NDE Q & A

There's a new interview with Chris Carter on the Subversive Thinking blog. 

Chris's book on NDEs comes out soon, and can be pre-ordered from Amazon. 

Comments

[Ulysses]

In the Links Of Interest section at the end of the page there is also a link to Physicist Henry Stapp's recent paper "Compatibility of contemporary physical theory with personal survival:
http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/Compatibility.pdf
Very interesting!

[Larry]

In the interview, Chris Carter (who is great btw) comments:

"I would recommend physicist Nick Herbert’s very entertaining book Elemental Mind. It’s a great introduction to the implications of the new physics for the mind/body problem"

If we are going to call out Wu for 9-11 woowoo we should call out Herbert for something much worse...Herbert needs to be made persona non grata among us in light of the fact that Herbert is a Holocaust Revisionist, yes really. See what he had to say during the whole David Irving trial affair in the UK a couple of years back, when he came out NOT in favour of Irving's free speech (something I support) but explicitly in support of Irving's views on the Holocaust (ie his Revisionist views) as factually and historically accurate. In other words, Herbert is a Holocaust Revisionist. Amazingly enough the extreme skeptic camp ie the CSI types, have never even bothered to bring this up and use it against the 'psi believers' camp, despite the fact that Herbert is a big fish, a well-known high-energy physicist and author who is pro-psi - that's because they are so bloody lazy they can't even do their homework. So I put it out there, and if JREF guys are reading this, by all means make a big fuss of this (I wish you would). It is certainly warranted.

Jack Sarfatti himself, a Jewish physicist, who is frankly a bit too wacky for my tastes re his own brand of exotic physics, called Herbert "the David Irving of physics" yonks ago and rightly so. So this is old news. Shame on you Herbert - shows you how banal and mainstream even the most viscious anti-Semitism is, that nobody appears to have noticed this nor made a big deal about it.

Getting back to Carter, I'm curious what he has to say against the super-psi hypothesis in favour of survival (since I'm partial to the former), looking forward to his book..

[Michael Prescott]

"Herbert is a Holocaust Revisionist, yes really."

I was totally unaware of this until now, but a little Googling turned up a long essay by Herbert in defense of David Irving, which can be read here:

tiny.cc/qq1kq

"he came out NOT in favour of Irving's free speech (something I support) but explicitly in support of Irving's views on the Holocaust"

I would say he came out in favor of both. Free speech is clearly important to him, and he criticizes the laws against Holocaust revisionism as dangerous to free inquiry. But he also seems to think Irving is a brilliant historian with a clear grasp of the facts.

Disappointing. I read one of Herbert's books on physics and found it quite informative. Hard to take him quite so seriously now.

[michael duggan]

I have had the same disappointed feelings towards other esteemed psi researchers who have revealed beliefs in stupidity.

For example Garret Moddel (The former president of the Society for Scientific exploration and head of a psi research program at Denver) for his sympathy to HIV denialism.

Lynne McTaggart (Theintentionexperiment.com)
for her support of Andrew Wakefield the guy who "discovered" a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

I could go on. I guess even highly competent people can believe nonsense. Why is this? Maybe it fulfils an emotional need or it helps to appear open minded to bizarre claims (in the case of Moddel).

Conan Doyle belived the faked photgraphic evidence purporting to show fairies in the English village of Cottingly.

However, despite these deficiencies ALL of the above have made significant and real contributions, for example Moddel's research provides good evidence for associative remote viewing for certain applications. So I don't get too disheartened when somebody I looked up to reveals a penchant to believe a bit of nonsense.
Maybe we all have these deficiencies?

[Bruce Siegel]

"So I don't get too disheartened when somebody I looked up to reveals a penchant to believe a bit of nonsense."

I often feel that sort of disappointment, Michael. But then I remind myself that people I care about and respect probably think the same about me! Helps me to keep an open mind and remember that the universe may not be as amenable to right/wrong yes/no answers as we like to think.

