# Shirley MacLaine explains the Holocaust **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 13, 2015, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539 "2015-02-13T04:46:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/1 "2015-02-13T04:46:43Z")
[Link](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2951513/Outcry-Shirley-MacLaine-asks-Holocaust-victims-paying-sins-past-lives-Comments-attacked-offensive-wrong-Jewish-campaigners.html) > [@](#): > > The veteran Hollywood actress suggests the six million Jews and millions of others systematically murdered in Hitler’s death camps in the 1940s were ‘balancing their karma’ for crimes committed in past lives. In other words, they had it coming. Honestly I don’t know why I’m bothering to pit this profoundly stupid cunt. What kind of heinous crime did she commit in an earlier existence in order to be born this dumb? I shudder to think. Go piss up a rope, you old bat. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/2 "2015-02-13T05:14:28Z")
“When you believe in things, that you don’t understand…” - Stevie Wonder, of course. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/3 "2015-02-13T05:24:16Z")
AIU New Age doctrine, the Holocaust victims were not even being punished, they were just acquiring new experiences essential to their spiritual evolution, and so were the Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![Helena330](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/helena330/32/531_2.png) [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/4 "2015-02-13T06:42:59Z")
She must be feeling her irrelevance. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/5 "2015-02-13T07:01:15Z")
Seems like another manifestation of the just world fallacy. The example my social psych text gave was people speculating that children who were raped by pederasts must have done something awful in a past life to deserve it. It’s such a nasty way of looking at the world. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/6 "2015-02-13T08:20:27Z")
She is living proof of alien life. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/7 "2015-02-13T08:41:41Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > [Link](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2951513/Outcry-Shirley-MacLaine-asks-Holocaust-victims-paying-sins-past-lives-Comments-attacked-offensive-wrong-Jewish-campaigners.html) > > In other words, they had it coming. > > Honestly I don’t know why I’m bothering to pit this profoundly stupid cunt. What kind of heinous crime did she commit in an earlier existence in order to be born this dumb? I shudder to think. > > Go piss up a rope, you old bat. So…let me think this through…got it! When someone slugs her in an attempt to “knock the stupid out of her,” that means, according to her own view, she had it coming. What do I win? ---
**Author:** ![antechinus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@antechinus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antechinus)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/8 "2015-02-13T09:44:22Z")
Does she suffer from Buddhism? She certainly suffers from profound ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![Mince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/9 "2015-02-13T13:48:22Z")
Proof of disease of mind. She used to be a fairly rational human being. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/10 "2015-02-13T14:00:22Z")
As I understand general principles of karma, her explanation seems plausible, although it’s not the only one. Isn’t it also possible that the Nazis incurred tremendous karmic debt by their murderous fuckheadedness and the victims earned positive karma in their subsequent rebirths? In other words, the victims’ fate may not have been the balancing of a karmic debt but the creation of a karmic credit, to bastardize accounting terms. So Franz Stangl would be reborn with a withered arm, and Josef Mengele reborn in a famine-suffering region, let’s say, while the victims are reborn into comfort and wealth, and have good fortune follow them in future lives. Obviously I don’t follow this philosophy, but those seem to be valid expressions of the karmic ideals, at least as Mahayana Buddhism expresses them. Or am I mistaken? ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/11 "2015-02-13T14:05:27Z")
> [@Mince](#): > > She used to be a fairly rational human being. When, like 50+ years ago? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/12 "2015-02-13T14:05:39Z")
First, let me express my surprise (though not pleasure) at learning she’s still alive. > [@](#): > > What kind of heinous crime did she commit in an earlier existence in order to be born this dumb? I shudder to think. One could equally ask, "What heinous crime did we commit in past lives to be subjected to her in this one? ---
**Author:** ![Helena330](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/helena330/32/531_2.png) [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/13 "2015-02-13T14:07:22Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > When, like 50+ years ago? In a past life, applying her way of thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Mince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/14 "2015-02-13T14:10:18Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > So Franz Stangl would be reborn with a withered arm, and Josef Mengele reborn in a famine-suffering region,… If karmic economics do exist, I think your exchange rates are a bit off here. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/15 "2015-02-13T14:20:08Z")
The Apartment is still one of the greatest movies ever made, so at least there’s that. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/16 "2015-02-13T14:22:20Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > … and Josef Mengele reborn in a famine-suffering region, … Doesn’t seem right that a whole geographic region has to suffer just to get back at Mengele, unless everybody in the same area is reborn Nazis. And then we’d have to worry about them invading their neighbors with better food. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/17 "2015-02-13T14:31:07Z")
You are mistaken, there is nothing Buddhist about this view. Karma is much more complicated a concept than, ’ what goes around comes around’. Less ‘your past life error, mean you deserve this life’s suffering’ and more, ’ do not dwell on this life’s suffering, for you shall be rewarded in the next life! ’ She’s a nitwit who does not even understand the forces she’s speaking about. Buddhists would be outraged, like any other maligned religion, except, it’s not really what they do!😃 ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/18 "2015-02-13T14:32:57Z")
I actually like her bullshit more than most religion’s bullshit, at least it’s fair. Unlike, for example, the common Christian belief that good people like Gandhi will be tortured for eternity because they had the bad luck to born into a non-Christian family and had the further misfortune to hear about Christianity but didn’t convert. (No, I’m not saying every Christian believes that, calm down) Is there a faith out there that believes there is just one soul that lives every life, that travels through time so it can be reincarnated into everybody who has ever lived? That’s the ultimate fair theology, and one that would urge people to treat each other better. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/19 "2015-02-13T14:34:53Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > As I understand general principles of karma, her explanation seems plausible, although it’s not the only one. Isn’t it also possible that the Nazis incurred tremendous karmic debt by their murderous fuckheadedness and the victims earned positive karma in their subsequent rebirths? In other words, the victims’ fate may not have been the balancing of a karmic debt but the creation of a karmic credit, to bastardize accounting terms. > > So Franz Stangl would be reborn with a withered arm, and Josef Mengele reborn in a famine-suffering region, let’s say, while the victims are reborn into comfort and wealth, and have good fortune follow them in future lives. > > Obviously I don’t follow this philosophy, but those seem to be valid expressions of the karmic ideals, at least as Mahayana Buddhism expresses them. Or am I mistaken? Classical karma may be mixed up in it but from the the quotes in the link I’d say it’s more “Law of Attraction” where bad things happen to people because they attract bad things and good things happen to people who attract good things. Just standard New Age victim blaming. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/20 "2015-02-13T14:40:19Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > Is there a faith out there that believes there is just one soul that lives every life, that travels through time so it can be reincarnated into everybody who has ever lived? That’s the ultimate fair theology, and one that would urge people to treat each other better. [Quote=Tom Joad] Well, maybe it’s like Casy says. A fellow ain’t got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then… [/Quote] … [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539.md?page=2)