Richard Dawkins's Jewish Problem

beliefnet ^ | September 29, 2009 | David Klinghoffer

[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?...

[Buck W.]

Instead of playing the Funk and Wagnalls game, let’s just assume that my usage of the term is consistent with its common definition. Given that, all evolution, including the transition between species, is consistent with Christianity.

Now, despite my earlier admonition to stop the F&W game, please define “Christianity”, specifically with respect to scripture.

[Buck W.]

Really, the bottle is not the crutch you think it is. You look stoopid.

[antiRepublicrat]

he knew instinctively that The Crusades were evil incarnate to such an extent that he eschewed any association with them and went off to form his own moral order

There's where you completely blow it in your long rant. I didn't say the Crusades were "evil incarnate," I said condemning them across the board is wrong because they were a mix of rightful defensive actions and some merciless slaughter. Criticism of the Crusades needs to be specific to the Crusade, and even the campaign within the Crusade. You portray them solely as defense against Muslims and choose to ignore the slaughter that wasn't.

[antiRepublicrat]

How can scripture support my claim of what happened during the Crusades?

But if you were talking about precedent for merciless slaughter, you just need to go back to Numbers 31, maybe Deuteronomy 2. There’s more, of course.

[Agamemnon]

…. Oh wait, that’s right, I don’t have to guess… I’ve actually *read* Darwin: Descent of Man, ch 6: “The anthropomorphous apes, namely the gorilla…., a distinct sub-group.” (This is where if I had more creativity I’d pull up a cute picture… maybe one with “PWNED” on it).

You mean you have *selectively read* Da rwin for purposes of obscuring context.

Darwin in Descent… associates the term “civilized” humans with “Caucasians,” as opposed to “some [non-Caucasian anthropomorphous- ed.] ape as low as a baboon,” and subsequently associates the terms, “negro or Australian” with the term, “gorilla." So when Darwin writes “The anthropomorphous apes, namely the gorilla,…” given the context of his entire statement, he has as much as called into equivalence by association the terms “negro,” “anthropomorphous apes,” and “gorilla.”

I have debated with intellectually brighter, and more intellectually honest persons in the past, but there are occasionally those I encounter on this board like yourself who have struggled with associative properties of mathematics as well as linguistics, and it appears that you reside in that dullards’ class of intellect.

As such it is of little wonder that when you write, you choose to reach for the homeboy’s lexicon to summon a term of sumptuous illiteracy such as “PWNED.” Do they still use that in the school yard where you play?

The term, “Anthropomorphous ape” is an evolutionary concoction, and is relevant only to those persons who group “races” of people into classifications as though they are species. It is a term of art, not science. It is a term crafted in the context of a false presumption without any basis in science, and as a scientist one is not required to accept the false premise of such terms.

Anyone can pare and trim a quote in such a manner as to ignore context even as you have done. But the notion of “exterminating” gorillas wasn’t what Darwin was writing about and any scholarly reader is capable of deciphering this fact even if you can’t.

—Not sure why the sarcasm tag, considering Darwin never talked about “racial purity”.

Darwin may or may not have combined those two specific words together and published them in a book as you have done here, but Darwin’s writings as quoted already on this thread already say and imply as much.

There is a good place to go for stuff like that though – Gobineau. He came up with “Aryanism” and was very popular in Germany. He also wrote a book called “Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races”. Gobineau argues that unless the Aryan or Nordic (German) race stays racially pure that their civilization will fall due to mixing with inferior blood, and his ideas became a movement called “Gobinism”.

Gobineau (1822-1882) lived contemporaneously with Darwin (1809-1882). Gobineau’s writings were not necessarily predicate to Darwin but both certainly could also have easily shared a co-inspiration. There is evidence in Darwin’s writing to suggest as much. It is perhaps possible to suspect that Gobineau’s musings on Aryan racial superiority inspired Darwin’s own chosen extended title for “Origin...” which includes a direct reference to the preservation of “favored races.” Social/political philosophers and academics in case you hadn’t noticed in general can at times be a very self-validating in-bred lot.

