What’s wrong with uttering “Darwin” and “Hitler” in the same breath?

Last night Dicey and Litchfield were talking about J. Stuart Mill’s never expressing his religious convictions, as he was urged to do so by his father. Both agreed strongly that if he had done so, he would never have influenced the present age in the manner in which he has done. His books would not have been text books at Oxford, to take a weaker instance. Lyell is most firmly convinced that he has shaken the faith in the Deluge far more efficiently by never having said a word against the Bible, than if he had acted otherwise. ~ Charles Darwin

I have lately read Morley’s Life of Voltaire and he insists strongly that direct attacks on Christianity (even when written with the wonderful force and vigor of Voltaire) produce little permanent effect: real good seems only to follow the slow and silent side attacks. ~ Charles Darwin

http://bevets.com/evolution.htm

Here’s my opinion on this. Breeding and even racial breeding was done long before Darwin. Hatred of the Jews was around long before Darwin. (ie Martin Luther’s book “The Jews and their Lies”.) I do think it’s a little overboard to blame something else besides Hitler for what Hitler did.

This also goes both ways. You have an equal amount of extremists on the other end saying that the Bible led to historic atrocities. (even the long held hatred of the Jews)

To be fair to Darwinism, while early adopters of this theory thought it verified their already held beliefs of seperate races that range from animal to supreme, Darwinism has ultimately shown that there is no such thing as race (as it was defined back then) and it’s done away with the concept of some ladder of progression in the human species. (the ladder of progression among races was a concept that was around long before Darwinism) In the US the only people who still believe in some ladder of races (usually the white supremists) use the Bible to support their stance.

Btw, Bill, you may want to add the following quote in your list, after verification:

The atheistic evolutionist Sir Arthur Keith wrote:

The German Führer … has consistently sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.

Sir Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics (NY: Putnam, 1947), p. 230.

I find Mr Foxman’s words interesting:

ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman said in a statement: “This is an outrageous and shoddy attempt by D. James Kennedy to trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust.

How on earth can someone call “trivilization” the enterprise that aims to reveal the link between Darwin and Hitler? Would it be “trivialization” if the link had been between Martin Luther and Hitler? Or is it trivialization when it’s linked to Darwin’s myth?

Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people.

Perhaps not. But then again the TV program is not about what Hitler *needed* but what he *did*.

It must be remembered that D. James Kennedy is a leader among the distinct group of ‘Christian Supremacists’ who seek to “reclaim America for Christ” and turn the U.S. into a Christian nation guided by their strange notions of biblical law.”

In other words, he is just a misguided fundie, who aims to overturn democracy and implant a Taliban-like theocracy in the USA. Oh, now were are getting into Foxman’s REAL motives behind his “upset” words.

I wonder why is someone whose organization aims to fight “anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry” feels disturbed that a TV program will reveal more of the foundation philosophies behind Hitler’s actions. Is it bkz it is done by Christians? Is it bkz Darwin is attacked? Maybe both?

who in the heck are these “Christian Supremacists”?

Darwin may have publicly distanced himself from eugenics but you wonder how he felt about it privately. I found the following quote from his son, who became President of the British Eugenics Society. [blockquote]Dedicated to the memory of my father. For if I had not believed that he would have wished me to give such help as I could toward making his life’s work of service to mankind, I should never have been led to write this book.” -Leonard Darwin made the following dedication in his book “The Need for Eugenic Reform” [/blockquote]
It is also interesting that the founder of the British Eugenics Society was Francis Galton, who was Darwin’s cousin from Erasumus Darwin, Darwin’s grandfather and an early evolutionist. Galton testified that he was heavely influenced by Darwin’s book. Galton once wrote: [blockquote]“The publication in 1859 of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin made a marked epoch in my own mental development, as it did in that of human thought generally. Its effect was to demolish a multitude of dogmatic barriers by a single stroke, and to arouse a spirit of rebellion against all ancient authorities whose positive and unauthenticated statements were contradicted by modern science.”[/blockquote]It appears the entire Eugenics movement was birthed by people close to Darwin and his theories.

