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?
The NAZIs used whatever was necessary to justify what they did. In the end it was a stew of racial bigotry, nationalism, economics, Darwinism, religion, jealousy, and a whole slough of things that led a supposedly civilized country down the road that Germany took.
Selective breeding was around before Darwin wrote his thesis. That doesn’t change the fact that it and Eugenics are still human controlled evolution. Darwin just put a scientific name to the process. Gravity existed before Issac Newton “discovered” it.
I did fly by your “evolutionary rhetoric” tag, I will admit. It’s late Friday afternoon, and a payday to boot, the mind isn’t too focused. Anyway, there is enough evidence to put rest to the thought that Darwinism/evolution didn’t have a hand in the NAZI scheme; everything from Hilter’s writings to school curriculum is there to see.
The SS belt buckles said “God is with Us” in German. They were buried in grave sites under the Christian cross.
Even if “Table Talk” was 100% accurate they were all a private and secret ‘talk’. Hard to inspire the Holocaust with ideas that never saw print until well after the Holocaust wouldn’t you think? Or are you going to continue to ignore that very salient point?
13 February 1766 to 23 December 1834
With that glaring an error, there's really no point in continuing to address your babblings.
That's why they rejected Social Darwinism -- it would have forced the exact opposite conclusion. (According to Nazi propaganda, Jews ran everything behind the scenes. If so, Social Darwinist analysis says that they're superior to the chumps who let them do so.)
That clears it up. The Nazis were, in fact, adherents and practitioners of Intelligent Design.
It's one of the tenets of Judio-Christianity that one can worship the wrong god.
Hard to inspire the Holocaust with ideas that never saw print until well after the Holocaust wouldn’t you think?
Hitler gave orders and set agendas. What he expresses in his private thoughts are a strong indication as to what motivated him to give the orders he gave and set the agendas he set.
And it also indicates what he had to do to get people to carry out his agenda. One of the things he had to do was to marginalize Christianity. And he did in Germany.
Ya think? Maybe?
The Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei might, just possibly, be anit-captialist?
I often wonder what folks think "sozialistische" means, and why they call National Socialists "right wing".
It's an absurdity.
The title of the document prepared by the OSS at Nuremberg was: July 6, 1945 - "The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of the Christian Churches"
I'd suggest a reading or at a minimum a skimming.
It is delusional to think that Hitler was not an obsessed anti-Christian.
It doesnt affect the fact that Hitler himself claimed to be a christian, a Catholic and to believe in a creator. He never mentioned Darwin. The said Document was produced, not by the Nazis, but by the CIA predecessor, the OSS and doesn't challenge Hitler's personal claims
Delusional or otherwise, life must go on...
Any connection between Hitler and Darwin must be denied...
Global Warming must be preached, right alongside Evolution.
Our socialistic/humanistic/naturalistic/atheistic beliefs demand it.
Anything less would be apostasy.
Hitler was all powerful in Germany. He had stated goal to destroy Christianity and, especially, Catholicism. And you seem to be saying he was a Christian and a Catholic.
Remarkable.
Ignorance can be cured, stupidity is forever. You have chosen poorly.
Jonah Goldberg, who has written a book on the subject, Liberal Fascism. You might want to go look over at National Review on-line if you're unfamiliar with his book.I'm familiar with Goldberg's book. It's *incredibly* dishonest and ignorant. Go through my old forum posts if you want to see why.
13 February 1766 to 23 December 1834:rolleyes: My goodness you're stupid. You don't know anything of the history of social darwinism do you? Malthus was the *most important* thinker in the establishment of social darwinism. SD predated Darwin by 40+ years, "darwinism" was added later.With that glaring an error, there's really no point in continuing to address your babblings.
I often wonder what folks think "sozialistische" means, and why they call National Socialists "right wing".Not this again. Is the democratic republic of congo democratic?It's an absurdity.
Let’s make things easier by clarifying premises. You’re assuming Nazi thinking was strictly rational—that is, organized according to strict logic. It was not.
Nazi ideology was at its core built on a selfish desire for power, and the result of this is that their strategic patterns were conquest-friendly but not necessarily logic-friendly. Hypocrisy didn’t matter to them.
Just like Democrats today who are blatantly hypocritical about the removal of Saddam from power, which they supported up until 2003 but for political reasons have opposed since then.
Documented history, including Hitler’s own words (”No more than Nature desires the mating of weaker with stronger individuals, even less does she desire the blending of a higher with a lower race, since, if she did, her whole work of higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, might be ruined with one blow.”) clearly shows Nazis drew heavily from Darwinism in forming their ideology.
Read post #179 again, please.
It is a fact that Hitler was born and raised a Catholic and that he frequently made religious statements about "the Creator".
I have said many times that this doesn't mean that he was sincere. Hitler didn't like the Church. That doesn't mean that he didn't think of himself as a strange kind of Christian.
My point however wasn't that he WAS a Christian, but simply that there is more evidence for that argument than for him being a Darwinist, He mentions Christ and the Creator as inspiration, but NEVER mentioned Darwin. The paper you referenced was designed for prosecuting war crimes and addressed Hitlers persecution of Christians. It did not address Hitler's personal beliefs.
I took your statements seriously and tried to respond fairly. I do not appreciate being called stupid.
At heart, socialists and Nazis are the same. Look at what motivates them, look at what’s in their hearts.
Think about the meaning of: a hateful, narcissistic desire to control others through the use of corruption and murder.
Socialism and Nazism are superficially different but fundamentally the same.
The best example of absolute opposites, on all levels of analysis, is seen when we compare Nazi ideology with Christian doctrine.
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