Darwin → Hitler? Naw.

Whose [editorial comment] is that? Who equated Providence with the laws of nature in this specific context?

fnxtr said: Whose [editorial comment] is that? Who equated Providence with the laws of nature in this specific context?

“Providence [i.e., the laws of nature] . . . "

That does not compute. Even if cited, the above notion only has value if one already "just knows" that some uberspirit exists since they suppose that what it does is "natural".

For anyone else the notion certainly posits more questions than answers.

*but it is certainly a respectably ballsy statement to make. points awarded for style only*

Do you think someone could remind my fellow Brunonian, David Klinghoffer, of the Dishonesty Institute? I would, but poor dear David thinks of me as an "obsessed Darwin lover". And if you do, tell David that I think he needs to be examined by one Josiah S. Carberry, who is known at our undergraduate alma mater as a legendary professor of psycho-ceramics.

Curious that "Providence" means "the laws of nature" when an evilutionist uses it, but when any of America's founding fathers drops the word, it can only mean "the Holy Trinity."

Bronn gets no mention in The Darwin Myth even though Wicker spends an odious chapter on "Darwin and Hitler".

Don't forget that Hitler was mainly interested in murdering Jews. Himmler was far more concerned with pseudo-scientific eugenics than was Hitler--to the degree Hitler used to make jokes at Himmler's expense behind his back (you can read about this in Speer's memoirs).

Also, as a reaction to Stein's film, many science bloggers jumped on passages from Mein Kampf that seem to be evidence that Hitler was a Christian. It would be truer to say he was trying to create a political image acceptable to the mainstream which naturally had to include an appearance of Christianity. The extensive analysis of Hitler's personality presented in Fromm's Anatomy of Human Destructiveness makes it clear that Hitler was no Christian but was self-deluded to the point that he saw himself as the deity of National Socialism and envisioned a future in which he would receive the worship of all mankind, with National Socialism replacing Christianity.

Scott Hanley said: Curious that "Providence" means "the laws of nature" when an evilutionist uses it, but when any of America's founding fathers drops the word, it can only mean "the Holy Trinity."

What really gets me is that creationists denounce the "totally random theory of evolution" as being insufficient to explain the diversity and complexity of living things, and then in the very same breath denounce the "teleological theory of evolution" which practically forced the Nazis to try to "help evolution along" with their eugenics program. I guess when you're a creationist you get to have your cake and eat it too.

None the less if you download a .pdf version of "Mein Kampf" and search (as I have done) for the words "Christ" "Jesus" or "Lord" or cognates thereof, you will find well over 40 hits.

Search Mein Kampt for the word "Darwin"?

Zero hits.

Regardless, as Peter Olofsson so beautifully stated:
"...the validity of a scientific theory does not hinge upon how it has been interpreted by German dictators."

Helena said: Don't forget that Hitler was mainly interested in murdering Jews.

Paul Burnett said:

Helena said: Don't forget that Hitler was mainly interested in murdering Jews.

And don't forget that Hitler did not get that obsession from Darwin, but from Martin Luther, who wrote On the Jews and Their Lies in 1543 - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_jews_and_their_lies

mafarmerga said: Search Mein Kampf for the word "Darwin"? Zero hits.

Regardless, as Peter Olofsson so beautifully stated: "...the validity of a scientific theory does not hinge upon how it has been interpreted by German dictators."

Reminds me of something I read about Bill Clinton's wildly popular My Life in China. The book was so popular and the booksellers so overwhelmed with orders that they could not fulfil in time that poorly and wildly imaginatively written Mandarin translations began to flood the market. These were mostly dished out by moonlighting journalists and hacks for hire transcribing notes over the phone with students rapidly translating the book into Mandarin as they read it. This led to some particularly hilarious ad libbing, and one terrible version that had the Old Dog in splits when it was explained had this on the first few pages, "I decided to move from Hope to Hot Springs as the Feng Shui was good over there..."

