Posted on 08/28/2006 6:31:13 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
The Holocaust wasn't Hitler's fault. Darwin made him do it. Complicit as well are any who buy into the scientific theory that modern man evolved from lower animal forms.
That's the latest lunacy from one of our more fanatical right-wing American Christian television outfits, the Coral Ridge Ministries in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Coral Ridge espouses that America is not a free-religion nation, but a Christian one. It argues there should be no separation of church and state.
Thus it's America's Taliban, America's Shiite theocracy.
It certainly has a propensity for explaining or excusing Hitler. A few years ago it brought in a conference speaker to argue that American abortion was a more horrible atrocity than the Holocaust.
One year it disinvited Cal Thomas as a conference speaker after Brother Cal got too liberal. You're thinking I must be kidding. But I kid you not. Brother Cal had displayed the utter audacity to co-author a book contending that American Christian conservatives ought to worry a little more about spreading the gospel from the bottom of the culture up rather than from the top of politics down.
Now this: Coral Ridge is airing a couple of cable installments of a "documentary," called "Darwin's Deadly Legacy," that seek to make a case that, without Darwin, there could have been no Hitler.
Authoritative sources for the program include no less than columnist Ann Coulter, noted scientist, who says she is outraged that she didn't get instructed in Darwin's effective creation of Hitler when she was in school. She says she has since come to understand that Hitler was merely a Darwinist trying, by extermination of a group of people he considered inferior because of their religion and heritage, to "hurry along" the natural survival of the Aryan fittest.
Also quoted is Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Project, who tells the Anti-Defamation League that his comments were used out of context and that he is "absolutely appalled" by the "utterly misguided and inflammatory" premise of Coral Ridge's report.
The documentary's theme is really quite simple: Darwin propounded the theory of evolution. Hitler came along and believed the theory. Hitler killed Jews. So, blame Darwin for the Holocaust. Blame, too, all others who agree with or advance Darwin's theory. Get back to God and Adam and Eve and all will be right again with the world.
"To put it simply, no Darwin, no Hitler," said Dr. D. James Kennedy, president of Coral Ridge Ministries. "The legacy of Charles Darwin is millions of deaths."
Obviously, the theme is breath-taking nonsense. You can't equate academic theory with murderous practice. You can't equate a thinker and a madman, or science and crime.
And you can't ever blame one man for another's actions. That once was a proud conservative precept. In a different context, you'll no doubt find Coral Ridge fervently preaching personal responsibility. Except, apparently, for Adolf Hitler, to whom these religious kooks issue a pass. Ol' Adolf, it seems, just fell in with a bad crowd.
By Coral Ridge's premise, Mohammed is to blame for Osama bin Laden. Actually, Coral Ridge might not argue with that. So how about this: The pope is to blame for the IRA. And Jesus is to blame for Mel Gibson, not to mention Coral Ridge Ministries.
[Omitted some author detail and contact info.]
You're right, the Taliban were much smarter, much more successful in attaining their aims. We're fortunate these nuts aren't likely to thrive.
Who's gonna furnish the popcorn?
Oh, it goes deeper than that. The "Out of Africa" theory of human origin and migration contains a humdinger, implying that those of lower intelligence remained.
BS. It appears this idiot does not know much about the taliban.
I'd only point to the countless threads posted to FR, with all the skull porn of which evos are so fond .. craniometrics are inevitably included. Quite the nasty, racist history behind measuring crania and attempting to deduce intelligence on that basis.
Coyoteman, have you ever heard your posting of the pictures of skulls of prehominids called 'skull porn' and racist before?
Here for all to see is a fine and almost perfect example of an anti-science post combined with the vilest of ad-hominems.
Skull porn?
I happen to like skulls, and have been studying both evolution and human osteology since grad school (and that was a while ago). There is a lot to be learned from bones.
As for intelligence being based on cranial measurements--that was discredited long ago, 100+ years.
Some new fossils from Herto in Ethiopia, are the oldest known modern human fossils, at 160,000 yrs. The discoverers have assigned them to a new subspecies, Homo sapiens idaltu, and say that they are anatomically and chronologically intermediate between older archaic humans and more recent fully modern humans. Their age and anatomy is cited as strong evidence for the emergence of modern humans from Africa, and against the multiregional theory which argues that modern humans evolved in many places around the world.
Hitler was not a "Darwinist" in any sense of the word; he was a pagan creationist.
My FETUS, I mean sister(now over 50), is a seventh month preemie.. Murdering babys for the life of the mother happens sometimes, but 99% of the time its merely for convience.. i.e. murder aforethought.. 1st degree murder..
My sister was a baby at seven months and for several months before that..
Just to play devil's advocate here: on what basis would you say that something like a Nazi eugenics program is "bad behavior?" It's a serious question.
It's not the job of science to provide a moral basis, only to discover and interpret data.
I can see your point, and it's perfectly valid as long as one does not contemplate the application of what science tells us. Once one reaches the point of application, however, the moral implications of the science come to the fore: one must confront the difference between "can" and "should."
For example: if we look at what the theory of evolution tells us about how the world really works, one can make an excellent case for a morality in which "the good" is defined in terms of being able to ensure the passing on of one's genes (or "good" genes of some description) by whatever means possible.
We probably strongly agree that putting into practice such a morality would be profoundly wrong -- but given that the natural world really does seem to work that way, it's not empirically obvious that such acts constitute "bad behavior." Our outrage at the idea might plausibly be interpreted as an evolved trait which causes us to work harder to pass on our own genes.....
That Social Darwinism might be "bad behavior" is a judgement you've applied after the fact, based on something apparently in contradiction to what the science seems to tell us. On what basis would you make such a moral claim?
And his expertise in Christian doctrine makes him an expert on the theory of evolution and on modern European history because __________________.
(Fill in the blank.)
A rather Freudian typo .... ;-)
In fact, eugenics is an application of TOE, and is therefore really not "apart" of it.
My personal view is that if God had meant for us to figure out for ourselves how the world works, he would have given us brains.
-Eric
I guess if I hit you in the head with a shovel, that would be an "application" of F = m*a.
Do you suppose the jury will go for it when I tell them it's all Newton's fault?
On what grounds do you say that evolution is a farce?
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