Great going Bill, Mats, Jehu and others! How unfortunate that Catholics and Jews have given Darwin a pass when both should have stood in the forefront of those exposing the fraud and danger of his pseudoscience. It’s frustrating to read the Orthodox Rabbi Natan Slifkin, for example, because he comes so close to the exact same stance as ID and then distances himself from it with obfuscation and irrelevancies. My sense is that the Jews harbor a historic fear of Christendom, mainstream Christendom is cowed by science, and science desires liberation from philosophy and religion. Liberal Judaism is no longer Judaism—and I say this as a Gentile—it has joined the Church of Darwin-Secularism—which explains Foxman’s hysteria. But ID needs more believing Jews—it should not be an evangelical thing. But if that’s how it turns out then so be it—and shame on the others!

Can slavery or the genocidal Indian policies of the US government be attributed to Darwin as well?

Its effect was to demolish a multitude of dogmatic barriers by a single stroke, and to arouse a spirit of rebellion against all ancient authorities whose positive and unauthenticated statements were contradicted by modern science.”

You know, Darwinists are still using their creation myth against religion (Christianity in particular) to this very day! The musicians have changed, but the song is the same.

Reading Galton’s words was like reading the words of Dawkins, Dennett, Ruse or Provine. They all sing the same anti-God song.

Can slavery or the genocidal Indian policies of the US government be attributed to Darwin as well?

“Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory.“ -*Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (1977), p. 127.

Biological arguments are one thing. The practice of slavery and genocide is quite another. Don’t you agree?

A Jewish biology professor at Purdue University, writing for the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists, said this:

“I don’t claim that Darwin and his theory of evolution brought on the holocaust; but I cannot deny that the theory of evolution, and the atheism it engendered, led to the moral climate that made a holocaust possible.” -*Edward Simon, “Another Side to the Evolution Problem,” Jewish Press, January 7, 1983, p. 248.

Mats, I’m afraid this is all weak speculation. I could find you a hundred quotes from Christians in America during the 18th century and 19th century who used the Bible in support of Indian genocide and slavery. But was Christianity the driving force behind slavery and Indian genocide? Hardly. And Darwin wasn’t the driving force behind the holocaust. As someone already pointed out, the hatred of Jews in Europe goes back a long, long time and has deep roots in tribal and religious conflict. The killing of the Jews in Europe was a populist movement, just like the killing of Indians in America. The people wanted it and elected and supported a government to carry it out.

Barrett One,

What are you trying to say—that ideas don’t have consequences? That everything emerges from “society” apart from agents with agendas? Of course you’re right—Christendom is not guiltless (anti-Semitism and all the rest)—yet with the Puritans and Roger Williams the yoke of Christian tyranny was broken in America and Judeo-Christian ethics bloomed and slavery and racism were defeated—not by the secularists but by Judeo-Christians. As far as the Indians, there was an interesting article in COMMENTARY a year or so ago (titled something like “Was it Genocide?”) that concluded this was pretty much a clash of cultures and infectious disease and not so much an official policy of government—nothing like Hitler’s holocaust. But I believe things got worse post Darwin, and wasn’t it Margaret Sanger of Planned Parenthood fame who loved having Indians sterilized? As far as I can ascertain people did not speak of “primitive” languages before Darwin, for didn’t the missionaries believe they could translate the Scriptures into any language? A friend of mine used to say—somebody should do some research here—that it was not until after a certain Communist Party conference that the materialists decided to embrace the third world—this only after rejection by “the workers of the world”.

While racism in general – and anti-Semitism in particular – certainly predates Darwin’s theory of evolution, that is not the point being made in the documentary under discussion. If it can be shown that Hitler was influenced by it, or even just used it to justify his acts, that connection is worth exploring, is it not? Would it be “trivializing” the suffering of the poor during the Great Depression to discuss the part that stock market greed played in bringing it about? The purpose behind this documentary may in fact be to vilify Darwinism, but so long as it sticks to historical fact, the producers have the right to present their own conclusions as to whether or not Darwin’s Theory has done more harm the good to society.

I would make the following observation when comparing Darwinism to Christianity: Evil people have indeed used their (perverted) understanding of the Christian religion to justify evil acts. Nonetheless, the teachings of Jesus Christ have served as a moral compass to those who oppose the Hitlers of the world, that extend mercy to the defeated, and a hand to the poor and downtrodden. Personally, while I can see the evil that has been justified under the banner of Darwinism, I find it hard to identify much good that has come out of it (exaggerated and/or unjustified claims of its impact on science and medicine notwithstanding).

Btw, I’ve always found that quotation of E. O. Wilson and Michael Ruse in “The Evolution of Ethics” to be telling. Replace all references to “morality” and “ethics” in it with “reason” and see what you get.

