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Posted on 01/26/2002 1:14:46 PM PST by Paul Ross
The Cross vs. the Swastika
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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
What's the matter, Sparky; fresh out of out-of-context quotes? No essays written by magicians to post? Having to resort to personal insults?
With this tremendous degree you have, you shouldn't feel intimidated to call up Bob Enyart. Then, we could here [sic] a guy with a real nice degree make an idiot out of himself.
Putting your personal envy over my degree aside, Enyart is welcome HERE anytime he wants to dip his toe into the water, where there are no time limits, and swell-sounding sound-bites don't cut it.
You've learned evolution well. [snip, to see what it is like to quote someone out-of-context]
Why thank you! [This business of quoting someone out-of-context is kinda fun! It is so easy to turn someone's words around and make it seem like they're saying the exact opposite of what they meant! Now I can see why all of the anti-Evolutionists use this technique so frequently!]
Most of the Founders of science were Creationists. There are dozens of scientists that have accomplished more than you ever will that are Creationists.
And I dare say there are more than a few dozen Evolutionists who have accomplished more than you ever will. So what?
Your degree is meaningless...
Well, to tell you the truth, Sparky, you aren't the first person to say that. I can recall those very words being said to me ... by a minimum wage "bus-boy" who used to wash my dirty dishes while I was enjoying a post-graduation ceremony meal at the University. And guess what? He's STILL bussing dishes in the cafeteria, 25 years later.
And now to the meat of the matter:
You seemed to think I'm some sort of moron for stating that there is a concentration of energy taken from the surroundings (localized decrease in entropy) in a Hurricane, acheived at the expense of an even greater increase in entropy of the Hurricane's surroundings.
Well, Sparky, if you'd bothered to read the material I quoted previously, you'd have noticed THIS:
--Frank L. Lambert, Professor Emeritus (Chemistry)
Occidental College, Los Angeles
You see the part where Professor Lambert says:
"Hurricanes are no more a violation of the second law than a car going uphill."
The only reason for that statement being made is because the Hurricane represents a localized DECREASE in entropy; if it didn't, Professor Lambert wouldn't need to say what he said.
Since you weren't impressed by my meager credentials, here's Profossor Lambert's: you can disparage him all you want, and tell everyone reading this thread how YOU think you know more about Thermodynamics that a Professor of Chemistry.
Frank L. Lambert graduated with honors from Harvard University and received the doctorate in chemistry from the University of Chicago. After military service in WWII and industrial research and development, he joined the faculty of Occidental College in Los Angeles. His primary concern was teaching and his most important publication in the field, that few professors seem to have read, urged the abandonment of the traditional lecture system in chemistry. ("Why lecture -- since Gutenberg? Aren't textbooks available now?")For many years he taught "Enfolding Entropy", a course for non-science majors. His research in the polarography of halogen compounds was designed for undergraduate collaboration and all but one of his scientific articles were published with student co-authors.
Professor emeritus from Occidental College, he became the first scientific advisor to the J. Paul Getty Museum. He has continued to be a consultant to the Getty Conservation Institute since its founding and as it has grown to have a staff of 14 scientists. His Web sites on the second law of thermodynamics for science students, www.secondlaw.com and www.2ndlaw.com averaged more than 10,000 readers per month in 2001.
www.shakespeare2ndlaw.com is a Web site for those who are not in science. In describing the concept of activation energies as vital in "damming" the second law, it shows the importance of this concept in developing a realistic philosophy of life. ("Why NOT me?" is the only valid question in times of distress caused by accidents and ill-health.)
Looking forward to your next flurry of juvenile insults...
"There is a general natural tendency of all observed systems to go from order to disorder, reflecting dissipation of energy available for future transformation—the law of increasing entropy." R. B. Lindsay: "Physics—To What Extent Is It Deterministic?" American Scientist, Vol. 56, Summer 1968, p. 100.
Observed systems would include life on the planet.
Henry Morris: ALL observed systems include life oRemember this tendency from order to disorder applies to all real processes. Real processes include, of course, biological and geological processes, as well as chemical and physical processes. The interesting question is: "How does a real biological process, which goes from order to disorder, result in evolution. which goes from disorder to order?"