Paul Burnett said: And don't forget that Hitler did not get that obsession from Darwin, but from Martin Luther, who wrote On the Jews and Their Lies in 1543 - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_jews_and_their_lies

Alan MacNeill: While Hitler uses the word "evolution" in Mein Kampf, it is clear that he is not referring to Darwin's theory. Indeed, he never mentions Darwin at all. In fact, a look at his writings reveals his sentiments on the subject to be those of an orthodox creationist. Like a creationist, Hitler asserts fixity of kinds: "The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger." - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. xi Like a creationist, Hitler claims that God made man: "For it was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties." - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. x Like a creationist, Hitler affirms that humans existed "from the very beginning", and could not have evolved from apes: "From where do we get the right to believe, that from the very beginning Man was not what he is today? Looking at Nature tells us, that in the realm of plants and animals changes and developments happen. But nowhere inside a kind shows such a development as the breadth of the jump , as Man must supposedly have made, if he has developed from an ape-like state to what he is today." - Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Tabletalk (Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier) Like a creationist, Hitler believes that man was made in God's image, and in the expulsion from Eden: "Whoever would dare to raise a profane hand against that highest image of God among His creatures would sin against the bountiful Creator of this marvel and would collaborate in the expulsion from Paradise." - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol ii, ch. i Like a creationist, Hitler believes that: "God ... sent [us] into this world with the commission to struggle for our daily bread." - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol ii, ch. xiv Like a creationist, Hitler claims Jesus as his inspiration: "My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them." - Adolf Hitler, speech, April 12 1922, published in My New Order Like a creationist, Hitler despises secular schooling: "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . we need believing people." - Adolf Hitler, Speech, April 26, 1933 Like a creationist, Hitler wished to make prayer compulsory in public schools. Unlike American creationists, he succeeded. Hitler even goes so far as to claim that Creationism is what sets humans apart from the animals: "The most marvelous proof of the superiority of Man, which puts man ahead of the animals, is the fact that he understands that there must be a Creator." - Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Tabletalk (Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier) Hitler does not mention evolution explicitly anywhere in Mein Kampf. However, after declaring the fixity of the fox, goose, and tiger, as quoted above, he goes on to talk of differences within species: "[T]he various degrees of structural strength and active power, in the intelligence, efficiency, endurance, etc., with which the individual specimens are endowed." Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. xi) So, like a creationist, there is some evolution he is prepared to concede -- evolution within species, or "microevolution", to which people like Phillip Johnson and Michael Behe have no objection. It is on the basis of the one part of evolutionary theory which creationists accept that Hitler tried to find a scientific basis for his racism and his program of eugenics. Ergo, Hitler did not base his eugenic and genocidal policies on evolutionary theory, but rather on views that are very similar to those held by most creationists and many ID supporters.

In addition to soaking up the antisemitism that was in the air, Hitler's views and influence were the culmination of the right-wing militaristic nationalism that was a major influence in many European countries in the 1800s and early 1900s. Since the French Revolution there had been a tension between internationalism on the left and nationalism on the right. Antisemitism flourished among the nationalists and was often (but not always) opposed by internationalists (think, for example, of the Dreyfus Affair in France). Stir all that together with the aftermath of World War I (including the Versaille Treaty) and the stage is set for Hitler.

But of course it's all Charles Darwin's fault!

(If this is a misleading summary, I would be pleased to be corrected by historians).

Heinrich Bronn had his own pre-Darwinian notions of branching trees, speciation and mechanisms. There is a useful paper by Sander Gliboff:

Gliboff, Sander. 2007. H. G. Bronn and the History of Nature. Journal of the History of Biology 40 (2):259-294.

An older article, in German is:

Junker, T. 1991. Heinrich Georg Bronn und Origin of Species. Sudhoffs Arch Z Wissenschaftsgesch 75 (2):180-208.

The world can be changed by man's endeavor, and that this endeavor can lead to something new and better .No man can sever the bonds that unite him to his society simply by averting his eyes . He must ever be receptive and sensitive to the new ; and have sufficient courage and skill to novel facts and to deal with them .