[rick49]

Please add the name of David Ray Griffin to the list of "brilliant men whose work we admire but cant believe that they buy into (name conspiracy theory, debunker, or believer in thoroughly discredit beliefs). Griffin is an interesting philosopher and Process Theologian based on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead that takes the position that consciousness is fundamental in the universe and that the seed of consciousness is fundamental in our Cosmological rule set and begins to manifest in the universe in inanimate matter and is expressed with more complexity as matter evolves and moves toward sentient life .This is Whitehead's attempt to solve the mind/body dualism inherent in Cartesian philosophy. Very sophisticated stuff and yet he's thrown his fine reputation away as a leader in the 911 conspiracy movement

[Erich]

hmmmmm.....I've just been reading - for the first time - Herbert's perspectives on the holocaust, hate crime legislation and free speech.

I don't see where anything Herbert has said merits black balling the guy (I am generally not in favor black balling anyone for presenting a reasoned argument; even if where it points offends me in some way).

Herbert is not denying the Holocaust occurred. In fact, he seems to readily accept that jews and others were placed in concentration camps where they died of hunger, disease, exposure, shooting, beatings, medical experiments, being buried alive, etc.

He is simply questioning the acceptance that the majority of those killed in it were killed by poison gas in gas chambers. He appears to make some well reasoned arguments; though, admittedly, I am not well versed on the subject and am not familiar with the viability of counter arguments.

Why must there always be these taboo subjects?

[michael duggan]

Very interesting. Maybem just maybe, an openness to the idea of non-local consciousness / mind as fundamental (where the evidence from a plethora of sources is stacking up quite nicely) also lends itself to a susceptibilty to believe a bit of wacky stuff (HIV denialism, 9-11 conspiracy nonsense, Holocaust denialism, etc, etc). Just a thought.

[Erich]

maybe, Michael D, because people that have become open to the idea of non-local consciousness / mind as fundamental have had their intelligence/mind expanded enough to realize that most everything we believe/hold as true is merely what we have been told is such by a) mindless drones repeating what they have been told by others who, in turn, were repeating what they were told b) manipulative self-serving humans c) well meaning, but erroneous sources.

I mean what do you know and how do you it know it? Seriously, take an inventory and think it over.

Why is questioning what we have been told so wacky?

[Tharpa]

What do I know?

I know that I don't know. I know that I exist by the very fact that there is the knowing that I don't know that I exist.

You know? I mean like when you're driving across the Great Plains, and ahead in the distance you see the thunderheads piling skyward, and then the hail hits you like hell frozen over and you wonder if the winds and the hail might ever end in the world and lightning too.

And then through the maelstrom the westward sun reddens the retreating storm, and you look way off in the clearing sky, a cloud-top gaze, and you can feel the distance like clear water, present and heavy with joy.

So, that's as knowing as I can get- that feeling of distance in a clear sky as it radiates clouds or stars. Pure presence is the stainless crystal vase pouring into,and out of, our souls.

[michael duggan]

Erich,

The evidence for non-local consciousness is immense and the scienitifc climate is becoming more hospitable to such a paradigm shift (even if most scientists don't realise it yet!). For example, biological quantum entanglement was viewed with deep skepticism (quantum entanglement is thought to be necessary for certain classes of psi functioning), now it has been demonstrated to occur. By wacky beliefs, I mean those controversial areas that have NO substance whatsoever, and in fact are blatently nonsensical, for example 9-11 conspiracy whack. I'm sorry if I appear closed minded on this subject, but I'm with Richard Dawkins here "By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out."

[Art]

Yesterday I ordered Dr. Pimm Van Lommel's new book, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience from Amazon.com. Van Lommel is a proponent of non-local consciousness. I'm really looking forward to reading his book when it arrives.

[Erich]

I hear you, Tharpa.

Michael D., Sure, but where that line - where the brain starts dropping out - is drawn is purely subjective.

I'm just saying that no topic should be forbidden to honest discussion. Let the chips fall where they may; where the evidence places them.