I wonder how this brief description of an individual truly bolstered your position. I happen to know Scully personally, and Sully is CERTAINLY no moron. Scully did not spend so many years in Grad School to be disingenuously called a moron.
Now back to your argument:
I looked at your (tiny) list of which most were before Darwin and only 7 total since 1900 and wondered, if the scientific community is truly jumping off the bandwagon as fast as you are implying, why did 72 Nobel Laureates, 17 state academies of science, and 7 other scientific organizations submit an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court which opposed teaching Biblical literalism as science.
You might try reading the following two links prior to further argument:
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/6733_creation_or_evolution_12_7_2000.asp
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/edwards-v-aguillard/amicus1.html
I have never encountered a single scientist who has done this.
I guess I didn't make it clear enough for you, or perhaps you read much more into it than is there. Consider an analogy -- most "founders of science" didn't espouse Einstein's views of physics, not because they were opposed to Einstein, but because they lived and died before those ideas had been developed. Simple historical fact, and no worship of Einstein can be implied.
As for worship of Darwin, personally I don't care about the guy, except that he did very good work in the field of biology. Most biologists probably feel the same. I don't care about Shakespeare either, but I like his work. No reverence. Get it? Or are you hell-bent on claiming that evolution is come kind of religion.
LOL! I decided not to even go there! :)
That's it? Is this the best you can do with all that education you claim to have acquired? I truly am disappointed. BTW, you didn't answer my original question: Do you have any semblance of an advanced degree?
Comparing the philisophical beliefs of an individual to the scientific observations and practices of the same individual is a non sequitur. Apples and oranges, my dear fellow. Get it straight.
You seem to be foaming at the mouth here, forgetting what we've covered already. I concede the earth to be part of the universe. However, only the universe as a whole, or any other truly closed system, is forbidden from suffering a decrease in entropy. Any open region is subject to having its entropy lowered by energy from outside, as happens on earth every single day with energy from the sun.
The Second Law applies everywhere, but part of what the second law says is just what I mentioned above, that only the total entropy must increase; local entropy can decrease. That tends to be what applies to living things, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural phenomena that concentrate energy and then expend it.
In Evolution -- the Fossils Say No! (1979, p. 171-72), Gish quotes Stephen J. Gould of Harvard: " little later he [Gould] states: `The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change...´." What Dr. Gould actually wrote was, "The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change, and the principle of natural selection does not require it -- selection can operate rapidly." (Natural History 86:22, 1977) This is but one example of the ICR’s routine use of out-of-context quotes to "support" their positions. Always check the original source! They also like to use outdated sources or papers later found to be in error.Say it ain't so! Gish abusing Gould? [Gee! Think that's where Sparky learned the trick?] Gish deliberately citing out-of-date sources?
Yes, as is abundantly apparent from your performance on this thread, it takes very little to "boggle" your mind.
Hurricanes do NOT prove the earth is become more orderly or that the earth is decreasing in entropy.
No one said they did, Sparky. Where do you get this stuff from? Are you channeling one of "medved's" psychic animals?
The Second Law applies to the earth, you educated IDIOT. [emphasis added to highlight Sparky's juvenile methodology of argumentation and bad manners]
Once more, Sparky: NO ONE said processes on the Earth were exempt from the 2LoT. THe 2LoT applies to all thermodynamic systems when viewed in the context of the surroundings with which they interact. Did a pink elephant suggest to you otherwise?
The Second Law was established through observation on this earth and the primary application of the Second Law is on living things that use energy.
Well, your half right; it is based on observation (that's the definition of a scientific Law; they are generalizations based on empirical evidence), but the 2LoT applies to a great deal MORE than just "living things that use energy." If it were intended soley for application to tho what you suggest, it would be called the "Second Law of Biology" or something of that nature. But, in fact, the 2LoT applies to thermodynamic processes, regardless of whether or not thay are alive.
"There is a general natural tendency of all observed systems to go from order to disorder, reflecting dissipation of energy available for future transformation—the law of increasing entropy." R. B. Lindsay: "Physics—To What Extent Is It Deterministic?" American Scientist, Vol. 56, Summer 1968, p. 100.
And your point is? Lindsay is merely recapitulating the 2LoT in layman's terms. No disagreement from me.
Observed systems would include life on the planet.
