristics he lists of
a religion, the Holocaust doctrine has six of them. The God
Delusion is not just an attack upon the God hypothesis; it is also
an attack upon all organized religion. In view of
this, he should have devoted some space to a critique of this religion.
Far from questioning the Holocaust religion, however, he appears to
accept it as “fact”(pp. 64, 268-269).
Dawkins points out that religions demand “heretics, blasphemers
and apostates should be killed (or otherwise punished, for example by
ostracism from their families) [p.199].” This most certainly applies
to the Holocaust religion. In Germany, France, Austria, Belgium,
Switzerland and several other European countries, as well as in Israel,
there are government-enforced laws that punish people who contest or
reject the Holocaust religion.20
Even in the United States where “freedom of speech” is enshrined
in law and no “Holocaust denial” laws are on the books, and there is
a supposed to be a “separation of church and state,” the United States
government aided in deporting the Holocaust skeptics Ernst Zundel and
Germar Rudolf to prison cells in Germany. They committed the mortal
sin of debunking the Holocaust religion.21
Fred Leuchter was the leading gas chamber execution technologist
in the United States when he published his famous 1988 report that undermined
belief in the existence of the “Nazi gas chambers.” After making
a forensic study of the alleged gas chambers of Auschwitz and Majdanek,
he concluded they never existed. Since then his engineering business
has been ruined and his marriage destroyed. He was vilified in
the mainstream media. Legislation was used to prevent him from
working in his chosen profession. Even criminal prosecution was
used against him.22 To use Dawkins’s terminology, Holocaust blasphemer
and heretic Leuchter had to be punished.
Another characteristic of a religion according to Dawkins is
that “Belief in God is a supreme virtue [p.199].” For many influential
people in modern day Western society, belief in the Holocaust has replaced
belief in God as the supreme virtue.
Expressing a widely held sentiment among leading US political elites,
Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of former presidential candidate John Kerry,
stated in the highly influential Forward: “Need it be said again?
The gas chambers, the bureaucratic system of murder, the efforts to
sever an entire people from their place in the world, did happen, did
exist and remains a unifying cause for those who choose justice, now
and forever more.”23
That is to say, a belief in the Holocaust ideology is a supreme virtue,
as it is the basis for justice—now and forever more. Centuries
ago, Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas claimed that God and his divinely
revealed morality were the basis for justice in the world—now and forever
more.24
Dawkins continues on about the characteristics of religion: “Faith
(belief without evidence) is a virtue [p. 199].” Likewise with
the Holocaust religion. According to modern day Holocaust theologians,
a belief in Holocaust dogmas that lack evidence or defy the evidence
is a great virtue.
Leon Poliakov, a pioneer of the Holocaust theology, pointed out decades
ago that there are no documents to prove that the Nazis ever had any
plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe: "[T]he campaign to exterminate
the Jews, as regards its conception as well as many other essential
aspects, remains shrouded in darkness. Inferences, psychological considerations,
and third- or fourth-hand reports enable us to reconstruct its development
with considerable accuracy. Certain details, however, must remain forever
unknown. The three or four people chiefly involved in the actual drawing
up of the plan for total extermination are dead and no documents have
survived; perhaps none ever existed."25
So there you have it. The "evidence" that "proves" the existence
of an alleged Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews is simply the guesswork
of Holocaust historians. Hard documentary proof is missing. Indeed,
it is an article of religious faith among Holocaust historians--supported
with theological arguments--that Hitler and the Nazi hierarchy ordered
the wartime mass extermination of the Jewish people. In fact,
the claim that the Nazis ordered the mass extermination of the Jews
defies the evidence, and is believed in spite of the evidence.
Let us examine one simple example.
