“Gradually the myths crumble. All that’s left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic.”
Comments
KF:
Well, we've had this debate already. I'll just summarize my perspective by saying that in my worldview, the challenge is to live up to uncompromising integrity and unconditional love. Do that and virtue will take care of itself.Bruce David
January 4, 2012
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BD:
I am a bit busy to take up a full orbed debate on moral relativism just now, so what I will say is think very carefully about the shift from it is wrong to torture innocent babies, to most people would agree that it is wrong to torture innocent babies.
Next to that, you will see that it is a challenge to live UP to a worldview that calls us to virtue, but all too easy to live DOWN to one that undermines it. Which has a lot to do with our patently fallen moral condition.
Busy just now . . .
GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 4, 2012
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KF,
First, let me say that I agree with much of what you say, particularly your points 13 & 14 that materialism is self refuting. I have made the same argument myself in several other threads. And of course, as you know, I am no fan of Darwinism.
I also accept the logic of your argument regarding how an IS can ground an OUGHT, which turns on your point #2: "Ethical truths exist."
There, however, is the rub. I know that atheists would simply deny the truth of this assertion (as do I for very different reasons). The fact that most people agree with a particular ethical statement, such as the one you give ("It is always wrong to torture innocent babies for pleasure or convenience.") does not raise it to the level of a "truth". Universal or near universal acceptance of a proposition simply does not have that power.
Furthermore, I think you overrate the ability of belief in a worldview that includes morality to alter the behavior of people who hold it. One has only to look at the history of how devout Christian men and women treated subject peoples during the European expansion into the New World and Asia to see the truth of this.
My view is that there are really only two motivations for actions that most people would classify as "moral": 1) socialization and societal pressure, including fear of punishment, and 2) an internal sense of what one's own integrity and loving, caring nature requires of one. I think that compared to these two, a belief in absolute moral imperatives is quite weak.
I take it seriously that we are all made in the "image and likeness" of God. Further, I believe that this means that in our deepest nature, whatever our metaphysical beliefs, we are absolutely committed to the truth, we hold our word as sacred, and we are unconditionally loving. I believe that, whatever our metaphysical commitments, what will guide our actions will depend on how much we are in touch with that deepest nature. This explains why so many atheists, such as my brother and Christopher Hitchens, exhibit both kindness and integrity in spite of their professed moral relativism. Conversely, it explains why many religious people of all varieties have acted with so much cruelty throughout history---they were not in touch with their essential nature to any great degree, and their professed belief in religiously based moral principles held little power over their actions.Bruce David
January 3, 2012
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OOPS, above, and it seems that my nouns and verbs these days seem to want to go their own ways, especially when I am tired. Pardon. KFkairosfocus
January 3, 2012
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F/N: I should note that, for instance, the abuse of chemistry to make and use poison gases in those infamous showers at Auschwitz, was an abuse of Chemistry that speaks to not whether the chemistry as such was grounded, but whether the ethics of the chemists was properly grounded.
Similarly, it is not well known that there was a petition of scientists on the Manhattan Project, that the Japanese should have been shown a DEMONSTRATION of the atomic bomb. This was suppressed by the leadership who advised Truman to proceed to use the bomb on cities. This, again, points to ethical rather than scientific failure.
The case with von Braun and the V2 is a bit more complex, as this could have been used as a legitimate weapon of war, say as long range artillery against the ports in Normandy or the UK fleet in Scapa Flow.