Ever notice how when Hitler’s application of “Social Darwinism” is freely discussed, one never hears the term Social Plato-ism, Social Kant-ism, Social Maupertius-ism, Social Galton-ism, Social Gobineau-ism, Social Wallace-ism, or Social-Lysenkoism? Why do you suppose that is? Could it be because Gobineau and Wallace, etc. while likely contributory influences of Darwin’s were not the primary philosophical authorship of, nor the proximal cause of the atrocities which defined Nazi Germany, Stalin’s USSR, or Mao’s China?

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/236572/Joseph-Arthur-comte-de-Gobineau “The Essai had a marked effect on the thinking of such men as the Germans Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche, and, in time, a movement called Gobinism developed. In the 20th century, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, an English disciple of Wagner, and Adolf Hitler were among those who turned to Gobineau for inspiration.”

So this English Nazi sympathizer, H.S. Chamberlain, who held dual English-German citizenship whom you point to here believed Gobineau inspired Nazis, yet though Darwin was a contemporary of Gobineau, and wrote of preservation of favored races in “Origin...” and “Descent...,” Darwin was himself in no way inspired by Gobineau also?

Darwin inspired Haeckel the father of the pre-Nazi Monist society. Darwin affirmed and inspired Karl Marx as well. Marx declared as much in letters to Darwin. Darwin conforms his “science” to a social viewpoint with the purpose of promoting a favored racial outcome and you are trying to convince everyone here that Darwin wasn’t a validation of Naziism just as much as Gobineau might have been? Might want to find another author like Hermann Gauch, or Heydrich the Hangman, and ask them to write an essay entitled “What Social Darwinism Means To Me.” in 200 words or less.

Your attempts to sanitize Darwin and the direct influence his writings had in shaping the views of racists and Nazi mentalities and the political application of Social Darwinism during the Nazi regime have to be the most desperate defences seen for one’s personal endearment to such intellectually corrupt thought and applications thereof.

BTW, Gobineau was a pre-Darwinian Creationist.

Pre-Darwinian? Not quite. Get your dates straight there, troll. Darwin and Gobineau were contemporaries and in fact Darwin was already 13 years old by the time Gobineau was born. Gobineau is a”Pre-Darwinian” you say? Your research skills – or lack thereof – fail you once again.

Everyone’s a “creationist” of some sort or other. Biblical Creationists adhere to the Biblical account of Creation as found in Genesis. Materialist Creationists, which includes most atheistic and agnostic Darwinian evolutionists – and likely yourself, believe they created themselves – not that they in all their feigned brilliance could ever even begin to tell you how they supposedly did it. Yes, brilliant fools they are.

Anyone who lived prior to Darwin was a Pre-Darwinian Creationist, doofus. You like making up words and terms and throwing them around assuming that no one will call you on it. Did you just pull that term out of your ass, or would you like to blame someone else’s sorry ass for it? You are looking pretty stupid right about now and your argument is taking on some serious “water.” Suggest that you consider bailing.

Hey, if the hole fits, wear it.

Agamemnon says--“Not surprised that an evolutionist like yourself would find the writings of this admitted racist to be so “astonishingly egalitarian” and such “a breath of fresh air.” I’ll just let the readers themselves judge you on this point.” GoodUserN replies —I understand that those (like yourself) who haven’t read much of Darwin - let alone other contemporary writers - may not agree with that.

If your invented term “Pre-Darwinian Creationist” gains real traction somewhere, be sure to let us know.

Agamemnon says: ”Technologically advanced”? I call Bullsh!t. “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.” was not a tome about technological advancement.” “GoodUserN replies —And, umm, what, pray tell, do you think the book was about? Human races? Neither human races nor human evolution is mentioned anywhere in the entire book. “Races” in Darwin’s time simply meant “populations” (separate groups within a species which don’t interbreed). Under Darwinian evolution, speciation occurs via different populations (races) of the same species diverging to become new species via adaptation (if ‘favoured’ under Natural Selection) and thus there are 2 or more species where there was previously one. Look at the quote I gave again (which, btw, was not from Origin) – he’s attributing the superiority of Europe to cultural evolution – not biological evolution.