In the March 7, 1942 entry in Joseph Goebbels’s diary, the National
Socialist Propaganda Minister discussed an extensive memo concerning
the Final solution to the Jewish question. The document referred to
"more than eleven million Jews" in Europe who "must first be concentrated
in the East" and in due course, "after the war, be sent to an island"
such as Madagascar. Europe would not see peace until the Jews
were "excluded from European territory." "Delicate questions" concerning
half-Jews, relatives, and spouses, it noted, would be addressed. Goebbels
then wrote: "[T]he situation is now ready to introduce a definitive
solution to the Jewish question. Later generations will no longer have
the energy and also the alertness of instinct to do so. Therefore, it
is important that we proceed radically and thoroughly."26
Holocaust theologian Jeffrey Herf admits this passage contradicts
the Holocaust religion. It speaks not of mass extermination, but of
deporting the Jews to some place outside of Europe after the war is
ended. Herf tries to explain this away by claiming that Goebbels
is lying to his own diary for posterity’s sake—a theological rationalization
if there ever was one.27
On the one hand he claims that Hitler, Goebbels and the Nazi hierarchy
on numerous occasions announced to the world their policy to murder
all the Jews of Europe.28 Yet, he then turns around and tries
to make us believe that Goebbels tried to hide this extermination policy
by lying to his diary for posterity’s sake. Why would Goebbels and the
Nazi hierarchy announce to the world their policy of exterminating the
Jews, and then try to hide this same policy by lying in private diaries?
It would not make any sense for Goebbels to lie about, cover up and
conceal in his private diary the very thing that he honestly publicly
announced!
This evidence from Goebbels’s diary defies the claim that the Nazis
ordered the complete extermination of the Jews. Yet, Herf concocts
a convenient theological rationalization to “justify” the religious
faith that such an order existed.
Let us look at another example that shows how faith—a belief with
little or no evidence—is a virtue in the Holocaust religion.
Holocaust theologian Robert Jan van Pelt conceded that the "evidence"
for the mass killings of Jews at Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec—where
allegedly millions were murdered--is sparse at best. In reference to
these three camps, he wrote: " The evidence for the role of Treblinka,
Belzec, and Sobibor—sufficient as it may be to come to a moral
certainty about the wartime history of those places—is much
less abundant. There are few eyewitnesses, no confession that
can compare to that given by [Auschwitz commandant Rudolf] Hoss, no
significant remains, and few archival sources [emphasis added].”29
Does the reader see how this passage is harmonious with Dawkins’s
definition of “religious faith?” Holocaust theologian van Pelt
admits that the evidence for the mass killing of Jews at certain Nazi
camps is very sparse at best—but it is virtuous to believe the story
anyway, because it is a “moral certainty.”
Dawkins continues: “Everybody, even those who do not hold religious
beliefs, must respect them with a higher lever of automatic and unquestioned
respect than that accorded to other kinds of beliefs [p.200].”
In the Western world the Holocaust religion has been raised above
the traditional religions such as Christianity and Islam. Dawkins’s
atheistic book was a publishing event all throughout the United States
and Great Britain.30 Millions throughout Britain and elsewhere
saw his atheistic documentary. No Western government formally
condemned him or his ideas. Furthermore, Dawkins’s own British
government granted knighthood to Salmon Rushdie, author of The Satanic
Verses, which deeply offended millions of Muslims throughout the
world.31
Yet, when Iran held its Holocaust debunking, revisionist conference
in December 2006, the governments of the US, Great Britain, Russia,
France, Canada, Germany, as well as many others, joined in religious
chorus and issued statements condemning the conference—proof that Holocaust
religion is accorded a higher level of automatic and unquestioned respect
than that accorded to traditional religion.32
Dawkins continues: “There are some weird things (such as the Trinity,
transubstantiation, incarnation) that we are not meant to understand.
Don’t even try to understand one of these, for the attempt might destroy
it. Learn how to gain fulfillment in calling it a mystery
[p.200].”
In reference to the alleged “Nazi gas chambers,” Chief Rabbi of the
Holocaust Elie Wiesel stated: “Let the gas chambers remained closed
to prying eyes, and to the imagination. We will never know all
that happened behind those doors of steel. They say the victims
fought among themselves for a breath of air, for one more second of
life, that they climbed on the shoulders of the weakest in the so-called
Todeskampf, the final struggle among the dying. Much has
been said when silence ought to have prevailed. Let the dead speak
for themselves, if they so choose. If not, may they be left in
peace.”33
We are not supposed to know if the operation of the “gas chambers”
violates the laws of science, as they should remain closed to prying
eyes. It is a religious mystery as to what happened in these alleged
“gas chambers.” We are just supposed to accept their existence…period!
All questioning of this theological mystery is to be discouraged.
Remain silent and gain fulfillment from leaving it a mystery.
Dawkins on the danger of religious faith
On this issue of “religious faith,” here is what Dawkins writes:
“Faith is evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks
no argument [p.308].”This directly applies to the Holocaust religion.
