PZ Myers is really a nice guy?

_{Denyse O'Leary

March 26, 2008

Intelligent Design}

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Someone whose comment I rejected wrote to tell me that PZ Myers is really a nice guy in person. I don’t care, okay. I am entitled to take him at his word as provided in his posts …

And I intend to – unless he informs me personally that it is all hogwash, in which case, ….

Also, a friend asks, given Myers’s well-advertised views,

Would a known Christian, especially one with a known ID persuasion, be able to take a course under Myers without fear of intimidation, ridicule, belittling and threats found on his web site?

Well, here is his university’s policy on the subject:

The University of Minnesota is committed to the policy that all persons shall have equal access to its programs, facilities, and employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status, or sexual orientation. Inquiries regarding compliance may be directed to the UMM Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Officer at (320) 589-6021.

So we must hope that he is personally much nicer than his Internet ramblings would suggest.

For more, go here.

Comments

OOPS: " . . . genuine revival and reformation movements will be at best a mixed lot – a lot of good, and more wrong ~~that~~ THAN we are comfortable with; in Peter Hockens’ ever so wise words: THE GLORY AND THE SHAME . . . "kairosfocus_{March 30, 2008
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3] GH, off topic, on thermodynamics “hand-waving” ______ --> Maybe, we should use the still open 2 LOT thread for further discussion of this off-topic point, GH? _________ I am not at all in agreement that I used “raw energy” in a handwaving fashion. Surely, you on reading the outline discussion and underlying remarks in TBO's TMLO, noticed that “raw energy” was used in my always linked, appendix 1, as a descriptive reference to the already just worked out mathematical expression on the Clausius-type first example under 2 LOT [A at T hot gives d'Q of heat to B at T cold within an isolated system], which would make its context -- d'Q -- plain? And, that the discussion then went on to the heat engine case to make it further clear? Second, can you identify empirical cases where heat engines/ energy converters that exhibit functionally specified, code-bearing complex information beyond the Dembski type UPB [500 -1000 bits of information storing capacity] originate spontaneously through simple energy flow through a plausible natural environment -- let me allude here to Hoyle's tornado in a junkyard forms a 747 Jumbo Jet scenario -- in your direct observation? Let me excerpt from the always linked, appendix 1:
1] TMLO: In 1984, this well-received work provided the breakthrough critical review on the origin of life that led to the modern design school of thought in science. The three online chapters, as just linked, should be carefully read to understand why design thinkers think that the origin of FSCI in biology is a significant and unmet challenge to neo-darwinian thought . . . . 2] But open systems can increase their order: This is the "standard" dismissal argument on thermodynamics, but it is both fallacious and often resorted to by those who should know better. My own note on why this argument should be abandoned is: a] Clausius is the founder of the 2nd law, and the first standard example of an isolated system -- one that allows neither energy nor matter to flow in or out -- is instructive, given the "closed" subsystems [i.e. allowing energy to pass in or out] in it. Pardon the substitute for a real diagram, for now: Isol System: | | (A, at Thot) --> d'Q, heat --> (B, at T cold) | | b] Now, we introduce entropy change dS >/= d'Q/T . . . "Eqn" A.1 c] So, dSa >/= -d'Q/Th, and dSb >/= +d'Q/Tc, where Th > Tc d] That is, for system, dStot >/= dSa + dSb >/= 0, as Th > Tc . . . "Eqn" A.2 e] But, observe: the subsystems A and B are open to energy inflows and outflows, and the entropy of B RISES DUE TO THE IMPORTATION OF RAW ENERGY. f] The key point is that when raw energy enters a body, it tends to make its entropy rise. For the injection of energy to instead do something useful, it needs to be coupled to an energy conversion device. g] When such devices, as in the cell, exhibit FSCI, the question of their origin becomes material, and in that context, their spontaneous origin is strictly logically possible but negligibly different from zero probability on the gamut of the observed cosmos. (And, kindly note: the cell is an energy importer with an internal energy converter. That is, the appropriate entity in the model is B and onward B' below [discussion of heat engines follows]. Presumably as well, the prebiotic soup would have been energy importing, and so materialistic chemical evolutionary scenarios therefore have the challenge to credibly account for the origin of the FSCI-rich energy converting mechanisms in the cell relative to Monod's "chance + necessity" [cf also Plato's remarks] only.) . . .
