Teaching ID = A crime against humanity
| June 25, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Last week I reported on the Council of Europe denouncing ID as a threat to democracy (go here). I also asked how long it would be before advocating ID in Europe would be regarded as a hate-crime. We may have to wait no longer:
Secularist Europe Silences Pro-Lifers and Creationists
From the desk of Paul Belien on Sat, 2007-06-23 18:53Last week, a German court sentenced a 55-year old Lutheran pastor to one year in jail for “Volksverhetzung†(incitement of the people) because he compared the killing of the unborn in contemporary Germany to the holocaust. Next week, the Council of Europe is going to vote on a resolution imposing Darwinism as Europe’s official ideology. The European governments are asked to fight the expression of creationist opinions, such as young earth and intelligent design theories. According to the Council of Europe these theories are “undemocratic†and “a threat to human rights.†. . .
47 Responses to Teaching ID = A crime against humanity
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Jehu,
“Maybe Lerle is an anti-semitic holocaust denier. I really don’t know.” There is no “maybe” about it – the guy says that Jews are bent on world domination and Auschwitz is faked. You don’t have to take my word for this: read the man’s own writing.
“But if he is, what is the point of comparing abortion to the holocaust if the holocaust never occured? That doesn’t logically sound like a statement a holocaust denier would make.” Hmmm, maybe because logic isn’t his strength. Holocaust deniers don’t do logic.
dl,
“I thought the point of the original post was that, in parts of Europe, unpopular beliefs are being suppressed with the threat of prison.” The point of the original post seems to be that teaching Intelligent Design is, or is in on the brink of becoming, a crime (e.g. the headline: “Teaching ID = A crime against humanity”). That has nothing to do with Lerle’s case.
“Lerle was in trouble because his statements “incited the peopleâ€Â.” No – Lerle is in trouble because he said the holocaust didn’t happen. In Germany, that is a crime.
“That, along with the COE statement that creationist theories are “synonymous with attacks of utmost virulence on human rights ” The COE did not say that creationist theories are “synonymous with attacks of utmost virulence on human rightsâ€Â. What the COE said was “If we are not careful, creationism could become a threat to human rights, which are a key concern of the Council of Europe.†In so much as teaching creationism can violate freedom of religion, this is much the same position taken by virtually every American court which has considered the matter in the last 40 years or so.
Rob,
“The point of the original post seems to be that teaching Intelligent Design is, or is in on the brink of becoming, a crime (e.g. the headline: “Teaching ID = A crime against humanityâ€Â).
I agree that that’s the point. That point is supported by evidence of intolerance towards differing viewpoints, which is presumably why the article was referenced . I was trying to point out that the original post did not in any way support Lerles activities. In particular I was referring to the part of your post where you said “Probably not relevant to his case, but worth considering before you offer him your full support,”
“That has nothing to do with Lerle’s case”
Lerles case is the result of an attitude that supports suppression of ideas. In that sense it is relevant to ID. The COE certainly seem to believe ID is a threat to humanity and should be suppressed.
“The COE did not say that creationist theories are “synonymous with attacks of utmost virulence on human rightsâ€Â.”
When I re-read that, I realized that I didn’t phrase that correctly. Let me try again…
In the draft of “The dangers of creationism in education”, paragraph 9 criticizes creationism, paragraph 10 praises acceptance of TOE, and then paragraph 11 says:
“However, the scientific approach is still not well understood and this is liable to encourage the development of all manner of fundamentalism and extremism, synonymous with attacks of utmost virulence on human rights.”
They’re clearly saying that teaching of creationism (including, in their opinion, ID) leads to activities that are ” synonymous with attacks of utmost virulence on human rights”.
“No – Lerle is in trouble because he said the holocaust didn’t happen. In Germany, that is a crime.”
I agree. I was wrong about that.
To sum up, here’s my understanding of the post:
There is a philosophy that supports suppression of ideas considered dangerous, including suppressing those ideas by putting people in prison. The COE (which I’m assuming is representative of at least some governments in Europe) feels that ID is one of those dangerous ideas. The post wasn’t support holocaust denial or Lerle. It was just using his situation as an example of what that philosophy may lead to.
“No – Lerle is in trouble because he said the holocaust didn’t happen. In Germany, that is a crime.â€Â
That is nonsense. How could he compare abortion to the holocaust if he denies the holocaust?
His opinion on the Jews is irrelevant to the accusation.
