Danny Denier post #402:
"Christians do not persecute anyone, Joey; but they are routinely persecuted." So Danny boy, are you truly that ignorant of history, or are you just doing your denier-thing here too?
Do you claim that whatever Christians did historically was not really "persecution"?
Or do you claim that those who persecuted were not really Christians?
Sorry, but the fact is that people self-proclaimed as Christians began persecuting their "enemies" -- non-believers, heretics, apostates, etc. including the death penalty -- beginning right after the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.
Danny Denier: "Christians do not persecute anyone, Joey, because it is impossible to be a Christian and a persecutor. People in positions of power can be Christians, or scientists, or statesmen; but when they abuse their powers they are no longer Christians, or scientists, or statesmen, but thugs."
So, I see, you don't pretend there were no prosecutions, rather you claim those who persecuted were not really Christians.
That's fine, I "get" that.
Here's your problem:
Beginning with Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, after making Christianity the empire's state religion, he immediately started to attack & destroy all other religions both pagan and Christian "heretics", newly declared.
And you don't have to be cynical to grasp that Constantine's motives were probably not just religious piety.
Instead, by "coincidence" it turns out that all those other pagan temples were vast storehouses of wealth accumulated over many centuries, wealth Constantine could & did use to build up his new Eastern Roman Empire capital at old Byzantium.
So, in the name of Christianity Constantine methodically destroyed & took the pagans' wealth to support his dreams of empire.
Did Christians object, did they oppose Constantine's infringements on others' freedom of religion?
No, for the most part, of course not since Christians benefitted in the form of new cathedrals and government financial support.
Somewhere I read that Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, known as Constantine's propagandist, did somewhat object, but in veiled & coded metaphorical language.
I don't know if that counts.
From that point on to early modern times Christian Churches were involved in persecuting non-believers, heretics, Jews & others.
Even Protestant churches after establishing their own official positions soon enough turned to persecuting non-Protestants.
Point is: that was the historical tradition into which Catholics like young Adolf Hitler were born & raised.
It all had nothing -- zip, nada -- to do with Charles Darwin.
Danny Denier: "Many Jews are Christian, Joey, and Christians do not persecute anyone."
Historically, your repeated denials notwithstanding, Christian churches helped persecute many different categories of non-believers.
And all that many centuries before Darwin was born.
Danny Denier: "Charlie Darwin taught the naive his religious doctrine, which emphasized that there was no power higher than themselves.
His doctrine thoroughly corrupted western civilization, and metastasized into Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and a myriad of lesser thugs."
Darwin never taught what you claim here.
And your implication that there were no mass-murderous thugs before Darwin is beyond ludicrous.
By odd coincidence both young Hitler and Stalin wanted to become priests long before they embarked on careers as murderous totalitarians.
Neither ever claimed Darwin was their reason. ![]()
>>Danny Denier post #402: "Christians do not persecute anyone, Joey; but they are routinely persecuted."
>>Joey Science Denier: "So Danny boy, are you truly that ignorant of history, or are you just doing your denier-thing here too? Do you claim that whatever Christians did historically was not really "persecution"? Or do you claim that those who persecuted were not really Christians?"
The latter.
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>>Joey Science Denier: "Sorry, but the fact is that people self-proclaimed as Christians began persecuting their "enemies" -- non-believers, heretics, apostates, etc. including the death penalty -- beginning right after the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD."
Anyone can claim to be Christian, Joey. Corrupt politicians name-drop Christianity all the time. And I have no doubt there are violent people who think they are Christians. But to be a Christian you have to do the will of the Father:
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." -- Mat 7:21 KJV
Jesus also explained his will, in a negative sense, in this statement to some of the Jews:
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." -- John 8:44 KJV
He also warned us to keep a pure heart:
"For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:" -- Mat 15:19 KJV
I don't see any wiggle-room to accommodate the violent, Joey. The violent can repent, like Paul; but they cannot be Christian and violent.
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>>Danny Denier: "Christians do not persecute anyone, Joey, because it is impossible to be a Christian and a persecutor. People in positions of power can be Christians, or scientists, or statesmen; but when they abuse their powers they are no longer Christians, or scientists, or statesmen, but thugs."
>>Joey Science Denier: "So, I see, you don't pretend there were no prosecutions, rather you claim those who persecuted were not really Christians. That's fine, I "get" that.
That is what the scripture says.
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>>Joey Science Denier: "Here's your problem: Beginning with Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, after making Christianity the empire's state religion, he immediately started to attack & destroy all other religions both pagan and Christian "heretics", newly declared. And you don't have to be cynical to grasp that Constantine's motives were probably not just religious piety. Instead, by "coincidence" it turns out that all those other pagan temples were vast storehouses of wealth accumulated over many centuries, wealth Constantine could & did use to build up his new Eastern Roman Empire capital at old Byzantium. So, in the name of Christianity Constantine methodically destroyed & took the pagans' wealth to support his dreams of empire."
Why would that be my problem, Joey? It is their problem.
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>>Joey Science Denier: "Did Christians object, did they oppose Constantine's infringements on others' freedom of religion? No, for the most part, of course not since Christians benefitted in the form of new cathedrals and government financial support. Somewhere I read that Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, known as Constantine's propagandist, did somewhat object, but in veiled & coded metaphorical language. I don't know if that counts. From that point on to early modern times Christian Churches were involved in persecuting non-believers, heretics, Jews & others. Even Protestant churches after establishing their own official positions soon enough turned to persecuting non-Protestants."