Ah, but Sparky, "life on the planet" is NOT a single thermodynamic system! It is bazillions of independent thermodynamic processes going on similtaneously, each one, in the context of the surroundings with which it interacts, obeying the 2LoT. Just because you want to lump the processes together doesn't mean they are part of a single thermodynamic process.
Henry Morris: ALL observed systems include life oRemember this tendency from order to disorder applies to all real processes. Real processes include, of course, biological and geological processes, as well as chemical and physical processes. The interesting question is: "How does a real biological process, which goes from order to disorder, result in evolution. which goes from disorder to order?"
IS your memory as defective as your reasoning ability? I already answered that question in reply #379 thusly:
To which the likely answer is: by localizing the entropy decrease of the biological organism at the expense of the net total entropy of the system and its surroundings. You do remember stipulating in your own words, in a previous reply, that it is possible for spontaneous localized entropy to decrease, at the expense of the total entropy of the system and its surroundings, don't you? Biological systems "organize" at the expense of a little more thermodynamic disorganization of their surroundings. As long as the disorganization of the surroundings (entropy increase) is greater than the increase in organization of the organism (decrease in local entropy), net entropy of the system and its surroundings is increasing, all in accordance with your beloved 2LoT.
Again, the hurricane example, in no way, is comparable to evolution. 1) A hurricane does not involve a decrease in entropy on the earth. Any decrease is matched by an increase in the hurricane's surroundings. 2) The hurricane does not involve an increase in information and complexity.You in no way distinguish the hurricane from evolution with your quibbles. Within the hurricane, entropy is decreased. That's all that matters, not where outside of it the increase occurs. And, within the hurricane, information and complexity are indeed increased.
But that's not all. When I pointed out here how inadequate your answer was:
A hurricane has a definite structure which seems to spontaneously form itself from amorphous air. It also represents a concentration of energy that defies your simpleton's version of the 2nd law which forbids evolution. The evolution of such a thing should be quite impossible because you and your pamphlet-writing mentors make no distinction between the whole (closed) system and the open subset.You attempted to define the scope of the second law as follows:
The Second Law applies to the planet as a whole. A hurricane does not decrease entropy on the planet.So local decreases inside a hurricane are OK, it's planet-wide that decreases are not allowed. And that's of course wrong!
You're getting it wrong because you can't afford to get it right. It applies to the universe as a whole, the only truly closed system.In other words and for example, in the case of earth, you can't ignore the sun as a source of entropy-changing "free" energy. (But the sun is slowly consuming itself.)
To which you reply with a logical shell-game maneuver:
You're not seriously implying that the Second Law doesn't apply to this planet, are you? The law was almost EXCLUSIVELY observed on this planet. And, there are NO known violations to the Second Law:Note the silly dance here. You're back to trying totally to revoke the existence of local decreases. We had up to then been arguing about the scope of the region in which any decrease is forbidden, since you'd punted on defending the innards of a hurricane as being high-entropy. Now, you're pretending that I'm saying the second law does not apply to earth at all. IOW, you've sneaked back around and are claiming that the earth is forbidden to experience any decreases in entropy because the second law forbids such in the universe and the earth is part of the universe. But so is a hurricane! How does that happen?
If you really mean to claim that the actual second law makes special mention of this one tiny planet, please cite!
ROFL!
And, you know what, Lord Kelvin, CREATIONIST AND AUTHOR THE SECOND LAW, would laugh in your face as well as the fraudulent pseudo-scientists that have advanced evolution. There is less evidence for Darwin's ideas today than there was when came up with the theory. The fossil record is so barren that Stephen J. Gould pretty much distances himself from Darwin.
A little info on the author of Second Law, a man who lived in the same era as Darwin, Lord Kelvin:
Lord Kelvin's Second Law
The Absolute Temperature Scale still bears Lord Kelvin's name, but other exploits in his day, like the submarine cable, revolutionary ship's compass and 69 other patented brainwaves, made him a household word. He died in 1907 with over 600 published scientific papers to his credit, 70 patented inventions and 21 honorary degrees. Elected unanimously at 22 as Glasgow University's youngest professor ever, he opened every lecture with prayer. "A firm believer in creation for his entire life he often insisted that the power to analyze, to look for causes, was itself a creation of God. He never ceased to look for causes, causes of causes, and for causes of these in return. Seeking a cause for the escape of heat from the Earth, he became in the end a founder of geophysics and the joint discoverer of the Second Law of Thermodynamics." He was 35 in 1859, when Darwin published his "Origin of the Species."