4] . . . to substantiate the claim that evolution violates the second law Strawman alert: neither Thaxton et al 25 years ago, nor I today have made such an argument; as once we deal with the statistical underpinnings of the 2nd law, one sees that we deal with overwhelming probability issues, not with hard and fast logical/physical impossibilities. That is, it is conceivable, for instance, it is logically and physically feasible that lucky noise has generated all the remarks on this thread, but so overwhelmingly improbable that we routinely infer to agents as the best explanation. The issues on spontaneous origin of life and onward of body plan level biodiversity are of precisely the same order, bearing in mind that the key information storage unit is a 4-state digital string entity known as DNA. [Cf, also, my discussion of the microjets thought expt under point 6, and point 4 in the same appendix on the statistical form of 2 LOT.] Citing TBO ch 7 as is excerpted in the same note:
While the maintenance of living systems is easily rationalized in terms of thermodynamics, the origin of such living systems is quite another matter. Though the earth is open to energy flow from the sun, the means of converting this energy into the necessary work to build up living systems from simple precursors remains at present unspecified (see equation 7-17). The "evolution" from biomonomers of to fully functioning cells is the issue. Can one make the incredible jump in energy and organization from raw material and raw energy, apart from some means of directing the energy flow through the system? In Chapters 8 and 9 we will consider this question, limiting our discussion to two small but crucial steps in the proposed evolutionary scheme namely, the formation of protein and DNA from their precursors. It is widely agreed that both protein and DNA are essential for living systems and indispensable components of every living cell today.11 Yet they are only produced by living cells. Both types of molecules are much more energy and information rich than the biomonomers from which they form. Can one reasonably predict their occurrence given the necessary biomonomers and an energy source? Has this been verified experimentally? These questions will be considered . . . [NB: in my note, I advert to Bradley's recent presentation on an updarted form of this discussion, using Cytochrome C.]
For, we are dealing with a probabilistic issue, and with maximally low probabilities in light of overwhelming weight of states that do not lead to the sort of configs required for life etc, cf my microjets thought expt as an illustrative case in point. That is, the challenge starts with getting to the DNA-enzyme-ribosome etc machinery of the common garden variety “simple” cell. [That case in point also , regrettably, reflects badly on your intended dismissive reductio ad absurdum on 70 kgs of bacteria vs human being: the decisive point of issue, as is plain from the current impasse of OOL studies [cf Shapiro vs Orgel on their recent mutually destructive papers], lies in the origin of the nanotech in the cell; which then leads on to the issue of increments in such FSCI as are required to get to the body-plan level diversity in the fossil record and in the current biosphere.] 5] J, 56: Thanks. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{March 30, 2008
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Okay: Seems that some things are half working in terms of getting through. A few remarks are in order on several points raised above: 1] Barmen, the Confessing Church and Christianity first, it is always a given of the Christian faith that we are finite, fallible, fallen/ sinful [Cf 1 Jn 1:5 – 10 and the significance of “we”] and too often ill-willed; which immediately means that genuine revival and reformation movements will be at best a mixed lot – a lot of good, and more wrong that we are comfortable with; in Peter Hockens' ever so wise words: THE GLORY AND THE SHAME. So, to one-sidedly base one's response to the force of the Barmen Declaration on pointing out that the Confessing Church was not perfect in its response to Nazism [and that the wider church movements that they were in part protesting against were even more imperfect], while trivially true in principle and sadly true on the mixed-blessing nature of the individuals in question, leaves me very uncomfortable with what such a response pattern points to, as it does little more than distract from the key point of the Barmen Declaration. A point we as a civilisation again need to hear, and hear very clearly even as we -- again -- approach the crumbling edge of a very dangerous cliff. A trend, BTW, that PZM – the case in point at the head of this thread -- sadly, aptly illustrates:
. . . The only appropriate response should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy, far-right politicians … I say, screw the polite words and careful rhetoric. It’s time for scientists to break out the steel-toed boots and brass knuckles, and get out there and hammer on the lunatics and idiots.
