Posted on 05/01/2008 3:09:53 PM PDT by sitetest
It was from an obsessive Darwin-defender that I learned of the Anti-Defamation League's attack on the theatrical documentary Expelled, for "misappropriat[ing] the Holocaust." This guy is constantly emailing me. He warned that the ADL had just "issued a terse press release today condemning the equation of ‘Darwinism' with Nazism in Expelled. How can you call yourself a religious Jew and still believe in such Fundamentalist Protestant Christian nonsense like Intelligent Design?"
I thanked my email correspondent for a good laugh. The idea that, having defended Expelled's thesis concerning Hitler's intellectual debt to Charles Darwin, I would now feel chastised and repentant because of a statement from the ADL, an organization for which I have not a feather's weight of respect! This was rich stuff.
Just to be clear, however: Expelled doesn't equate Darwinism and Hitler. That basic point was also missed by Professor Sahotra Sarkar, who published a confused attack piece on me here on Jewcy. Sarkar attributed to me the view, "If you believe in the theory of evolution, you are an anti-Semite" -- something that, obviously, I would have to be a fool to write or believe.
Dealing primarily with the academic suppression of Darwin-doubting scientists on campuses around the country, Expelled only spends about 10 minutes on the Hitler-Darwin connection. But it draws upon a solid, mainstream body of scholarship by the chief Hitler biographers and others.
Undeterred, the ADL wailed that "Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people and Darwin and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler's genocidal madness."
Much the same view has been propounded elsewhere. Once again here at Jewcy, Jay Michaelson seemed to argue that all science is by definition value-neutral: "Last I checked, Hitler also made use of automobiles. Indeed, he based a lot of ideas on militarism and machines; does that mean technology is morally wrong? Should you turn off your computer right now?"
No, Jay, there are obvious differences between Darwinian theory and auto and computer technology. Most important, the latter make no claims to answering ultimate questions, like how life originated, from which ethical corollaries are naturally drawn.
Auto and computer technology are also proved reliable every day by our experience. But no one has ever reported seeing a species originate in the manner described in Darwin's Origin of Species - not now, not in the fossil record, not ever.
More interesting than these observations is the hypocrisy of the ADL's outburst: "Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan."
It's funny how when the subject of conversation is Darwinism, then Hitler needed no one particular inspiration. But when the conversation shifts from Darwinism to - oh, I don't know - Christianity? Ah, then suddenly the genealogy of Nazism becomes eminently traceable.
One of the ADL's main fundraising technique has long been to scare Jews by demonizing Christianity. The group accordingly isn't shy about tracing the genealogy of the Holocaust back to the New Testament. In an essay on the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, for example, Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, director of interfaith affairs wrote:
"The anti-Judaism that begins in the New Testament was transformed through the admixture of political, economic and sociological prejudice into the anti-Semitism of modernity. This reached its ugly and inhuman nadir during World War II with Hitler's Final Solution for the Jewish people."
Blaming the earliest Christian writings for setting off a chain of influences resulting in the Holocaust evokes little outrage in the liberal Jewish community. Visitors to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, for instance, are greeted by a film, Anti-Semitism, purporting to uncover the "religious root of this phenomenon, the pervasive anti-Jewish teachings that evolved from overly literal readings and misreadings of New Testament texts."
Yet when Hitler successfully sold his ideology of hate to the German people in his bestselling tract Mein Kampf, he phrased his argument not in Christian terms but in biological, Darwinian ones.
Ignoring Hitler's evolutionary rhetoric, of course, some commentators brandish a famous quote from the same book -- "by defending myself against the Jews, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." They don't realize that Hitler was referring not to the God of the Bible but to Nature and her iron laws, as his preceding sentence clearly indicates.
In a curious irony, the modern paperback edition of Mein Kampf, available in any Barnes & Noble, includes an Introduction by - guess who? None other than the ADL's national director, Abraham Foxman. Did he, I wonder, even read the book?
bump
I’ve already demonstrated that Naziism and Social Darwinism are incompatible.
Post # 179 ends the argument.
Eugenics, and its bloody conclusions, are Darwin's spawn, not Christ's.No it's not. Actually read the whole thread or about the history of social darwinism before spouting off.
That is, Nazism and social Darwinism are exactly compatible.
That Darwinism and Nazism are blood brothers is not what leftists should really worry about.
Nazism and socialism are identical twins merely separated at birth, which puts contemporary Democrats in a very bad light.
Salomon Mayer von Rothschild, evolutionist.
That Darwinism and Nazism are blood brothers is not what leftists should really worry about.No they're not. They're both totalitarian ideologies, but that's as far as they go. Here's a good analogy if you know Doctor Who. Socialists are Cybermen, Fascists are Daleks. One ideology wants to *assimilate* all groups under a homogenous culture. The other wants to *eliminate* all groups except the "master race".Nazism and socialism are identical twins merely separated at birth, which puts contemporary Democrats in a very bad light.
He also mentioned to the Soviets that they were buddies and should take out England together. Gee, do ya think he might have displayed a trend of telling falsehoods as a mechanism to influence the thinking and behavior of others so he could acquire more power without opposition? Maybe the slaughter of many believers in the Holocaust give some indication he was somewhat antiChristian. Even the name of the Third Reich is about as antiChristian as could be conceived.