I think Hitler acquired his anti-semitism either at the end of WWI or during it. Ian Kershaw noted in his biography of Hitler that when he was attempting to make a living in Vienna before the war painting postcard sized pictures, he sold most of them through Jewish dealers, and he actually spoke well of them. Simon Wiesenthal in his book "Recht nicht Rache" discussed the theory that Hitler got a dose of syphilis from a Jewish prostitute around 1915 (a serious crime in the German army), and he defended himself by saying that he got syphilis before the war. Kershaw thinks that his anti-semitism came as a result of Germany's loss in 1918, and only subsequently predated it to before the war to make it seem more considered.

If you can read German, the addition Bronn made can be found at:

http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Entstehung_der_Arten/Fünfzehntes_Kapitel

raven said: Hitler was a creationist as Alan MacNeill documents. He was also a Catholic and his millions of willing followers were all Catholics and Lutherans. ...

Alan MacNeill: While Hitler uses the word "evolution" in Mein Kampf, it is clear that he is not referring to Darwin's theory. Indeed, he never mentions Darwin at all. In fact, a look at his writings reveals his sentiments on the subject to be those of an orthodox creationist. Like a creationist, Hitler asserts fixity of kinds: "The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger." - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. xi ...

I suppose it's worth it to rebut this Hitler stuff. As well as creationists using that illogical linking to justify themselves, it might also cause ill-informed neo-nazis to mistakenly believe that their repulsive ideology is related to "evolution" or "natural selection".

In addition to what has been pointed out above, let me note that -

1) Even if Hitler had been a trained and talented biologist, that would be totally irrelevant. Hitler was, in fact, a fairly talented painter (his failure to become a professional artist notwithstanding, this is true). The Nazi party did, in fact, include talented artists, musicians, scientists, physicians, etc. (For completeness, I'll note that it did not contain molecular biologists, nor anyone with a full modern understanding of the theory of evolution, because molecular biology (and most of cell biology) had not been discovered yet.)

However, one thing that painting and the theory of evolution have in common is that neither one of them is a system of ethical philosophy that tells people how they "should" behave.

People who happen to understand the theory of evolution can do what they choose to do (or what they have the illusion of choosing to do, I suppose, if you're a hard core determinist).

The theory of evolution does have a lot of value in helping me to understand what is likely to happen if I do certain things, but it says nothing whatsoever about whether certain actions or outcomes are "good" or "bad".

2) And indeed, just as we note that being a painter doesn't mean that someone is a Nazi, and in fact that many painters were vehemently anti-Nazi, so we can note that many scientists were opposed to Nazism, and that Darwin himself held political views that, while quaint by today's standards, were very progressive for his time.

I realize that this is obvious, and that anyone who doesn't accept this obvious logic is either biased beyond the point of honest discussion, suffering from a cognitive disorder, or both, but it's still worth mentioning it.

On page 115 of 'Architects of the Culture of Death' De Marco and Wiker do not give the original source of this Hitler quote.

They reference instead page 21 of a Mike Hawkins book.

Just how many times have we seen creationists not give the orginal source of a quote, but instead quote somebody quoting somebody else?

Sorry that should be page 274 of the Mike Hawkins book.

It is very suspicious that De Marco and Wiker cannot bring themselves to document where Hitler said that 'quote'

Guess what? Mike Hawkins is not quoting the original German. He is using the Cameron Stevens version of Table Talk.

I have the original German version , by Picker.

I wonder why a scholar like Wiker does not translate Hitler directly but instead cites a work which quotes another work , which then uses an English translation of dubious provenance.

Doesn't a scholar like Wiker believe in primary sources rather than 4th hand sources?

Or does he want to hide the fact that he is not using primary sources?