As for the connection between Darwin and the Third Reich, it would be a fallacy to take it as an argument against the theory, of course. At the same time, to honestly look at history and pretend that there wasn’t a very strong influence there is really PC historical revisionism of the worst sort.

OK, fellas. We may agree on the merits of ID. But all of this has a bizarre (and uncharacterically sophomoric) quality to it. I’m bowing out.

that the Darwinian world view must look upon the present sentimental conception of the value of the life of a human individual as an overestimate completely hindering the progress of humanity. The human state also, like every animal community of individuals, must reach an even higher level of perfection, if the possibility exists in it, through the destruction of the less well-endowed individual, for the more excellently endowed to win space for the expansion of its progeny…The state only has an interest in preserving the more excellent life at the expense of the less excellent.

Robby Kossmanm, German Zoologist,1880

The new world view actually rests on the theory of evolution
….
On it we have to construct a new ethics.… All values will be revalued.

biologist Arnold Dodel, 1904

A stronger race will supplant the weaker, since the drive for life in its final form will decimate every ridiculous fetter of the so-called humaneness of individuals, in order to make place for the humaneness of nature, which destroys the weak to make place for the strong.

Adolf Hitler

Salvador
PS
By the way, when I had dinner with Richard Weikart and friends a couple months ago in DC, Weikart pointed out that its an urban myth that Hitler was a YEC. That myth relies on unpublished versious of Mein Kampf.

Peter Singer is advocating the use of humans rather than animals for medical experiments.

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

If the experimenter is not prepared to use an orphaned human infant, then his readiness to use nonhumans is simple discrimination
….
In any case, this argument still gives us no reason for selecting a nonhuman, rather than a human … as the subject for our experiments.

The experimenter, then, shows a bias in favor of his own species whenever he carries out an experiment on a nonhuman

Peter Singer
Darwinist, animal rights activist

Singer is complaining that experimenters are being discriminatory in their cruelty to animals, that they should spread the cruelty by experimenting on humans.

It is significant that the problem of equality, in moral and political philosophy, is invariably formulated in terms of human equality. The effect of this is that the question of the equality of other animals does not confront the philosopher, or student, as an issue itself—and this is already an indication of the failure of philosophy to challenge accepted beliefs.

He is complaining about the lack of a apperciation for what the equality of humans with animals.

if equal consideration depended on rationality, no reason could be given against using [human] imbeciles for research purposes, as we now use dogs and guinea pigs.

He is advocating use of sickly humans much as we use dogs and guinea pigs for medical experiments. Reminds me of the Nazi medical experiments on the Jews.

If you wanted to kill members of a particular people group, wouldn’t Darwinism provide the best justification? It’s scientific, and therefore impartial; It’s proved by overwhelming evidence; It says that the only way to improve the species, and nature in general, is to let superior animals survive and multiply, while allowing inferior animals to become extinct. Furthermore, it’s silent (even hostile) on the idea of a God who judges.

It’s seems far superior to Biblical justifications which are hindered by admonitions to help the weak and infirm, and to treat aliens and strangers with kindness. The Bible also limits killing in very specific situations, and provides an accountability mechanism (afterlife judgement).

scordova: respectfully, it sounds to me like what he is doing is not so much advocating for using humans as he is attempting to throw into relief the coldness and cruelty of using animals for experimentation. Our skin crawls when we read about the use of ‘human imbeciles’ for such purposes. Why does it not crawl at the thought of using chimps? (actually, mine does crawl. why doesn’t everyone’s?)

So maybe Hitler was an evolutionist. So what? Does that automatically mean that the science of evolution is now somehow tainted because Hitler used this information and twisted and subverted it for his own evil ends? I think what is distasteful about this documentary is the inference that the logical conclusion of ‘Darwinism’ results in something like Nazism(OK, I haven’t seen it but I think that is not an unreasonable inference, given the institution that sponsored it). That is similar to saying that the inventors of the nuclear bomb are personally responsible for Hiroshima. Nobody would make that conclusion — neither would they claim that the science behind nuclear bombs is somehow ‘evil’.

Tracing the influences of thought and idea in history is a tricky business - we are all influenced (whether we know it or not) by many ideas that have gone before us. The idea that Darwin is directly linked to Hitler is at best an extremely simplistic reading of history at best, particularly as in this case we are talking not about biological evolution but ’social Darwinism’ (a very different animal that arguably has little to do with Darwin himself).

