The Cross vs. the Swastika

I vividly remember a high school conversation with a friend I’d known since we were eight. I’d pointed out that Hitler was essentially a pagan, not a Christian, but my friend absolutely refused to believe it. No matter how much evidence I presented, he kept insisting that Nazi Germany was an extension of Christianity, acting out its age-old vendetta against the Jews. Not that he spoke from any personal study of the subject; he just knew. He’d heard it so many times it’d become an article of faith — one of those things “everyone knows.”

Flash forward 25 years. A few weeks ago my last column (http://www.boundless.org/2001/regulars/kaufman/a0000528.html) refuted a number of familiar charges against Christianity, including the Christianity-created-Nazism shibboleth. Even though I only skimmed the subject, I thought the evidence I cited would’ve been hard to ignore; I quoted, for example, Hitler’s fond prediction that he would “destroy Christianity” and replace it with “a [pagan] religion rooted in nature and blood.” But sure enough, I still heard from people who couldn’t buy that.

Well, sometimes myths die hard. But this one took a hit in early January, at the hands of one Julie Seltzer Mandel, a Jewish law student at Rutgers whose grandmother survived internment at Auschwitz.

A couple of years ago Mandel read through 148 bound volumes of papers gathered by the American OSS (the World War II-era predecessor of the CIA) to build the case against Nazi leaders on trial at Nuremberg. Now she and some fellow students are publishing what they found in the journal Law and Religion(www.lawandreligion.com), which Mandel edits. The upshot: a ton of evidence that Hitler sought to wipe out Christianity just as surely as he sought to wipe out the Jews.

The first installment (the papers are being published in stages) includes a 108-page OSS outline, “The Persecution of the Christian Churches.” It’s not easy reading, but it’s an enlightening tale of how the Nazis — faced with a country where the overwhelming majority considered themselves Christians — built their power while plotting to undermine and eradicate the churches, and the people’s faith.

Before the Nazis came to power, the churches did hold some views that overlapped with the National Socialists — e.g., they opposed communism and resented the Versailles treaty that ended World War I by placing heavy burdens on defeated Germany. But, the OSS noted, the churches “could not be reconciled with the principle of racism, with a foreign policy of unlimited aggressive warfare, or with a domestic policy involving the complete subservience of Church to State.” Thus, “conflict was inevitable.”

From the start of the Nazi movement, “the destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose of the National Socialist movement,” said Baldur von Scvhirach, leader of the group that would come to be known as Hitler youth. But “explicitly” only within partly ranks: as the OSS stated, “considerations of expedience made it impossible” for the movement to make this public until it consolidated power.

So the Nazis lied to the churches, posing as a group with modest and agreeable goals like the restoration of social discipline in a country that was growing permissive. But as they gained power, they took advantage of the fact that many of the Protestant churches in the largest body (the German Evangelical Church) were government-financed and administered. This, the OSS reported, advanced the Nazi plan “to capture and use church organization for their own purposes” and “to secure the elimination of Christian influences in the German church by legal or quasi legal means.”

The Roman Catholic Church was another story; its administration came from Rome, not within German borders, and its relationship with the Nazis in the 1920s had been bitter. So Hitler lied again, offering a treaty pledging total freedom for the Catholic church, asking only that the church pledge loyalty to the civil government and emphasize citizens’ patriotic duties — principles which sounded a lot like what the church already promoted. Rome signed the treaty in 1933.

Only later, when Hitler assumed dictatorial powers, did his true policy toward both Catholics and Protestants become apparent. By 1937, Pope Pius XI denounced the Nazis for waging “a war of extermination” against the church, and dissidents like the Lutheran clergyman Martin Niemoller openly denounced state control of Protestant churches. The fiction of peaceful coexistence was rapidly fading: In the words of The New York Times (summarizing OSS conclusions), “Nazi street mobs, often in the company of the Gestapo, routinely stormed offices in Protestant and Catholic churches where clergymen were seen as lax in their support of the regime.”

