re: “They didn’t kill in the name of Darwinism...they killed because they could kill. They were bloodthirsty psychopaths who would use any theory to justify their butchery. I’ve never read one account by any major commie who used Darwinist principles to justify thinning the herd. They just liked to kill people...period. Marxism more than satisfied their bloodlust.”
The Nazi’s actually taught social darwinism so I would say they DID kill at least partly in the name of Darwin. As to communism/marxism, Karl Marx wrote:
“Darwin’s work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle… Despite all shortcomings, it is here that, for the first time, “teleology” in natural science is not only dealt a mortal blow but its rational meaning is empirically explained.”
You are quite right when you say that communists did not kill in the name of Darwin, but they did need the Darwinian naturalistic view of the universe and man’s history to put away “outdated” ideas like “God” or “moral absolutes” - they needed a purely naturalistic explanation for the existence of man and the universe.
In no way was Darwin a Marxist, but marxists certainly needed Darwinian theory.
There is also truth in what you say when you point out that often mass murderers killed “because they COULD kill. They were bloodthirsty psychopaths”. I agree. The same could be said for people who used “God” as their excuse for all kinds of tyranny and crimes against humanity.
And again, with Christianity, there is NO excuse for atrocities because to do so violates every principle taught by Christ and the Apostles.
But, as I pointed out in my previous post, though believing in the naturalistic view/Darwinian view for the existence of the universe does not a barbarian make, the logic that flows from the idea that the universe has no ultimate reason for existence, that what exists is from pure randomness and chance, that the very laws of physics are pure happenstance - this ultimately finds its way to morality. If what exists in the universe is random and happenstance, then morality may be the same as well.
One can be a naturalistic atheist and choose to be moral. One can be a naturalistic atheist and choose to be a moral monster. Neither one violates any precepts of naturalistic Darwinism. It’s simply a choice of preference, like choosing vanilla over chocolate.
But, to say one believes in Jesus as God incarnate, and claim to follow his teachings and values in the New Testament, but then does horrific acts against humanity - that is a contradiction of all the precepts he taught - as well as the teachings and doctrine of the early Apostles.
Hitler didn’t need Darwin to justify his killing. If so, why would he murder the Jews who are maybe the most successful individual ethnic group in history? He hated non-Aryans. He was infected with hatred of any group that was not Aryan. Because he or other Nazis might have quoted Darwin does not change the fact that Darwin or no Darwin, Hitler wanted to kill a lot of people.