# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/81 "2015-04-13T13:38:31Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > I actually prefer the Church of England or other very mild sects of Christianity more than Buddhism these days. The songs are better too. I assume, then, that you’re excluding any sect that employs Christian Rock. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/82 "2015-04-13T14:34:54Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > A few Buddhists I’ve known seem to think this is actually the case. They’re not horrible murderers or anything, just incredibly self-centred users of people who act like they’re better than everyone else. > > I actually prefer the Church of England or other very mild sects of Christianity more than Buddhism these days. The songs are better too. Church of England is the Christian equivalent of …what? Cottage cheese? White bread? Steamed carrots? ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/83 "2015-04-13T14:58:44Z")
Thank you for flying Church of England, cake or death? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/84 "2015-04-13T17:31:20Z")
> [@bup](#): > > I assume, then, that you’re excluding any sect that employs Christian Rock. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/8TsL0DO-c1E/hqdefault.jpg "The Truth behind Christian Rock: according to Hank Hill (Season 8 Episode 2: Reborn to be Wild)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TsL0DO-c1E) ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/85 "2015-04-13T20:23:04Z")
IIRC from the book _Helter Skelter_, Charles Manson taught his followers something similar. (He really did say something about Hitler “leveling the karma” of the Jews.) ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/86 "2015-04-13T20:54:19Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Church of England is the Christian equivalent of …what? Cottage cheese? White bread? Steamed carrots? SAT crib sheet : Church of England is to Religion as English Cuisine is to Mashed Potatoes. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/87 "2015-04-13T20:59:43Z")
> [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > I love the idea of karma, it lets me go around treating people like shit and just assume that they deserve it. Of course, in doing so you’re fucking up your own kharma. If you believe in this shit, you gotta believe in it all the way through, right ? ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/88 "2015-04-13T21:23:09Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Of course, in doing so you’re fucking up your own kharma. If you believe in this shit, you gotta believe in it all the way through, right ? There is no society that believes in “karma” and thinks that mistreating your social inferiors will hurt your karma. In fact, you are OBLIGATED to act like an asshole and a tyrant to people poorer than you in dharmic society, because to do otherwise would be to deny the karma that put them there in the first place. The reality of Hindu and Buddhist society is far more bleak than the hippie American 60s-filtered version of it. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/89 "2015-04-13T21:57:11Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Except that isn’t the philosophy I described. It is if ultimately it’s justifying what Shirley MacLaine said. Because, sure, the Jews in Auschwitz had plenty of choice, power and control over the circumstances and events of their lives. Gross. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/90 "2015-04-13T22:08:48Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Of course, in doing so you’re fucking up your own kharma. If you believe in this shit, you gotta believe in it all the way through, right ? nope 😜 ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/91 "2015-04-14T02:36:55Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > It’s important to explore where the code of ethics came from, though: it isn’t arbitrary. It is a code that evolved from actual conduct that humans either engaged in or avoided because it was useful to their collective survival. The implication is that conduct that isn’t “useful to [our] collective survival” is wrong. That’s a very dangerous attitude. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/92 "2015-04-14T02:55:50Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > The implication is that conduct that isn’t “useful to [our] collective survival” is wrong. That’s a very dangerous attitude. Although, of course, nowhere near as dangerous as the implication that conduct that is harmful to our collective survival is right. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/93 "2015-04-14T09:08:34Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > The implication is that conduct that isn’t “useful to [our] collective survival” is wrong. That’s a very dangerous attitude. It is your inference, and it arises from a faulty premise: that all conduct is classified as either right or wrong. Obviously that isn’t true. If there is any implication, it’s merely that conduct which cannot be classified as useful to our collective survival is conduct which is not included as part of our ethical code. I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of conduct falls into that category. > [@Sarahfeena](#): > > It is if ultimately it’s justifying what Shirley MacLaine said. Because, sure, the Jews in Auschwitz had plenty of choice, power and control over the circumstances and events of their lives. In your zeal to share with us the depth and breadth of the offense you have decided to take, you misstated the facts of what I described, and here you are doing it a second time to assert the legitimacy of the first. Brainglutton summed it up very neatly, I was merely expanding on it for those who are not familiar. > [@](#): > > > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > > > 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. > > [INDENT] > > > [@Stoid](#): > > > > Correct! (Regarding your understanding, not a comment about whether it’s true or not.) > > > > If you believe that life in a body is simply a vehicle for experience for the spirit/soul, then judgment falls away; pain, sorrow, violence… the only way any of these ideas mean anything at all is in the context of being alive in a physical form. Spirit cannot be raped, murdered, tortured, starved, humiliated, etc. Only a being of flesh can experience those things, making life itself truly Shakespeare’s stage and all the men and women merely players. Spirits taking on roles to experience and to help others experience. And when the play is over, everyone returns to a state of being where the only effect of whatever suffering they have endured in life (or inflicted) has been to enrich and enlighten the spirit. Nothing is actually good or bad, it just is, and what appears to be good or bad to our fleshly selves is merely balance. > > [/INDENT] > > > [@Sarahfeena](#): > > > > The thing that’s disgusting is the idea that moral responsibility doesn’t exist and that you can use that to justify horrific acts. > > [INDENT] > > > [@Stoid](#): > > > > Except that isn’t the philosophy I described. > > [/INDENT] > [INDENT][INDENT] > > > [@Sarahfeena](#): > > > > It is if ultimately it’s justifying what Shirley MacLaine said. Because, sure, the Jews in Auschwitz had plenty of choice, power and control over the circumstances and events of their lives. > > > > Gross. > > [/INDENT][/INDENT] One of the following things must be true: 1. The two ideas you offer as the summary of the philosophy: > [@Sarahfeena](#): > > …moral responsibility doesn’t exist… [QUOTE=Sarahfeena] …you can use that to justify horrific acts… [/QUOTE] accurately distilled and paraphrased the philosophy/belief system I had described. 1. Neither of the two ideas accurately distilled and paraphrased the philosophy/belief system I had described. 2. One was accurate and the other was not. You are saying here that yes, you are accurately characterizing the philosophy I described: -“if” -“ultimately it’s justifying” -“what Shirley McLaine said” So… can you clarify what you mean? It seems it could be several different things: 1. If I was trying to justify what Shirley Maclaine said, then you were accurately paraphrasing me… 2. If the belief system exists to justify what Shirley Maclaine said, you were accurately paraphrasing me… 3. If the belief system I described and Shirley Maclaine’s statement were related, then you were accurately paraphrasing me… Or something else altogether? Whatever you meant, I will make my own assertions more specific: You are asserting that “moral responsibility does not exist” and that this absence of moral responsibility allows the “justification of horrific acts” (by whom you did not say, other than to use the vague “you”, but presumably you meant the persons acting in the horrific manner referred to. Please correct and clarify as needed on this point.) is an accurate characterization of what BrainGlutton called “New Age doctrine”. It is not. If that is what you understood from the paragraph I wrote explaining the “New Age doctrine” view of the nature of spirit vs. flesh and how that is reflected in our Earthly lives, please read it again. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/94 "2015-04-14T09:37:20Z")
The whole argument goes like this: \*\* Q. \*\*How can anyone think for a second that anyone would choose something horrific? (\*and if you do believe that, then you are a disgusting person because it means you are unsympathetic to the suffering of the persons experiencing the horrificness, you bastard! :mad: \*) \*\*A. \*\*It’s not that people consciously choose their experiences, (most especially when we’re talking about experiences arising from circumstances people were born into, such as being a European Jew in the 1930’s) it’s that the soul/spirit that inhabits the body of the conscious human being made choices prior to being born into this life. 🆒 **Q.** Whatever :dubious: …it’s still ridiculous! Why would a “soul/spirit” choose something horrific like being gassed at Auschwitz when they could have chosen to be beautiful, rich, happy, or whatever else they wanted? That’s stupid! **A** While the spirits are inside the bodies, living as conscious beings, they experience one as good and the other as bad, but to the spirits that are part of a higher consciousness, being gassed at Auschwitz is not “bad” in any lasting, real sense, nor is being beautiful and rich “good” in any lasting, real sense. They are just experience, and the appearance of good or bad, right or wrong, is just balance and structure for the experience, the outline of the screenplay for life that makes it interesting and gives the spirit fertile soil in which to grow and expand. 🆒 **Q.** That’s stupid!:mad::dubious: **A.** Ok. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/95 "2015-04-14T13:13:32Z")