In the case of evolutionary materialism and theories of common decent, the matter is a little more complex, especially as the very definition of science is being reworked ideologically by advocates of evo mat. To disentangle in brief:
a: Common descent at the level of modification of body plans is empirically supported and not in dispute, e.g. circumpolar gulls etc.
b: Universal common descent from a common unicellular ancestral organism lacks empirical support in many ways, but is compatible with design, especially where schemes such as use of viri to insert modified genetic programs is brought to bear.
c: In short, common descent and common design are not incompatible; this is a commonplace view of many design theory advocates (and many historic evolutionists including the co-founder of evolutionary theory, Wallace).
d: So, the attempt -- cf here on if you doubt me -- to force-fit evo mat as an unchallengeable a priori unto theories of common descent, often by implications of so-called methodological naturalism [see especially the views of the US NSTA, NAS and Mahner on this], is highly questionable.
e: As evo mat is a worldview, and has been so since before the days of Plato, it is properly subject to worldview level tests, and arguably fails them; being incoherent and amoral.
f: However as the OP documents, this ideology has been used to pervert science and to create the false perception that science grounds materialism. So, we have a worldview right to expose that.
g: But also, within this ambit, once science has been infected by materialist ideology, it sees itself as explaining everything, and being the basis for all warrant that counts. Thus, the amorality poses significant moral hazards.
h: We have every right to address such under the heading, science in society.
As, I have done
KFkairosfocus
January 3, 2012
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Dr Liddle, kindly cf here below on the significance of keystone ethical truths and worldview level ideological dominance issues for science in society. KFkairosfocus
January 3, 2012
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BD:
Actually, I am thinking beyond whether or not a theory may be true -- historically all theories strongly tend to be corrected and are not strictly true but rather empirically reliable "so far" (and epistemologically and logically scientific methods and investigations provide support for laws, models and theories not demonstrative proof) -- to the responsibilities of practitioners in society.
For instance, that scientific theories etc SHOULD seek the truth, that scientists SHOULD be truthful and objective in making investigations, that scientists SHOULD carry out safe and responsible lab and field practices, etc etc are all ethical issues deeply intertwined in teh practice of science.
In that context, scientists have responsibilities for how they present and apply their theories, especially where politics, vulnerable people and science intersect. As one who is himself a scientist and educator, who also addresses science and development policy issues, who lives on an island where at any given moment the evacuation sirens can sound on emergency order of scientists at the Observatory, that is a daily fact of my own existence.
And, BTW, my conclusion on these matters is, that generally speaking science too often does not mix well with politics where vulnerable people are involved. That is why Science in Society is a serious matter for careful reflection.
That is for the issue of context.
Now, you highlight the centrality of truth in our thinking about the world. So, now, let us multiply this by the concept that truths cohere in a unified whole, i.e. reality is a whole, and the sum of truths about reality will be a whole as well.
So, in steps:
1 --> We have a duty of care in science as elsewhere to seek and live by the truth. (Already, ethics is deeply intertwined.)
2 --> Ethical truths exist, e.g. it is always wrong to torture innocent babies for pleasure or convenience.
3 --> If a proposed worldview then denies such keystone ethical truths, it is contradicting truths that are far more credible than the worldview construct as a whole.
4 --> Such a proposed worldview then fails to account for important truths, or may even contradict them. It is thus now under probation, and should be adjusted to better match the well-known, credible truths.
5 --> If it cannot be so adjusted as to remain itself while addressing such truths, then the view can be seen as falsified by direct contradiction to known truths.
6 --> You will notice, I am here speaking of worldviews, not science. We saw from the beginning that scientific theories are provisionally empirically reliable, not strictly true. Though we should treat them as serious, we should not close the door to correction. So, if a claim of science contradicts a credible well-warranted truth,it is the claim that in the first instance needs to be reassessed.
7 --> Further to this, evolutionary materialism is primarily a worldview, not a scientific theory, as say we can see from Plato's The laws, Bk X. That is, it has been on the table as an option for 2350 and more years.
8 --> Now, it is a well known principle of ethical analysis that IS cannot ground OUGHT, save if the IS already enfolds the ought. That is why all worldviews -- including evolutionary materialism -- face the challenge of having a foundational IS that can ground OUGHT.
9 --> Notoriously, evolutionary materialism has in its foundation only matter, energy, space and time in some form or other. These, patently, can ground no oughts. That is why it is inescapably radically relativist and amoral, reducing in Plato's terms to "the highest right is might."