The Nazis still paid enough attention to public perception to paint its church critics as traitors: the church “shall have not martyrs, but criminals,” an official said. But the campaign was increasingly unrestrained. Catholic priests found police snatching sermons out of their hands, often in mid-reading. Protestant churches issued a manifesto opposing Nazi practices, and in response 700 Protestant pastors were arrested. And so it went.

Not that Christians took this lying down; the OSS noted that despite this state terrorism, believers often acted with remarkable courage. The report tells, for example, of how massive public demonstrations protested the arrests of Lutheran pastors, and how individuals like pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer (hanged just days before the war ended) and Catholic lay official Josef Mueller joined German military intelligence because that group sought to undermine the Nazis from within.

There is, of course, plenty of room for legitimate criticism of church leaders and laymen alike for getting suckered early on, and for failing to put up enough of a fight later. Yet we should approach such judgments with due humility. As Vincent Carroll and David Shiflett write in their book Christianity on Trial (to repeat a quote used in my last column), “It is easy for those who do not live under a totalitarian regime to expect heroism from those who do, but it is an expectation that will often be disappointed. . . . it should be less surprising that the mass of Christians were silent than that some believed strongly enough to pay for their faith with their lives.”

At any rate, my point is hardly to defend every action (or inaction) on the part of German churches. In fact, I think their failures bring us valuable lessons, not least about the dangers of government involvement in — and thus power over — any churches.

But the notion that the church either gave birth to Hitler or walked hand-in-hand with him as a partner is, simply, slander. Hitler himself knew better. “One is either a Christian or a German,” he said. “You can’t be both.”

This is something to bear in mind when some folk on the left trot out their well-worn accusation that conservative Christians are “Nazis” or “fascists.” It’s also relevant to answering the charge made by the likes of liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd: “History teaches that when religion is injected into politics — the Crusades, Henry VIII, Salem, Father Coughlin, Hitler, Kosovo — disaster follows.”

But it’s not Christianity that’s injected evil into the world. In fact, the worst massacres in history have been committed by atheists (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot) and virtual pagans (Hitler). Christians have amassed their share of sins over the past 2,000 years, but the great murderers have been the church’s enemies, especially in the past century. It’s long past time to set the historical record straight.

The complete text of this article is available at http://www.boundless.org/2001/regulars/kaufman/a0000541.html

The case against Darwin by James Perloff

The ridiculous reptile to bird theory

And then there is common sense. In a popular evolutionary explanation, here's how reptiles evolved into birds: They wanted to eat flying insects that were out of reach. So the reptiles began leaping, and flapping their arms to get higher. Over millions of years, their limbs transformed into wings by increments, their tough reptilian scales gradually sprouting soft feathers.

But the theory suffers when scrutinized. According to natural selection, a physical trait is acquired because it enhances survival.

The problem is, wings would have no genuine survival value until they reached the point of flight. Birds' wings and feathers are perfectly designed instruments. Those with crippled or clipped wings cannot fly, and are bad candidates for survival. Likewise, the intermediate creature whose limb was half leg, half wing, would fare poorly -- it couldn't fly, nor walk well. Natural selection would eliminate it without a second thought.

Let's raise an even more fundamental question: Why aren't reptiles today developing feathers? Why aren't fish today growing little legs, trying to adapt to land? Shouldn't evolution be ongoing?

The complete lack of a fossil record

Supposedly invertebrates evolved into the first fish. But despite millions of fossils from both groups, transitional fossils linking them are missing.

Insects, rodents, bats, pterodactyls and numerous other life forms appear in the fossil record with no trace of fossils showing how they developed.

The main point: If evolutionary theory is true, we should find the innumerable transitional forms Darwin predicted would be in the geologic record. We shouldn't find just a handful, but billions of them. Instead, the fossil record shows animals complete -- not in developmental stages -- the very first time they are seen. And this is just what we would expect if the Bible is right and God created animals whole.

James Perloff is the author of Tornado in a Junkyard: The Relentless Myth of Darwinism

If evolutionary theory is true, we should find the innumerable transitional forms Darwin predicted would be in the geologic record. We shouldn't find just a handful, but billions of them.