But unfortunately this simplistic and ultimately emotional approach will no doubt be popular, particularly to those who have already decided “Darwinism” is some kind of social evil that has to be extirpated. I suspect that the History Channel will probably not be broadcasting this anytime soon.

There seems to be some disagreement on how clearly the “Social Darwinism” and “Nazi” dots connect. Given that, what’s below is argubly not a “Social Darwinist” quote.

This past Fall, the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. had a fascinating but appalling exhibit on eugenics-driven, Nazi-oriented medicine in Germany in the 1930s and 40s, entitled “Deadly Medicine.” Probably many of you saw it. It spoke of the necessity for “racial hygiene” due to the costs on society of maintaining the “less fit.” The ultimate goal, of course, was to apply scientific methods in creating a super race.

I was especially struck by a 1938 quotation from Goebbels, which echoed in a distorted way the Gospel of Matthew, the 25th chapter:

“Our starting point is not the individual, and we do not subscribe to the view that one should feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, or clothe the naked…our objectives are entirely different. We must have a healthy people in order to prevail in the world.”

We’re no better than bacteria!

Eric Pianka

We assume that cannibalism is always an aggressive, barbaric and degrading act…But that is a serious over-simplification, one that has kept us from realizing that cannibalism can have positive meanings.

Beth A. Conklin
associate professor of anthropology at Vanderbilt University

I wonder if the ADL has forgotten that the whole reason that William Jennings Bryan got involved in the Scopes trial was precisely because he feared “social Darwinism.”

17. BarryA:
“You ask (and here is where the equivocation comes in) whether Christianity was the driving force behind slavery. ..(snip)….Evil statements made by people who call themselves “Christians” is not the same as “Christianity.” The former was indeed a force supporting slavery; the latter was not.”

I think one can argue in the same way that a centuries-old antisemitic attitude and its proponents were the driving force behind the holocaust, not Darwin’s ideas. Darwin’s writings were just misused as a convenient means to justify the atrocities.

“Religion” has been used to shed blood as well, so singling out Darwinism as being THE “kindling wood” for holocausts is rather one-sided.

“I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.”
–Victor Frankl in The Doctor and the Soul

We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders . . .
St. Paul (1Tim 1:9-10)

BarryA:
The proposition that “it is only natural for the strong to kill the weak” is not a logical (maybe a twisted one) extension of Darwinian mechanisms, and only when these are misinterpreted. Darwinian theory is one of competition for common resources, not of killing a “competitor” of your own species. The “strong killing the weak” was a misappropriation of the theory by the people whose malicious intent was on killing other people.

So what if evolutionary theory led Hitler to commit his atrocities? Einstein’s e=mc^2 led to the atomic bomb. Evil people will abuse science if it helps their sick plans. Scientific theories should be judged on their ability to explain facts. Should we support theories that are more likely to be wrong about the facts but that are less likely to be abused? ID supporters seem to think so, even though countless horrible acts have been performed, and are being performed as we speak, in the name of their religious beliefs. The reason why “secular” dictators have been able to kill so many people in the previous century is because of scientific and technological progress. Does anyone doubt that religious “leaders” like Osama bin Laden or Pat Robertson would hesitate to kill billions if they had access to the right technology?

BarryA, I guess I’m bowing back in. The large number of people killed in the twentieth century is due to technological advances in killing machines. After all, some 60,000 Japanese were killed nearly instantly by just two bombs. The machine age ushered in a whole new way to deliver evil. The Christian Crusaders didn’t have trains and killing factories, but if they had…To think that people during the 20th century were any more or less moral than previous generations is backed up by scant evidence. In fact, you can hear the ghosts of the holocaust in the current debate over Mexicans in this country. You may feel more comfortable in a society where ID takes more of a role in the science curriculum. But I don’t. And history is on my side.

“In fact, you can hear the ghosts of the holocaust in the current debate over Mexicans in this country.”

What does that have to do with genocide fueled by materialistic philosophy? Do you really think that someone who does not believe that we do not have the monetary capacity to care for the entire third world is genocidal? Do you believe that someone who is concerned about illegal immigrants, who are shutting down hospital emergency rooms and sending up crime rates, is a Nazi? Such rank emotionalism certainly can not take the moral high ground, and it certainly isn’t intellectual. This is the logical conclusion of political liberalism: if everyone can not be wealthy, then we should *all* be poor and miserable.