10 --> So, on the grounds of being in direct contradiction to the known truth and fact of ethical obligation, evolutionary materialism as a worldview is in direct co0ntrqadiction to a major cluster of truth, and is factually inadequate, incoherent, and explanatorily impotent.
11 --> Unfortunately, in our time, it has become an a priori imposition on science [cf here on], and adherents seek to use their "might" to redefine science so that by definition, evolutionary materialism will be "right," and only that which kowtows to it will be seen as valid science. This, in an era of radical, over-reaching scientism, where if something is not seen as "scientific," it is not seen as credible.
12 --> So, science is being taken ideological captive to evolutionary materialism, and must be liberated.
13 --> A key step in that liberation is to FIRST expose the radical incoherence of such evolutionary materialism, as can be seen here on. Just to clip Haldane, we can see in a nutshell the basic dilemma that such evo mat would radically undermine the credibility of the very minds we must use to think scientifically:
"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." [["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
14 --> That is, THE WORLDVIEW OF EVOLUTIONARY MATERIALISM IS SELF-REFUTING.
15 --> In addition, we may highlight that this same worldview is inescapably amoral and radically relativist, having no is that can ground ought. Thus, it is prone to moral hazards, and will tend to undermine the moral consensus of the community if it takes science captive in an era where scientism prevails.
16 --> This is exactly what happened with Social Darwinism, in eugenics, in scientific racism, and in the mass sterilisations and genocides that were rooted in these clusters of ideas.
17 --> Which is where Hitler comes in as a case in point, with the scientific, general academic, legal, medical and engineering establishments of Germany being corrupted by such scientism and Haeckel et al derived evolutionary thought. But also with roots in Darwin's own thought as can be seen from his The Descent of Man, esp chs 5 - 7, etc. (Darwin was among the first social darwinists.)
18 --> Now, in dealing with the war criminals, their radical relativism used as a legal defense -- they were acting in accord with legal and moral stances that were the consensus of their community and so should not be subjected to a panel of the victors and judged by the standards of the victors -- had to be countered at Nuremberg, and this is how Robert Jackson did so:
. . . In The law Above the Law, John Warwick Montgomery describes [the Nazi] argument: “The most telling defense offered by the accused was that they had simply followed orders or made decisions within the framework of their own legal system, in complete consistency with it, and they therefore ought not rightly be condemned | because they deviated from the alien value system of their conquerors” (emphasis added).4
But the tribunal did not accept this justification. In the words of Robert H. Jackson, chief counsel for the United States at the trials, the issue was not one of power — the victor judging the vanquished — but one of higher moral law. “The tribunal rises above the provincial and the transient,” he said, “and seeks guidance not only from International Law, but also from the basic principles of jurisprudence, which are assumptions of civilization . . . . ” 5 [Beckwith, Francis, and Koukl, Greg, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air, Baker (2005 printing) pp. 50 - 51; Judge Jackson's words emphasised. HT, Google Books.]
18 --> In short, policy makers, academics, scientists, doctors, engineers and military officers are all accountable before the bar of clear objective moral principles that have force of law and are foundational to sound law. Regardless of what Nazi courts, ideologues and power brokers up to and including Hitler may have thought or said, what was being done was wrong, was patently wrong, and was a matter of willful mass murder, massive theft, etc.
__________
Consequently, science in society is an important issue, and it speaks straight to the current ideologisation of science.
We must not allow the dominance of science by an ideology to blind us to the truth challenges faced by that ideology, or to the inescapably provisional nature of the science. Including, where key foundational, credible ethical truths and associated duties are in play.
And that comes right back to the propaganda intention highlighted in the original post, to use "science" to create the perception that evolutionary materialism is scientifically established, undeniable truth, thence to undermine the perceived credibility of the institutions that have been foundational to ethical thought and progress in our civilisation.
GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 3, 2012
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For once I agree with you, Elizabeth. The truth is the truth. If one doesn't like the consequences, whatever they are, too bad. One's dislike doesn't alter the truth one iota.
Now I happen to agree that Darwinsim is "the dumbest idea ever taken seriously by science", but not because I don't like its moral consequences. I'm just convinced that it's wrong.