Not only has the Holocaust doctrine been raised above God and traditional
religion, it has also been raised above science itself, for it can no
longer be critically examined by skeptics.
In early 2006, Iran offered to send a team of experts to the Nazi
concentration camps in Poland in order to critically evaluate the evidence
for the alleged Holocaust. Polish officials immediately rejected
the plan. "Under no circumstances should we permit this," insisted Polish
Foreign Minister Stefan Miller. "This is beyond all imaginable norms
that such a thing is discussed," he added.34
Dawkins’s criticism of “religious faith” applies here. According
to Polish Minister Miller, Iranians are supposed to accept the Holocaust
religion on faith, as it does not tolerate any arguments to the contrary.
After all, it is beyond all imaginable norms that the Iranians dare
to contest the Holocaust religion.
In early 1979, in France’s most respected newspaper, Le Monde,
34 historians issued a manifesto in support of the Holocaust religion.
The concluding paragraph asserts that mass gassings of Jews did take
place and no one can deny their existence without committing an outrage
on the truth: "The question of how technically such a mass murder
was possible should not be raised. It was technically possible
because it occurred. This is the necessary starting point for
all historical investigations of the subject. It has fallen to
us to recall that point with due simplicity: there is not nor can there
be a debate over the existence of the gas chambers."35
Dawkins’s statement as to why religious faith is evil directly applies
to the Holocaust religion. According to the 34 historians, a belief
in the “Nazi gas chambers” requires no justification or proof; it must
simply be accepted, a priori. And furthermore, the “Nazi
gas chamber” religious doctrine brooks no arguments to the contrary.
Indeed, Jewish High Priestess of the Holocaust religion, Deborah
Lipstadt, stated it thusly to people who wanted her to participate in
a debate with disbelievers in the Holocaust religion: “I [Deborah Lipstadt]
explained repeatedly that I would not participate in a debate with a
Holocaust denier. The existence of the Holocaust was not a matter
of debate.”36
Dawkins continues on the characteristics of religion: “Beautiful
music, art and scriptures are themselves self-replicating tokens of
religious ideas [p.200].” The number of movies, novels, fiction
stories, works of art, etc. that are inspired by the Holocaust religion
are seemingly endless. No further comment necessary.
The Holocaust as an “Intelligently Designed” Religion
Dawkins claims that religions are “consciously designed,” as religious
beliefs are engineered by the religion’s leaders and founders in order
to accomplish a specific purpose. In his own words: “Religions
probably are, at least in part, intelligently designed, as are schools
and fashions of art [p.201].”
So too with the Holocaust religion. At the postwar Nuremberg
Tribunal, the Allies alleged that the Germans exterminated four million
people at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Until 1990, a memorial
plaque at Auschwitz read: 'Four Million People Suffered and Died Here
at the Hands of the Nazi Murderers Between the Years 1940 and 1945.'"37
During a June 1979 visit to the camp, Pope John Paul II stood before
this memorial and prayed for and blessed the four million victims.38
In July 1990, the Polish government's Auschwitz State Museum, along
with Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust center, conceded that the four million
figure was a gross exaggeration, and references to it were accordingly
removed from the Auschwitz monument. Israeli and Polish officials announced
a tentative revised toll of at least 1.1 million dead, about 90 percent
being Jews from almost every country in Europe.39
Revisionist diplomat Dr. Frederick Toben rightly pointed out that,
once again, John Paul’s successor, Pope Benedict XVI, blessed the alleged
1.1 million victims, which shows that there is indeed a concerted effort
to elevate the Holocaust ideology to the status of a religion.40
But most importantly, Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer admitted that
the formerly "etched-in-stone-fact" that four million souls were murdered
by the Nazis at Auschwitz was an intelligently designed falsehood, created
to serve an ulterior political agenda.41 This shows that “intelligent
design,” as Dawkins would say, is a part of the Holocaust religion.
Persecution Under the Holocaust Religion
Dawkins rightly protests that people are severely persecuted for
religious “thought crimes” in Afghanistan. In 2006 in this war-torn
Islamic country, a man was sentenced to death for converting to Christianity.
Dawkins writes: “Did he kill anyone, hurt anybody, steal anything, damage
anything? No. All he did was change his mind. Internally
and privately he changed his mind. He entertained certain thoughts
which were not to the liking of the ruling party of the country [p.287].”