“You may feel more comfortable in a society where ID takes more of a role in the science curriculum. But I don’t. And history is on my side.”

Your assumption that ID is religious is a straw-man. However, I feel much more comfortable knowing that something is above me than believing that we’re “no better than bacteria” and can be treated as such.

Aren’t you equally immoral by our Christian standards whether you killed 10 ot 10 million people?

BarryA,
there are only very few examples in nature where killing other individuals of your species is a general behavior. In general, fights for dominance almost always stop short of killing. Chimpanzees and humans are on top of the list of habitual killers. There are others, such as some spiders that eat their mates, but in these cases the male actually serves as source of protein for the female and her upcoming brood.

BarryA
“Nothing in the logic of Darwinism precludes a “kill your competitor” strategy for survival. ”

The beauty of Darwinian logic is that there isn’t any. There is no predicting where things will go. It is up to us to play Monday-morning quarterback and see the “strategy” in what happened.

The large number of people killed in the twentieth century is due to technological advances in killing machines.

Not really. Here’s the Wiki to death tolls

Note that after WWII, four of the next five occurred during the reign of the bow and sword (and the sword was used quite a bit in the Taping Rebellion as well).

Stalin favorite tool for genocide was famine. The Mao and Khmer Rouge genocides were also low tech.

In fact, you can hear the ghosts of the holocaust in the current debate over Mexicans in this country.

Hardly. But being as how Christian conservative Bush and the Catholic Church are the ones sticking up for the Mexicans . . .

It is highly intuitive to point to advances in technology as the cause for the greater number of deaths in the past century, but, as Barry has said, it is not much of an argument. Man has always been able to kill efficiently, with great technology or not.
Hannibal slaughtered 50,000 Romans in 8 hours. Much of the Rwandan genocide (800,000 dead in 3 months) was accomplished with sticks and knives, crushing skulls with stones and burning people in their houses.
Likewise, as Barry alluded to, Stalin murdered between 6-9 million Ukrainians with the highly primitive technique of starvation.
To shrug and say “but what if the Crusaders had had the technology?” is to speculate without warrant and to ignore/distort the history of the Crusades. The point was not indiscriminate slaughter, but to the rescue of Christians and the liberation and restoration of Christian lands.
The primary task was not to murder anybody, Muslims, Jews, or innocent peasants. Death for the sake of death was not the goal, as it had been throughout the 20th century. Those who were defeated kept their lives, their livelihoods and their religions.
If the goal was wanton massacres then the technologies of the day were definitely up to the task.
Granted

(t)he Crusades were wars, so it would be a mistake to characterize them as nothing but piety and good intentions. Like all warfare, the violence was brutal (although not as brutal as modern wars). There were mishaps, blunders, and crimes. These are usually well-remembered today.

When ragtag groups of crusaders did plunder and murder it was against the will and condemnation of the Church. These crimes were not the norm and are all that some seem to want to remember as they selectively look back on the wars.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/april2002/cover.htm
Again, as Barry said, it was the very fact that religious people were intimately involved in the crusades that mitigated the deaths and atrocities.

Bill mentioned the American Eugenics Society. There an article in the UK Guardian that goes into more detail of its connection with Hitler. see Hitler’s Debt to America.

One such agitator was a disgruntled corporal in the German army. In 1924, he was serving time in prison for mob action. While there, he spent his time poring over eugenic textbooks, which extensively quoted Davenport, Popenoe and other American ethnological stalwarts. And he closely followed the writings of Leon Whitney, president of the American Eugenics Society, and Madison Grant, who extolled the Nordic race and bemoaned its “corruption” by Jews, Negroes, Slavs and others who did not possess blond hair and blue eyes. The young German corporal even wrote one of them fan mail.

In The Passing of the Great Race, Grant wrote: “Mistaken regard for what are believed to be divine laws and a sentimental belief in the sanctity of human life tend to prevent both the elimination of defective infants and the sterilisation of such adults as are themselves of no value to the community. The laws of nature require the obliteration of the unfit and human life is valuable only when it is of use to the community or race.”

One day in the early 1930s, Whitney visited Grant to show off a letter he had just received from Germany, written by the corporal, now out of prison and rising in the German political scene. Grant could only smile. He pulled out his own letter. It was from the same German, thanking Grant for writing The Passing of the Great Race. The fan letter called Grant’s book “his Bible”. The man who sent those letters was Adolf Hitler.