Notice how he responds to those who differ with him, with blatant contempt and tellingly violent and vindictive imagery and proposals? Ironic isn't it that he then turns around and most loudly protests against those who excluded him from a private screening that he in effect sought to gate-crash. [But in fact, the incident, sadly, is indicative of the sort of will-to-power, law unto oneself, ethically incoherent relativistic thinking that is at work here, just under the surface . . .] Namely, the Christian Faith [insofar as it is faithful to its NT roots] at its best is inherently opposed -- and opposed to the point of willingness to peacefully die for one's convictions at the hands of tyrants -- to the sort of will-to-power [the echo of Nietzsche is intended], manipulative relativist ethics that increasingly characterises the whole West as the effects of radical secularisation driven by that self-refuting worldview system, evolutionary materialism, make themselves increasingly felt. That means, folks, in direct terms, that the increasingly plain trend to abuse the concepts of “hate crimes” and “rights” to criminalise core Christian convictions, is headed only one place: martyrdom of the best, people who -- in a healthy culture -- would be among our most valued and respected citizens. [I can't believe that here I am, writing in a Western context in 2008 and echoing Josip Ton circa 1970's, writing to the Communists. So far have we come. So sadly far.] Christians who take the NT seriously [and BTW, Ac 17 is pretty explicit that God has made the Nations of one blood; which directly and seriously undercuts the premise of racism] are not to be viewed ipso facto as rabid fascists and potential terrorists and tyrants. Further to that, principled objection to license, libertinism and amorality should not be confused with opposition to liberty with justice for all; especially when the uncensored historical record -- onlookers, note the silence on this above -- shows that the Christian faith has materially and at great cost, contributed to the upliftment and liberation of mankind, including the reformation of a great many terrible evils. Nor, should we think that principled challenging of radical, too often ill-thought through “innovations” that exploit the rhetoric of “rights” and “equality” -- never forget the French Revolution's triad: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity -- is hateful or bigoted. For, in any sane and reasonably functional society, for excellent reason: radical change needs to bear the burden of proof to show that it will on balance do more good than harm to the community. So, in that light, let us all soberly kindly re-look at Barmen theses 12 and 18; remembering that these theses are hallowed by martyrs' blood:
8.12 We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God’s revelation . . . . 8.18 We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions.
2] LNF on the chain of history from Darwin to 1933 – 45 Tribune is very correct to point out that “LED” -- i.e. we are dealing with historical facts -- is key: Darwinism [with a heavy emphasis on the eugenics and competition of races side of it; cf. Descent of Man chs 5 - 6] was, sadly, a key component of the “scientific” roots of what Hiter and his doctors did. (I still remember my shock in the late 70's when I was told that a lot of the brutal, murderous prison camp research was deeply embedded in modern medical progress to that point. In subsequent decades, researchers were able to purify the stream of medicine by redoing the research on ethically sound footing.) [. . . ]kairosfocus_{March 29, 2008
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PannenbergOmega (9): "You guys may find it interesting that a classmate of mine thinks I’m a 'Fascist' because I’m a traditional Christian." kairosfocus (21): “Here is the Barmen Declaration against the Nazis by the Confessing Church, 1934? JPCollado (29): "Hey kairosfocus, that was 1934... There were many, many exceptions of course; but the visible church in Germany as a whole (if only its leadership) failed to abide by its First Century code and was tarnished in the process." More information, same topic, from Liberal Fascism (2007) by Jonah Goldberg:
[T]he Nazis worked relentlessly to replace...Christianity with a new political religion. The shrewdest way to accomplish this was to co-opt Christianity via the Gleichschaltung ["coordination" in German] while at the same time shrinking traditional religion's role in civil society. ... The German historian Götz Aly explains how Hitler purchased popularity with lavish social welfare programs and middle-class perks, often paid for with stolen Jewish wealth and high taxes on the rich. Hitler banned religious charity, crippling the churches' role as a counterweight to the state. Clergy were put on government salary, hence subjected to state authority. "The parsons will be be made to dig their own graves," Hitler cackled. "They will betray their God to us. They will betray anything for the sake of their miserable little jobs and incomes."... When some Protestant bishops visited the Führer to register complaints [against Nazi policies attempting to co-opt/replace Christianity], Hitler's rage got the better of him. "Christianity will disappear from Germany just as it has done in Russia... The German race has existed without Christianity for thousands of years...and will continue after Christianity has disappeared... We must get used to the teachings of blood and race." When the bishops objected that they supported Nazism's secular aims, just not it's religious innovations, Hitler exploded: "You are traitors to the Volk. Enemies of the Vaterland and destroyers of Germany."
