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America's Taliban strikes again
Arkansas News Bureau ^ | 28 August 2006 | John Brummett

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.]


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: abortion; blitheringimbecility; brummetslaw; christianhater; christophobia; coralridge; craniometrics; crevolist; djameskennedy; endautism; endgeneticdefects; endpoverty; eugenics; evolutionism; favouredraces; genefairy; genesis1; genius; hereditary; hereditarygenius; idiocy; ignorantdrivel; jerklist; keywordwars; mntslfabusethread; moronicarticle; naziscience; pantiestootight; racism; racistdarwin; sterilization; sterilizedeficient; sterilizethepoor; stupidistthreadever; theocracy; theophobia; thewordistruth; wodlist; worstsarticleever
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Festival-of-slime-and-unregulated-ignorance placemarker.


561 posted on 08/29/2006 10:28:18 AM PDT by balrog666 (Ignorance is never better than knowledge. - Enrico Fermi)
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To: js1138
What does that have to do with anything? Oh, I get it now. The Christians in America can't wait to set up a theocracy and kill everyone who don't agree with them, right? What evidence do you have for such an assinine notion? Yet, I can show you plenty of evidence of how Darwinist eugenics medicoes sterilized tens of thousands of the "feeble minded" in their quest to "weed out" inferior genes.

What you are doing is engaging in any number of logical fallacies, foremost is the argumentum ad hominem, i.e., "I consider theocrats to be traitors." Also, you use the fallacy of hasty generalization: "Every theocratic government in history has killed, tortured or imprisoned people who did not conform to official beliefs." We could probably say that your statements may also reflect the fallacy of ignoratio elenchi and the fallacy of misleading contextas well.

But. alas, I have come to expect tortured logic from people who nurture irrational hatreds.
562 posted on 08/29/2006 10:33:21 AM PDT by attiladhun2 (Islam is a despotism so vile that it would warm the heart of Orwell's Big Brother)
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To: RegulatorCountry
You're not above... misstatements, yourself.

I never claimed to be perfect. I am not aware of any misstatements that I have made, but will not pretend that I don't make mistakes.

I, however, have tried to keep this conversation about facts. I see little from you other than attempts to obfuscate and distort.

563 posted on 08/29/2006 10:33:50 AM PDT by highball (Proud to announce the birth of little Highball, Junior - Feb. 7, 2006!)
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To: attiladhun2
Also, you use the fallacy of hasty generalization: "Every theocratic government in history has killed, tortured or imprisoned people who did not conform to official beliefs.

I notice you didn't name any exceptions.

564 posted on 08/29/2006 10:39:26 AM PDT by js1138 (Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!")
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To: danamco

Yeah. And these guys accuse Christians of wanting to set up a "theocracy" where all speech is censured!!!!!


565 posted on 08/29/2006 10:51:17 AM PDT by attiladhun2 (Islam is a despotism so vile that it would warm the heart of Orwell's Big Brother)
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To: indcons
Well, if that post was yours, it has been yanked. What did you say that was so outrageous?

Now that's what I call a fun kind of question.

566 posted on 08/29/2006 10:54:02 AM PDT by js1138 (Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!")
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To: DoctorMichael

But, since Jim Jones became a convinced Marxist and even moved his operation to a Marxist nation, the comparison is irrelevant.


567 posted on 08/29/2006 10:57:51 AM PDT by attiladhun2 (Islam is a despotism so vile that it would warm the heart of Orwell's Big Brother)
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To: js1138
Tibet. A theocracy that was seemingly tolerant of all religions, according to Harrer in Seven Years In Tibet. Also, Cromwell's Commonwealth allowed a great deal of religious liberty (Roman Catholics excepted), some Jews even looked upon him as a kind of Messianic figure like King Cyrus.
568 posted on 08/29/2006 11:07:53 AM PDT by attiladhun2 (Islam is a despotism so vile that it would warm the heart of Orwell's Big Brother)
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To: stands2reason
No, they aren't cool. But the Darwinist crowd on FR seems to revel in them, to wit, theocrats ( the implication being Christians want to suppress everyone disagreeing with them), pig-ignorant, evil, etc. I think "country-clubber" and "RINO" are rather tame.
569 posted on 08/29/2006 11:25:15 AM PDT by attiladhun2 (Islam is a despotism so vile that it would warm the heart of Orwell's Big Brother)
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To: PatrickHenry

Over five-hundred posts, and no one has criticised the producers of this creationist video from approaching the director of the human genome project under false pretenses to get him on film, and then advertising his participation in the show without his consent.


570 posted on 08/29/2006 11:31:41 AM PDT by Liberal Classic (No better friend, no worse enemy. Semper Fi.)
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To: RegulatorCountry
WildHorseCrash: "it was Darwin who put biology on the path to real understanding -- to start making sense."

You: "And it was the "sense" that was made, that is objectionable, in the case of Galton, eugenics and the Nazi science derived from these sources. Back to square one."

I confess that with this statement you've lost me. Are you saying:

(1) That the theory of evolution is itself scientifically untenable (and if so, perhaps you could provide some specifics)?

-- or --

(2) That the theory of evolution is correct, but that knowledge of it is simply too dangerous to the moral fabric of civilization, and it must therefore be suppressed and replaced with a kind of agreed, universal ignorance?

571 posted on 08/29/2006 11:32:09 AM PDT by atlaw
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To: Liberal Classic
Over five-hundred posts, and no one has criticised the producers of this creationist video from approaching the director of the human genome project under false pretenses to get him on film, and then advertising his participation in the show without his consent.

Collins is one of those -- gasp! -- evolutionists. As such, he is entitled to no courtesy, no rights, and no consideration at all. Why don't people of your ilk understand these simple rules?

