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.]
"If they didn't quote mine, they'd have no quotes to post at all."
It's rather doltish to request specific cites to back up a claim, and then turn around and try to make something pejorative out of it, when you don't like the result. In the absence of actual quotes from "Origin" and "Descent," you guy would still be claiming that "races" in no way refers to the human race, and that Charles Darwin wrote nothing that would be condemned as utterly racist if written by any other person. I can see why you might want to spin this.
While I can agree with your characterization of the passage, I think it nevertheless goes a long way toward supporting a "racist" interpretation Darwin's work.
For example, although it's not the intent of the passage in question, Darwin notes as an apparently established fact that the "civilized races" are superior, in an evolutionary sense, to "the savage races." This was simply a natural process, to which humans are subject in the same manner as, say, a finch.
Darwin proposed the means by which a gap in the fossil record might appear -- but the underlying scientific argument can only be characterized as "racist," and it was used as such.
C'mon, people: Eugenics is the attempt to intelligently design microevolutionary changes to a population.
Intelligent design
+
Micro-evolution
=
Eugenics
You creationists have a lot of tyranny & destruction to answer for!
(See how easy this game is? :-)
If you bothered to read the thread, you'd know that I not only posted the entire title of his book, I've posted a jpg of it.
But if you want to fixate on a momentary slip in one post, feel free.
It's rather doltish to request specific cites to back up a claim, and then turn around and try to make something pejorative out of it, when you don't like the result.
I don't "like the result" because you take quotes out of context to try and change the meaning.
You are right about one thing, however. I'm starting to think that expecting intellectual honesty from creationists is in fact "doltish." But I'm an optimist, and want to think the best of people until they prove me wrong.
You must mean Platoism -- since he actually adovcated eugenics 2000 years ago.
Perhaps you'd care to provide a published thought from anyone of Darwin's time that claimed otherwise.
If you had any knowledge of history you would know that on the Beagle voyage, Darwin disputed the ship's captain's defense of slavery, and the good Christian captain refused to speak to Darwin for some time.
From where I sit I could find within half a mile, a dozen Republican voters who believe whites are intellectually superior to blacks. In Darwin's time their ancestors would have been slave owners or wannabe slave owners. With the blessing of the Bible.
Which was, of course, the summary line that set up the reader for his later "The Descent of Man"...the tome that at its core denies the fundamental equality and worth of all human beings...
The Bible blesses no such thing.
"I don't "like the result" because you take quotes out of context to try and change the meaning."
Please, by all means, disabuse me of my understanding of that passage from chapter six of "Descent Of Man." How many fossils of "civilised" Caucasians do you suppose Charles Darwin possessed or had observed, when he wrote that?
When do the stonings begin?
The beheadings?
The public executions?
The hyperbole? Well, that's been going on for some time now, hasn't it?
Fine...according to you. Listen, no one doubts that much in science supports thinking in evolutionist ways, but the religion of evolution dismisses ALL other possibilities whilst embracing a "We are right and just have to figure out all the gaps" mentality.
Be at least intellectually honest. Whant to bust on Coultier? Then makes your points, not this shoot-from-the-hip drive by stuff. After all...who are you to me? I am obviously nothing to you so enjoy the same in return.
Sure it does. In multiple places. Subject to a few rules. You can't kill a slave outright, but if he lives to the next day after a beating it's no sin, just property loss.
I believe there are some rules and limitations on slave trading, but not on ownership. If you have the misfortune of being a slave, you are forbidden to disobey your master.
"I wonder what Darwin meant by his line "Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history" in "Origin of Species" if he didn't mean to include man as "a species" in his title? LOL..."
Looks like Darwin knew he was using the words "race" and "species" inclusive of man in "Origin." Now, if his followers would just admit that.
Are you agreeing with such racist sentiments?
PatrickHenry already did that, in post #324. You have been unable to answer his post, except in attempts to change the subject.
I won't hold my breath.
bump
Ironically, your views about what the Scripture says about slavery are identical to the views that were held by those you're decrying.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.