The evidence for G-d in history--Jewish history--and its subversion

The battle over the evidence for G-d in nature, and how it is denied, is well known. However, the other great body of evidence for the existence of G-d is in human history in general, and Jewish history in particular. This the unbelievers do not so much deny as subvert by a very clever and (dare one say it?) diabolical tactic.

The Jewish People are probably the most ancient people still living on earth. Though their number has been small and insignificant in every generation, their influence has been so out of proportion to their numbers as to be incredible. Furthermore, this tiny nation has throughout its history been the object of more attempts to annihilate it than any other people in history. But none of these attempts by nations far stronger and more numerous to destroy `Am Yisra'el have been successful (barukh HaShem!). Instead the most storied empires of history have fallen into the dust while the seemingly insignificant target of their wrath, the Jewish People, has survived and flourished into the present day--albeit as the tiny minority they have always been.

What is Israel's secret? Their own answer to this question has traditionally been that they were chosen by G-d and that, while He uses the mighty nations and empires to chastise them, in the end He delivers them from their hand and will one day restore them to their former glory in 'Eretz HaQodesh (the Holy Land). And for some thirty three centuries they have had in their possession a book which G-d Himself has written, and despite all they have endured they have managed to preserve it to this day when it is still observed (albeit by the Orthodox minority).

Now while this of course does not constitute proof, it is certainly worthy to be considered (or at least debatted) as evidence that these claims are true--that HaShem exists, wrote the Torah, and gave it to Israel, His Chosen Nation. Or at least if one is honest one must face this evidence, whether to acknowledge it or deny it.

However, in this case, the tactics of the deniers of HaShem has been very very different from their tactics in arguing against the evidence of G-d in nature. For you see, the atheists, the "freethinkers," the skeptics of the world apparently are aware that this evidence is of a whole different kind than what they are used to dismissing. So they don't dismiss it at all.

In fact, they go it one better. They pose as friends and admirers of the Jewish People, to whom they assign the role of suffering rationalists surrounded by Bible-thumping religious fanatics. Jewish survival, then, becomes a testament, not of the Jewish G-d, but of "the human spirit," as it faces and ultimately triumphs over the benighted bigotry of people named Clem. Now, it is highly unlikely that any Egyptians, Canaanites, or Philistines were named "Clem" (or "Caleb," for that matter), though a few Latins probably were. But of course, the deniers of HaShem do not believe any of the Jewish history recorded in Israel's greatest treasure, the Holy Torah, or the other Jewish Scriptures. Instead they take advantage of the adoption of the Jewish G-d by non-Jewish religions, along with the unfortunate haskalah ("enlightenment") that began some three centuries ago and has wreaked such havoc among the Jewish People, in order to place the Jews and their G-d on opposite sides of the spectrum, identifying the latter not with Israel but with anti-Semites. Thus Jewish survival is no longer (possibly) a miracle to be attributed to HaShem but merely luck, or coincidence, or evolutionary culling in action in interactions with backwoods boobs who can't count properly because they have too many toes.

In brief, because the deniers of G-d don't have the confidence in their arguments against the evidence of Jewish history that they do in their arguments against the evidence of G-d in nature, they ignore it. G-d becomes the G-d of the Nazis (chas vechalilah!) and the Jews become The People Who Discovered How Alone We Truly Are. It's a neat little trick. It's also the tactic of cowards.

Of course, there's the added dimension that these enemies of HaShem deny the history recorded in the Torah and Scriptures. But they do not consider this denial anti-Semitic because they have turned the Jewish Scriptures into the holy book of the anti-Semites. Therefore, their attacks on Bere'shit Bara', or the idea that the Jews were once enslaved in Egypt, or the historicity of David HaMelekh (A"H), or the dreaded "Leviticus Lobby" are not anti-Semitism, but philo-Semitism, since they are attacking the holy book of the benighted "Jew-haters."

These worthies (on both the Left and Right) express their profoundest admiration for the Jewish People, who ever since their "real" history apparently began when they mysteriously popped out of nowhere two thousand years ago, have nobly suffered as free-thinking religious dissenters so that today Marxists, Randians, "gays," and others can bravely stand up to those otherwise overpowering hillbillies (they call this "speaking truth to power").

Indeed, the two thousand years (or, perhaps more accurately, seventeen hundred years, since Jewish conflicts with pagans are of absolutely no interest to atheist "philo-Semites") of Jewish history that they acknowledge has for all practical purposes been turned into a secularist "passion play" (lehavdil!) in which the Jewish People, by their "death, burial, and resurrection" redeem the world from religion. One could even say they have turned the crusades into the scourging, the pogroms into the "crowning with thorns," and Churban 'Europa'--the Sho'ah--into the final redemptive death which was for all time supposed to cause man to turn away from the monstrous Jewish G-d (no longer identified as Jewish) in horror to the bright sunlight of humanistic ethics.