572 posted on 08/29/2006 11:35:16 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (The universe is made for life, therefore ID. Life can't arise naturally, therefore ID.)
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To: attiladhun2
".....Jim Jones became a convinced Marxist and even moved his operation to a Marxist nation.....because of the Evil philosophy of Christ.

Christianity must be saved from the Evil of Christ. We need to listen to more brilliant individuals like Dr. D. James Kennedy (President of Coral Ridge Ministries) instead of nitwits like Jesus.

573 posted on 08/29/2006 11:45:16 AM PDT by DoctorMichael (A wall first. A wall now.)
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To: danamco
"What do YOU think that the two Columbine School murderer's shooting actions were based on?"

Their perceived abuse at the hands of other students, faculty and society at large.

You are suggesting that we should be allowed to blame what we read for our actions. This flies in the face of taking personal responsibility for what we do and how we act.

Perhaps we should dig deeper into the psyche of people like Hitler and the Columbine gunmen to determine what lies behind their aberrant behaviour before we start blaming those distortions of other's ideas they seek for support.

In Hitler's case, had not humans witnessed the change for the better in domestic population when the weak are removed, had Plato not suggested a method of improving the human species, had the Spartans not winnowed out the weak in an attempt to produce stronger warriors, and had not Darwin discovered the process of common descent and it's mechanism, natural selection, Hitler would have found some other rationale to support his hatred.

Whether Darwin had racist tendencies or not, and it can be argued that in comparison to modern ideals he could be classed as a racist (albeit poorly), his views on human classes are not responsible for the actions of Hitler or the Columbine gunmen. At most his ideas are tools which can be and have been illicitly used to promote distorted ideologies.

Darwin, despite his tremendous contribution to science, and his modern approach to scientific methodology, was a product of his time. Just as everyone else in the Britain of the era, he confused technological level and the formalization of human interaction, not just in every day life but in war, with a fundamental superiority. Even with that erroneous view, one so prevalent in his society, he obviously abhorred the idea of one subspecies of human subjugating another and considered all humans to be one species.

His views on human racial differences were far more modern than even the religious leaders of the day.

If you compare the racial ideas of the Victorian era with those of today, and take a rather broad definition of 'racist' then you can claim everyone of the Victorian era, including yours and my great, great grandparents as racists. Among those of the Victorian era, Darwin was unusual in his belief of all humans being fundamentally the same. Remember that Darwin was a man well versed in the classification of species based on very minor differences. Two organisms, too similar for a layman to differentiate between, Darwin, through his own or through other's work, would classify them as separate species. Yet he considered Africans and Caucasians to be of the same species.

Those that recognize minor morphological differences between individuals and cultural differences between societies are not racists because they acknowledge those differences; they become racist when those differences become the focus of hate, or their actions and words become based on unfounded bias. That does not describe Darwin.

574 posted on 08/29/2006 11:57:14 AM PDT by b_sharp (Objectivity? Objectivity? We don't need no stinkin' objectivity.)
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To: WildHorseCrash

"While they tried to gain respectability for their ideas by piggy-backing on the theory of natural selection and by citing to Darwin's work"

"Descent Of Man" has fallen down some sort of memory hole, apparently.


575 posted on 08/29/2006 12:29:28 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: fish hawk
Well now, a chart that some believing Darwinist professor drew up. Yep, you got me there, man came from an ape. All the proof I need.

Newsflash: Humans *are* apes (a.k.a. "members of the primate superfamily Hominoidea").

There, you learned some science today.

--R.

576 posted on 08/29/2006 1:14:18 PM PDT by RustMartialis
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To: attiladhun2
Tibet. A theocracy that was seemingly tolerant of all religions, according to Harrer in Seven Years In Tibet. Also, Cromwell's Commonwealth allowed a great deal of religious liberty (Roman Catholics excepted), some Jews even looked upon him as a kind of Messianic figure like King Cyrus.

I don't know much about Tibet except that it doesn't appear to have been Judeo-Christian-Muslim during it's period of religious tolerance. Perhaps I should amend my claim to exclude Buddhism.

I do appreciate you listing Cromwell as an exemplar of religious toleration. That made my day. He does get points in my book for being one of the few people subjected to a posthumous execution. That's pretty cool.

577 posted on 08/29/2006 1:19:57 PM PDT by js1138 (Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!")
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To: jennyp

I say Darwin was responsible for both the National League and the American League.
_______

You, you, you .... REVISIONIST!!!!!

Darwin is solely responsible for the designated hitter rule in the American League, having evolved from the National League.


578 posted on 08/29/2006 1:21:37 PM PDT by dmz
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To: RegulatorCountry
"Descent Of Man" has fallen down some sort of memory hole, apparently.

Some of us have actually read it, you know. Do yourself a *huge* favor and quit while you're behind.

Wikipedia

--R.

579 posted on 08/29/2006 1:29:39 PM PDT by RustMartialis
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To: RustMartialis

As if Wikipedia didn't have issues of its own, but here is a pertinent excerpt from the link you provided:

"Darwin was sympathetic to the views of the Social Darwinists and the eugenicists, but he did not believe that action should be taken. He did feel, though, that the "savage races" of man would, like it or not, be subverted by the "civilised races" at some point in the near future: "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla." He did show a certain disdain for "savages," professing that he felt more akin to certain altruistic tendencies in monkeys than he did to "a savage who delights to torture his enemies." However, Darwin is not advocating genocide, but clinically predicting, by analogy to the ways in which "more fit" varieties within a species would displace other varieties, the likelihood that indigenous peoples will eventually die out from their contact with "civilization", or become absorbed into it completely."

A clinical prediction of genocide is not outright advocacy. An instance of praising with a faint damn, perhaps.


580 posted on 08/29/2006 1:41:17 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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