KF: You said,
Thence the challenge to pose a worldview foundational IS that — in an era dominated by scientism — can credibly ground OUGHT in a way that properly reflects human dignity.
With all due respect, I think you have the cart before the horse. Ethics simply cannot drive metaphysics. You have to find out what's true first, and then do your best to derive a satisfactory ethics within that metaphysical context. I think that this emphasis on the negative moral implications of Darwinism that is a major theme of UD is basically impotent in the sense that no one is going to be convinced to change his or her metaphysical beliefs by pointing out adverse consequences of those beliefs for morality. The truth is the truth, whatever it is. We have to deal with what is, not what we want it to be.Bruce David
January 2, 2012
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OT:
The Absurdity of Inflation, String Theory & The Multiverse - Dr. Bruce Gordon - video
http://vimeo.com/34468027
Gem of quote from video:
The End Of Materialism?
* In the multiverse, anything can happen for no reason at all.
* In other words, the materialist is forced to believe in random miracles as a explanatory principle.
* In a Theistic universe, nothing happens without a reason. Miracles are therefore intelligently directed deviations from divinely maintained regularities, and are thus expressions of rational purpose.
* Scientific materialism is (therefore) epistemically self defeating: it makes scientific rationality impossible.
bornagain77
January 2, 2012
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Happy New Year to you as well GEM.Barry Arrington
January 2, 2012
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You are correct in stating that a scientific theory should not be an ideology and should not carry a moral mandate. However, you could not possibly believe that statement to be true today. If so, you have been hiding under a rock for the last 150 or so years of science. Like it or not, and I personally don't, Darwinian theory is what the majority of the scientific community in institutes of higher education, secondary schools and even our governments hang their hats on. Their agendas and even the way they approach scientific problems are molded with darwinian thought. Darwin's theory is seen as the one thing that cannot be question in a field in which one is supposed to question everything. True science has gone by the wayside years ago. While I do agree with you that we cannot judge a theory simply by those who adhere to it or detract from it, one would be foolish to ignore history. History shows over and over again that those who blindly adhere to this theory create a dangerous ideology by doing so. Perhaps it is time we take the theory of the great Darwin down from its pedestal and examine it more closely. Maybe in a Dr. Suess world theories don't become ideologies and carry moral mandates, but in the real world, they can and do.mander41
January 2, 2012
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Eliizabeth:
A scientific theory is not an ideology. It is a scientific theory. It carries no moral mandate.
If the alleged scientific theory isn't science, as is the case with darwinism and neo-darwunism, then it is not even wrong.Joe
January 2, 2012
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Elizabeth Liddle:
A scientific theory is not an ideology. It is a scientific theory. It carries no moral mandate.
A point made often, but more often ignored.Daniel King
January 2, 2012
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Dr Liddle:
Pardon, but the subject currently on the table is not whether Darwinism is right or wrong as a theory of biology, but the origins science in society ethical challenge posed by the theory and its adherents across time.
And, in particular, Mr Arrington has pointed out in the original post, that the author of a quote he uses wished to use the scientific triumph of the theory for the propaganda purpose of undermining confidence in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. A tradition that just happens to be the main source of moral thought and sensibilities in our civilisation.
Which puts Heine's prophecy on the table, from 1831.
100 years before the fact.
And thus also, the consequences that played out on the ground.
In that context, we therefore have to address the moral hazards that may be associated with Darwinian schools of thought, and in particular evolutionary materialism.
Thence the challenge to pose a worldview foundational IS that -- in an era dominated by scientism -- can credibly ground OUGHT in a way that properly reflects human dignity.
(Where evolutionary materialism cannot get out of the starting gates.)
GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 2, 2012
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Even if it were true that Hitler justified his ideology by reference to Darwin's theory, that would not make Darwin's theory wrong.
A scientific theory is not an ideology. It is a scientific theory. It carries no moral mandate.
Einstein's theories were used to develop weapons of mass destruction. That does not make his theories wrong. Nor does it make them right.