Wayne Robinson said: I think Hitler acquired his anti-semitism either at the end of WWI or during it. Ian Kershaw noted in his biography of Hitler that when he was attempting to make a living in Vienna before the war painting postcard sized pictures, he sold most of them through Jewish dealers, and he actually spoke well of them. Simon Wiesenthal in his book "Recht nicht Rache" discussed the theory that Hitler got a dose of syphilis from a Jewish prostitute around 1915 (a serious crime in the German army), and he defended himself by saying that he got syphilis before the war. Kershaw thinks that his anti-semitism came as a result of Germany's loss in 1918, and only subsequently predated it to before the war to make it seem more considered. If you can read German, the addition Bronn made can be found at: http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Entstehung_der_Arten/Fünfzehntes_Kapitel

Guess what? Mike Hawkins is not quoting the original German. He is using the Cameron Stevens version of Table Talk. I have the original German version , by Picker. I wonder why a scholar like Wiker does not translate Hitler directly but instead cites a work which quotes another work , which then uses an English translation of dubious provenance. Doesn’t a scholar like Wiker believe in primary sources rather than 4th hand sources? Or does he want to hide the fact that he is not using primary sources?

Those who deny Hitler as a Christian will invariably find the recorded table talk conversations of Hitler from 1941 to 1944 as incontrovertible evidence that he could not have been a Christian. The source usually comes from the English translation (from a French translation) edition by Norman Cameron and R. H. Stevens, with an introduction by H.R. Trevor-Roper.

I will add here that fundie cultists frequently make up quotes, just flat out lie. Not that we all don't know that.

Most of us have seen the "xian nation" propaganda effort with quotes from the founding fathers, Washington, Jefferson, and so on about how the USA was a god inspired idea or some such.

The truth is, most of those people were Deists or critical of religion.

Some of those quotes are just plain Made Up.

If you see a suspicious quote from a fundie xian without a source, chances are the source is a lie in someone's warped brain. Once one of them lies, they just repeat it, even after they get caught.

raven said: If you see a suspicious quote from a fundie xian without a source ...

This is a bit off topic, but Ben Stein has complained lately about being "persecuted" by Atheists and "Neo - Darwinists":

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/08/10/expelled-from-the-new-york-tim

raven said: Because they lied. The translation they used is partially forged. Xians after the war added some anti-xian quotes as damage control. Tim Carrier documents when the additions were made, who made them, and why.

Quick question, and completely off-topic: do you have to jump through some special hoop to get posting rights to AtBC over at the Antievolution website? I registered there but it's not letting me post.

RDK said: Quick question, and completely off-topic: do you have to jump through some special hoop to get posting rights to AtBC over at the Antievolution website? I registered there but it's not letting me post.

RBH said: I've forwarded your question to the AtBC overlords.

OK, the deal is you should have received a confirmation email. IF that's been completed and you still can't post, there may be a pause because Overlord Wes is packing to move from Michigan to Florida. I won't let it drop, though -- let me know if the confirmation email did not arrive (check our spam folder for it).

That’s very interesting. Would you please provide a source?

RBH said: OK, the deal is you should have received a confirmation email. IF that's been completed and you still can't post, there may be a pause because Overlord Wes is packing to move from Michigan to Florida. I won't let it drop, though -- let me know if the confirmation email did not arrive (check our spam folder for it).

raven said:

That’s very interesting. Would you please provide a source?

Sure. The primary researcher on this is Richard Carrier. Wikipedia has a little on it. Others have done more. Worth a read. From ffrf: http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/2002/nov02/carrier.php Martin Bormann, the compiler of it is also suspected of some shading. He was apparently an anti-Catholic bigot. Historians don't completely dismiss Table Talk. But they don't completely trust it either. And ignore the known forged parts.

The main point is that Wiker does not quote the primary source.

He cites somebody who uses a secondary source himself.

I thought scholars like Wiker were supposed to work with primary sources?

Surely the arguments over whether Hitler's views, and the acceptance of them by German society, came from Christian antisemitism or from militaristic nationalism are actually irrelevant here. The point is that Charles Darwin had little or nothing to do with this.

And in any case none of that can affect whether Darwin's scientific theories are valid. For example, we do not let the fact that Isaac Newton was a wierd crank who was not anybody's candidate for Mr. Nice Guy affect our assessment of his scientific achievements.