As was stated before he is hardly a martyr – martyrs die. And a year in prison for speaking his own beliefs publicly is hardly just.
You’re out to lunch on this and your self-righteous fulminations against this post are just so Darwinian style equus asinus.
Lerle does not deny the holocaust – he believes it was less than reported. Less than 6 million does not = 0. Get it? Can you do basic arithmetic?
And your disgusting, ignorance and denial based comment, “…all in the name of preventing a medical procedure that in most cases leads to the extinction of a small, hardly differentiated mass of cells.” is proof of your glaring ignoratio elenchi.
I’m sure a lot of other people who understand the science that says that a human foetus is far more than a “mass of cells” would see things the same way.
Which is why nurses in one hospital room are killing (aborting) the foetus of 6 months to cater to the caprices of the parent, while nurses in the next room are trying to save a 6 month old foetus (premature birth) knowing it can survive – because it is a full human being.
You’re another typical wannabe intellectual, a Darwinist ignoramus and an offensive fustilarian niggler to boot.
“What would you do with a brain if you had one?”
Yep, that’s denial. He’s denying that 6 million Jews were killed. This is wiki’s definition:
Holocaust denial is the claim that the genocide of Jews during World War II  usually referred to as the Holocaust[1]  did not occur in the manner and to the extent described by current scholarship.
It looks like the accusation was holocaust denial (check the translation of this page, and what they say the charges were: it’s not clear if abortion, or even ID, were part of the case). I’d say that his opinion on Jews was relevant.
It looks to me like someone has decided to conflate Lerle’s position on abortion and his holocaust denial, so as to create a newsworthy martyr. It helps that the original case was conducted in German, so it’s more difficult to follow the details (and certainly more difficult to follow them up!), because most readers won’t speak German. I’m still trying to find a good news webpage in English that describes the case.
Bob
Are you really taking the stance that he is not a Holocaust denier?
I think it’s great you guys continue to defend this guy. He was jailed for holocaust denial period. His views on ID had zero to do with it contrary to what Mr. Dembski says.
You can’t be serious. The classic stance of strident holocaust deniers is to reduce the numbers. That is still denial.
That is what I thought Bill intended to highlight as well…but I doubt that will stop the Darwinists. I don’t see the point in discussing Lerle…that’s more of a side topic.
BigDumbChimp et al.:
I’m not defending this guy. I’m pointing out the facts as reported.
If he is minimizing the holocaust statistics then he cannot be denying the holocaust altogether.
The guy compared abortion to the holocaust. So this cannot be a total denial of the holocaust.
This isn’t hard.
The charge against was him denial of the holocaust – but all the news journals stated it was because of his words on abortion. Where is the relation between abortion and denial of the holocaust? There is none. That is where the injustice lies.
And even if the guy has denied the holocaust why do the news agencies report it as speaking against abortion? The originals reports mentioned others who had been legally charged for speaking against abortion? Get it?
Unless the news services of Europe have completely fumbled this story you anti-ID “bigdumbchimps” are the ones who are misconstruing the whole thing – as usual – in order to attack Mr. Dembski – as usual.
I agree with the others who have mentioned the original point of this thread. It’s about intolerance and suppression of ideas and speech and the relation to the CoE’s schemes against ID – not Lerle per se.
So I leave off discussing with these die hard Darwinists over Lerle’s charge of holocaust denial with regards to his anti-abortion speeches (clearly in the reports).
“The news services or Europe” haven’t fumbled the story. One questionable web site in Belgium posted a complete misrepresentation of the facts of the case, and the American pro-life and creationist movement has seized on it like a drowning man clutching a straw.
More of Lerle’s writings below. I suggest this site and the other people promoting this falsehood retract it really, really fast, because this one is about to come back and bite you.
Translated by me from http://www.johannes-lerle.de/S.....sverhetzer
“Why did America intervene in the Second World War? The Jew-controlled propaganda media played up Hitler’s crimes and agitated for a crusade at Stalin’s side for democracy and for religious liberty. Why didn’t America fight together with Hitler against Stalin? After all, Stalin’s body count was many times Hitler’s. Also Stalin, in contrast to Hitler, was not democratically legitimized, and he granted less religious liberty than the much-maligned German dictator. But such facts were concealed at that time in by the World-Jewry controlled propaganda press.
