Posted on 09/30/2009 11:46:34 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
The Anti-Defamation League, the country's leading group dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism, is rightly sensitive to the offense of trivializing the Holocaust. Why, then, has the ADL said nothing in protest against the Darwinian biologist and bestselling atheist author Richard Dawkins and his comparison of Darwin doubters to Holocaust deniers?...
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.beliefnet.com ...
Thank you.
I’ve shown you how that last paragraph was a discussion of the issue that Darwin rejected, yet you persist in posting it as if it were some support for your claims of him supporting eugenics.
Either that or you are in cut & paste mode again and didn’t read it. I’ve noticed that habit with creationists.
“I posted a link of excerpts from Darwin’s Descent of Man where Darwin makes precisely that point, over and over and over. Did you not click the link?”
—Yes, I’ve read those links (and the book), but what does that got to do with the question? I’m talking about the paragraph you quoted partially in post #171 (and which I continued in #172) and that you complained about again in #213. It’s ok if you don’t want to answer, I was just curious what you disagreed with.
Darwin has no leg on which to stand. On what basis does he declare something “good” or “evil”? He spends a paragraph explaining why it harms society to keep the sick, the embicile and unfit around, and even goes so far as to say if they were lower animals they would be eliminated immediately and without remorse, and then turns around and says we keep them around because we are noble and civilized. What does this gobbledygook even mean on the evo-atheist perspective. Good? Evil? Civilized? Noble? But all these are meaningless if all we are is time plus chance plus survival.
Indeed.
You’ve chosen the historiographical approach to explain Darwin and his generation. I think that’s appropriate. Applying the same historical attitude, I wonder what might be your view, oh say, for instance, of the Crusades.
“What does this gobbledygook even mean on the evo-atheist perspective. Good? Evil? Civilized? Noble? But all these are meaningless if all we are is time plus chance plus survival.”
-So you don’t disagree with anything in the paragraph, you just don’t feel that Darwin has a basis for the claims regarding evil?
Are you utterly without empathy or conscience? I think anyone who’s not a complete sociopath can understand that certain things are evil, even without the benefit of reading it in a book somewhere. I care for my fellow man, and want the world to be a certain way (as Darwin does and probably you do). Even without the Bible, your morals would probably be similar.
Well, it certainly would be nice if that standard were equitably applied across the board, oh say for example, when Newton's philosophical leanings are mentioned, and the first thing evos do if bring up his belief in alchemy with the comments about some of his ideas being whacky?
Or like when creationists are called *Luddites*?
Or when the Inquisition is mentioned to discredit Christianity?
He wrote letter after letter denouncing, in the strongest language you’ll ever see him use, the treatment that many aboriginal people were receiving, and especially slavery and gave money to missionaries to help improve their treatment. He was nearly thrown off the Beagle for standing up to his captain’s racist statements. While in South America he even jumped in and intervened between a slave-master and his slave who was being brutally whipped; IMO, that’s what he’s “really about”.
Or when it comes to Christianity and slavery?
It was, after all, through the long term concerted efforts of Christians, Wilberforce in particular, that England finally ended the slave trade.
Yup, it sure would be nice to see the same standards applied equitably.
If I grew up in the 17th century, I certainly may have believed that alchemy had its merits. And if I grew up in the early 19th century, may have likely believed that certain human races were inferior if raised in a culture that believed such.
OTOH, even if I were born in the 15th century, I don’t think I’d believe that torturing people in unimaginable ways or burning people alive were ok. (At least I hope not), and probably very many didn’t see it as ok.
When judging people through history, I factor in their environment - as I said, there’s only so much I can ask of someone - but that doesn’t mean anything goes. Regardless of the time period, people had empathy.
Sure Darwin had some wrong beliefs - but he never advocated slaughtering, enslaving, or torturing people and fought hard to end such practices.
That’s just it, I’ve not seen anything from you BUT bias. You speak of evolution like some kind of programmed robotic cultist.
You won’t even answer the simple question of how it is anyone other than an evolutionist is to properly challenge your cult, or how ANYONE would tell if a peer review of evolution was done by an evolutionist or a creationist if their name wasn’t attached to their work...
instead you just parrot some nonsense about not trusting creationists.
So no, I won’t be taking your word on the crusades, and give it a free pass. I’ve seen too many people grinding an axe with their versions of the crusades.
Bias, if there is any, earned on the merits.