Technically, we do. Every fossil found, unless it belongs to a dead-end species, is a transitional fossil. What you want for proof is an example from every generation of every organism around. Vade gave you a link to a smooth transition website; if one organism shows a smooth transition through the fossil record, and other species show close to smooth transitions (but there are gaps in that particular organism's fossil record), could we not infer that what held true for the first organism could also hold true for other organisms? Or, should we conclude the first organism evolved and the rest were simply zapped into existence at various points along the fossil record? Or finally, can we conclude that you completely ignore any links anyone gives you? Please note that my seminal work, The Ultimate Creation vs. Evolution Resource, contains numerous creationist sites. I do not ignore creationist writings simply because understanding your opponent's (most up-to-date) position makes refutation of his position a bit easier.

Likewise, the intermediate creature whose limb was half leg, half wing, would fare poorly -- it couldn't fly, nor walk well. Natural selection would eliminate it without a second thought.

It's called Confuciusornis sanctus, and if you can imagine anything closer to halfway between claw and wing . . .

Please read down the 201-220 section of this thread. Your 221 has been rebutted before it was posted. Perloff is an ignoramus columnist for WND.

Once again, with feeling . . .

Several noted quacks have done debate tours. Gish is famous for these, and Hovind has done several. The formula for the creationist is to fill every second reciting a canned laundry list of wild claims. Thus the term "drive-by shooting."

The spokesman for mainstream science, who has about the same amount of time, can either try to rebut as much as possible of this (but there isn't time and he/she will not likely have the needed materials at hand) or simply ignore the C side and present the true picture. (There's barely time to do a good job of that.) Either way, a wander-in audience will not see how little science there is in creation science.

By comparision, none of the big C-side quacks like the web as a debate milieu. It's too easy to research bogus claims and show them up.

Dr. Ben Waggoner's approach to debating Hovind is about as good as you can hope to do with limited time. I would love to have seen this one. The slides alone are very nice.

Debate slides.

Don't forget to check out the whale series, Sparky. It's so good these days, and the creationists made so much hay about it back when it wasn't, that Waggoner made it the star of the show.

Alas, the guy's Home Page reveals him as a minion of Satan.

Thus the term "drive-by shooting."

I used to watch Ralph Nader do this. He was a master of the technique in the days of his book, "Unsafe At Any Speed." The technique, as I studied it, involved this:

1. Use your first 3 minutes to speak very rapidly, with much emotion, and shoot out about 10 lies, rapid fire.
2. Let your opponent, who has evidence and reason on his side (a Ken Star kind of guy), use his 3 minutes to carefully refute a couple of lies.
3. When it's your turn again, spew out 10 more lies.
4. Repeat (using 10 new lies each round) until the "debate" ends.
5. Result: no time to rebut very much, and most of Ralph's lies would go unchallenged.

Ralph would usually have the audience packed with idiot-students who were his admirers, and they would wildly applaud each "point" he made. To an un-informed member of the audience, it appeared that Ralph was a clear winner.

VadeRetro is correct, that a "debate" is not the forum to handle such a fraud. It must be done in writing, point for point, so that each lie can be clearly dealt with.

VadeRetro is correct, that a "debate" is not the forum to handle such a fraud. It must be done in writing, point for point, so that each lie can be clearly dealt with.

Although Creationists complain bitterly that mainstream Scientific Journals won't publish Creation Science papers, one has to wonder whether they don't secretly see it as a blessing in disguise. By self-publishing their "scientific research," they effectively shield their audience from the very point-by-point analysis and rebuttal to which all science is subjected in mainstream science journals. In short, Creation Science avoids science journals for the same reasons Vade and you have suggested Creationism hucksters prefer live "debate" formats over the rigors of a written format like FR.

Perhaps this also explains why circus and magic acts thrive in live performance formats, but don't translate well to video tape, where the suspicious viewer can stop the tape, back up, and run it in slow motion.

In a word, too much "scrutiny" ruins the effect.