It is most ironic that in seeking a foundation for this post-Theistic ethical system atheists have had to turn to the Holocaust and the criminalization of its denial in order to replace the allegedly "tyrannical" criminalization of the denial of Biblical events for the simple reason that the Holocaust, an event that has replaced Sinai in the worldview of non-Theistic Jews, is an event of absolutely Biblical proportions. It is often forgotten that one reason for the success of the Nazis in perpetrating this atrocity is the very idea of such a thing was simply too incredible to be believed (much like the enslavement of Israel in Egypt, Haman's attempt to annihilate them in the Persian Empire--and even a great Flood wiping out all terrestrial life on earth).

In addition to professing the greatest revulsion at the Holocaust, the "philo-Semitic" atheists also claim the greatest admiration for the Zionist enterprise and the return to 'Eretz Yisra'el (well--perhaps "return" isn't the correct word, since these people don't seem to believe that the Jews actually lived there in Biblical times). Apparently secularists believe that the most perfect place on earth in which to build a secular utopia is Jerusalem, the capital of "Clem's" Holy Land.

What these secularist "admirers of Zionism" will have to say to the restoration of Theocracy and the sacrificial service of the Holy Temple is something I hope I live to see.

It is a further irony that while secularists have chosen to see the Jewish G-d and Scriptures as belonging not to Israel but to medieval inquisitors, "native-American" exterminating pony soldiers, and the Ku-Klux Klan, every Jewish holiday commemorates an ancient Biblical (and according to their secularist admirers) "mythical" event. There are no Jewish holidays commemorating the "big bang," or the evolution of intelligence in the first primate, or Einstein's discovery of relativity, or the institution of the Nobel Prizes (the idea that Chanukkah commemorates the US Bill of Rights, and specifically the First Amendment, is a fallacy). Instead Ro'sh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, is the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve (iconic progenitors of "racist rednecks" everywhere), Yom Kippur the descent of Moses from Sinai with the Second Tablets of the Law, Sukkot the forty years wandering in the Wilderness, Pesach the exodus from Egypt (after Israel's "mythical" enslavement there), Shavu`ot the giving of the Torah (the evil book that inspired generations of "racists"!), Tish`ah Be'Av the destruction of the first and second "mythical" Temples, and Purim the frustration (by G-d, working behind the scenes through purely "natural" means) of the scheme of Haman who wanted to commit a Sho'ah of his own over two thousand years ago. These are strange holidays for a people interpreted as even typologically "humanist."

Now, as I said, evidence does not constitute proof. And of course what constitutes evidence for one person will not for another. But I cannot help but be stricken by the obvious fact that when it comes to Jewish history as possible evidence for the existence of the Jewish G-d atheists simply do not engage in the more straightforward tactic of explaining these things away or ascribing them to purely random events (the ideology of `Amaleq, btw). Instead they go to all this trouble to separate HaShem from His People in their minds and then vociferously attacking the former while professing the greatest love and admiration for the latter. Whatever else may be said about the situation, to go to all this trouble certainly bespeaks a lack of confidence in arguing against G-d and Jewish history when paired together and a deep-seated desire to remove the two from each other as far as possible.

Henceforth let no genuine lover of HaShem and `Am Yisra'el let them get away with this shameful tactic.

i have always felt the same way...jews have been attacked for centuries, yet still endure....being cathlolic, i have by no means an expert on jewish history, but the historical sources within the church over the years allows ample research that shows they are indeed, the chosen, people....im glad our savior came from them....

“Too many words. No one will read it.”

It is long and convoluted. I read it but not with the greatest care.

Secularists simply ignore the Bible as being unreliable. I think ancient people were probably more reliable than people of today.

Many people today are indoctrinated. Dennis Prager says that when he hears someone say something truly stupid, he asks “where did you do your graduate studies?” For example,

“There is no difference between men and women. Any apparent differences are societal constructs.”

“Oh? Where did you do your graduate studies?”

In the past people had to demonstrate common sense, reliability, disciplined thinking, experience, and perhaps even wisdom, before people would think to head their words and perpetuate them. Now any fool who puts in the years, cooperates and graduates, will have credentials that causes others to assent to his words.

To secularists, experts of the past were no good, experts of today are great. It is all about the “latest study.” Prepare to wipe your mind clean, we are about to turn on the “news.” Believe it, it supercedes all that came before.

I take the Bible as valid testimony. I accept the validity of reported miracles. I accept the history of the Jews. I never contemplated the holocaust as an event of biblical proportion. But, now it seems self evident.

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