The God Hypothesis, Atheism, and the Holocaust Religion

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 18^th 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

copyright 2008

[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.