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Our astounding ability to disbelieve is unbelievable

Getty Images
Getty Images

Not too long ago, someone who denied the Holocaust was looked upon as a crazy person. Only extremists like leaders in the Iranian government would go public with charges that the Holocaust was a myth.

Not anymore.

In his Wall Street Journal article, Bojan Pancevski cites the fresh-off-the-presses findings of a massive new study that surveyed more than 58,000 adults from 103 countries and territories representing 94% of the world’s adult population and found nearly a quarter of the respondents think historians have exaggerated the accounts of the Holocaust or it never happened.

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I swear I’m not making this up.

Not surprisingly, the acceptance of the Holocaust as a historical fact was less in regions where Islam reigns, with only 16% of the respondents in the Middle East and North Africa, and 23% in sub-Saharan Africa accepting that the Holocaust happened as described by mainstream historians.  

Perhaps even more disturbing (if that’s possible) is that one-fifth of the total respondents have never heard of the Holocaust.

This leads to the question of why, with all the irrefutable evidence of the Holocaust being available, people would not believe its truth or have been taught about it. We get the answer in the same study.

Pancevski writes: “Around half of adults across the world hold antisemitic beliefs … 46% of them — which when extrapolated to the global population would equal an estimated 2.2 billion people — display antisemitic attitudes … According to the survey, known as Global 100, the level of antisemitism in the global adult population has more than doubled since it was launched in 2014.”

There you go.

It would be nice if all of us simply determined our beliefs based on evidence and truth, but the fact is many times it doesn’t happen that way. Science says we struggle to believe what is true due to a combination of psychological factors like cognitive biases, confirmation bias, groupthink, cognitive dissonance, and others which can lead us to dismiss information that contradicts our existing beliefs and what we want to be true, even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

I’m betting that in this case, a psychological influence called “motivated reasoning” is to blame. This happens when we have a strong emotional stake in a particular belief and actively interpret information in a way that supports our desired conclusion, even if it means distorting reality. It’s fueled by the fact that we are pretty much hard-wired to have an emotional response to information quicker than our conscious thoughts.

It's probably the leading cause of why our historical culture moods have shifted from Modernism to Postmodernism to, now, Post-truth, where objective facts are less influential in shaping our public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.

When it comes to a great example of that linking up to the new study’s findings on antisemitism, you only need look to the Oct. 7th attack on Israel by Hamas and the response — which included celebrations — on college campuses to Hamas’s slaughter of Israeli civilians. It was also on wide display two months later in the congressional hearings on antisemitism that followed where, as WSJ’s Joshua Chaffin writes, “a trio of university presidents from Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seemed incapable of explaining how their scrupulous campus codes could guard against a host of microaggressions — but not open hostility toward Jews.”

At the time, all the elite campus supporter’s antisemitic beliefs and justifications stood firm, but only in the way described by C. S. Lewis in his essay On Obstinacy in Belief: “A “belief that has stood firm … appears to mean a belief immune from all the assaults of reality.”

The unbelieving heart

As you would expect, the Bible has a lot to say about why we believe things and our astounding ability to ignore truth. Two warnings in particular stand out to me.

Because, as Thomas Aquinas said, “The contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated,” Scripture says that people work hard at concealing truth and that such labor provokes God’s anger: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18). When that buried truth is eventually uncovered, it elicits the angry post-truth responses seen today and we find ourselves in a similar situation as the apostle Paul who one time asked his readers: “So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (Gal. 4:16).

The second admonition the Bible sends our way is a simple one found in the book of Hebrews that says: “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God” (vs. 3:12). The writer of Hebrews follows that counsel with another one later in his letter when he writes, “See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven” (vs.12:25).

Because we, as Christians, know this, out of love for others we engage in a right “motivated reasoning” to tell people the truth as Scripture says: “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Cor. 5:11). Blaise Pascal put it like this: “Make religion attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Worthy of reverence because it really understands human nature. Attractive because it promises true good.”

Even so, Scripture tells us that many will “not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2. Thess. 2:10). Sadly, for them, it’s as philosopher and historian Richard Weaver says in his book Ideas Have Consequences: “Nothing good can come if the will is wrong.  And to give evidence to him who loves not the truth is to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation.” 

While true, lastly, let’s not forget the spiritual element involved with Holocaust denial and hatred for Israel. Revelation 12 tells us how Satan detests Israel because God used them to deliver His written and human Word to His creation. And that satanic spirit, Scripture tells us, “Is now working in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2) carrying out their father’s work.

And since the devil has “blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4), the only hope for all of us is a move of the Holy Spirit that overpowers the enemy and restores our ability to believe what is true.

If you’re looking for something to pray about today, that would be a good one. 

Robin Schumacher is an accomplished software executive and Christian apologist who has written many articles, authored and contributed to several Christian books, appeared on nationally syndicated radio programs, and presented at apologetic events. He holds a BS in Business, Master's in Christian apologetics and a Ph.D. in New Testament. His latest book is, A Confident Faith: Winning people to Christ with the apologetics of the Apostle Paul.

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