Consider the Holocaust religion in many parts of the Western world.
Anyone who privately changes his/her mind on the Holocaust, and
then publicly states his or her acceptance of revisionism risks
going to prison. In Dawkins’s terminology, they are promoting
thoughts and ideas that are not to liking of the ruling
elites of the Western world, especially the Jewish-Zionist power elite.
Dawkins continues on the dangers of religious absolutism: “But let’s
have no complacency in Christendom. As recently as 1922 in Britain,
John William Gott was sentenced to nine months hard labor for blasphemy:
he compared Jesus to a clown. Almost unbelievably, the crime of
blasphemy is still on the statute books in Britain, and in 2005 a Christian
group tried to bring a private prosecution for blasphemy against the
BBC for broadcasting Jerry Springer, the Opera [p.288].”
Likewise Professor Dawkins, let us have no complacency with the Holocaust
religion. As recently as 2005, British historian David Irving
was sent to an Austrian prison for over a year because of his statements
casting doubt on certain aspects of the Holocaust religion.42
Almost unbelievably, the British government and militant free speech
advocates like Richard Dawkins refused to come to his aid and never
even lodged a protest.
In this context, Dawkins makes this statement: “It has to be admitted
that absolutism is far from dead. Indeed, it rules the minds of
a great number of people in the world today, most dangerously so in
the Muslim world and in the incipient American theocracy… Such
absolutism nearly always results from strong religious faith, and it
constitutes a major reason for suggesting that religion can be a force
for evil in the world [p.286].”
A similar statement could be made about the Holocaust religion.
Holocaust absolutism is far from dead. Indeed, it rules the minds
of a great number of people in the world today, most dangerously in
the Western world where people go to prison for questioning the Holocaust
religion, and in the dominant Jewish-Zionist power elite. Such
absolutism is a result of a strong religious faith in the Holocaust
doctrine, and it is a major reason for suggesting that the Holocaust
religion can be a force for evil in the world.
Holocaust Fundamentalism and the Subversion of Science—the Danger
of Faith in the Holocaust?
Dawkins explains his condemnation of religious fundamentalism:
“Fundamentalists know they are right because they have read the truth
in a holy book and they know, in advance, that nothing will budge them
from their belief. The truth of the holy book is an axiom, not
the end product of a process of reasoning. The book is true, and
if the evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must
be thrown out, not the book [p.282].” On this issue of “religious
faith,” again, here is what Dawkins writes: “Faith is evil precisely
because it requires no justification and brooks no argument [p.308].”
Well lo and behold! A similar statement could be made about
the Nazi gas chamber dogma. At the risk of sounding redundant,
let us re-examine the famous, theological manifesto issued in 1979 by
the 34 historians in the French daily, Le Monde. The concluding
paragraph asserts that mass gassings of Jews did take place and that
no one can deny their existence without committing an outrage on the
truth: "The question of how technically such a mass murder was
possible should not be raised. It was technically possible because
it occurred. This is the necessary starting point for all historical
investigations of the subject. It has fallen to us to recall that
point with due simplicity: there is not nor can there be a debate over
the existence of the gas chambers."43
If this reasoning is accepted, any evidence that in fact contradicts
or refutes the gas chamber theory will either have to be totally ignored
or changed and tailored to make it agree with the theory. Instead
of testing Holocaust claims against the empirical evidence, the historian
will have to fashion the empirical evidence according to Holocaust claims!
Logicians would label such egregious logic as the “fallacy of apriorism.”44
Karl Popper, a philosopher of science, proposed that a statement
(a theory, a conjecture) has the status of belonging to the empirical
sciences if, and only if, it is potentially falsifiable.45 The
Le Monde declaration assumes that the gas chamber story constitutes
“a higher truth” and should therefore exercise authority in evaluating
and arranging the discoveries of science and history. Not being
falsifiable, it is not scientific. It is to be dogmatically accepted
not empirically tested.
Thus, using Dawkins’s terminology, our 34 historians claim the “truth”
of the “gas chambers” is an axiom, not the end product of a process
of reasoning. The “Nazi gas chamber” claim is true (!), and if
the evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be
thrown out, not the “Nazi gas chamber” claim. It is a religious
faith, according to Dawkins’s criteria, and it requires no justification
and brooks no argument.