j_{March 29, 2008
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H'mm: Think I forgot to fill in this link to Vox Day's rebuttal to the wave of current atheism polemical arguments that is echoed in several claims above. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{March 29, 2008
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OOPS: Put fiver links in a response; miscounted. Sorry GEMkairosfocus_{March 29, 2008
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#19 allanius I missed your post earlier. I am thrilled that I happened upon it. (!)Upright BiPed_{March 28, 2008
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JPCollado @ 50 I guess this is one of the few occasions that I agree with JP. I wonder how KF and tribune would explain other connections between the catholic church and Naziism, e.g. look up bishop Luigi Hudal or the "ratline".sparc_{March 28, 2008
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Maybe Darwinism doesn't lead to fascism, but it sure does provide fertile ground. And the seeds were germinating in the 19th century. Not too many seem to notice the power and influence of that great banking dynasty that provided the fuel for imperial England to continue with a lustful eye for world dominion. Yet, we saw her stretching her deceitful hand as she poured forth dirty money on the North and on the South during the U.S. Civil War of 1861-65. And under her shadows, one of her darling sons, an affluent and well-connected fellow with a penchant for rhetorical thinking, comes ablaze with a woefully wondrous idea... He calls it Origin of Species and publishes it in November 24, 1859. ....and the world will never be the same again.JPCollado_{March 28, 2008
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tribune: "Yeah, Braun was a real hard-core Nazi. Arrest by the Nazi regime (from Wiki no less)" tribune, the Nazis arrested a lot of their own, even citizens who were loyal to the party from the very beginning. These arrests really don't mean much as they are part and parcel of a totalitarian government bent on inflicting fear on its people for the sake of gaining more control, especially during a time when events weren't going Hitler's way. Anyway, Braun and other German scientists were given free passage to the US via the now declassified Operation Paperclip, a post-WWII clandestine DoD project aimed at safeguarding former Nazi criminals with lots of technological know-how, who were then later used in the expansion of military and space R&D programs.JPCollado_{March 28, 2008
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kairosfocus: "JP: You need to research the history of the Confessing Churches, including the personal stories of two of the key men I named: Dietrich Boenhoffer [theologian and martyr] and Martin Niemoller [WW1 U Boat hero, pastor and confessor, to use the traditional term]." kairos, I've studied this area of history since it relates to my ongoing research into the occult and secret societies (more specifically, for own discussion here, the Thule Society). A quick search on the internet, nay, any book of history dealing with that era, will reveal the following: (all emphases are mine)
In 1934, the League's leaders founded the Confessing Church, representing a minority of all Protestant pastors in Germany. Its ideology was to resist Nazi coercion and to expose the moral hollowness of the pro-Nazi "German Christian" movement. The Confessing Church did not, however, protest Nazi racial or social policies. Although a very small number of individual German theologians--such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer--opposed the regime, throughout the Nazi era the vast majority of the Protestant church leadership did not challenge the state's discriminatory legislation and actions. SOURCE: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum @ http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005206
Theologian Erwin Lutzer, senior pastor at Moody Memorial Church and one who has done extensive research on this, agrees:
Germany, we have learned, was unified in its anger toward its enemies, whether real or imagined. The humiliating Treaty of Versailles, the Communists, and the liberal elite who believed in democracy-all of these were seen as threats to Germany's recovery. Even for those who called themselves Christians a strong Germany was more highly valued than a srong gospel witness, unless the gospel, as was often the case, was reinterpreted to be a plea for loyalty to the German cause. Hatred of the Jews, I'm sorry to say, also flourished within the churches....And although the Jews constituted a small percentage of the population, they were seen as villains, responsible for the defeat of germany in World War I. Although it was grudgingly acknowledged that Jesus was a Jew, it was also asserted that "occasionally a flower did grow in a dung heap." Hitler's Cross, pp.102-04 (Moody Press: Chicago, 1995)
And talking about "the history of 20 centuries of martyrdom," the same phenomenon can be seen in modern China where you have the state-friendly Three Self Patriotic Movement and the underground church worhsipping in hiding and truly living by the New Testament code.JPCollado_{March 28, 2008