I am reminded of the routine warnings by the Lord to the Israelites that they be kind to strangers. The warnings go something like this:
"Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land." -- Deu 23:7 KJV
"Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow's raiment to pledge: But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence: therefore I command thee to do this thing. When thou cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hands. When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. When thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean it afterward: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt: therefore I command thee to do this thing." -- Deu 24:17-22 KJV
One of the dire warnings to Israel approaching the days of Christ is found in Malachi, which continues that early warning from Deuteronomy:
"And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts." -- Mal 3:5 KJV
In any case, every work shall be brought into judgment: whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
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>>Joey Science Denier: "Point is: that was the historical tradition into which Catholics like young Adolf Hitler were born & raised. It all had nothing -- zip, nada -- to do with Charles Darwin."
Some very good historians disagree with you, Joey. And so do I. Further, your injection of Hitler's childhood Catholicism into the issue, which he abandoned before entering the Army, is a red herring.
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>>Danny Denier: "Many Jews are Christian, Joey, and Christians do not persecute anyone."
>>Joey Science Denier: "Historically, your repeated denials notwithstanding, Christian churches helped persecute many different categories of non-believers. And all that many centuries before Darwin was born."
I can only tell you what the scripture says, Joey.
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>>Danny Denier: "Charlie Darwin taught the naive his religious doctrine, which emphasized that there was no power higher than themselves. His doctrine thoroughly corrupted western civilization, and metastasized into Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and a myriad of lesser thugs."
>>Darwin never taught what you claim here. "
Of course he did. Bergman explains it this way:
"Of the many factors that produced the Nazi holocaust and World War II, one of the most important was Darwin's notion that evolutionary progress occurs mainly as a result of the elimination of the weak in the struggle for survival. Although it is no easy task to assess the conflicting motives of Hitler and his supporters, Darwinism-inspired eugenics clearly played a critical role. Darwinism justified and encouraged the Nazi views on both race and war. If the Nazi party had fully embraced and consistently acted on the belief that all humans were descendants of Adam and Eve and equal before the creator God, as taught in both the Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures, the holocaust would never have occurred. Expunging of the Judeo-Christian doctrine of the divine origin of humans from mainline German (liberal) theology and its schools, and replacing it with Darwinism, openly contributed to the acceptance of Social Darwinism that culminated in the tragedy of the holocaust. Darwin's theory, as modified by Haeckel, Chamberlain and others, clearly contributed to the death of over nine million people in concentration camps, and about 40 million other humans in a war that cost about six trillion dollars. Furthermore, the primary reason that Nazism reached to the extent of the holocaust was the widespread acceptance of Social Darwinism by the scientific and academic community." [Jerry Bergman, "Darwinism And The Nazi Race Holocaust." Talk Origins, Aug 13, 1999] And your implication that there were no mass-murderous thugs before Darwin is beyond ludicrous.
This is Arthur Keith:
"The leader of Germany is an evolutionist not only in theory, but, as millions know to their cost, in the rigor of its practice. For him the national 'front' of Europe is also the evolutionary 'front'; he regards himself, and is regarded, as the incarnation of the will of Germany, the purpose of that will being to guide the evolutionary destiny of its people. He has brought into modern life the tribal and evolutionary mentality of prehistoric times. Hitler has confronted the statesmen of the world with an evolutionary problem of an unprecedented magnitude. What is the world to do with a united aggressive tribe numbering eighty millions!" [Arthur Keith, "Evolution and Ethics." G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1947, p.10]
"The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution" [Ibid. p.230]
"In the twentieth century the people of Germany were both educated and civilized, yet among them a feeling against the Jews reached a new depth of infamy and cruelty. The German sense of nationality had been blown into a white heat by the breath of their fanatical leader, for Hitler was a naked nationalist, racialist, and evolutionist." [Arthur Keith, "A New Theory Of Human Evolution." Watts & Co., 1948, p.388]
Those close to Hitler seem to agree with Keith. This is one of Hitler's secretaries, Christa Schroeder, quoting Hitler:
"Science does not yet clearly know from which root human beings have arisen. We are certainly the highest stage of evolution of any mammal, which evolved from reptiles to mammals, perhaps through apes, to humans. We are a member of creation and children of nature, and the same laws apply to us as to all living organisms. And in nature the law of the struggle rules from the beginning. Everything incapable of living and everything weak will be eliminated." [Christa Schroeder, "He Was My Chief: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler's Secretary - German." Langen Müller, 1985, p.68]
Weikart mentions two others:
"Two other associates of Hitler testify that belief in Darwinian evolution was integral to his ideology. [Otto] Wagener remembered a conversation in the summer of 1931 when Hitler professed, 'Everywhere in life only a process of selection can prevail. Among the animals, among plants, wherever observations have been made, basically the stronger, the better survives. The simpler life forms have no written constitution. Selection therefore runs a natural course. As Darwin correctly proved: the choice is not made by some agency—nature chooses.' This not only demonstrates Hitler believed in Darwinian natural selection, but it also suggests he saw the process as nonteleological, i.e., not directed by some deity. Wagener claimed that Hitler based his support for killing the weak and the sick on this vision of natural selection. Otto Dietrich generally concurred, stating that Hitler's 'evolutionary views on natural selection and survival of the fittest coincided with the ideas of Darwin and Haeckel.' Hitler was not an atheist, according to Dietrich, but believed in a Supreme Being who 'had created laws for the preservation and evolution of the human race. He believed that the highest aim of mankind was to survive for the achievement of progress and perfection.' Thus, evolutionary thought was central to Hitler's goals and policies." [Weikart, Richard, "Hitler’s Religion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich." Regnery History, 2016, Chap.9]
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>>Joey Science Denier: "By odd coincidence both young Hitler and Stalin wanted to become priests long before they embarked on careers as murderous totalitarians. Neither ever claimed Darwin was their reason."
Your constant harping on Hitler's childhood is a pitiful attempt to rescue Darwin's legacy.
Mr. Kalamata