Posted on 08/22/2006 2:04:20 PM PDT by js1138
ADL Blasts Christian Supremacist TV Special & Book Blaming Darwin For Hitler
New York, NY, August 22, 2006 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today blasted a television documentary produced by Christian broadcaster Dr. D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries that attempts to link Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to Adolf Hitler and the atrocities of the Holocaust. ADL also denounced Coral Ridge Ministries for misleading Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute for the NIH, and wrongfully using him as part of its twisted documentary, "Darwin's Deadly Legacy."
After being contacted by the ADL about his name being used to promote Kennedy's project, Dr. Collins said he is "absolutely appalled by what Coral Ridge Ministries is doing. I had NO knowledge that Coral Ridge Ministries was planning a TV special on Darwin and Hitler, and I find the thesis of Dr. Kennedy's program utterly misguided and inflammatory," he told ADL.
ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman said in a statement:"This is an outrageous and shoddy attempt by D. James Kennedy to trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust. Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people. Trivializing the Holocaust comes from either ignorance at best or, at worst, a mendacious attempt to score political points in the culture war on the backs of six million Jewish victims and others who died at the hands of the Nazis.
"It must be remembered that D. James Kennedy is a leader among the distinct group of 'Christian Supremacists' who seek to "reclaim America for Christ" and turn the U.S. into a Christian nation guided by their strange notions of biblical law."
The documentary is scheduled to air this weekend along with the publication of an accompanying book "Evolution's Fatal Fruit: How Darwin's Tree of Life Brought Death to Millions."
A Coral Ridge Ministries press release promoting the documentary says the program "features 14 scholars, scientists, and authors who outline the grim consequences of Darwin's theory of evolution and show how his theory fueled Hitler's ovens."
You don't know that, and still, even if no Christian would say that, it DOESN'T make the statements anti-Christian, any more than calling Foxman a "nut" is anti-semitic.
>>>An attack on a documentary is not an attack on Christians.<<<
But an attack on an attacker who attacks a Christian is perfectly legitimate. If you bothered to read Foxman's hateful diatribe, you would have found this: "It must be remembered that D. James Kennedy is a leader among the distinct group of 'Christian Supremacists' who seek to "reclaim America for Christ" and turn the U.S. into a Christian nation guided by their strange notions of biblical law."
Foxman is a devout Christian hater. Foxman and the late Hitler have much in common.
>>>You are looking for persecution where it doesn't exist.<<<
No, the truth is you are looking for an argument with any available Christian.
Um, actually, no. Even with respect to their racialist theories, where you would most expect it, the Nazis evinced minimal interest in evolution. (To tell the truth I've found this somewhat surprising as I've looked into it.)
Again, I was surprised by this myself. For instance the Nazi's most important philosopher of race was Alfred Rosenberg, whose Myth of the Twentieth Century was second only to Hitler's Mein Kampf in the Nazi canon.
You can probably find the full text of the book at StormFront or some other neo-Nazi site. Read it yourself. Rosenberg says almost nothing about evolution. IN FACT HIS RACISM HAS AN EXPLICIT CREATIONIST BASIS. Granted it was an "idealistic" sort of creationism that would be strange to most modern fundamentalists. For instance Rosenberg thinks in terms of "racial souls," instead of individual souls. But nevertheless Rosenberg holds that the races were separately created, each with it's distinct soul.
The "racial soul" is "in the blood". The whole point of Nazi eugenics was not to achieve some sort of evolutionary goal, BUT TO RESTORE THE ORIGINALLY CREATED ORDER by "purifying the blood" and thereby purifying the racial soul.
Or take the Nazi's principle scientific expert on race, Hans F.K. Günther. You can find a number of his writings here. I haven't gone through all of them, but I've done text searches on all the chapters with likely titles. I can hardly even find the word "evolution," or any form thereof. (So far only once referring, in a passing comment, to the relatively recent evolution of European languages.) And the name "Darwin" I can't find at all. Maybe it's there, somewhere. Feel free to look.
The same disinterest in evolution seems to apply to the discipline of Nordic Theory (the "scientific" elaboration of Nazi racism) in general.
Sure you can find references to biological evolution and to Darwin here and there among Nazi screeds and speeches; but a deep or genuine interest in the subject, or any real attempt to learn from or apply it generally, seems to be almost entirely absent.
It is quite disputable since Hitler based his ideas on selective breeding, not natural selection.
Poor Abe Foxman ~ at the end of a long and distinguished career he fell into defending Adolph Hitler from Christians.
He doesn't need any documentation my friend. One can judge Hitler and the Nazi's by their actions - they were clearly not Christians.
>>>Kennedy is a creep cut from the same cloth as Pat Robertson. They both promote ignorance in the name of Christianity.<<<
How so? Please quote from Kennedy's recent sermons to back your slander. To be more fair, please quote from any of Kennedy's sermons from, say, the past five years. This is a challenge you certainly will be happy to meet, if you are telling the truth.
Jim Jones was a doctrinaire Socialist. He may be lain at the feet of Karl Marx.
Sorry, but I've come across several evangelicals who think Kennedy is smarmy and frequently engages in deep intellectual dishonesty. Granted they didn't use any particular language such as "crockumentary" or "nutcase," but nevertheless clearly felt the man an embarrassment. If I run into any of these individuals again I'll try and remember to pass along your assurance that they don't exist, for what it's worth.
David Koresh was one of Bill Clinton's cousins on his sperm-donor father's side. Lay him at Hillary's feet.
Some of my ancestors were fine people. They were also Conquistadores and helped bring enlightenment to a people living in darkness. So watch your tongue buddy!
There's a chain of causality here ~ but I wouldn't blame Henry Ford for initiating it. Try Elwood Haynes for causing all those automobile accidents.
The Rev Dr. Kennedy is one of the finest and most intellectually decent people I have ever had the pleasure to hear.
As for Foxman and Collins...they can go shovel it.
It's Abe's misuse of the Holocaust in this case that needs to be criticised, and if you make a big enough donation to ADL Abe will do just that!
You attack Foxman. According to your logic, you are anti-semitic. Do you see what I mean now?
And, no, I am not "looking for an argument with any available Christian." The only people I love in this world are Christians.
Again you see persecution all around you.
I argue against bad logic, and admonish against personal attacks.
They claimed to be.
The were certainly not good Christians and not representative of either modern Christianity as a whole or what modern Christians of any subset consider to be correct behavior for a Christian.
I think it would be reasonable to say they forfeited their claim to Christianity by their behavior, but it is not correct to say they did not lay claim to being Christian.
Christianity had a powerful influence on Nazi thinking
The correct relationship here is to the so-called "Christian Identity Movement" and not to Christianity in general, nor to Fundamentalists.
Regarding your claim that "attitudes" are the same, you'll have to give us some source material for that.
You might consider applying the same standard to yourself. I.e. refrain from accusing others of attacking/hating Christians without evidence, and solely because they disagree with you, or some other Christian, on matters of public and general controversy.
The idiot says that Nazism and a belief in evolution are one and the same. If I were Dr. Collins I'd sue the SOB for false representation, slander, or whatever.
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