In response to this religious fundamentalism, speaking for atheists
in general, Dawkins claims: “By contrast, what I, as a scientist, believe
(for example, evolution) I believe not because of reading a holy book
but because I have studied the evidence [p.282].”
Elsewhere, he writes: “We believe in evolution because the evidence
supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose
to disprove it. No real fundamentalist would ever say anything
like that [p.283].”
Nevertheless, in his book Dawkins talks about the Holocaust religion
like a “true believer (pp. 64, 268-269).” Will Dawkins and
fellow atheists now objectively examine the revisionist evidence against
the Holocaust religion, and if need be, reject it if the new evidence
disproves it? Will he and his fellow atheists now live up to their
stated principles and study the evidence, both pro and con, for the
“Nazi gas chamber” claim?
Or are he and his militant atheists just Holocaust fundamentalists
who blindly accept the Holocaust religion?
The Holocaust religion and kidnapping
Professor Dawkins rightly brings to light the tragic story of a Jewish
child, Edgardo Mortara, who, as a six-year old in 1858 was torn from
his weeping parents by the papal police—acting under the orders of he
Inquisition—and thereafter raised a Catholic. He rarely ever saw
his parents again.
Dawkins points out that the “justification” for kidnapping the child
was that he was originally baptized a Catholic: it was not an option
to allow a baptized Christian to stay with his Jewish parents (p.311).
Dawkins comments; “I am not implying that anything like this awful
story could happen today [p.311].”
You are 1000% wrong, Professor Dawkins!! A story similar to
this happened right near Chicago, Illinois in 2005! A man was
torn from his wife and child and sent to a prison cell in Germany.
The “justification” for this is that he is a Holocaust heretic that
contests the Holocaust religion.
German citizen and former Ph.D candidate in chemistry at the prestigious
Max Planck Institute, certified chemist Germar Rudolf carried out a
forensic study of the so-called “Auschwitz gas chambers” and showed
they never existed.46
But lo and behold. Law forbids Germans to contest the Holocaust
religion. If they do, they go to prison...Period! It does
not matter how much evidence or reason they can muster to disprove the
Holocaust religion. It is a dogma that is to be uncritically accepted
by all German citizens.
Therefore, Holocaust Inquisitors determined that a German citizen
who contests the Holocaust religion must not be allowed to stay free
in the United States with his wife and child. He must be torn
from his family, and then thrown in a German prison for his Holocaust
heresy.47
In regard to the story about Edguardo Mortara, Dawkins writes about
“the extraordinary fact that the priests, cardinals and Pope seem genuinely
not to have understood what a terrible thing they were doing to poor
Edgardo Mortara. It passes all sensible understanding, but they
sincerely believed they were doing him a good turn by taking him away
from his parents and giving him a Christian upbringing…Such is the power
of (mainstream, ‘moderate’) religion to warp judgment and pervert ordinary
decency [p.313].”
A very similar statement could made about Germar Rudolf and the Holocaust
religion. Many High Priests of the Holocaust religion will undoubtedly
tell you that by imprisoning people like Germar Rudolf, they “are protecting
society from dangerous ideas.” Such is the power of the Holocaust
theology to warp judgment and pervert ordinary decency.
Will Richard Dawkins’s Atheistic Morality Motivate Him to Question
the Holocaust Religion?
On pages 263-264, Dawkins lists what he believes to be some
ethical principles of atheism. He writes: “Test all things; always
check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard a cherished
belief if it does not conform to them.” He also opined: “Question
everything.”
Yet, our hard-nosed skeptic-atheist appears to accept the major tenets
of the Holocaust religion (pp. 64, 268-269). Will he now question
the Holocaust theology? Will he now check his notions about the
Holocaust religion against the facts that Holocaust revisionists have
uncovered? Will Dawkins discard his belief in the Holocaust religion
if he sees it does not conform to the facts?
Here is another component of his atheistic morality: “Never seek
to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the rights
of others to disagree with you.”
Will Richard Dawkins closely scrutinize the Holocaust religion, or
will he cut himself off from the dissent of Holocaust revisionists?
Will Richard Dawkins now demand that society respect the rights of Holocaust
skeptics to publicly reject the Holocaust religion?
Dawkins writes: “Form independent opinions on the basis of your own
reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.”