One of the inherent evils that permeates Darwin’s writing is that the term, “race” previously reserved for defining peoples and nations, became re-defined, corrupted, and expanded to mean classification of human beings on the basis of physical characteristics.

You try to have it both ways: Darwin uses the term “races” but supposedly by your telling of it, he wasn’t speaking of “races” of people, he meant “populations” and “species.” Fact is, you are just too stupid to see that the hole you are digging for yourself and your position is getting deeper with every successive posting.

Can you credibly point to any other living organism apart from human beings who are ever referred to in terms of races?. There are “breeds” of animals, but where are the scientists referring to any of them as “races?” There are phyla in the context of plants, but where are the scientist who evr refer to plant “races?” Populations of bacteria may be cultivated on petri dishes: when was the last time you characterized E. coli and “S. aureus” on the basis of “race?”

Just admit it. You are not a scientist, nor are you one with a capacity to think scientifically at all. Not much of an historian or social scientist, as it turns out either. But if this discussion reveals anything about you, it is that you are clearly out of your depth of understanding on this topic, and you are drowning in your ignorance.

As far as Darwin is concerned, “races” of peoples, and by association their culture, resembling in the evolutionist’s mind that of “anthropomorphous apes” would be a culture and a people suitable for extermination by the presumably more “favored” and advanced “races.”

The “Caucasian race – in Darwin-ese is less defined by nation, and more defined by skin color, or as Darwin’s lapdog, Huxley observed, head, brain size, and jaw structures. In a word, and in the mind of the evolutionary thinker, Australian aborigines more closely resemble where man has come from, and the “astonishingly egalitarian” Caucasian is the evolutionary advancement beyond that presumably lesser “negro” sub-species.

No wonder Hiltler’s Germany was so enamored with this concept. Hermann Gauch was a famous Nazi race theorist particularly identified with what was termed at the time, “Nordic Theory.” In his 1935 publication, Neve Grundlagen Zur Rassenforschung . Gauch is quoted as writing,

”The non-Nordics and the animals [are] just about next to the anthropoid ape. He is therefore not a complete man. He is really not a man at all in the true counter-distinction to animals, but a transition, an intermediate stage, better and more apt is the designation, ‘subhuman untermench’

If non-Nordics are more closely allied with monkeys and apes than to Nordics, why is it possible for them to mate with Nordics and not apes? The answer is this: It has not been proved that non-Nordics cannot mate with apes.”

Hmmmm. “Anthropoid ape.” “Anthropomorphous ape” There’s that term again. Kinda funny how Nazi doctors and race theorists understood the meaning of Darwin and Schaffhausen, but for some silly reason likely related to your chosen state of blissful ignorance, you fail to make the connection!

You in fact fall right into the trap as you carelessly imply that human beings are to be thought of as different species on the basis of “race.” It is truly revealing how you together with other liberals and the Temple of Darwin “racial” supremacists of your ilk view humanity.

It is in fact what separates true conservatives from phony conservatives on a board like this and it is why the creation-evolution debate is so appropriate and necessary to have on FR.

You earlier labeled Darwin a racist. It appears you are as much a bigoted racist as Darwin ever was.

And to quote you: “—(shakes head) Such irony actually hurts.”

[YHAOS]

”There's where you completely blow it in your long rant.”

You’ve blown it everywhere.

Define ‘rant.’ I’ve given you a fairly detailed, carefully crafted description of the steps that Christian Western Civilization went through to regulate the issues of the meaning of lawful war, the origins of war, the avarice and cruelty of war, the treatment of prisoners, when the right of conquest and the claiming of the spoils of war are just and when they are not, the rights of discovery and the treatment of native peoples, the securing of peace as the prime objective of war, questions of maritime law, redress for injuries, restitution of property and recompense for wrongs done, and the laws of embassy and envoys. In what manner does that amount to a rant?