I thought scholars like Wiker were supposed to work with primary sources?

Without millions of willing helpers, he would just be another loon, sitting in a bar, and waiting for the internet to be invented so he could become a troll.

Let me ask again - did devout (fromm, schwaermend) Catholic Hitler receive the last rites before committing suicide? Surely there wdve bin priests with him in the bunker? Did he and Eva (a keen Catholic nudist) say the Avé Maria? Does Catholicism have anything to say about suicide?

I look forward to the usual irrelevant abuse.

Heil Hitlaa! Heil Darwin!

Look forward all you like, novparl, all you'll get is relevant abuse.

There were no priests in the bunker, of course, but Hitler was a Catholic, and that's flat. He was baptised, confirmed, and never recanted or was excommunicated. He paid the Church tithes and remained a communicant until the day he died. These are facts, and there's no denying them.

He believed in God, though the face of God was, for Hitler, his own face. He frequently used religious references, which is to say that he used religion. Trying to work out what he really thought is to assume that his thinking wasn't what it plainly was - deeply conflicted and self-contradicting. He was both religious, in a sense, and utterly dismissive of religion, in a sense, according to which favoured his aims. Both senses were irrationally warped, and passed through the filter of a deeply deluded world-view. He really did think that Jesus wasn't a Jew. He really thought that Jesus actually fought Jews. Just like creationists, old or young Earth, he simply ignored or distorted any evidence that contradicted his private reality.

And yes, novparl, I'm looking at you.

Ray worte:

"Let me ask again - did devout (fromm, schwaermend) Catholic Hitler receive the last rites before committing suicide?"

If he did, is that evidence for the existence of God and evidence against evolution? If he didn't, is that evidence for evolution and evidence against the existence of God? If he sneezed before he committed suicide, is that evidence for the existence of God and evolution?

Look Ray, you have refused to answer any of my questions. What on earth makes you think that anyone will want to answer yours?

Now, one last time just to be fair, can you or can you not explain why there is a nested hierarchy of genetic similarity shared between all living things if they were created separately and are not related to each other except by "common design"?

Once you have answered the question we can move on to discuss the bruning issue of whether the Pope is Catholic if a bear cuts down a tree in the woods and no one hears it fall.

The Catholic churches did say masses for the dead, in behalf of Hitler after he died.

They also used to say masses on his birthday while he was alive.

The only nazi who was excommunicated was Goebbels. His crime was marrying a divorced protestant. The RCC does have a strange set of priorities. Murdering 6 million civilians for no good reason is not as bad as marrying a divorced protestant

Oh, please, not a novparlfest again. Nutjob.

Joe Felsenstein said: Surely the arguments over whether Hitler's views, and the acceptance of them by German society, came from Christian antisemitism or from militaristic nationalism are actually irrelevant here. The point is that Charles Darwin had little or nothing to do with this. And in any case none of that can affect whether Darwin's scientific theories are valid.

DS - why do you call me Ray?

Dave Lucky - "He thought Jesus wasn't Jewish." No evidence provided. Also you're a bit light on abuse. And yes, I'm looking at you.

I notice you EXPERTS on Xianity are unaware that RCs regard suicide as a sin. Also the fact that Adi & Eva were living together (and Eva enjoyed nude frolics in the snow - a colour film exists, of which (anti-clerical) Goering had a copy).

I notice you EXPERTS on Xianity are unaware that RCs regard suicide as a sin.

Also the fact that Adi & Eva were living together (and Eva enjoyed nude frolics in the snow - a colour film exists, of which (anti-clerical) Goering had a copy).

novparl (not Ray, sorry my bad) worte:

“Let me ask again - did devout (fromm, schwaermend) Catholic Hitler receive the last rites before committing suicide?”

If he did, is that evidence for the existence of God and evidence against evolution? If he didn’t, is that evidence for evolution and evidence against the existence of God? If he sneezed before he committed suicide, is that evidence for the existence of God and evolution? Is the Pope is Catholic if a bear cuts down a tree in the woods and no one hears it fall?