For the record, I am convinced that the Nazis killed a lot of civilians, including millions of Jews.

That being said, out of curiousity I did some more reading on the topic of gas chambers in the camps and I found myself seeing even more evidence to support the idea that Herbert proposes. Systematic gassing may not have been the primary - or even a significant - method of murder used by the Nazis as per the standard taught history. Bullets, disease, exposure and starvation probably accounted for the vast majority of deaths of Jews.

Herbert is ok with this analysis. So what? Dead is dead and the down playing of the role of gas does nothing to diminish the barbarity of the Nazis.

Herbert seems a little too preocupied with goulish details for my taste, but should he be discredited in all (or any) area of research for his views on cause of death in Nazi concentration camps? I think not.

I think his defense of David Irving was limited to the gas chamber question.

[Larry]

I hope people here have the brains to realise that Erich is defending the views of Holocaust Revisionists (Nick Herbert and David Irving) on the gas chambers as credible, whilst trying to pretend at the same time that there is nothing revisionist about Herbert's views, and therefore Erich's who comes out in support of Herbert (and Irving) on this front.

I have noticed a lot of people like Erich out there, you see them commentating all over indymedia type sites, and their MO is this.. 'the Holocaust was terrible, plenty Jews died, there was disease blabla..BUT there is a lot in the 'official history' that makes no sense, appears exaggerated especially about the gas chambers, not that Jews weren't gassed BUT etc etc'
They try to soften the blow and the bigotry of their Holocaust Revisionism this way, it's typical new anti-Semitism.

Erich go back to reading your favourite book The Protocols of Zion.

Michael P - yes you are right, Herbert came out in support of Irving's free speech AND his Holocaust Revisionism. I didn't express myself well. I meant to write that the pertinent point about Herbert was that he came out in support of Irving's views on the Holocaust, and that the free speech issue was therefore a distraction from this. For the record, I was opposed to jailing Irving and believe that him and others like him should have their free speech protected.

[Hjortron]

People, please.

You seem to have it in your head that the official version almost always is the most accurate. For example the 9/11 stuff; if so many people are actually considering that it was an inside job, and the number is growing rapidly every day, then that is very good reason to think that it actually was in and of itself. Or at least that it is just as plausible as that it wasn't. After all, the people who change their minds often have had to make some research into it, and are not just blindly accepting of what they're told. Same with NDE stuff. You don't read the official newspaper and realize that the evidence for the paranormality of it is strong as shit.

I think it is important to give every subject its due time of investigation before forming a tangible opinion. Things I haven't personally looked in to, I simply have no strong opinion of, and at best an admittedly casual belief about it that is very open to change if I'd care enough to investigate the issue.

[Larry]

"For example the 9/11 stuff; if so many people are actually considering that it was an inside job, and the number is growing rapidly every day, then that is very good reason to think that it actually was in and of itself."

No it just proves that so many people are insane and gullible and have a strong tendency to embrace political paranoia, conspiracy thinking and fascism. According to such logic I could write: more and more people around the world are sympathetic to the jihad, from Algeria to Pakistan, this of itself is reason to think that there is some truth to Islamic radicalism. Or likewise in the 1930s more and more people in Germany and Austria came to believe that the Nazi party was the answer to their problems, so therefore maybe the Nazis were right after all, ditto the same rules of 'logic' for Stalin and his popularity among certain segments of the world's population etc etc.

[Larry]

The thing about Nick Herbert is if you go to the frontpage of his website, and check his list of links one of them is to David Irving's website where Herbert writes "Great Satan or Truth-seeking Maverick? Decide for yourself."

Now that should raise a big red flag and in fact that is what got me to google Irving holocaust and Nick Herbert and see what I got, when I first visited Herbert's website yonks ago and saw the weblinks, and hey presto my suspicions were confirmed. It took five minutes. This isn't difficult detective work - Poirot and Sherlock Holmes level of detective work it ain't.

