Bishop Richard Williamson made news around the world with his recent refusal to recant his statements concerning the Holocaust, at least not without doing further research first. Bishop Williamson currently doesn’t believe that gas chambers existed, that at most 300,000 or so Jews were killed in the camps and that there was no “final solution” ordered.

My opinion of Bishop Williamson’s stance is not the point I wish to make here. (Frankly, I haven’t seen his data, so I can’t form an opinion on it.) My point is to show just how much a debate over history has instead become a war over dogma.

The term given to those like Bishop Williamson is “Holocaust denier”. In the traditional sense of the words, this would mean someone who denies that the whole thing occurred. However, the term is now loosely slung around to include anyone who expresses even the mildest curiosity over any aspect of the official story embraced by the Jewish community (who refer to the event as “Shoah”.)

For example, if you were to ask why it is that the official figure of six million Jews killed hasn’t been adjusted in any way, even though the officials at Auschwitz have changed the plaque from reading, “Four million people suffered and died here at the hands of the Nazi murderers between the years 1940 and 1945″ as it was in 1948 – to the plaque that replaced it in 1989 reading, “For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe. Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940-1945″ – then you are a Holocaust denier. Even though it doesn’t take a mathematics genius to figure out something is wrong here, if you even question why the 2.5 million person mistake took place at all, you are labeled a Holocaust denier by those wishing to protect the official story and the question itself is dismissed out of hand.

If it were any other subject of history, an error of this magnatude is considered grounds for complete dismissal and a new evaluation from scratch. Such is not allowed by the Shoah complex, which instead demands that six million were killed and refuses to account for even the slightest discrepancies which show up.

The result: history becomes unquestionable dogma.

To give an idea of just how rabid the protectors of the official story are, bear in mind that there are currently thirteen countries which make Holocaust denial illegal. Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Switzerland will jail you for questioning any part of the official holocaust dogma or in some cases, for simply investigating the data.   The European Union agreed in 2007 to impose a sentence up to three years in jail for anyone questioning, denying or “trivializing” the Holocaust.  Over the current affair with Bishop Williamson, Richard Prasquier, president of the French Jewish umbrella organization CRIF said, “Today we strongly reaffirmed that the denial of the Shoah is not an opinion, but a crime.” When David Irving was taken to court in Germany for Holocaust denial, his lawyer was jailed for defending him!

My question out of all this is a simple one: why does the truth need to be protected by the law? Shouldn’t the truth be so self-evident as to repel attack from those who’s arguments are not based on solid evidence? That’s how every other event in history is dealt with. That’s how we determine the past. Why is it that one subject of history – and only this one subject – needs to be protected at gun point by government enforcers?

These laws enforcing the history of the Holocaust are no different in nature or purpose than the laws of the Church were on blasphemy – they are designed to protect a story to the point of making it into canon. This dynamic is utterly odious to intellectual honesty.

So, what does this mean for the official Holocaust story? Even assuming all of the current official story is the truth, that it is being protected as canon will automatically produce the exact opposite of the desired result. It will fuel some people to disbelieve, simply because there are those fanatical in protecting the dogma – no matter what the truth really is. By hiding behind the force of law, those supporting the history become liars by default to the skeptical.

If the Shoah complex combated dissent with data rather than the threat of violence (which is all imposition of incarceration at the point of a gun is) then I’d predict that a great deal of the more ridiculous Holocaust denial hypothesis would dry up and blow away like chaff in the wind.  Data against aspects of the official story which are not so easy to dismiss, could then be properly questioned, examined and tested to see if history needs to be adjusted. This is not a process to fear and cannot belittle the Holocaust.  There are plenty of official records left over from the Nazi regime to prove just how vile and extensive the whole affair was.  Adjusting minor aspects based on new investigation will never abolish the dark horror of the Holocaust.

In the end, maybe nothing needs to be changed at all, but when questions themselves are persecuted and denied investigation, truth is impossible to find.