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To: GodGunsGuts

Here is some more of the clear exposition of what Darwin and evolutionary thought are all about — as it “works out” in our society...

A quote from an article by author, Richard Weikart...


So, to return to our original question, what accounts for the intensity of evil in Hitler and his Nazi regime? Is it a manifestation of human depravity lurking inside us all, or perhaps an outburst of the human lust for power that we all share? I don’t deny that these factors played an important role, and in fact, I wonder if we are often too quick to distance ourselves from Hitler, Stalin, and other ogres of their ilk, as though WE would never—even with unlimited power at our disposal—oppress or harm a fellow human being. Many “ordinary Germans” (and even many foreigners) assisted Hitler, after all, in carrying out his atrocities. He didn’t act alone, as Kershaw continually reminds us.

But there are, of course, other factors to consider in explaining Hitler’s evil. First of all, Hitler embraced a world view that denied any personal God or transcendent moral standards. Rather the cosmos and human history were products of an impersonal Fate, Providence or Destiny, which were synonymous with natural laws. The emptiness of the cosmos was reflected in his personal life, for Kershaw points out that Hitler had no real friendships or close relationships with anyone, not even his mistress Eva Braun. He refused to marry (until the day before he committed suicide) because of his devotion to the German people, but for him the German people was always an abstraction. Even during the war, he never visited hospitals or injured troops or bombed cities. He lacked all empathy with real people, and he even criticized those who allowed sympathy to influence their political decisions.

Secondly, since Hitler believed that nothing exists beyond nature, he tried to find his purpose in life in obeying the iron laws of nature. Darwinian biology was especially significant in this regard, as he tried to apply its lessons to politics and society. Darwinism—especially forms of it often disparagingly called Social Darwinism today—taught him that life is a constant struggle for existence leading to biological progress. Hitler embraced eugenics and racial extermination of allegedly inferior races as means to improve the human species and foster progress.

Finally, while spurning traditional moral standards, Hitler exalted evolution itself to the status of a moral absolute—everything that advances evolution is morally good and everything that hinders it is immoral. Since he viewed the Aryan race as the most advanced race on the earth, indeed the only race capable of creating civilization and a higher culture, this came to mean that whatever promotes the expansion of the Aryan race was good and whatever hindered their expansion was evil. Hitler sincerely believed that his policies and decisions were good and beneficial. His pursuit of a “noble ideal” to benefit abstract humanity in a universe without God, without morality, and without human rights, produced intense suffering, horror, and destruction for real people.

[ http://www.csustan.edu/history/faculty/weikart/hitler-evil.htm ]


Hitler, a “blast from the past”, but also, the “view to the future”, of those infected with Darwin’s thinking and of the Evolution mindset...


48 posted on 05/30/2009 6:48:00 PM PDT by Star Traveler (The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a Zionist and Jerusalem is the apple of His eye.)
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To: Star Traveler
Der Fuhrer sez:

"The advantages of a personal and political nature that might arise from compromising with atheistic organizations would not outweigh the consequences which would become apparent in the destruction of general moral basic values. The national Government regards the two Christian confessions as the weightiest factors for the maintenance of our nationality."

-A. Hitler, Speech to the Reichstag, March 23, 1933

http://www.hitler.org/speeches/03-23-33.html

51 posted on 05/30/2009 7:38:52 PM PDT by Ken H
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