Herbert was very recently at the Esalen Institute and took part in some kind of workshop/discussion with Jeff Krippal, a well known theology prof at Rice U. So I assume Esalen and Krippal don't know about Herbert's Holocaust Revisionism (which any half awake person would discover for themselves inside five minutes if they even bothered going to the homepage of his website and use their noggin upon noticing what I just point out above - his weblink to David Irving) or maybe Esalen and associated characters don't think any of this matters at all - why would Holocaust Revisionism discredit any person's opinions on higher truths, ethics, compassion, mysticism and associated? Yes I am being sarcastic.

Anybody want to query Esalen on this front? I am sure there are several Jewish folk involved with Esalen who might be a tad curious in this regard...

Unfuckingbelievable. No on second thoughts - all too believable.

[Hjortron]

Larry,

"No it just proves that so many people are insane and gullible and have a strong tendency to embrace political paranoia, conspiracy thinking and fascism."

You don't look at this objectively. Try to remove your bias where you think you already know that 9/11 wasn't an inside job.

To reverse your thinking, one can easily claim "That the official story is believed just proves that so many people are insane and gullible and have a strong tendency to embrace political naivety, mainstream media brainwashing and fascism."

So you really have to try to understand where everyone in every debate is coming from. I mean, there are SO many questions regarding the official account of 9/11 that it's scary. Just look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlj1mVD2-HM

"According to such logic I could write: more and more people around the world are sympathetic to the jihad, from Algeria to Pakistan, this of itself is reason to think that there is some truth to Islamic radicalism."

Well, pick your playing cards. Is the numbers of believers in something relevant to how much we should consider the possibility that said claim is true? If it is, then the possibility that 9/11 was an inside job is growing daily. If it's not, then don't look down on non-mainstream media ideas just because general political correctness doesn't agree with them.

[michael duggan]

Larry, agreed. Unfuckingbelievable. And very depressing.

[Erich]

I don't get it. Larry, in his self appointed position as cheif of thought police, merely throws out the term "holocaust revisionism" (note; no addressing of the material substance) and it is supposed to be an instantaneous death ray like discussion killer.

What do you know about the holocaust and how do you know it?

Why is this cow so sacred that the official version can't even be questioned in the most ultimately meaningless detail (i.e. killed by gas or killed by other means)?

I think that Herbert likes goring sacred cows as a matter of principle. Someone has to do it.

[Michael Prescott]

Here are some quotes from David Irving:

"It [the Holocaust] is something like a religion.... The Intellectual Adventure is that we are reversing this entire trend within the space of one generation -- that in a few years time no one will believe this particular legend anymore. They will say, as I do, that atrocities were committed. Yes, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, but there were no factories of death. All that is a blood libel against the German people....

"They are going to wheel out all the so-called eyewitnesses. One in particular, Mrs. Altman, I've clashed with once or twice... We're going to meet because she has that tattoo. I am going to say,'You have that tattoo, we all have the utmost sympathy for you. But how much money have you made on it! In the last 45 years! Can I estimate! Quarter of a million! Half million! Certainly not less. That's how much you've made from the German taxpayers and the American taxpayers.' Ladies and gentlemen, you're paying $3 billion a year to the State of Israel. Compensation to people like Mrs. Altman. She'll say,'Why not, I suffered.' I'll say you didn't. You survived. By definition you didn't suffer. Not half as much as those who died.... They suffered. You didn't. You're the one making the money."

Speech in Portland, OR. September 18, 1996.

http://www.adl.org/holocaust/denier_quotes.asp

Irving testified under oath:

"I am very familiar with the Goebbels diaries... There is no explicit reference either implicit in these documents or legible in these documents to liquidation of Jews."

Here are excerpts from Goebbels' diaries:

"...the greater the number of Jews liquidated, the more consolidated will the situation in Europe be after this war."

"The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only about 40 per cent can be used for forced labor."

"Short shrift is made of the Jews in all eastern occupied areas. Tens of thousands of them are liquidated."

