Dear well off Jewish Woman at the talk today:

[skull_bearer]

You do not, really not, absolutely not, NEVER FUCKING NOT have the right to criticise a Holocaust survivor when he tells you he does not believe in god. Or go into a rant about how the Jews are clearly the chosen people and how can he not admit the obvious truth yadda yadda yadda.

SERIOUSLY WHAT IS UP WITH THAT? I'VE MET NEO-NAZIS WHO'VE BEHAVED BETTER!

 -- The woman in the front row who's quite proud she didn't punch your lights out.

Comments

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I simply despair of 'humanity'.

Sigh :o(

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

The only reason I didn't tell her to shut up was because I didn't want this the turn into a religion debate. But when she was going on and on about how God was 'testing' his chosen people it was like some brain-damaged kid was running up and down the room with his knickers on his head. It was SO EMBARASSING!

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

There, I suspect, speaks someone who never lost a relative in the sho'ah :o(

The main synagogue in Budapest has a holocaust memorial. It's a life sized silver willow tree- every leaf- EVERY LEAF! is etched with the name of a victim.

I'm not, as you know, Jewish, although I have Jewish ancestry down the matriarchal line (which means to most Jews that I am :o) but the Holocaust memorial in Vienna was able to put me on my knees in floods of tears.

That woman needs to go away and find out the meaning of the word 'privilege'............

[wikdsushi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, because the Holocaust was a test. Everyone just filed in, sat down, took up their pencils, and anyone who made less than 60% got gassed. There are lots of reasons to be an atheist, and surviving the most brutal and disgusting wholesale slaughter of human life in recorded history is a damned good one.

People confuse me sometimes. Especially that lady. Oy.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

I'm not making a distinction in this. Some holcoaust survivors still believe in god, and that's understandable, survival was such a miracle you migth well start thinking someone was looking out for you, or maybe you just want to believe there was some point to it all. Some don't and that's more than understandable. I am an atheists in the Dawkins style but there are some places I just DO NOT GO.

[pollums.livejournal.com]

Hahah oh my godddd that's so awful!!!!

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

And when he told her he'd never been bar mitvah'd because he knew it would have been a lie, she looked at him like he was Hitler or something!

Some people shouldn't be allowed out without a thinking brain dog.

[sorion.livejournal.com]

Err... in context of the holocaust, I would not - under any circumstances - start talking about "chosen people"... That would be the height of criminal irony -_-

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

I KNOW! It was sooo embarassing. I mean, had this woman even heard the guy's story. His dad was taken to Auschwitz and never came back, and he's describing how they used to drag bodies out of barracks and how his youngest sister died before she was a year old. WTF CHOSEN PEOPEL I DON'T EVEN

[sorion.livejournal.com]

That's not even what I meant... The Nazis thought they were "chosen" too. Not by God, but by evolution.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, didn't think of that. Bet the nazis would have loved the old testameent if the protagonists hadn't been Jews. Oh the irony.

[sorion.livejournal.com]

Bet the nazis would have loved the old testameent if the protagonists hadn't been Jews.

What? Like, procreate and populate whatever land you get to because the one leading you will get rid of the people living there...? Whatever gave you that idea :X

My... I'm being cynical, today ^-^'

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Sounds like that was.....interesting. In any case, if the Jews really *are* the chosen people of an Almighty God that's one of the better arguments for atheism I've ever heard. As in that case God's either not Almighty or evil.

[wikdsushi.livejournal.com]

Or completely batshit insane. "I love you, so here, let me beat you until you pass out to make sure you don't go out and get hurt." THAT kind of batshit.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, like the new rabbi at my school when I was ten who decided only children who were halachicly Jewish (both parents Jewish) would be considered Jewish by the School.

And the old gentleman who stood up at the parents evening and rolled up his sleeve and dared the rabbi to tell him with "only" a Jewish father, that he was not Jewish, or that his grandchildren weren't.

Some people....

[wikdsushi.livejournal.com]

How did the rabbi respond?

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

On a more unrelated note, when I first came in to the talk I was a bit puzzled because I couldn't see anyone who looked old enough to a Holcoaust survivor. Turned out the rather dapper bald man who I thought must have been around 40 was actually past 70. I was gobsmacked, I wished I asked him what his secret was.

I hope I look that good at 70.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I've got to know a chap that uses the same coffee shop as me- another dapper, grey haired little man, straight as a ramrod. I had him down as say 60. We got to talking and I found out he is an ex matelot served in the RN during WW2 and during the fifties and is actually 87 and still working as a carpenter!

I almost fell off my stool with surprise when I found out! :o)

[kathie-d.livejournal.com]

Don't think there's ever a right time to be telling people that they 'should' believe in something they don't, but that really takes the insensitivity biscuit. What a complete jerk.

[wikdsushi.livejournal.com]

Ever get the feeling some people have never known a moment of real suffering in their whole lives?

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is not suffering but empathy. I've not suffered, or at least not much, and I know better than to get into that argument.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

While I have been though the mill to some extent I wouldn't _dare_ to compare what I've been through or to question your guy's views, or _FJM_'s old gentleman come to that and you are absolutely right about empathy!

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

As a Jew who lost relatives in the Holocaust, this just sickens me."Chosen People' - yeah, talk about an inappropriate reference! Every time I hear that phrase I think of Tevye asking god to "choose someone else for a change."

[ardeth30.livejournal.com]

Dammit, some people are so... stupid? not there?... something it's a wonder they can breathe. I'd say that woman never learned the value of empathy. >.>