Jesus & Horus. Coincidence?

I think it is a good point that the victims of the holocaust were not martyrs in the strict definition of the word. However, their deaths, like the death of the martyrs, opened our eyes to the reality of evil and sin on a scale not many thought possible. Their deaths galvanized our world against such atrocities so that when we think of things like Rwanda for example our hearts are moved in a powerful way.

Quote: FrGamble

Is there any greater scar on human history than the Holocaust?

Well that is a matter of personal prejudice and who owns the media. It appears that you are a white person who is catholic. To be honest with you I am sick of hearing about "the Holocaust". Which Holocaust Padre?

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The martyrdom of millions of people have so transformed our world

Apparently your world is composed of white Catholics, try re-reading "the trail of tears" or those put to death in Stalins slave camps or up to 60 million put to death under Mao, many for the crime of being Christian. No one seems to remember or mention the "Holodomor"

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Be very careful that you don't think their deaths were worthless or in vain, our God certainly does not.

Who's God Padre? You imply God only cares about the Jews of Europe and doesn't recognize the other countless millions that have suffered because of other Gods.

Does your God not recognize the ethnic cleansing being perpetrated on the Palestinians right now? Murders by the thousands of innocents. Whats the matter with your church not intervening with the slaughter of Christians right now in Syria and the Mid-east? I struggle with trying to only recognize the good that your church has done, posts like this make it much more difficult.

Americans supported and inspired Nazis.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-29/americans-supported-and-inspired-nazis

http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the-California-2549771.php heavily financed by Rockefeller, Harriman, and Carnegie

Quote: FrGamble

Their deaths galvanized our world against such atrocities so that when we think of things like Rwanda for example our hearts are moved in a powerful way.

I'm sure that was a great consolation to the millions of Tutsi and Hutu people who were killed, and the few survivors they left behind.

The next group who wants to perpetrate genocide knows they can get away with it if they don't threaten any interests of a powerful nation. Because our hearts may have moved when Rwandans were hacked to death, but we did not lift a finger to save any of them.

I find myself being dragged into a fight I didn't start or want. It was Evenbob who began this by calling those who die for something like religion pitiful. Paco pointed out that martyrs have made heroic differences in our world today. I agreed and Nareed brought out the Holocaust reference. It's kind of spiraled from there.

My contention is that martyrs are agents of lasting and radical change, they are not giving up and their lives and deaths are not worthless. The suffering of the innocent as well is something that changes hearts and minds in ways violence cannot. The images of the Trial of Tears, the Rwandan Massacre, Stalin's victims, the concentration camps, and any other time when innocents are made to suffer call forth in all of us a rejection of the evil and sin that caused such atrocities. Why we repeat them is proof of the mystery of our brokenness and our need for God.

Quote: FrGamble

. It was Evenbob who began this by calling those who die for something like religion pitiful. .

Here's what I said:

'How would Jesus be a hero in anybody's eyes,
he let himself be murdered, didn't put up a fight.
Same for the so called 'martyrs', dying for a religious
cause is just silly. Dying on purpose for something
you can't prove exists seems the ultimate in folly. '

You see the word 'pitiful' there? This is
pure FrG, you love to twist and turn
things your way. I maintain that dying for
something you can't prove exists is
a waste of a life. Gandhi willing to die for
his cause is different. What he believed
in was real, you could see it and measure
it. Dying for a religious fantasy is showing
just how full of yourself you really are. I
don't see why that should be venerated, it
just causes others to act in similar irresponsible
ways.

Quote: FrGamble

I find myself being dragged into a fight I didn't start or want. It was Evenbob who began this by calling those who die for something like religion pitiful. Paco pointed out that martyrs have made heroic differences in our world today. I agreed and Nareed brought out the Holocaust reference. It's kind of spiraled from there.

I didn't see it as a fight, nor was I trying to encourage that. We're debating, as we do on forums (forii?).

You are right in that martyrs are agents of change, and their sacrifices are astounding. But words have meanings, and this goes beyond my hangups on the English language. To use such a word as you have, I feel, cheapens it. It is much like the word "hero" in modern America. To me, that word means almost nothing now. The wounded soldier who risks his life dragging fallen buddies from a firefight, that's a hero. But we use it for the other soldier that only drove truck through allied territory for four years, we use it for the school jock who befriended a brain, we use it for a firefighter who rescued a litter of pups from a well, and as a result, the word means nothing.

Martyrdom is serious business. I might be aware of the struggles in Asia PRIMARILY from media like Rage and the Beastie Boys, but that burning monk struck home the seriousness of it all. Acts like that are the ultimate in selflessness and sacrifice, and deserve to retain their meaning.

Quote: FrGamble

I think it is a good point that the victims of the holocaust were not martyrs in the strict definition of the word. However, their deaths, like the death of the martyrs, opened our eyes to the reality of evil and sin on a scale not many thought possible..

The word martyr means witness, and the implication is that they remain a witness despite anything that happens. A martyr often does not willingly go to his death, but he cannot bring himself to renounce his faith.

The Jews by and large do not prefer the term "holocaust" nor did they adopt it themselves. Even from the earliest uses in the 11th and 12th centuries it was a word adopted by Christians in describing the suffering of the Jews. As it was adopted from Latin into English it's use was originally broadened to include any large scale massacre of people (the Armenians, for instance) Since the late 1970's, it has become the most universal word outside of the Jewish community to describe the events of WWII in the concentration camps. Some people include all the people who died there in the term holocaust.

Holocaust is a type of offering to god where the entire animal is consumed. Other offerings involved burning the inedible parts and having a religious feast. Although the Nazi's showed a near religious fanaticism in their desire to wipe out the Jewish people from Europe, they were not making an offering to any God. Most Jews prefer the word Shoah , which means "catastrophe" .

There is some debate about the non-violent protests originated by Gandhi. The feeling is fighting back just reduces the conflict to another battle to which people are relatively immune. By not fighting back, you win the hearts and minds of a large group of your enemies. But it may have worked because the British people were capable of empathizing with the Indians. Many groups are capable of such hatred to another group, that non-violence would be seen as submission and only enrage them to kill more.

Quote: FrGamble

Paco pointed out that martyrs have made heroic differences in our world today.

Paco pointed out the belief about it in much of the world.

See, here's the thing: a person who dies rather than "renounce" his faith under coercion merely shows how little value such faith places on life. Things said and actions performed under coercion imply no moral responsibility on the part of the actor, but rather on the part of the person doing the coercion. Throw in an all-powerful god behind that faith, and the whole thing is rather pathetic by late antiquity standards. Why would an all-powerful deity allow his followers to be killed? And if this deity requires human sacrifices, that makes it morally repugnant and unworthy of any kind of worship.

Quote: Nareed

Paco pointed out the belief about it in much of the world.

See, here's the thing: a person who dies rather than "renounce" his faith under coercion merely shows how little value such faith places on life.

That's exactly what I've thought for a long
time. So you renounce your faith, so what.
You live to pick it up again later. Dying for
a religion has always irritated me. If it's
because you think god will pat you on the
back and say 'job well done', you're in
for a surprise. I don't think it's self-less,
it's actually self-ish. It's a 'look at me,
aren't I full of myself' gesture to die
for some religious idea when you don't
have to.