In an Australian radio interview on November 8, 1996, Irving said, "I don't give speeches to neo-Nazis."

But jut two months earlier, on September 20, 1996, he was the featured speaker at a meeting of the National Alliance, called "the largest neo-Nazi group in America" by Klanwatch.

Asked how many Jews died in German camps, Irving has said, "... the real figures probably are about a million or less."

For more, see:

tiny.cc/m275q

Erich wrote, "Why is this cow so sacred that the official version can't even be questioned in the most ultimately meaningless detail (i.e. killed by gas or killed by other means)?"

The issue is not merely the means of execution. It is whether the Nazis set up "factories of death" at all. Irving says they did not. He admits that "probably ... about a million or less" died in the camps, but don't let this fool you. What he means is that most of them died of diseases like typhoid or of malnutrition - in other words, their deaths were unfortunate consequences of the hardship and deprivation they endured, but not the result of a deliberate policy of liquidation. This policy Irving specifically denies. In other words, he denies that genocide took place. He calls it "a blood libel against the German people."

So it is not a dispute over a meaningless technological detail. It's a dispute over whether or not the Nazis set out to exterminate the Jews, or merely ended up killing some as an unavoidable consequence of relocating them to internment camps.

There is a mass of evidence attesting to the Nazis' deliberate policy of genocide. Not only Goebbels' diaries, but the Wannsee Conference, testimony at the Nuremburg trials, recollections of eyewitnesses and camp guards and people who liberated the camps, etc. All this Irving must ignore or reinterpret. Whatever he's up to, it's not a quest for truth.

[Erich]

"There is a mass of evidence attesting to the Nazis' deliberate policy of genocide. Not only Goebbels' diaries, but the Wannsee Conference, testimony at the Nuremburg trials, recollections of eyewitnesses and camp guards and people who liberated the camps..."

The quality of the evidence you cite has been called into question.

http://www.codoh.info/newrevoices/nrillusion.html

interesting link displaying the basics of the revivionist case which addresses the "evidence" of planned genocide.

Irving is clearly a Nazi supporter if not full fledged member. And, yes, it does appear he is attempting to use revisionism as a stepping stone on the way to denial. He is, however, considered one of the premier academic authorities on the history of WW2. Let him make his case. If he's wrong, let the evidence prove it. Don't lock the man away in prison for presenting what should be the findings of scholarly research.

Herbert appears much less a Nazi sympathizer. Herbert seems genuinely concerned with the issue of whether or not gas chambers existed and were used for systematic mass murder. And, I have to tell you, after reading for several hours on the topic, I am becoming convinced that maybe the stories of the gas chambers were just that.

Again, I am quite certain that the Nazis deliberately murdered a heck of a lot of people. I do think the photographic evidence coming out of liberated concentration camps shows nothing of gas chambers, but plenty of death due to typhoid. Does this fact diminish the horror the Nazis created? Does it diminish their responsibility? I think not not; not one bit. And then there is real evidence - evidence that Herbert does not refute - that the Nazis shot something close to a million Jews. So they aren't off the hook for that regardless of how Irving tries to parlay the lack of good evidence for gas chambers.

Anyhow, I'm sure that no one here - myself included - wanted to go down the road of debating the holocaust. I was only trying to get a more general discussion concerning open mindedness.

[Breanainn]

I predict this thread is yay close to turning into "Rooting for JREF 2.0" and recommend ya'll run for the hills now if you value your sanity...

[Michael Prescott]

This article on the Auschwitz gas chambers seems credible to me:

tiny.cc/6sjbq

While some gas chambers were undoubtedly used for disinfecting prisoners, others were set up to give the appearance of disinfection chambers, while actually having dummy showerheads and no ventilation. Unsuspecting prisoners were herded inside and gassed.

In the final stages of the war, the SS apparently destroyed most of the homicidal gas chambers in an attempt to cover up the genocide and shield themselves from postwar prosecution. But some of the facilities do remain.