Novparl, you raving ratbag, you're not seriously trying to say that Hitler thought Jesus was Jewish, are you? Seriously?

The idea that Hitler could venerate anyone whom he thought was Jewish is idiotic. Hitler and the Nazis thought that Jesus was an Aryan. Lots of Europeans did. It was demented, but they did. Richard Steigman-Gall http://www.theturning.org/folder/nazis.html gives the long history of that particular deranged notion and demonstrates that Hitler shared it. Steigman-Gall is Professor of History at Kent State.

If that were not enough, hold your nose and read this:

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter."

Adolf Hitler, speech in Munich, April 12, 1922, collected and published in "My New Order", ed Roussy de Sales, 1941.

Equally deranged is your implied idea - I notice you haven't had the balls to actually say it - that Hitler wouldn't have committed suicide if he was a Catholic. He did, and he was.

eric said:

Joe Felsenstein said: Surely the arguments over whether Hitler's views, and the acceptance of them by German society, came from Christian antisemitism or from militaristic nationalism are actually irrelevant here. The point is that Charles Darwin had little or nothing to do with this. And in any case none of that can affect whether Darwin's scientific theories are valid.

The DI is spreading historical lies. The fact that the lies are ad hominem rather than lies about scientific validity is not a good reason to let them continue.

"Providence" was Hitler's term for God, not "the laws of nature" (unless you think it made sense, even by his standards, to regularly refer to "the will of the laws of nature" and the like).

Nazism was a massive distortion of the entirety of biology, not just evolution (very rarely mentioned by Hitler or his posse). Not only did the Nazis consider their racism as "applied biology", Hitler himself preferred medical metaphors.

Joe Felsenstein said: And then, when they are refuted here, the thread gets diverted to a Hitler/atheism/Catholicism debate, for no good reason.

eric said:

Joe Felsenstein said: And then, when they are refuted here, the thread gets diverted to a Hitler/atheism/Catholicism debate, for no good reason.

To be fair, this thread remains on track in that posters continue to discuss the subject of the original post. :) ... Personally I think we need to address such DI nonsense because, as you say, some people will be swayed by guilt-by-association arguments.

ABCLarry said: The goal of eugenics need not be "perfection" -- the goal could just be "improvement." So Bronn's belief in evolutionary perfectionism -- assuming that Darwin did not believe in evolutionary perfectionism -- did not necessarily affect Darwin's influence on Nazi eugenics.

Isn't evolution mostly "progress"?

Darwin might not have believed in "progressive perfectionism," but how was he a "non-progressivist"?

ABCLarry said: The opening post says,

That skips right over Bronn’s insertion of progressive perfectionism into Darwin’s non-progressivist evolution.

Isn't evolution mostly "progress"? Darwin might not have believed in "progressive perfectionism," but how was he a "non-progressivist"?

Isn’t evolution mostly “progress”? Darwin might not have believed in “progressive perfectionism,” but how was he a “non-progressivist”?

The whole xian bible is saturated with racism. The old testament is the story of god's chosen people and how they warred with neighboring tribes, massacred them, and took their women and lands. The first genocides were those of the Canaanites and Amelakites.

The Germans didn't get the idea of racism or killing people they didn't like and taking their stuff from Darwin. It is much older than that by a few thousand years. As good xians all, they undoubtedly knew what the bible contained.

So is antisemitism. The most notorious antisemite in recent German history was Martin Luther who put forward his Final Solution for the Jews many centuries before Darwin. It was to kill them all and at Nirenberg, some of the nazis said they were just following Luther's plan. Note, the nazis themselves blamed not Darwin, but Martin Luther.