Beep. Circle takes the square. You must really do more reading. Taking Wing: A New View of the Origin of Bird Flight Emerges was posted less than a month ago (Jan. 10). As for the feather thingy, paleontologists have known for decades that feathers preceded flight and probably developed for insulation purposes (for which they are superbly adapted). Evidence for Dinosaur-Bird Transition, The (A Sidebar Thread) was posted on July 9 of last year and has some lovely pictures of feathered dinosaurs. Ah, but you ask, how do we know dinosaurs had feathers? Well, not all dinosaurs had feathers, but some did, and Microscopic Bone Evidence Supports Dinosaur-Bird Evolution.

If you are really interested in actually learning something about bird evolution and not just in spouting off the last thing you heard someone exclaim on the Christian Broadcast Network, you might take a gander at the following sites. I've even included the creationist view on the subject:

From "Bird Evolution: A Theropod Legacy":

The wrist of this raven-sized bird [Archaeopteryx -- VR] was identical to that of the man-sized Deinonychus. Both specimens at the wrist are unlike any other structure ever found and represent a primitive condition of the bird wing. This condition is only expressed by the Hoatzin and these two dinosaurs. There is a unique swivel that allows for extraordinary control of the wrist. Based on this evidence, Ostrom realized that these two had been closely related.

Post 219 has a good picture of this.

Huckster would defined as pseudo-scientists and evolutionary groupies that try to pass off a theory with NO fossil record or evidence. Darwin himself stated that the fossil record should back his theory and that ample evidence should be contained in the fossil record. Yet, the fossil record is barren. 250,000 fossils and only a handful of questionable and fraudulent "missing links" that show the fossil record supports creationism.

The theory contradicts thermodyamics. And the evolutionist has to make up imaginary laws that don't exist to try and explain why the theory completely contradicts the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

And what moron could possibly believe based on human history that massive, beneficial mutations have occurred when human history indicates mutations are overwhelmingly detrimental.

It takes blind faith to believe this utter stupidity. And, of course, you haven't got the courage of your convictions. Of course, you won't debate a creationist because there is no place to hide. No place to cut and paste more absurd theories to pile on to the ultimate fairy tale. You don't want a real debate because you know you'd get an ass kicking.

Stephen J. Gould is one of the most well-known evolutionists. Unlike you, Gould isn't willing to live in a complete fantasy world. He is forced to admit the evidence is lacking:

"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nods of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded to gradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial of this literal record." (Gould, Stephen J. "The Panda’s Thumb, 1980, p. 181

"Few paleontologists have, I think ever supposed that fossils, by themselves, provide grounds for the conclusion that evolution has occurred. An examination of the work of those paleontologists who have been particularly concerned with the relationship between paleontology and evolutionary theory, for example that of G. G. Simpson and S. J. Gould, reveals a mindfulness of the fact that the record of evolution, like any other historical record, must be construed within a complex of particular and general preconceptions not the least of which is the hypothesis that evolution has occurred. ...The fossil record doesn’t even provide any evidence in support of Darwinian theory except in the weak sense that the fossil record is compatible with it, just as it is compatible with other evolutionary theories, and revolutionary theories and special creationist theories and even ahistorical theories." (Kitts, David B., "Search for the Holy Transformation," review of Evolution of Living Organisms, by Pierre-P. Grassé, Paleobiology, vol. 5, 1979, pp. 353-354)

What we have is more lame, absurd theories that defy reason to explain a theory that contains absolutely NO evidence and fossil record, that contradicts thermodynamics and is based on the absurd notion that mutations are massive and beneficial.

You obviously did not read the Thermodynamics links I gave you. You are definitely showing a lack of desire when it comes to actually understanding the theory you seek to disparage. BTW, when are you going to show proof that creationism is a more viable "theory" than evolution?

Let's see how the argument goes so far:

1) Evolution has 150 years of evidence to corroborate its basic thesis that all organisms change over time and all are descended from a common ancestor. The fossil record backs up this contention as does observation both in nature and in the laboratory. But since evolutionists are all a bunch of Satan-worshipping atheists* evolution is crap.

2) There is no evidence for creationism so we are forced to rely upon a particular interpretation of the first two chapters of Genesis and some faulty statistical analysis. This absolutely proves that Biblical Creation is right!

Did I get your position right?

*Yeah, I know. Logically you can't be an atheist and a Satan worshipper, but logic is not the creationist strong suit.

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