[Tharpa]

Well, in any case can we add that there's a very good chance indeed that many of those ultimate victims, however many they might be and however murdered, are even today involved in the debate no doubt.

Life goes on! It apparently has to try just about everything.

[Erich]

MP, I also do think that there were gas chambers used for homocidal purposes. I also believe that Nazis, fearing retribution post war, destroyed much evidence of these activities.

That being said, for the first time in my life I have actually considered this topic in a rational way and I am seeing where some of the eye witness testimony, including that from Nuremberg, could be called into question. One witness had Auschwitz systematically murdering 24,000 people a day with about 75% killed of those in the gas chambers. When you consider the logistics and mechanics of murdering all these people, per day, in the method described in testimony, and then cremating them in the few ovens that, most definitely were for disposing of bodies, it doesn't seem technically possible. There is a lot of contradiction in the testimony inter and intra witness.

One out of three caucasions in Japanese WW2 POW camps died; overwhelmingly from disease and starvation. And these were predominantly young fit men going in. So I have no problem with the idea that millions of a less fit demographic would die in German camps for the same reason. Most certainly they did. Given that millions were liberated, alive, from the German camps, millions had imigrated out of Europe as Nazi power grew, and given the original pre-war population, there isn't much room, mathematically speaking, for a 24,000/day murder rate.

If I said this in Europe, I would be jailed. If I say it here I am marginalized as a wacko. If somone had said this to me a few days ago, I would have assumed that person was a anti-semite nut.

[Leo]

My father has passed away, before my mother and sister could come over to make a visit and i got over there and their was a curtain blocking the room so i pulled the curtain over and saw the rest of my family there crying.

[Mr Someone]

This is not a reply specifically to the last poster, rather a general sort of ...attempt at saying the right thing.

You all have no idea what you are talking about.You have no idea of the suffering and atrocities that were inflicted on the Jews. You were not there. My father was there and he saw... Millions were murdered in the concentration camps and how many by gassing ? Does it matter ?

[michael duggan]

Turning this subject into an intellectual tit for tat discussion is very wrong. It does a diservice to the poeple who died quite horrible deaths after suffering unspeakable hardships. What happened is worse than we can possibly imagine.

We are doomed to repeat the lessons of history if we forget them.

[Ian Wardell]

I'm really sorry to hear about your loss Leo.

[Michael Prescott]

Leo, my sympathies to you and your family.

[Sandy]

I'm so sorry for your loss, Leo.

[Bryan.A]

MP I think you should make a different post altogether about the holocaust topic and just post it in there seperate from this one.

The comments section went from NDE's to Psi to Holocaust denial.

[Michael Prescott]

"I think you should make a different post altogether about the holocaust topic and just post it in there seperate from this one."

No, the last thing I intend to do is turn this blog into a forum for debating Holocaust revisionism. A few comments are one thing; a main post is another. That just gives legitimacy to a topic that I consider illegitimate.

[The Major]

Sorry for your loss, Leo.

[Roger Knights]

Regarding Holocaust denialism, here’s an extract from a review, “Right Makes Might,” by David Ramsay Steele, of The Myth of Natural Rights and Other Essays by L.A. Rollins. The review appeared in the April 2010 issue of Liberty, p. 49, online here: http://libertyunbound.com/article.php?id=504”> http://libertyunbound.com/article.php?id=504

“Public knowledge of the nuts and bolts of extermination — how gas chambers came to be built (and modified) and how they operated — underwent a revolution with the momentous work of Pressac (the complete text of his study is available online at http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/pressac/technique-and-operation”>http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/pressac/technique-and-operation). He began his researches into Auschwitz inclined to revisionism, but changed his mind as he examined the documentary, chemical, and engineering evidence. Much of the evidence for the reality of the Holocaust was drawn together by van Pelt, in his work on the David Irving libel suit. Van Pelt’s detailed argument (including his dissection of the revisionist Leuchter Report) is available online at http://www.hdot.org/en/trial/defense/van> http://www.hdot.org/en/trial/defense/van. If Rollins were to compose a critique of van Pelt, he would be picking on someone nearer his own size.