And you could equally argue that Darwin's theory tells us that all living things are cousins, and that all people are almost literally, siblings.
The brotherhood of man is a heart-stirring thought. But it does not make Darwin's theory right, any more than Hitler's ideology makes it wrong.
The only thing that falsifies a scientific theory is evidence.Elizabeth Liddle
January 2, 2012
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F/N: I have posted Weikart's crucial lecture here, for record. I think C and others should carefully reflect on the evidence and arguments brought forward therein.kairosfocus
January 2, 2012
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C:
Pardon, but I must be direct.
You are wrong, and wrong in more ways than we can count, in ways that are driven by toxic, misleading talking points that are being irresponsibly circulated in new atheist circles by people who have simply not done their homework -- on the charitable interpretation.
First, you and your ilk need to make proper acquaintance of the recent documentation on what Hitler and ilk were doing and planned to do to the Christian Churches. That is why both the Catholic leadership and the Confessing churches rebuked the Nazis in formal denunciations. In the latter case, they actually issued a creedal document denouncing subversion of the gospel and the church by politically messianistic idolatry, the Barmen Declaration. We are talking here, of leading theological thinkers, such as Barth, Bonhoffer and Niemoller, et al. Of this list one became a martyr and one a confessor. On the Catholic side, the White Rose movement were the first to publicly expose the holocaust in Germany, at the cost of their lives.
In short, there is no reasonable dispute that Hitler was seeking to subvert and manipulate the church, cynically and coldly exploiting the ignorance and goodwill of many in pews or pulpits alike. That is what the cite already given above documents, and you need to read it again, in addition to the just linked Nuremberg investigatory document.
And, I am not even more than mentioning the no 2 group of the holocaust: Catholic Poles, was it 2 million dead. (In the usual lists of victims, this group is somehow conspicuously not named as such, even though they vastly outnumber many of the groups that are commonly listed. Perhaps, you are unaware that the FIRST murdered at Auschwitz were Catholic Poles? Let us never forget, Hitler's first target of his extermination and subjugation policy was Poland, not just Jews in Poland. Though, he singled out Jews for particularly vicious attention, wiping out 90% of the Jews of Poland -- and I am in no way minimising his genocide of Jews; just the opposite, I am highlighting that he was a murderous misanthrope, worse than Robespierre. That 3 million murdered Jews of Poland is already half the Jewish holocaust. Add in the other 2 million or so Poles and you get to almost half the holocaust proper as a whole; the wider European war of course being responsible for the death of maybe 40 - 50 millions. I don't know how the totting up reckons with the 20 millions of Chinese who suffered at the hands of the Japanese as many of these were killed before the fighting started in Europe. IIRC, that 5 mn was also about 1/5 the population of Poland at the time. No prizes for guessing just which nation was no 1 on the list for Lebensraum, to be cleared of "inferior" races and repopulated with Aryans. Cats have no pity on mice. But, herr Schicklegruber, have you not noticed: PEOPLE are neither cats nor mice!!! If a tiger kills a man, we do not try it for murder, though we will shoot it for fear that it has acquired the taste for new easy prey. But, a man who kills and eats another man is universally and properly condemned as a criminal and murderous cannibal, for in him there is the implanted conscience and objective moral accountability that do not come from any mere biology. How dare you suggest that some men have a right of being powerful, to prey on other men like a cat on mice. For shame!)
Going on, you seem to want to distance Hitler from Darwinism.
Plainly, you have not made acquaintance of the line of thought in Germany and elsewhere that demonstrably flowed from Haeckel et al. Let me therefore clip an infamous text from Mein Kampf, as an illustration of the underlying Darwinist thought, taking it from the post on this subject that was made here at UD some six months ago.