Hitler displayed his knowledge of American eugenics in much of his writing and conversation. In Mein Kampf, for example, he declared: “The demand that defective people be prevented from propagating equally defective offspring is a demand of clearest reason and, if systematically executed, represents the most humane act of mankind. It will spare millions of unfortunates undeserved sufferings, and consequently will led to a rising improvement of health as a whole.”

Mein Kampf also displayed a familiarity with the recently passed US National Origins Act, which called for eugenic quotas. “There is today one state in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of immigration] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but [the US], in which an effort is made to consult reason at least partially. By refusing immigrants on principle to elements in poor health, by simply excluding certain races from naturalisation, it professes in slow beginnings a view that is peculiar to the People’s State.”

Hitler proudly told his comrades how closely he followed American eugenic legislation. “Now that we know the laws of heredity,” he told a fellow Nazi, “it is possible to a large extent to prevent unhealthy and severely handicapped beings from coming into the world. I have studied with interest the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock.”

The article mentions Madison Grant. Here is Wiki’s description of Madison Grant mentioned above. Madison Grant

Madison Grant (November 19, 1865 – May 30, 1937) was an American lawyer, known primarily for his work as a eugenicist and conservationist. As a eugenicist, Grant was responsible for one of the most famous works of scientific racism, a 1916 book which was later used by officials in Nazi Germany to justify their racial policies of compulsory sterilization and compulsory euthanasia, and played an active role in crafting strong immigration restriction and anti-miscegenation polices in the United States. As a conservationist, Grant was credited with the saving of many different species of animals, founding many different environmental and philanthropic organizations, and developing much of the discipline of wildlife management.
….
Grant’s intellectualized ideas of Nordic and Caucasian superiority stem from ideas of Social Darwinism, a popular philosophy at the time that claimed that the fittest humans should enhance and perfect their genes through selective breeding while the unfit should not be permitted to breed at all, thus allowing the further evolution of the species. Originally conceived by the Englishman Herbert Spencer, this built on Darwin’s theory of evolution, which included acknowledgement of differences in intelligence between individual humans as well as the different human races. Grant, as well as others, claimed that the Caucasian races, in addition to their obvious cultural superiority, respresent the highest pinnacle of evolution and are superior in intelligence as well.

According to Grant, Nordics were in a dire state in the modern world, where they were close to committing “race suicide” by being out-bred by more inferior stock. Nordic theory was strongly embraced by the racial hygiene movement in Germany in the early 1920s and 1930s; however, they typically used the term “Aryan” instead of “Nordic”, though the principal Nazi ideologist, Alfred Rosenberg, preferred “Aryo-Nordic” or “Nordic-Atlantean”. Stephen Jay Gould described The Passing of the Great Race as “The most influential tract of American scientific racism.”

BarryA, No, I think the difference between you and me is less dramatic. We both want peace. Neither of us are fans of the holocaust and hope it doesn’t happen again. We’re both sympathetic towards ID. We have alot in common. But you see, I am a Jew. My not too distant grandparents came from Europe. Not once did they mention Darwinism or Materialism as being a driving force behind the hatred of Jews in Europe or the holocaust. But they mentioned numerous times the simmering, age old hatred of the Jews by those of the Christian faith. This played itself out daily in countless villages throughout Europe. And ultimately culminated in the holocaust. This was abundantly clear to the Jews that lived there, even though it may not be clear to this Kennedy fellow. You see, my grandparents loved this country because it was largely secular. Those old religious wars, big, small, whatever, were behind them. Now, none of this means that I yearn for a Godless culture. Nor do I blame Christianity for the holocaust. You see, that would be a gross injustice to the many wonderful people of the Christian faith that stopped Hitler, liberated the camps and provided me and my family with a country and a home. But let’s not distort history. It is what it is.

But let’s not distort history. It is what it is.

Fair enough Barrett, but let’s keep in mind that Hitler was very much anti-Christian too and the Holocaust did not happen until the church was marginalized.

Anyway as Heinrich Heine predicted in Religion and Philosophy in Germany (1832)

Christianity — and that is its greatest merit — has somewhat mitigated that brutal German love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. … The old stone gods will then rise from long ruins and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and Thor will leap to life with his giant hammer and smash the Gothic cathedrals. … Do not smile at my advice — the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder … comes rolling somewhat slowly, but .. its crash … will be unlike anything before in the history of the world. … At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in farthest Africa will draw in their tails and slink away. … A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll.