Will Richard Dawkins form an independent opinion on Holocaust revisionism,
or will he allow himself to be bullied into believing what the incredibly
powerful Holocaust lobby force him and the rest of Western society to
believe
Is the Holocaust Religion the “Justification” for WWIII?
Dawkins approvingly quotes Jewish atheist Sam Harris: “Because
each new generation of children is taught that religious propositions
need not be justified in the way that all others must, civilization
is still besieged by the armies of the preposterous. We are, even
now, killing ourselves over ancient literature. Who would have
thought something so tragically absurd could be possible? [p.278].”
In September 2007, President George W. Bush cited the Holocaust religion
as a “justification” for possibly attacking Iran and beginning World
War III. A respected British news source claimed Bush’s rhetoric
was a precise attempt to link Iran’s alleged quest for nuclear weapons
and alleged desire to wipe Israel off of the map with Hitler’s destruction
of the Jews. "Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to
nuclear weapons," Bush was quoted as saying, "threatens to put the region
already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear
holocaust."48
A former White House aide clarified the meaning of Bush’s statement:
"By using the word ‘holocaust,’ Mr. Bush has provided a moral reason
to allow the Jewish state to do what it needs to do…He is reinvoking
the notion of ‘never again.’ If you believe that there could be another
Holocaust, it becomes morally indefensible to stand back. It is a powerful
and loaded term. Those people in Europe who believed that the neo-cons
have gone away and shrunk under a rock had better wise up fast."49
Thus, using Harris’s terminology a similar statement could be made
about the Holocaust religion. This generation of most Westerners
are taught that the main tenets of the Holocaust religion (i.e., There
was Nazi policy to exterminate the Jews, the “gas chambers” existed,
and around six million Jews were murdered) need not be justified in
the way that all other must; after all, any questioning or rejection
of the Holocaust religion is “evil and immoral.” Because of this,
Western civilization is still besieged by the armies of the preposterous.
Israel and the US, even now, are planning to begin a war of mass death,
utilizing dubious Jewish Holocaust claims dating back to World War II
as the “justification.” Who would have thought something so tragically
absurd may very well come to pass in the very near future.
Notes
1. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the evidence of
evolution reveals a universe without design (W. W. Norton, 1987),
p. ix.
2. “Dawkins: Jews Control US Policy,” Arutz Sheva: IsraelNationalNews.com,
8 October 2007. Online:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/134346
3. For example, see John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The
Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
2007); Alfred M. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection: What Price Peace?
(Dodd, Mead, 1978); Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fatal Embrace: Jews and
the State (University of Chicago, 1993); Jonathan Jeremy Goldberg,
Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment (1996);
George W. Ball and Douglas B. Ball, The Passionate Attachment: America’s
Involvement with Israel, 1947 to the Present (W.W. Norton, 1992);
Paul Findley, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront
Israel’s Lobby (Lawrence Hill & Co., 1985).
4. “Dawkins: Jews Control US Policy.”
5. Alex C. Michalos, Improving Your Reasoning (Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1970), pp.109-110.
6. Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford University
Press, 2004); Richard Swinburne, Is There a God? (Oxford University
Press, 1996).
7. Richard Dawkins, Climbing Mount Improbable (Norton, 1996),
p.77.
8. Quoted in John Hick, The Existence of God: Readings Selected,
Edited, and Furnished With an Introductory Essay (MacMillan Publishing
Co., 1964), p. 175.
9. Ibid., pp. 93-94.
10. Ibid. p. 94.
11. Ibid., pp. 93-98.
12. Dawkins, Climbing Mount Improbable, p.75.
13. Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (Simon
and Schuster, 1945), pp. 353-354.
14. Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlordinow, A Briefer History of
Time (Bantam Books, 2005), pp. 69, 141.
15. David Hume, On Human Nature and the Understanding (Collier
Books, 1962), p. 216, passim.
16. See Jim Holt’s review of The God Delusion in The New
York Times Book Review, 22 October 2006.
17. Hawking and Mlorinow, p. 68.
18. Ibid. p.141.
19. Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers (Norton, 1992),
p. 105.
20. Mark Weber, “Holocaust Denial Laws are Disgraceful,” Institute
for Historical Review. Online:
http://www.ihr.org/news/112705HoloDenial.html
21. Mark Weber, “Freedom for Europe’s Prisoners of Conscience: Irving,
Zundel, Rudolf Still in Prison,” Institute for Historical Review.