Antisemitism's roots lie deep in the German variety of xianity.

wikipedia: "Martin Luther (His statements that Jews' homes should be destroyed, their synagogues burned, money confiscated and liberty curtailed were revived and used in propaganda by the Nazis in 1933–45"

The mystery of the black box: Julius Streicher, one of the most notorious anti-Semites even in the perverse world of the Third Reich, used Martin Luther's seven recommendations in his defense at the Nuremberg Trials. He even took as the motto for his newspaper, Der Sturmer (the Nazi hate paper) a direct quote of Martin Luther, Die Juden sind unser Ungluck , or, "The Jews are our misfortune." [3] There was another prominent Nazi who saw Luther in a positive light: "Luther was a great man, a giant. In one go, he broke through the dawn; he saw the Jew the way we only start seeing him now." [4] The speaker? Adolf Hitler.

Hitler's over-reliance on air power was his undoing. At the battle of Stalingrad, his generals wanted to make a strategic retreat, but Hitler insisted that his surrounded army could be supplied by air. He was wrong.

ABCLarry said: Isn't evolution mostly "progress"? Darwin might not have believed in "progressive perfectionism," but how was he a "non-progressivist"?

ABCLarry said: RBH said (August 12, 2009 5:31 PM) --

“Progressivism,” as noted above, refers to a teleological conception of evolutionary change – goal-directed.

There can be progress without "goals" -- there can be progress with just "effects." And the "effects" of progress can be either "perfection" (even where there are no goals) or mere "improvement" without perfection. You are saying that the question of whether Darwin influenced the Nazis hinges on the difference between "perfection" and "improvement" without perfection, and I don't buy that.

ABCLarry said:

what proof do you have that Nazi Eugenics was influenced by Darwin in the first place?

The Nazis were strongly influenced by American eugenics programs, which were strongly influenced by Darwinism. For example, the Eugenics Record Office merged with the Station for Experimental Evolution in 1920 to form the Carnegie Institution's Dept. of Genetics.

There can be progress without "goals" -- there can be progress with just "effects." And the "effects" of progress can be either "perfection" (even where there are no goals) or mere "improvement" without perfection. You are saying that the question of whether Darwin influenced the Nazis hinges on the difference between "perfection" and "improvement" without perfection, and I don't buy that.

ABCLarry is just a lying troll. Creationists always lie.

He ignored the vast number of points made in this thread with documentation about the role of German xianity and Martin Luther. Hitler himself acknowledged that as I posted a few hours ago. Or Alan Macneills essay posted earlier that proved Hitler was a creationist

Eugenics owes more to Mendel and the discovery of the mechanism of genetic inheritance. And Mendel was an Austrian as was Hitler.

No one tries to demonize Mendel with the Holocaust or Martin Luther for that matter. It isn't because Darwin had anything to do with it. It is because they are fundie xian creationists and they are lying.

When all you have is lies, you have nothing.

Adolph Hitler: There was another prominent Nazi who saw Luther in a positive light: “Luther was a great man, a giant. In one go, he broke through the dawn; he saw the Jew the way we only start seeing him now.” [4] The speaker? Adolf Hitler.

Stanton usually tells fantastic lies. We were well into the thread when he suddenly invents that the Nazzies banned Darwin.
Some other nutbag quotes the last reference A.H. made to Xianity - 23 years before his death! AH actually regarded Xianity as a Jewish/Bolshevist conspiracy.

As for Stalingrad - it wasn't just AH's interest in air power that led him to reject surrender - it was his usual mistake to reject tactical withdrawal, presumably on the basis of survival of the fittest.

Darwin ueber alles!

ABClarry yammers. My position is that Darwin at least indirectly influenced the Nazis.

Creationists often insist on their difference from Darwin - and evolutionary biology in general - in that the creationists cannot accept the idea that "random variation and natural selection" can lead to anything but "downward evolution" or "deterioration" of the "kind". That, of course, is the basis of eugenics. The eugenicists believed in purposeful intervention.

This is not to say that creationism bears any responsibility for eugenics. To suggest that would only be to make one of the blatant mistakes of the "Darwin-Hitler" advocates, and let's not do that. It's just a matter that evolutionary biology departs from some pre- and non-scientific ideas in significant ways.