Do you think you can preserve your slanderous anti-Christian theme by dismissing, with a sniff and a cry of “rant,” the enormous efforts expended by Western Civilization to create a more just world? You portray yourself a most reasonable moderate, able to see all sides of every issue and to render justice in so evenhanded a manner as to excite the admiration of Christ himself. Yet when all is said and done, you come down on the side of anyone but Christians. You accuse Christians (and no one else that I know of) of being superiorist. Christians state their convictions without reservation. If they held any other beliefs than what they do, they would go to those. Tell me, do you do any less yourself? In other words, do you withhold your most firmly held convictions out of a fear of being branded a superiorist? If you do, how can we be sure that anything you say is genuine?

”I said condemning them [Christians] across the board is wrong”

That isn’t what you said, but I knew that’s what you meant anyway. I didn’t say that your condemnation of The Crusades was without reservation as you allege. I said that you thought The Crusades evil incarnate to such an extent that you eschewed any association with them. Is this not true? Do you not eschew any responsibility for The Crusades, pointing to Christians and saying, “It’s them. They did it. It’s all their fault.”

What would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic, is that, of all the peoples of the world, it is Christian Western Civilization that is endlessly excoriated for ‘atrocities,’ in war or otherwise, whether or not you think condemning them across the board is wrong. The world looks away from the most wantonly bloody atrocities imaginable (except when they are begging Americans for money), yet condemns the Western Coalition for the unimaginable horror of (gasp! shudder!) waterboarding! Thus it has always been through most of the Twentieth Century.

”You portray them solely as defense against Muslims and choose to ignore the slaughter that wasn't.”

You read what you want to read. You see what you want to see. You portray your antagonist in whatever light feeds your motif.

[antiRepublicrat]

It seems that I realize there was brutality across the board back then. I’m sure the Muslims try to explain away what they did, or simply deny it. And right here I see Christians trying to explain away their own brutality.

It just amazes me that some are incapable of saying “Yeah, we did some bad stuff back then.” No, it must be explained away, denied, those who bring up the history attacked.

Nobody ever did anything wrong in the name of Christianity, right?

[Buck W.]

"Nobody ever did anything wrong in the name of Christianity, right?"

I have raised the same point with others on this board, although for far lesser offenses than mass slaughter. The response that I get, and this is key, is that the offenders were therefore obviously not Christian, because no Christian would do such things.

What we have from the apologists, then, is both a forward and a backward definition of Christianity; forward in the use of their checklists to determine who's Christian and who's not, and backward in the sense of sieving those who were earlier thought of as Christian out of the faith because of something awful that they did.

By their actions, then, they occupy a rather self-proclaimed godlike position in the Christianity-assessment business. They'll tell you whether or not you're Christian, and if you as a Christian transgress, well then you just weren't ever a Christian at all, were you?

And they still question why I refer to their group as a cult!

I say that as someoneone proud to be a real Christian.

[tpanther]

How can scripture support my claim of what happened during the Crusades?

---

Bingo! That’s the entire point!

Slow, but at least something can be said for you finally getting that fact!

Indeed it’s kind of impossible to assert “in furtherance of Christianity”...when there’s just no scripture to be found in the NT that instructs Christians to slaughter, enslave or whatever “immorality” you choose to fixate on when it comes to Christians.

....along with burning heretics at the stake, slaughter of Indians, slavery or whatever broad brush you chose to paint Christians with in being the “apologists” (and not the muslims).

Slow, but I’m glad you finally got it!

[tpanther]

...you just need to go back to Numbers 31, maybe Deuteronomy 2. There’s more, of course.

Oh, and I know it must be hard but focus...NEW Testament scripture.