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Good find Tribune.DeepDesign_{March 28, 2008
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Yeah, Braun was a real hard-core Nazi. Arrest by the Nazi regime (from Wiki no less)tribune7_{March 28, 2008
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@kairosfocus In P. chem., we have a term called 'handwaving'. 'Handwaving' refers to an argument that has no quantitative rigor, but instead is done by invoking 'intuitive' concepts. Of all the branches of physical chemistry, thermodynamics is the least susceptible to handwaving; you *must* use strictly formal proofs, or you're lost. Now, the term 'raw energy' simply does not occur in thermodynamics. There is energy, and there are two flavors of free energy. When a term like 'raw energy' appears in a text, it's a dead give-away they're handwaving. What you need to show, to substantiate the claim that evolution violates the second law, is to show rigorously and formally that the total entropy must decrease in the course of evolution. In fact, it's not at all clear that the entropy of an organism, per unit mass, decreases in the course of evolution, even ignoring the entropy of the surroundings. Is the entropy of 70 kg of bacteria less than or greater than the entropy of a 70 kg human being? I don't know, and it's not a straightforward question to answer. By the way, it's not necessary to invoke energy flows or an open system to figure out the entropy change caused by sunlight falling on the earth and then being re-radiated into space. The photons that are radiated from the sun have an entropy; those that are radiated back into space have a (vastly greater) entropy; the difference gives the rate of entropy production by the earth per second or day or whatever. It vastly exceeds the loss of entropy by the growth and preoduction of living systems.gerardharbison_{March 28, 2008
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I propose that from now on we refrain from refering to Darwin's theory as "Darwinism" on this blog. Why? Because Darwin's theory isn't just a theory, we can't explain anything without it. Before Charles Darwin we didn't know how children were concieved or that the Earth revolved around the sun. So refering to it as Darwinism is misleading. I propose we call it The Most Holy Truth That Can't Be Questioned. Unless you are some kind of slow witted creationist, but even then you covered by the state.DeepDesign_{March 28, 2008
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KF:
Christian = Nazi. Sure! NOT!!!!!!!!!
Surely not, the US were lucky to rescue some good christians from Germany after 45.From another UD thread
The great rocket scientist and director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Wernher von Braun (Lutheran), in 1972 in a letter to the California State Board of Education where he was opposed to simply teaching one-sided Darwinian evolution in public schools, elegantly put it this way: “But must we really light a candle to see the sun?”
Thus, anti-Darwinist + scientist + (of course) engineer + christian (lutheran) = anti-nazi? You better visit Dora-Mittelbau and note that he joined the NSDAP in 1937 and the SS in 1940.sparc_{March 28, 2008
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which assumes that the reasoning of sociopaths can be analyzed, Actually, the reasoning of sociopaths is fairly well understood and a sociopath would use whatever means available to accomplish his goal of domination. Now something certainly worthwhile pondering is assuming Hitler was sociopath -- which is not necessarily the case -- why would his followers, most of whom were not sociopaths, find it acceptable to murder people based on their genes? Here is profile for sociopaths, btw What U.S. president would fit that bill?tribune7_{March 28, 2008
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Just because Darwinists scream louder, doesn't make them correct.DeepDesign_{March 28, 2008
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LarryNormanFan, both you and Turner Coats are ignoring the fact that the Holocaust could not have happened without Charles Darwin.DeepDesign_{March 28, 2008
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Your question, which assumes that the reasoning of sociopaths can be analyzed, is absurd on too many levels to deal with. To such depths have we descended.larrynormanfan_{March 28, 2008
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“A little unfair”? Try totally unfair, Why did Hitler find it morally acceptable to murder people based on their genes?tribune7_{March 28, 2008
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"practiced Darwinism?" Oh my goodness. "A little unfair"? Try totally unfair, historically bankrupt, bass-ackwards, etc. Here's a thought: when you (rightly) oppose someone's cartoon view of Christianity, try not to counter-strike with another cartoon.larrynormanfan_{March 28, 2008
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No difference between ‘em in terms of truthiness. Sure there is: Hitler opposed Christianity and practiced Darwinism. Hitler sought to destroy Christianity and establish Darwinism-- OK, that may be a little unfair but he sought to impose a morality based on genetics which took Darwinism as an authority.tribune7_{March 28, 2008