You won’t even answer the simple question of how it is anyone other than an evolutionist is to properly challenge your cult
That's simple. Do some research, write a paper and submit it for review. If it passes the quality standards you just scientifically challenged evolution. Unfortunately for your side, none of the papers have been of sufficient quality. That Meyer paper that got snuck into a journal was resoundingly trashed for its poor quality.
So no, I won’t be taking your word on the crusades, and give it a free pass.
I'll assume because of your bias that you do not challenge my description of the First Crusade. So you must be challenging the other two. I'll get my sources based on the first hit on Google.
The Siege of Jerusalem. I refer of course to the 1099 one. The Crusaders besiege the city and upon victory admittedly slay men, women and children indiscriminately. This was a dark spot in the First Crusade.
Saladin retakes Jerusalem in 1187 and enacts the then-common practice of a ransom for the inhabitants. He even lets many just go free. King Richard and others have a very high opinion of Saladin even as an enemy.
Wikipedia is also the first hit for the Albigensian Crusade. They massacred up to a million. It started with the Pope wanting to wipe out heresy, but France also enjoyed it as an excuse to extend its power and for nobles to gain some land. They slaughtered everyone in Béziers -- men, women, children, Catholic and Cathar. They burned a bunch more at the stake. After victory the Inquisition pursued Cathars in the region, burning them for another hundred years.
http://www.geocities.com/aprofaith/crusades.htm
From the article:
“The answer can be found by anyone who cares to do the research. A history book written 50 or more years ago will tell a far more detailed story than most modern ones. An older history will relate all the known facts in a detailed, step by step manner, explaining the personalities involved, the lead up to the conflict and every event along the way. Today’s histories are far lazier, and tend to give only a general overview of what the writer believes are the most important events, with little precise detail, and in what is more a themed than a step by step account. These methods leave events far more open to being twisted by an opinionated writer. What detail is added, tends to be odd stories to add colour and “prove” the writers point.
This mode of history writing has tended largely to ignore the events that led up to and formed the context of the Crusades”.
*********************************************************
Reminds me a good bit of liberal evolutionists...”lazy scholarship”, “odd stories”...
Were you seriously chortling something about bias earned on merits?
More from the article:
So why are the Crusades now so Misrepresented in the West?.
The change of the image of the Crusaders from noble paladins to brutal Imperialists has been driven by:
1. A feeling of guilt amongst modern intellectuals over recent colonialism. Muslims have been seen as being victims of the West, and this world-view was then projected backward on the Crusades. To “compensate” for recent western dominance, past Muslim misdeeds were overlooked, and Christian ones were exaggerated and emphasized.
2. The need of many in modern society to try to tear down the specifically Christian roots of Western civilisation. Such people like to promote the view that modern society developed despite Christianity, rather than because of it. So they run down Christianity’s huge contribution to society, progress and civilisation, and over-emphasize any negatives.
3. The desire of modern historians to have something “new” to say in order to make their reputations. So if the standard view of the Vikings, for example, is that they were murderous destroyers, the revisionist will try to argue that they were cultured, caring intellectuals.
However, this “Christian-hating” view of the crusades is counter-productive, since it encourages an unjustified sense of grievance against Christians in the Islamic world. It also protects Muslims from the need to face and modify their own aggressive historical tendencies.
And more from the article:
JERUSALEM
The Christian massacre of several thousands of the population of Jerusalem immediately following the capture of the city, is an incident that is repeatedly quoted as one of particular Christian brutality - as opposed to the supposed greater leniency of Saladin when he took the city a hundred years later. However, as with most such charges, this is a major distortion of what was really taking place.
The rules of siege warfare at the time were very clear, and accepted by both sides. Those rules were that a besieged city was given a choice of surrendering to an attacking army without further bloodshed. However if that city resisted assault, and so needed to be stormed by the besieging army at great cost of life to the attackers, then the population of the city were considered combatants, and subject to the fury and spoil of the attackers. Once a battering ram hit the gates of a city, the die was cast and all inside could be subject to attack and treated as enemy. The justification was, that the citizens had had the chance of a peaceful hand-over and had rejected it. Jerusalem held out to the last, and a large number of the Crusaders perished in the siege and assault.
A massacre was not typical of the Christian practice on capturing a city, however. In those Muslim cities that surrendered to the Crusaders the people were left unmolested, retained their property, and were allowed to worship freely.
SALADIN
Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem, however, was not a storming. It was a negotiated surrender in which the Christian inhabitants sought terms for their lives in return for giving up the city. It is this, rather than Saladin’s tolerance, which accounts for the difference. Even so, Saladin’s terms were considerably harsher than is normally reported in modern histories.