[tpanther]

If you hadn’t so easily dismissed scripture as some idolatrous pass-time, you’d have some kind of reference and a basis in which to make these discernments...

of course people do horrible things in the name of Christianity, but the fact reemains, liberals can’t find any actual New Testament scripture that actually makes a half-assed case to say it was actual Christian doctrine that instructed them to do what they do...

and NEVER do we see a liberal suggest the scenario in which someone does horrific acts in the name of Christianity PURPOSEFULLY.

thus your on-going idiocy and antiRepub’s desperate posting of OLD Testament scripture.

Instead what you’re left with is multiple strawmen and projections about alcohol, deluded thinking about your 2%er FRiends and being an ugly rotting amputated thumb (forget sticking out like a sore one) on FR.

[Agamemnon]

Now, despite my earlier admonition to stop the F&W game, please define “Christianity”, specifically with respect to scripture.

Asked you first. So far you have failed to answer. Why don't you try again.

As a matter of "faith" shared by all the above denominations, you agree that Christianity among other things requires that:

1. Jesus Christ is recognized as God

2. Jesus Christ is the Creator of the Universe

3. Jesus Christ cannot lie

4. Jesus Christ is the Author and finisher of the Christian faith (Hebrews 12:2)

5. The Holy Scriptures are Authoritative and the primary rule of faith and Christian practice.

Is this correct?

[Buck W.]

What on earth are you babbling about? Do you simply take words from your “religion” lexicon and your “politics” lexicon and string them together with an occasional connective and/or verb to form things that look to you like sentences?

You premises are wrong. Your assumptions are wrong. Your presentation sucks.

You have no point—just anger and frustration.

Again, what the hell are you trying to say?

[Buck W.]

I see—it’s “tag, you’re IT!” time.

I can’t answer your queries as I do not fully understand several of your questions.

I have already asked you about #5, and you have not offered me any assistance. I’ll ask the question again—does your question imply the literal truth of scripture?

On #3, what exactly do you mean by “lie”? Jesus told parables—were they lies?

Scripture is allegorical—is it a lie?

[tpanther]

In what manner does that amount to a rant?

It's not, it's just what liberals do when they're scolded, to try and deflect away attention from their excoriation, like a dog with a newspaper on the snout, it hurts pride more than anything physical.

What would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic, is that, of all the peoples of the world, it is Christian Western Civilization that is endlessly excoriated for ‘atrocities,’ in war or otherwise, whether or not you think condemning them across the board is wrong.

It's the exact same kind of insane liberal mentality that blames Israel for all the violence in a sea of arab hatred.

It doesn't matter that in terms of both population and land mass, Israel is a tiny speck.

It doesn't matter that this is Jewish homeland.

It doesn't matter that the Jews don't purposefully strap explosives to their children to blow up other children on buses or pizza parlors.

What matters is tanks, F-16s and they're not dying or marching into the sea fast enough for liberal (and Islamic) sensibilities.

Liberals sre just off their rocker insane!

[tpanther]

Ummm poo?

See #311...if you look at the bottom it’s in reply to #308.

Feel better now?

[Buck W.]

Yeah, I know. The context is obvious.

Your point is not.

Feel better now?

[tpanther]

Agamemnon:

As a matter of “faith” shared by all the above denominations, you agree that Christianity among other things requires that:

1. Jesus Christ is recognized as God

2. Jesus Christ is the Creator of the Universe

3. Jesus Christ cannot lie

4. Jesus Christ is the Author and finisher of the Christian faith (Hebrews 12:2)

5. The Holy Scriptures are Authoritative and the primary rule of faith and Christian practice.

Is this correct?

bucket-o-poo:

I can’t answer your queries as I do not fully understand several of your questions.

---

Pretty much speaks for itself.

(Not that there was EVER much mystery here.)

[count-your-change]

“.... someone does horrific acts in the name of Christianity PURPOSEFULLY.”

As Jesus foretold so it should not surprise us.

[Buck W.]

Drinking pretty early today, I see. Did you read my questions?