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Here's another one: 16. Whoever wishes to see banished from church and school the Biblical history and the wise doctrines of the Old Testament, blasphemes the name of God, blasphemes the Almighty's plan of salvation, and makes limited and narrow human thought the judge of God's designs over the history of the world: Sounds like the Pope could have been talking about PZ himself.tribune7_{March 28, 2008
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that was 1934, And this was 1937: . . . The experiences of these last years have fixed responsibilities and laid bare intrigues, which from the outset only aimed at a war of extermination. In the furrows, where We tried to sow the seed of a sincere peace, other men - the "enemy" of Holy Scripture - oversowed the cockle of distrust, unrest, hatred, defamation, of a determined hostility overt or veiled, fed from many sources and wielding many tools, against Christ and His Church. They, and they alone with their accomplices, silent or vociferous, are today responsible, should the storm of religious war, instead of the rainbow of peace, blacken the German skies. 7. Take care, Venerable Brethren, that above all, faith in God, the first and irreplaceable foundation of all religion, be preserved in Germany pure and unstained. The believer in God is not he who utters the name in his speech, but he for whom this sacred word stands for a true and worthy concept of the Divinity. Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who "Reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly" (Wisdom viii. 1). Neither is he a believer in God . . . 8. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things - whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds. Shame the rest of the world -- those order-loving atheists in England (H.G. Wells, GB Shaw), Hitler's atheist ally Stalin -- didn't listen.tribune7_{March 28, 2008
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No difference between 'em in terms of truthiness.larrynormanfan_{March 28, 2008
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Just as idiotic, in fact, as the claim that Darwinism leads to Nazism. no, no, no, no, no. Not leads, but led. There is a difference.tribune7_{March 28, 2008
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JP: You need to research the history of the Confessing Churches, including the personal stories of two of the key men I named: Dietrich Boenhoffer [theologian and martyr] and Martin Niemoller [WW1 U Boat hero, pastor and confessor, to use the traditional term]. Similarly, the story of the White Rose movement [students, soldiers and a professor -- all martyrs] needs to be far better known. While you are at it, you need to research the history of 20 centuries of martyrdom -- as part of the obvious onward agenda of many radicals is the outright criminalisation of core elements of Bible-believing Christianity. [As to the attempted rewriting of basic morality being used to accomplish that, I can do no better than to point in warning on consequences to Isa 5:20.] As to the issue of the line form Darwinism to Nazism, perhaps LNF needs to read Chs 5 - 6 from Darwin's Descent of Man, in 1870, in light of this key remark in an infamous letter to one William Graham dated July 3, 1881:
I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago, of being overwhelmed by the Turk, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.
The link from Darwinism to Nazism and the death camps, historically, is real, all too real; but of course VERY taboo in most public media or educational circles. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{March 28, 2008
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kairosfocus said:
Christian = Nazi. Sure! NOT!!!!!!!!!
Quite right: I agree totally. To say that Christians are fascists, or that Christianity is like fascism, is idiotic. Just as idiotic, in fact, as the claim that Darwinism leads to Nazism.larrynormanfan_{March 27, 2008
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Not wanting to diverge from the main topic discussed herein, I think inserting a biographical tidbit provided by that saintly lady who authored the The Hiding Place will illuminate what many churches and Christians faced while under the dark reign of the Nazis. Corrie's pastor, Rev.Hawthorne, found out that the ten Boom family was hiding a Jewish baby in violation of Nazi law. He questioned the family's imprudence and worried about what consequences this would bring. "Is it right," he asked, "to jeopardize so many for the sake of one Jewish baby?" The reverend, feeling nervous about the whole situation, decides to hurriedly leave the house without a word after receiving nothing but a dejected look from the family. Corrie' sister, Betsie, asks Papa ten Boom how could such a person come to wear the cloth? To which her father responded: “If a mouse lives in a cookie jar, does that make it a cookie?”JPCollado_{March 27, 2008
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