Could he have dreamed then that the Law he helped co-discover would today be one of the biggest headaches to Darwin's theory? "The sheer venturesomeness of Kelvin's speculations were possible only because of his underlying certainty that behind everything lay the power of the Creator God. Science, in his view, could never lead a man to disbelieve in God." Kelvin wouldn't buy today's notion that creation is somehow "unscientific." When his sister in later years read to him Darwin's early statement of "disbelief in Divine revelation and evidence of creative design in the Universe," Kelvin, "unhesitatingly denounced it as utterly unscientific."
Darwin apparently published his theory with much apprehension, fearing the scorn of fellow scientists; in the first edition of his "Origin," he prepared a line retreat along Lamark's ideas in case his theory of natural selection was found indefensible (Life & Letters of Charles Darwin - Ed. Francis Darwin, D. Appleton & Company, 1888, vol. 2, pp. 12-15). Professor C. D. Darlington was of the opinion that Darwinism began "as a theory that could be explained by natural selection; it ended as a theory that evolution could be explained just as you would like it to be explained" (Darlington: "The Origin of Darwinism," Scientific American, 200, 5:60; May 1959, pp. 60-61).
Here's another nail in Darwin's coffin:
The Mystery of the Empty Strata
Another frustration for the poor evolutionist is the strange case of the empty strata. As one digs deep into the earth, one layer or stratum after another is revealed. Often we can see these layers clearly exposed in the side of a mountain or roadbed cut. Geologists have given names to the succession of strata which pile one on top of another. Descending into Grand Canyon for example, one moves downward past the Mississippi, Devonian, Cambrian, etc., as they have been tagged by the scientists.
Now here is the perplexity for the evolutionists: The Cambrian is the last stratum of the descending levels that has any fossils in it. All the lower strata below the Cambrian have absolutely no fossil record of life other than some single-celled types such as bacteria and algae. Why not? The Cambrian layer is full of all the major kinds of animals found today except the vertebrates. In other words, there is nothing primitive about the structure of these most ancient fossils known to man. Essentially, they compare with the complexity of current living creatures. But the big question is: Where are their ancestors? Where are all the evolving creatures that should have led up to these highly developed fossils? According to the theory of evolution, the Precambrian strata should be filled with more primitive forms of these Cambrian fossils in the process of evolving upward.
Darwin confessed in his book, Origin of the Species: "To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system I can give no satisfactory answer...the case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained." p. 309.
How amazing! Darwin admitted having no way to defend his theory, but he still would not adjust his theory to meet the unanswerable arguments against it.
Many other evolutionary scientists have expressed similar disappointment and frustration. Dr. Daniel Axelrod of the University of California calls it:
"One of the major unsolved problems of geology and evolution." Science, July 4, l958.
Dr. Austin Clark of the U.S. National Museum wrote concerning the Cambrian fossils:
"Strange as it may seem ... mollusks were mollusks just as unmistakably as they are now." The New Evolution: Zoogenesis, p. 101.
Drs. Marshall Kay and Edwin Colbert of Columbia University marveled over the problem in these words: "Why should such complex organic forms be in rocks about 600 million years old and be absent or unrecognized in the records of the preceding two billion years?...If there has been evolution of life, the absence of the requisite fossils in the rocks older than Cambrian is puzzling." Stratigraphy and Life History, p. 102.
George Gaylord Simpson, the "Crown Prince of Evolution", summarized it:
"The sudden appearance of life is not only the most puzzling feature of the whole fossil record but also its greatest apparent inadequacy." The Evolution of Life, p. 144.
In the face of these forced admissions of failure to find supporting scientific evidence, how can these men of science continue to press so dogmatically for their shaky views? No wonder they fight to keep students from hearing the opposing arguments. Their positions would crumble under the impartial investigation of honest research.
The absence of Precambrian fossils points to one great fact, unacceptable to the evolutionists - a sudden creative act of God which brought all the major creatures into existence at the same time. Their claims that creationism is unscientific are made only to camouflage their own lack of true evidence. The preponderance of physical scientific data is on the side of creation, not evolution.
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