“This accumulation of historical work has two implications for Holocaust revisionism. First, we now have a coherent and quite detailed account of what happened, an account in which elements that once looked peculiar (such as the absence of a written order from the Fuehrer) fall into place quite naturally. Second, a close acquaintance with this material means that many of the stock revisionist objections can’t get started. To take a simple example: revisionists have often claimed that the use of hydrogen cyanide for mass killing of humans would be impracticable, because of hazards to the people doing the gassing (Rollins, 140–41, refers to this, though without indicating that it convinces him). Some have even claimed there would be a risk of explosion from the gas igniting. This objection evaporates once we realize that far lower concentrations are needed to kill humans than to kill lice, especially if you’re not terribly anxious to make the human deaths mercifully quick, and that hydrogen cyanide was in fact routinely used to kill lice, without any reported explosions. Smaller amounts of hydrogen cyanide, for briefer periods, also help to explain why detectable traces of chemical derivatives of hydrogen cyanide are much smaller in the walls of the gas chambers than in the walls of delousing facilities, a favorite revisionist objection to the standard Holocaust account.

“Even David Irving, the clever historical writer who was won over to the revisionist position (mainly by his too-ready acceptance of the Leuchter Report), now finds that the available evidence compels him to acknowledge that gas chambers really were used as instruments of state policy in the mass killing of Jews and others ….”

[Roger Knights]

PS: Here are the next two paragraphs from Steele's review:

“Holocaust revisionism has similarities with Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory and the “9/11 Truth Movement.” All are able to find puzzles or discrepancies in the standard accounts, but they do not offer a worked-out alternative hypothesis for equally searching scrutiny. Generally, though admittedly not always, their objections vanish on closer acquaintance with the material. They frequently evince the “Murder, She Wrote” mindset: crime scenes must be perfectly tidy, so a single anomaly or loose end is sufficient to overthrow an entire body of quite well-corroborated theory. One must develop a sense of perspective: there are often little details of real-world crimes that remain not fully explicable.

“The questions the dissenters raise deserve to be pursued, and the questioners should not be abused or maligned, much less prosecuted or fired from their jobs. These deviants reject conventional stories because they think for themselves, instead of swallowing uncritically whatever the authorities tell them. While those who dissent will sometimes be right (for example, those who in early 2003 pointed to the clear evidence that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction), very often they will be seriously in error, because they will have jumped into areas where they are unfamiliar with the complexities of the evidence. Explaining why the dissidents are mistaken, about the Holocaust, about the Kennedy assassination, about 9/11, and for that matter, about Intelligent Design, should be seen as wonderful opportunities for popular education. Unfortunately, defenders of the conventional accounts often discredit themselves by displaying anger and maligning the motives and character of the questioners.”

[Larry]

My advice to Michael Prescott, I know it's your blog, but it is not worthwhile arguing with Holocaust Revisionists like Erich, nothing you say is going to change their minds. I also don't see why he and his ilk should be shown any civility whatsoever (including if he ever posts up again on another thread just relating to science or whatever) and in fact Erich should just be called what he is - a stupid Jew-hater who pretends he is not, and he should just be ridiculed or ignored. But debated?? What is there to debate? These Holocaust Revisionist trolls don't care for facts by virtue of what they are - deranged bigots, so it doesn't matter what you write. They just need to be ridiculed or ignored and at the very least called what they are - stupid bigots. Erich your views on the Holocaust are shared by neo-Nazis and Muslim extremists like Ahmadinejad who wants to commit another one. It ain't no meaningless coincidence.

[Erich]

"Turning this subject into an intellectual tit for tat discussion is very wrong. It does a diservice to the poeple who died quite horrible deaths after suffering unspeakable hardships. What happened is worse than we can possibly imagine."

I agree and I'm going to totally drop it.