I’ve addressed this multiple times. I am not suggesting that he was ACTUALLY a practicing Christian, just that he claimed it Christian teachings supported his actions. This was in defense of the main argument proposed on the thread that Darwin was his inspiration. Darwin was NEVER referenced as inspiration by Hitler.
The First Reich, was also known as The Holy Roman Empire (a continuation of the Roman Empire in Europe), that started in the lands ruled by Charlemagne (Germany, Austria, Eslovenia, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Belgium, Czech Republic, eastern France, Northern Italy and western Poland), with a period beginning on the 9th century and finishing in the 19th century.
The Second Reich, also known as The German Empire, ruled by the Hohenzollern dinasty, in the areas known as Prussia and Brandenburg, from 1871 to 1919, they fell with the ending of World War I. During this Reich the “Iron Chancellor” Otto Von Bismark united Germany, and set the roots for World War I.
Then there was a period known as the Weimar Republic, from 1919 to 1933 (called sometimes the pre-3rd Reich).
The Third Reich (from 1933 to 1945), called the Nazi Germany, was under Hitler control. He called it the Third Reich because he thought that under his leadership Germany could reunite the old Holy Roman Empire, bringing Germany back to its glorious days. This Reich was terminated with the fall of Germany at the end of World War II.
He also mentioned to the Soviets that they were buddies and should take out England together. Gee, do ya think he might have displayed a trend of telling falsehoods as a mechanism to influence the thinking and behavior of others so he could acquire more power without opposition? Maybe the slaughter of many believers in the Holocaust give some indication he was somewhat antiChristian. Even the name of the Third Reich is about as antiChristian as could be conceived.An addendum to that. Nietzsche is very clear that he considers Christianity a way of propagating weakness, an impediment to the will to power. Given the Nazi's love of Nietzsche it's reasonable to assume that they believed the same as well. They were perfectly willing to use Christian symbolism when it suits them but they were not Christian in any meaningful sense.
I’ve addressed this multiple times. I am not suggesting that he was ACTUALLY a practicing Christian, just that he claimed it Christian teachings supported his actions. This was in defense of the main argument proposed on the thread that Darwin was his inspiration. Darwin was NEVER referenced as inspiration by Hitler.Here's the problem. Hitler appropriated Darwin insofar as Darwin could be used as apologia for *social darwinism*(a misnomer) which is actually a reference to a earlier ideology pioneered by Malthus. Until you clarify that point people are just going to throw Nazi eugenics quotes at you ad nauseum.
Want to provide a quote that supports this?
Okay, but I think foundation defines identity.
Nazism and socialism are identical in motivation and inspiration: a hateful, narcissistic desire to control others through the use of corruption and murder.
The rest is just details.
Okay, but I think foundation defines identity."foundation defines identity" is a big ambiguous. What you're doing is comparing apples to oranges. Both are fruit(totalitarian ideologies) but they are fundamentally different. Everything you talk about inheres to *totalitarianism* not Fascism or Socialism per se.Nazism and socialism are identical in motivation and inspiration: a hateful, narcissistic desire to control others through the use of corruption and murder.
The rest is just details.
If you genuinely want to understand totalitarianism I recommend you read Hannah Arendt.
I understand, but nothing will work. Most of the anti-Darwin quotes aren't original to the person posting it. They go to their favorite ID site and cut-n-paste without any knowledge or even interest in obtaining knowledge of their own. It's about scoring points for God.
I understand, but nothing will work. Most of the anti-Darwin quotes aren't original to the person posting it. They go to their favorite ID site and cut-n-paste without any knowledge or even interest in obtaining knowledge of their own. It's about scoring points for God.Of course, but don't you have the responsibility to explain your own position and background as clearly as possible?
Did they also teach that humans were the descendants of apes? Or did they teach that the Aryan race was the “highest image of the Lord”?
And did 5th grade girls carry out the Holocaust? How does a section on “Science” that takes the Nazi racists mindset to the idea of ‘survival of the fittest’ taught to 5th grade girls somehow trump the numerous instances where Nazi's spoke to the masses about “avenging the blood upon the cross”?Come on now. The Nazi's had an underlying ideology, fascism, the will to power, and they cherry picked parts from as many systems of thought as they could.Did they also teach that humans were the descendants of apes? Or did they teach that the Aryan race was the “highest image of the Lord”?
This game of ideology hot potato is tiresome. "The Nazis were Christian!", "No! they were Darwinists!", "No, they were socialists!" etc...
The Nazis were fascists. They cared about power, pure and simple. Any ideology that excused their actions they appropriated, discarding anything that might disagree with them.
Thanks for the kind words. But actually, most Darwinists don't attack Judaism at all. They attack the "old testament" and its G-d, but they don't see these as being Jewish. Judaism for them is unimplicated in the crimes of monotheism; in fact, it is its prototypical victime--the Canaanites of the chr*stian era.
I'm convinced that one reason Jewish liberals so despise American Fundamentalist Protestants is precisely because the latter see Jews in Biblical terms rather than in terms of victims of the Bible.
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