Tribune7, Thank you. And I agree that Hitler was no Christian. And I also agree that Christianity is a force for good in the world. I’m just a little nervous, is all. My grandparents always had one suitcase packed. But we don’t. So, there’s progress. And I want to say that I appreciate being able to participate, even if it gets heated. I have great respect for Bill. Read all his books.

Hitler, as quoted above by Sal

Hitler proudly told his comrades how closely he followed American eugenic legislation. “Now that we know the laws of heredity,” he told a fellow Nazi, “it is possible to a large extent to prevent unhealthy and severely handicapped beings from coming into the world. I have studied with interest the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock.”

Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man volume II, pages 438-9.

Yet he (man) might by selection do something not only for the bodily constitution and frame of his offspring, but for their intellectual and moral qualities.Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in any marked degree inferior in body or mind; but such hopes are Utopian and will never be even partially realized until the laws of inheritance are thoroughly known. Everyone does good service, who aids towards this end. When the principles of breeding and inheritance are better understood, we shall not hear ignorant members of our legislature rejecting with scorn a plan for ascertaining whether or not consanguinous marriages are injurious to man.
The advancement of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate problem: all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a great evil, but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in marriage. On the other hand , Mr. Galton (cousin of Charles and father of the eugenics) had remarked, if the prudent avoid marriage, whilst the reckless marry, the inferior members tend to supplant the better members of society. Man, like every other animal, has no doubt advanced to his present high condition through a struggle for existence consequent on his rapid multiplication; and if he is to advance still higher, it is to be feared that he must remain subject to severe struggle.
Otherwise he would sink into indolence, and the most fitted men would not be more successful in the battle of life than the les gifted. Hence our natural rate of increase, though leading to many and obvious evils, must not be greatly diminished by any means. There should be open competition for all men; and the most able should not be prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and rearing the largest number of offspring.

I’m just a little nervous, is all. My grandparents always had one suitcase packed. But we don’t. So, there’s progress.

I’m not so sure about Europe.

Anyway, our Founders were men of genius and the prohibition of religiious tests and a state church are what make this country great!!

I would like to point out that due to the tendancy to vilify anything remotely critical of Darwin it might be better to watch the program before criticising it. To say that it makes innapropriate links between Darwin and Hitler without having seen it is very poor form.

In my veiw the idea that the Jews were inferior came from pre-existing anti-semitism. The idea that inferior races should be wiped out came, primarily, from Darwinism.

The holocaust was obviously not a program to exterminate the unfit — most of the victims of the holocaust were not physically or mentally impaired. But once it is decided that it is morally acceptable to exterminate the unfit, it is not much of a leap to also deciding that it is morally acceptable to exterminate all undesirables, whether they are unfit or not.

The ADL’s Foxman said that this TV program is “at worst, a mendacious attempt to score political points in the culture war on the backs of six million Jewish victims and others who died at the hands of the Nazis.” Right. Only the ADL and other Jewish organizations are allowed to attempt to score political points in the culture war on the backs of the Nazis’ victims. And the ADL is attempting it right here.

BTW, it is very interesting that Theodosius Dobzhansky was chairman of the board of the American Eugenics Society in 1956. Dobzhansky coined the iconic Darwinist slogan, “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” Small world, isn’t it?

More of my comments about this controversy are on my blog at —
http://im-from-missouri.blogsp.....er-is.html

Before Darwin, racial prejudice and eugenic practices existed but were just good ‘ol fashioned bigotry, hatred and murder and can be pretty much seen as just that (the above reference to Martin Luther included).

What Darwin and ilk did do was to develope theoretical system justifying it and promoting it implementation by paving the highway for mass slaughter in the philosphical(as opposed to the by-ways and side tracks in history to which is was always limited to). Furthermore Darwinism is a univeral trend which carried to it’s logical conclusion, ultimately provides the way to a irrational society (where Dawkins claims to get his sense of rational from beats me) where there is no absolute morality (only set by the ruler of the day) and so we either close down all the butcher shops and become vegans or it’s a $2.5-per pound of fresh little girl sirloin and $3.50 for beef.

BarryA, America sure seems secular to me. But if you want to call it a Christian country, that’s fine with me. We have no disagreement.