In departing, just so I'm not misunderstood, I am of Armenian descent. My paternal grandparents were the only survivors of their extended families of the genocide that was perpetrated by the Turks on the Armenians 1900 - 1922. After my grandmother died my grandfather lived with us and as I reached an age that he thought was appropriate he shared with me some of the horror that he experienced in his struggle to live and escape the region. I have a full appreciation for the potential of humans to deliberately submit each other to unspeakable cruelty and the profound impact of those actions on survivors.

My only purpose in delving into the gas chamber question was to demonstrate that it is possible for any of us to accept a standard explanation or history our entire lives without ever critically assessing the validity of the standard line, why we accept it, to shout down and demonize those who are critical of those beliefs even when there are some fair arguments (though perhaps ultimately wrong) made by the critics.

Leo, I am sorry for your loss.

[Paul]

I agree Erich, this looks like being shouted down to me. Suggesting that the best way to deal with an objection to what a person is saying as opposed to reason or silence is frankly risible.

[Paul]

I wish this had an edit facility. I meant to say ..suggesting that shouting a person down and insulting them is the best way to deal with an objection to what a person is saying as opposed to reason or silence is risible.

[Michael Prescott]

"a stupid Jew-hater who pretends he is not"

No, I don't see it like that. If someone has advocated Holocaust revisionism for years, then that characterization might very well be accurate. David Irving, for instance, when asked if he is an anti-Semite, likes to reply, "Not yet" - an answer that does not inspire confidence! But if someone has just looked into the question for the first time, and is still sorting through the arguments, then he shouldn't be impugned in that way.

There probably are some legitimate, though relatively trivial, questions about the details of the Holocaust. Maybe the figure of 24,000 victims a day is exaggerated, as Erich suggests. I can't say.

The trouble is that all too often, these minor controversies are used as steppingstones to much larger conclusions: that Hitler didn't know about conditions in the camps, that there was never any program of mass extermination, that Nazism has been misunderstood and libeled, etc. All of which in turn can serve as part of an attempt to rehabilitate Hitler's image, and to recruit neo-Nazis today.

Plus, as Michael Duggan says above, and as Erich agrees, there is something distasteful about engaging in a sterile, rarefied debate over the details of such a horrendous crime.

[Bruce Siegel]

"a stupid Jew-hater who pretends he is not"

Not a chance. I know Erich well enough from his posts to know that's not true.

I'm Jewish, by the way, (by birth only), and have been reading this thread with mixed feelings. Like others, I'm not sad to see the topic dropped, but I've also found it interesting for the same reason Erich has: to look at "why we . . . shout down and demonize . . ."

Exactly the sort of demonizing that you, Larry, seem remarkably quick and happy to indulge in.

"He and his ilk"—give me a break.

[Bruce Siegel]

Can anyone help me out? When you click my name below a post, it brings up a certain page. I want to change that URL. I changed my Typepad profile, but that didn't do the trick.

If you, MP, or someone else could provide a link to the relevant form or page, I'd really appreciate it!

[Ben]

"a stupid Jew-hater who pretends he is not"

Not a chance. I know Erich well enough from his posts to know that's not true -Bruce.

Well said, Bruce. Erich is a modern shaman in training. He boldly goes, he dares. Nothing is off-limits.

But we must all respect the Blog leader’s wishes.

[Roger Knights]

MP, Maybe copy the NDE stuff from this thread into a new thread titled "NDE 2" and restart it afresh?

[Trev.]

Anyone seen Toy Story 3 yet ? Is it as fab as the other two ?

[Michael Prescott]

"Is it as fab as the other two?"

I've heard it's better! (But I haven't seen it)

[Leo]

Thanks everybody who responded this sure is a rough time for me and my family.

[Trev.]

It's very tough to lose your Father, Leo. I lost mine not that long ago. When the pain has subsided a little, in a few months, you will be able to remember the good times without feeling so sad. And I am as certain that you will see him again one day as I am that I just typed these words.

Michael, Thanks, I'm looking forward to taking my son to see it.