I add explanatory comments in parentheses:
_____________
>>Any crossing of two beings not at exactly the same level produces a medium between the level of the two parents. This means: the offspring will probably stand higher than the racially lower parent, but not as high as the higher one. Consequently, it will later succumb in the struggle against the higher level. Such mating is contrary to the will of Nature [--> notice, the capitalisation; (u/d Jul 27: this is not the pivot of the argument, but note the personalisation of Nature as having a will, in context)] for a higher breeding of all life. [ --> Notice, too, the allusion to survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence, aka natural selection] The precondition for this does not lie in associating superior and inferior, but in the total victory of the former. The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he after all is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development of organic living beings [--> i.e. evolution viewed as progress] would be unthinkable.
The consequence of this racial purity, universally valid in Nature, is not only the sharp outward delimitation of the various races, but their uniform character in themselves. The fox is always a fox, the goose a goose, the tiger a tiger, etc., and the difference can lie at most in the varying measure of force, strength, intelligence, dexterity, endurance,etc., of the individual specimens. [ --> survival of the fittest, with a focus on the predators] But you will never find a fox who in his inner attitude might, for example, show humanitarian tendencies toward geese, as similarly there is no cat with a friendly inclination toward mice. [ --> Notice the ominous implications]
Therefore, here, too, the struggle among themselves arises less from inner aversion than from hunger and love. In both cases, Nature looks on calmly, with satisfaction, in fact. In the struggle for daily bread all those who are weak and sickly or less determined succumb, while the struggle of the males for the female [--> i.e. effectively sexual selection] grants the right or opportunity to propagate only to the healthiest. And struggle is always a means for improving a species’ health and power of resistance and, therefore, a cause of its higher development. [--> i.e. of evolution via struggle for existence and survival of the fittest]
If the process were different, all further and higher development would cease and the opposite would occur. [--> devolution] For, since the inferior always predominates numerically over the best, if both had the same possibility of preserving life and propagating, the inferior would multiply so much more rapidly that in the end the best would inevitably be driven into the background, unless a correction of this state of affairs were undertaken. [ --> A problem raised in Darwin's Descent of Man, chs 5 - 7; cf discussion now here on the wayback machine.] Nature does just this by subjecting the weaker part to such severe living conditions that by them alone the number is limited, and by not permitting the remainder to increase promiscuously, but making a new and ruthless choice according to strength and health. [--> Social Darwinist solution to the problem, paralleled by Darwin's discussion of the Celts [= Irish] Scots and Saxons [ = English]]
No more than Nature desires the mating of weaker with stronger individuals, even less does she desire the blending of a higher with a lower race [ --> Focus on race, note the subtitle of the earlier edns of Origin: preservation of favoured races in the struggle for existence], since, if she did, her whole work of higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, might be ruined with one blow. [--> then accepted evolutionary timescale for man]
Historical experience offers countless proofs of this. It shows with terrifying clarity that in every mingling of Aryan blood with that of lower peoples the result was the end of the cultured people. North America, whose population consists in by far the largest part of Germanic elements who mixed but little with the lower colored peoples, shows a different humanity and culture from Central and South America, where the predominantly Latin immigrants often mixed with the aborigines on a large scale. By this one example, we can clearly and distinctly recognize the effect of racial mixture. The Germanic inhabitant of the American continent, who has remained racially pure and unmixed, rose to be master of the continent; he will remain the master as long as he does not fall a victim to defilement of the blood.
The result of all racial crossing is therefore in brief always the following:
* Lowering of the level of the higher race;
* Physical and intellectual regression and hence the beginning of a slowly but surely progressing sickness.
To bring about such a development is, then, nothing else but to sin against the will of the eternal creator. [--> note want of capitalisation, and recall, the dominant view of the time was an eternal nature, the Big Bang type cosmology only triumphed in the 1960's, indeed in 1925/6 when MK was written it was not yet proposed (u/d 27 Jul: again, the force is not pivoted on case of text, but in the main on the context of ideas)] And as a sin this act is rewarded. [--> uses the TERM sin, but in a most antichristian context, similar to antichristian usage of the term "eternal creator" to denote nature, perhaps nature personified in some sort of vaguely deistical or pantheistical sense]
When man attempts to rebel against the iron logic of Nature [--> Notice the immediate elaboration on his "eternal creator", Nature capitalised (u/d Jul 27: Again, observe context; this would not need emphasis, but we are dealing with rhetorical counters on a strawmanisation of the issue)] , he comes into struggle with the principles to which he himself owes his existence as a man. And this attack must lead to his own doom. [--> thus we see what the "sin" against the eternal creator, Nature, is.]