Online:
http://www.ihr.org/news/061112_prisoners_of_conscience.shtml
22. Fred Leuchter, “Is there life after persecution? The botched
execution of Fred Leuchter,” Institute for Historical Review.
Online:
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p429_Leuchter.html
23. Teresa Heinz Kerry, “The Outrageous Silence of George W. Bush,”
Forward, 23 December 2005, p. 9.
24. Thomas Aquinas, An Aquinas Reader: Selections from the writings
of Thomas Aquinas (Image Books, 1972), pp. 355-361.
25. Leon Poliakov, The Harvest of Hate: The Nazi Program for the
Destruction of the Jews of Europe (Holocaust Library, 1979), p.108.
26. Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World
War II and the Holocaust (The Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2006), p.146.
27. Ibid., p.147.
28. Ibid. pp. 5, 12,110, 167, 267.
29. Robert Jan van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence
from the Irving Trial (Indiana University Press, 2002), p. 5.
30. For example, it was calmly and even sympathetically reviewed
in the October 22, 2006 issue of the New York Times Book Review,
and in Great Britain’s Guardian Unlimited, September 23, 2006
issue.
31. “Change in UK relations not on Iran agenda,” PressTV.
Online:
32. See the ADL’s web site, "Iran Hosts Anti-Semitic Hatefest
in Tehran: Responses from World Leaders." Online:
http://www.adl.org/main_International_Affairs/iran_holocaust_conference.htm?Multi_page_sections=sHeading_4
33. Elie Wiesel, All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs (Alfred
A. Knopf, 1996), p.74.
34. Marc Perelman, "Iran Proposal for Shoah Rebuffed by Europeans,"
Forward, 24 February 2006, p.7. "Drawing the Line on Iran, "
Forward, 24 February 2006, p. 10.
35. Quoted in Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Assassins of Memory: Essays
on Denial of the Holocaust (Columbia University Press, 1992), p.
xiv.
36. Deborah Lipstadt, Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust:
The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (The Free Press, 1993),
p.1.
37. Nuremberg document 008-USSR; IMT "blue series," Vol. 39, pp.
24-25. Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, eds., Anatomy of the
Auschwitz Death Camp (Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 61-62;
Lipstadt, p.188, footnote.
38. See photograph at
http://zundelsite.org/english/antiprop/plaques/pope.jpg Also, see
photograph at Paul Grubach, "The Christian Religion and the Iran Holocaust
Conference: An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI." Online:
http://www.codoh.com/viewpoints/vppgpope.html
39. Gutman and Berenbaum. Lipstadt, p. 188, footnote.
40. Frederick Toben, "The ‘Holocaust-Shoah’ in Time & Space, not
Memory." Online:
http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/2006December/contents.htm
41. Yehuda Bauer, "Auschwitz: The Dangers of Distortion," Jerusalem
Post International Edition, week ending September 30, 1989, p.7;
Peter Steinfels, "Auschwitz Revisionism: An Israeli Scholar’s Case,"
New York Times, November 12, 1989. Robert Jan van Pelt makes
a similar point, p. 109.
42. Mark Weber, “Freedom for Europe’s Prisoners of Conscience: Irving,
Zundel, Rudolf Still in Prison,” Institute for Historical Review.
Online:
http://www.ihr.org/news/061112_prisoners_of_conscience.shtml
43. Vidal-Naquet.
44. Michalos, pp. 43-44.
45. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy , 1967 ed., s.v. “Karl
Raimund Popper,” by Anthony Quinton.
46. Germar Rudolf, The Rudolf Report: Expert Report on Chemical
and Technical Aspects of the “Gas Chambers” of Auschwitz (Theses
& Dissertations Press, 2003). Online:
http://vho.org/GB/Books/trr/index.html
47. Mark Weber, “Freedom for Europe’s Prisoners of Conscience: Irving,
Zundel, Rudolf Still in Prison,” Institute for Historical Review.
Online:
http://www.ihr.org/news/061112_prisoners_of_conscience.shtml
48. Tim Shipman, "Will President Bush bomb Iran?," Sunday Telegraph
(Great Britain), 4 September 2007. Online:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/02/wiran102.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox.
49. Ibid.