> [@bup](#): > > I assume, then, that you’re excluding any sect that employs Christian Rock. Definitely! Stoid, you’re really reinforcing my dislike of Buddhism. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/96 "2015-04-14T14:20:38Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Definitely! > > Stoid, you’re really reinforcing my dislike of Buddhism. Well, I’m not claiming to be describing Buddhism, although I recognize overlap in what I’m talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/97 "2015-04-15T14:32:25Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > It is your inference, and it arises from a faulty premise: that all conduct is classified as either right or wrong. Obviously that isn’t true. > > If there is any implication, it’s merely that conduct which cannot be classified as useful to our collective survival is conduct which is not included as part of our ethical code. I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of conduct falls into that category. > In your zeal to share with us the depth and breadth of the offense you have decided to take, you misstated the facts of what I described, and here you are doing it a second time to assert the legitimacy of the first. > > Brainglutton summed it up very neatly, I was merely expanding on it for those who are not familiar. > One of the following things must be true: > > 1. The two ideas you offer as the summary of the philosophy: > > accurately distilled and paraphrased the philosophy/belief system I had described. > > 1. Neither of the two ideas accurately distilled and paraphrased the philosophy/belief system I had described. > > 2. One was accurate and the other was not. > You are saying here that yes, you are accurately characterizing the philosophy I described: > -“if” > -“ultimately it’s justifying” > -“what Shirley McLaine said” > > So… can you clarify what you mean? It seems it could be several different things: > > 1. If I was trying to justify what Shirley Maclaine said, then you were accurately paraphrasing me… > 2. If the belief system exists to justify what Shirley Maclaine said, you were accurately paraphrasing me… > 3. If the belief system I described and Shirley Maclaine’s statement were related, then you were accurately paraphrasing me… > > Or something else altogether? > > Whatever you meant, I will make my own assertions more specific: > > You are asserting that “moral responsibility does not exist” and that this absence of moral responsibility allows the “justification of horrific acts” (by whom you did not say, other than to use the vague “you”, but presumably you meant the persons acting in the horrific manner referred to. Please correct and clarify as needed on this point.) is an accurate characterization of what BrainGlutton called “New Age doctrine”. > > It is not. > > If that is what you understood from the paragraph I wrote explaining the “New Age doctrine” view of the nature of spirit vs. flesh and how that is reflected in our Earthly lives, please read it again. Sorry, I don’t have the time to try to make heads or tails out of that. To me, it boils down to one question…does this philosophy open the door or even encourage a dismissive attitude towards suffering? If yes, then it’s a very problematic philosophy, and I don’t see how it could possibly be no. So, yes. I have major issues with it. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/98 "2015-04-15T14:52:16Z")
> [@Sarahfeena](#): > > Sorry, I don’t have the time to try to make heads or tails out of that. To me, it boils down to one question…does this philosophy open the door or even encourage a dismissive attitude towards suffering? If yes, then it’s a very problematic philosophy, and I don’t see how it could possibly be no. So, yes. I have major issues with it. But what, at the end of the day, is so different between that kind of karmic cycle and philosophies with eternal afterlives, rather than reincarnation? They encourage a dismissive attitude towards suffering, too, by providing infinite positive/negative experience to counterbalance any lifetime experience. Both of them seem to be saying “You might not like it while you live it, but when you’re more cognizant of the wider implications, you won’t mind too much.” ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/99 "2015-04-15T16:18:53Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > But what, at the end of the day, is so different between that kind of karmic cycle and philosophies with eternal afterlives, rather than reincarnation? They encourage a dismissive attitude towards suffering, too, by providing infinite positive/negative experience to counterbalance any lifetime experience. Both of them seem to be saying “You might not like it while you live it, but when you’re more cognizant of the wider implications, you won’t mind too much.” Well, I have different issues with the eternal afterlife theory. But, in that case, you aren’t put in a position to be judged on earth by others based on decisions you made in a previous life that you don’t have control over in this life. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539/100 "2015-04-15T18:50:03Z")
Well it’s a good thing she is old and ugly and not working anymore or otherwise this might hurt her career. Oh, wait, she is still working [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shirley-maclaine-explains-the-holocaust/712539.md?page=6)