That the people whom Jesus Christ called “liars”, “hypocrites” and “murderers”, are long gone, does not mean that their spiritual descendants are not murderers. The opposite is constantly being confirmed. Both Iran and Iraq threatened the state of Israel. So “jewish”–dominated America at the time of President Reagan supported the later much maligned Saddam Hussein in his war of aggression against Iran, with satellite photography and weapons, including war gas. That war cost approximately a million human lives. If it is not murder to push two peoples to war with each other, then what is murder?”
One of the things that the press and some others who post here do is distract from the basic point on Darwinism. It is a doctrine that does not like scrutiny. The main point of the post above is the attempt by the COE to marginalize dissent on Darwin and possibly make it an offense similar to holocaust denial. Paul Belien’s post at the Brussels Journal may be an extreme almost paranoid comparison but we will have to wait and see what happens. The original post by the COE was off the charts itself as a an extreme reaction to legitimate dissent. But that was from a legitimate government organization.
The second injustice is the sentencing of Lerles to a year in prison, which is the minor part of the post and used mainly to show what dissent can lead to, Apparently Lerles already previously spent 8 months in prison for protesting abortion. I do not know the particulars of this but there was no reference to the holocaust for this imprisonment, only that he opposed abortion. Apparently there have been others who have opposed abortion and have served short jail sentences. It brings up unpleasant memories of Hitler.
It is interesting the COE is advocating a favorite doctrine of Hitler and trying to marginalize any dissent from that while German courts throw in jail people who use language similar to what the Nazi’s use.
gerardharbison.
I agree that the comments you posted about Lerles are that of a nutcase and should be dealt with accordingly but imprisonment seems extreme to us in the US for such an offense. We could rid the streets of a lot of people in the US for making similar types of accusations.
The real issue is the attempt of the COE to marginalize dissent and as Patrick said above, Lerles is a side show meant to distract from the basic issue.
Another side issue is what is the truth in the past jail terms of those who have opposed abortion. Was it for verbal opposition only or was it for something more extreme such as physical actions. It is one thing to oppose abortion and call it murder, another to march within a certain distance of an abortion clinic and another to shoot an abortion doctor. It would be interesting to see how many and for what, people received jail sentences. It may be all hyperbole or it could be pernicious to dissent.
Given the manifest falsity of the brusselsjournal.com story posted at the top of this thread, why would you believe Lerle really was sentenced previously for opposing abortion? The sort of stuff I posted is quite enough to get him imprisoned in Germany for promoting racial hatred. Unless I see a link to a legitimate German news course, I’m going to remain agnostic on what his previous convictions were for.
As for Germany’s Holocaust denial laws, they don’t fit well with American views of free speech, but most democracies, including vibrant ones, have laws against publishing incitement or racial hatred.
gerardharbison,
Interesting response. You reveal more about yourself by this comment than all the previous comments.
Post the quote where he calls Auschwitz “a deception.”
Cite please. Preferably a reference to German law.
Post the quote, please, where he claims Auschwitz is faked.
Post the quote, please, where he says the holocaust did not happen.
Post the quote, please, where he denies 6 million Jews were killed.
If wiki’s definition is not the definition used by the German legal system, why is it even relevant, since the debate is obvioulsy whether he was guilty of the vroim he was charged with under German law?
Frankly, I don’t believe any of you “deniers” because you fail to supply the evidence which would substantiate your questionable claims.
Cite please. Preferably a reference to German law.
Since my previous post seems to have disappeared, simply examine section 130 (3) of the German “Strafgesetzbuch”. Paraphrasing: to deny or render harmless the acts of the Nazis is punishable by fines and/or jail time. In Lerle’s case, he did the latter, which is why he only received one year instead of the maximum of five.
No, he was not jailed for comparing abortion to the holocaust, advocating intelligent design, or any other such nonsense. He was jailed for holocaust denial, a crime in Germany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.....ust_denial), as most of the people have figured commenting have figured out by now. Here`s a retraction from one publication: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jun/07062606.html.
[...] Close friend of STR and leading ID Math Guru William Dembski was quick to defend this brave Culture Warrior and close friend of ShelleyTheRepublican ; In his shocking piece entitled “Teaching ID – A Crime Against Humanity?” Dembski sys that which we would all say if we only shared his God-given gift of foresight and intelligence: “I also asked how long it would be before advocating ID in Europe would be regarded as a hate-crime. We may have to wait no longer” [...]