The terrified and craven mob kept running to the Patriarch Heraclius and the Queen Sybilla, who were at that time in charge of the city. They complained tearfully and urged that negotiations be started with Saladin immediately about handing over the city. The pact that followed was more to be deplored than commended. For each person a ransom was paid: Twelve sovereigns for a man, five for a woman, one for a child. Anyone who could not pay was taken captive. So it happened while a good many people were able to find the payment for their safety, fourteen thousand who could not pay went under the yoke of perpetual slavery... On that day, 2nd October 1187, the queen of all cities was taken into bondage.
Itinerarium Regis Ricardi
When the Turks captured Jerusalem from the Christians for a second time, in 1244, 5,700 of 6,000 Christians were killed or enslaved as they fled the city,
At last these heathens entered Jerusalem on 11 July 1244 and brutally disembowelled before the Sepulchre itself, all the Christians who had stayed behind.
Robert, Patriarch of Jerusalem.
In fact widespread massacres of Christians by the Muslims were very common, and used as an instrument of terror by Baybars, the Sultan who captured much of the Holy Land..
Eyewitness account of the Templar of Tyre
On Friday 18th May 1291, before daybreak, there came the loud and terrible sound of a kettledrum, and as the drum sounded, the Saracens assaulted the city of Acre on every side. The place where they first got in was through this damned tower which they had taken...
That day was appalling, for nobles and citizens, women and girls were frantic with terror; they went running through the streets, their children in their arms, weeping and desperate; they fled to the sea shore to escape death, and when the saracens caught them, one would take the mother and another the child, they would drag them from place to place and pull them apart; and sometimes two Saracens would quarrel over a woman and she would be killed; or a woman was taken and her sucking child flung to the ground where it died under the horses hooves.
Arab account of the taking of Tripoli.
On Tuesday 26th April 1289 the Sultan’s army entered the city by force, it population fleeing towards the harbour. A few of them escaped by boat, though the majority of the male population were killed, while the children were led away into captivity. The Muslims took with them a huge amount of booty. When the Muslims had ceased killing and plundering the people of Tripoli, the Sultan ordered it be razed to the ground. In the sea near Tripoli there was an island, on which stood a church named the church of St Thomas. when the Muslims took Tripoli, many of the women fled to the church there.
Defying the sea, the Muslim army made the crossing to the island, swimming with their horses. They killed the menfolk who were there and claimed as booty the women and children and property. After this island had been cleared of all plunder, I crossed over in a boat. I found it covered in corpses which were putrefied to such an extent that the stench made it impossible to remain there.
Abu al-Fida
Similar accounts have survived from Michael the Syrian reporting the massacre at Edessa in 1144. And that of Sultan Baybars himself, reporting the massacre and destruction of Christian Antioch. So completely was the city destroyed, that Antioch, once one of the four greatest cities of the East, never recovered. Even today, all that remains is just an insignificant village.
In fact widespread massacres of Christians by the Muslims
The Muslims aren't the ones claiming moral superiority right now, you are for the Christians.
But let's say I excuse these Christian vs. Muslim slaughters. Let's say the Christians just reciprocated what the Muslims did. What about the Cathars? Christians murdering Christians are just part of siege warfare? And all because they had a slightly different belief than the Catholic Church.
Of course, this kind of thing has a long history in Christianity. The Jews slaughtered everyone, except for the virgin girls of course. Those were kept for the enjoyment of the conquerors.
Me, I see this as simply the actions of more barbaric times, religion being irrelevant. I don't have the onus of showing how my religion is all good in face of their actions during these times.
Wow. I give up, there's just no leading liberals to reason let alone arguing with them.
You should. You can't claim moral superiority in light of the actions of the Christian authorities. Yet you can't even say "Yup, Christians did some bad things back then." Nope, you can't, because you must be morally superior. Thus comes the twisted logic to explain it away.
... what actually happened vs. the cleansed Christian view.
No, I give up because of the pearls before swine concept.
Meanwhile, you keep laboring under the delusion that the muslims are as pure as the wind driven snow in crusades history and stick to your lazy scholarship if you must...
I’ll stick with FR and the UN-re-written history as described in the article before liberals hijacked the history.
BTW, your contortions and projections were addressed in the article.
A response to your question requires a definition of terms.
If our definitions line up, perhaps our philosophies will too.
Please define what you term, "Christianity."
Please define what you mean by the term, "evolution."
You say "Christianity" informs your perspective regarding "evolution"? If so, how so?
If I recall correctly, you have said you are at least nominally Catholic, is that correct?
Another example of "earned bias" working in reverse.
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