Here, of course, we encounter the objection of the modern pacifist, as truly Jewish in its effrontery as it is stupid! ‘Man’s role is to overcome Nature!’ [--> Notice, not creation, Nature, capitalised, and we need hardly underscore the label, sneer and dismiss racism (u/d Jul 27: again, kindly read the context for genuine understanding, not to snip out to make handy counter talking points)]
Millions thoughtlessly parrot this Jewish nonsense [--> where do violent, contempt-filled words in the mouths of the morally benumbed all too often end up?] and end up by really imagining that they themselves represent a kind of conqueror of Nature; though in this they dispose of no other weapon than an idea, and at that such a miserable one, that if it were true no world at all would be conceivable. >> [Mein Kampf, Bk I Ch 11.]
_____________
Darwinism, plainly, was used in Germany to provide a "scientific" rationale for jingoistic Aryan man racism and associated predatory militarism, as well as related radically relativist and amoral philosophy.
This first had horrific fruit in the rape of Belgium in the first World War, the precise area where Hitler served. And, indeed there are recorded sayings in which he approved of the sort of shoot the civilians, burn the villages, deport workers tactics that were used to try to cow Belgium when it had the temerity to resist the Kaiser's armies that wanted to use Belgium as a way around the French defenses.
Unfortunately, there was so much distorted propaganda about this and a resulting general public disgust, that at the war's end, there was no move to hold war crimes trials. I suspect as well that the Allies of that war had some indefensible actions to account for too, so I think there was a general attitude of "let sleeping dogs lie."
In my opinion, and that of others who are far more august than I, that failure to bring war criminals to account materially helped set the stage for the new "Hunnish" -- notice, the neopagan reference a la Heine -- barbarism that prevailed all across Europe under Hitler a generation later.
There are sobering, horrifically bought lessons in all of this, that we need to take up our duty of care to attend to.
In the face of that, those who insist on playing toxic talking point games in the face of such facts and documents, simply raise the question about just what agenda it is they wish to conceal behind the smoke screen of such poisonous distractors.
Please, please, please, do better than this.
GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 2, 2012
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Of course you can't associate Hitler and Darwinism! How preposterous! Hitler clearly actually got his racial agenda from Haeckelism.Jon Garvey
January 2, 2012
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I never read this from old Hitler but indeed he is saying Christianity is a myth and science whas and will more prove to more its a myth.
Perhaps however the bible having Jewish connections made him hopeful for its demise even more so. Even if he thought it untrue the achievement of Christianity, and so by his unbelieving reasoning, was repulsive to him because of its Jewishness.
So he thought aliens were living on other planets?!
So evolutionists and evolutionist science fiction writers can score him in their ranks!
He just got things always wrong while indeed seeing facts and presumptions that were indeed to be noted.
He sounds just like the bad guys today!
His presumptions would place him in our opponents tent.
From his writings would they see or predict anything wrong?
It seems Christianity being and treated as being true as been the reason for any good thing in mankind.Robert Byers
January 2, 2012
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The same man who wrote:
Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.
Of course, I don't quote this in an effort to taint theism by association with Hitler. That would be almost as ridiculous as trying to associate "Darwinism" with Hitler.champignon
January 2, 2012
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F/N: It is worth the pause to cite Heine's prophetic warning from the 1830's; yes, a full century before the horrific events played out:
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 Swastika, visually, is a twisted, broken cross . . .], 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 [Nazism was consciously neo-pagan, following Blavatsky's popularised Aryan Man myths]. …
… Do not smile at my advice — the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature [i.e. scientists, as we now call such]. 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 [it took 100 years], 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 [Cf. the eagle, symbol of America and its air-power], and lions in farthest Africa [cf. the British lion and the frequent fate of its armies and their generals in North Africa at the hands of Rommel] 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.[Religion and Philosophy in Germany, 1831]
Heine was well-known, and I have seen how in 1914, the rape of Belgium by German militarism was seen as a manifestation of this prediction in action. Hitler, of course, served in the Imperial German Army in that same area, and plainly imbibed deeply the toxic propaganda that moved Bryan -- US Secretary of State in 1914 and 15 -- to remark on its roots in Nietzschean superman thought and Darwinism as then seen as inter alia a scientific analysis of human society and history.
