Not being an atheist like you, Amy, I'd simply offer that this is evidence that God never arbitrarily intervenes on the affairs of mankind.

In effect, all events - including those related to The Holocaust - are "God's will".

Humankind as a whole wanted the Holocaust to occur and there was therefore no way that God could (or would) stop the events.

It's not up to God to "intervene" on the ill-advised actions of humankind. Rather, it is neccesary for humankind to change themselves away from destructive actions and towards loving actions.

Kind of a drag, that edict. So much easier to just go about our stupid behaviors and hope that in a pinch a fast appeal to God will save us from ourselves.

Gee. God set the Holocaust up so that the USA and UN would establish a nation for the Jews, that's all.

Somebody needs to go back and look up the terms, "omniscient" and "omnipotent" and see what they mean.

Oh, and try not to notice that an omniscient being cannot be omnipotent, because it cannot learn anything. After all, logic has nothing to do with a deity, beginning with the Irony of Faith itself: there cannot be faith without doubt, because where there is no doubt, there is no need of faith.

I'm surprised I have to explain these things.

What, did I wander into the wrong room? Here's a quick one from my mother:

Pedro was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place.

Looking up toward heaven, he said, "Lord, take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of my
life and give up tequila."

Miraculously, a parking place appeared. Pedro looked up again and said, "Never mind. I found one."

Hey I like the post! Hey I like the whole blog!

On the front page you sound like a silly bint, but then you write about serious stuff... it's alarming. Like who would go around calling themselves an advice goddess and then write about proper stuff?

Strange, but fun :)

It would have been more to the point if this Pope had asked where his fellow Germans were...

To paraphrase:
At Auschwitz, God did't kill people, people killed people.

"Not being an atheist like you, Amy, I'd simply offer that this is evidence that God never arbitrarily intervenes on the affairs of mankind."

That's not evidence. Of anything. But, nice try. Substitute "the tooth fairy" for god and see how that statement works logically. How sad that you're such a primitive thinker. Do you visit the witch doctor when you have appendicitis?

Steve, I write a research and data based advice column, but why bore people? I make my column funny. I'll be doing it in a couple of weeks while listening to anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists present their work at the Human Behavior & Evolution society conference at Penn. I go every year, and I read the same journalis and studies as professors and Ph.D. researchers working in the field. I get their work out to the average person by presenting it clearly and with humor. Would it be better if I wrote really dry prose so none of those people got to know about anything but received opinion instead of research and data-based advice?

I'd rather worry about the guy more ( yep, he puts his pants on one leg at a time, too ) if he didn't get impatient with the contradictions and dichotomies inherent in professing his sect ( oops. Saucy ! ) has a stranglehold on revealed truth. A little human puzzlement is not improper : hey, I think it's usually referred to as humility.
Think there's any left for Washington ?

Pope: "Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?"

Amy: "Um, because the phone's ringing but nobody's home?"

Me: Couldn't have said it any better than Amy. (Would be too hard for me most of the time, anyway.)

I wonder whether any church or sect will ever acknowledge that their members can do horrible things to their fellow humans despite (or because of?) their religious training - for instance, Joseph Goebbels' education was partially Jesuit - while denying the fact that sound ethics don't need a religious foundation at all.

Sad, isn't it?