We need to face how science can be abused by being wedded to irresponsible ideologies, and how we can neglect or too hastily brush aside warnings on the consequences.
That is why we need to reflect slowly, soberly and thoroughly on the questions of Origins Science in Society as a burning ethics issue; especially given the inherent and inescapable amorality of evolutionary materialist scientism. KFkairosfocus
January 1, 2012
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Onlookers,
Since we seem to have a new wave of objectors at UD armed with subtly toxic talking points, it is necessary to give the actual context of Herr Schicklegruber's talk:
. . . it's not opportune to hurl ourselves now into a struggle with the Churches. The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death. A slow death has something comforting about it. The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble. All that's left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light, but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.
Originally, religion was merely a prop for human communities. It was a means, not an end in itself. It's only gradually that it became transformed in this direction, with the object of maintaining the rule of the priests, who can love only to the detriment of society collectively....
Christianity, of course, has reached the peak of absurdity in this respect. And that's why one day its structure will collapse. Science has already impregnated humanity. Consequently, the more Christianity clings to its dogmas, the quicker it will decline.
-Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Table Talk[3], pp 58-62]
The cynical, manipulative calculatedness of that Nietzschean amoral superman cum false political messiah cum neopagan occultist -- don't forget his court astrologer! -- cum racialist evolutionist driven by the stream of darwinist thought flying the flag of science that through Haeckel and successors was so dominant in Germany in the early half of C20 stands utterly revealed. (And the onlooker will understand why I have consistently linked radical secularist evolutionary materialist thought with neopaganism.)
So, yes, he could attack [some] atheists as threats to his slow perversion and death of the Christian faith agenda, and/or as suspected Communists. At the same time he had many such in his party and SS, indeed there is a remark by I think it was Himmler to the effect that he had ever so many divisions full of men who would willingly sacrifice their lives with equanimity, who had not a thought or concern about facing their Creator in judgement, with eternal consequences to their behaviour in the stakes.
So, plainly, opposition to the atheists who were not supporters of his party -- despite the rather irresponsible toxic talking points of many a current atheistical site -- by no means meant that Hitler's "Christianity" was any more real than Breivik's.
Indeed the same web page continues right after the cite above, as follows:
After taking a careful look at the words and actions of Hitler, it's clear that the closest one can associate him with Christianity is that he gave lip service to the faith when it was convenient for his political image. However, his true feeling was much more like the secularists and atheists who try to attack Christians by lumping us in with this historical monster: that Christianity is an obstruction, a relic that needs to be done away with to make room for a grander philosophy. Even when Hitler tried to hijack Christian scripture and belief and inject his own twisted ideals into it, the result was quite antithetical to anything found in the Bible.
And, the writer then concludes with a pointed question: So whose beliefs are really more like Hitler?
GEM of TKI
PS: For those needing a worldviews level discussion on the warrant for Theism, and the Judaeo-Christian tradition of theism, I suggest a read here on, in context.kairosfocus
January 1, 2012
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Mr Arrington,
A happy new year to you and yours, as well as all at UD!
You have posed an excellent and deliciously utterly politically incorrect but revealing he/who said it.
(To see it in its context, onlookers, cf here. The chilling prophecy that foresaw where all of that could -- and, sadly, did -- lead [right down to the symbols: eagles falling, dead, in the air and lions defeated, in Africa . . . ], is discussed and cited here.)
GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 1, 2012
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The same man who said this:
We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.