ABCLarry said: Sorry, missed this one from Stanton:

If they were influenced by Charles Darwin, then please explain why Hitler never mentioned Charles Darwin or “descent modification,” or why the Nazis made it a point to ban Charles Darwin’s works.

My position is that Darwin at least indirectly influenced the Nazis.

Nonpariel said: Stanton usually tells fantastic lies.

We were well into the thread when he suddenly invents that the Nazzies banned Darwin.

Some other nutbag quotes the last reference A.H. made to Xianity - 23 years before his death! AH actually regarded Xianity as a Jewish/Bolshevist conspiracy.

ABCLarry said: Sorry, missed this one from Stanton:

If they were influenced by Charles Darwin, then please explain why Hitler never mentioned Charles Darwin or “descent modification,” or why the Nazis made it a point to ban Charles Darwin’s works.

My position is that Darwin at least indirectly influenced the Nazis.

ABCLarry said: Sorry, missed this one from Stanton:

If they were influenced by Charles Darwin, then please explain why Hitler never mentioned Charles Darwin or “descent modification,” or why the Nazis made it a point to ban Charles Darwin’s works.

My position is that Darwin at least indirectly influenced the Nazis.

Hitler's last reference to Christianity 23 years before his death, indeed! Novparl, it's fish in the barrel time:

"In the years to come I shall continue on this road, uncompromisingly safeguarding my people's interests, oblivious to all misery and danger, and filled with the holy conviction that God the Almighty will not abandon him who, during all his life, had no desire but to save his people from a fate it had never deserved, neither by virtue of its number nor by way of its importance."

Adolf Hitler, radio broadcast, 30 January 1945.

Here we go with that stupid "law of increasing complexity" bullshit again. Sigh...

Oh, yeah, and "complexity=progress" don't forget that one. Larry all you have is word salad. Typical BTI.

ABCLarry said: Evolution of amoebas into humans is a lot of progress, isn't it?

Is that Larry F.? I thought it might be. I wouldn't have bothered posting anymore.

Racism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide precede Darwin by thousands of years. It is a main theme of the old testament bible.

The nazis didn't need Darwin to think up the final solution. The Catholics had genocided the Albigensian heretics centuries before, "kill them all and let god sort it out." And Martin Luther proposed his Final Solution several centuries before Darwin was even born. There were also anti-jewish pogroms long before Darwin.

Humans didn't need Darwin to do some of the evil things they do. Religion works just as well or better.

ben said: My position is that you, Larry Fafarman, were banned from PT years ago for posting under multiple identities and generally being an ass. It's too bad PT is so bad at enforcing their own rules.

ABCLarry said: Evolution of amoebas into humans is a lot of progress, isn't it?

Evolution of amoebas into humans is a lot of progress, isn’t it?

It is believed that some evolution has been loss of complexity and/or loss of function,

but the general trend of evolution has been progress from simpler organisms to more complex organisms.

A sceptical evolutionist? I don't believe it!

A sceptical evolutionist? I don’t believe it!

ben said:

ABCLarry said: Sorry, missed this one from Stanton:

If they were influenced by Charles Darwin, then please explain why Hitler never mentioned Charles Darwin or “descent modification,” or why the Nazis made it a point to ban Charles Darwin’s works.

My position is that Darwin at least indirectly influenced the Nazis.

My position is that you, Larry Fafarman, were banned from PT years ago for posting under multiple identities and generally being an ass. It's too bad PT is so bad at enforcing their own rules.

Most of Hitler's ideas in Mein Kampf which seem to reference evolution are pretty clearly non-Darwinian. The racial theorists who had the most direct influence on Hitler, the Nazi movement and Volkisch ideas had a sort of vitalistic, teleological and "non-materialist" concept of evolution.

Though there are those who would challenge my interpretation, as far as I can see biology and evolution in Germany on the whole were far more idealist and metaphysical than in England. My hypothesis is that this has much to do with the different influence of Kant vs. Hume and the later directions philosophy took in England and Germany-and no, I am not saying Kant was a proto-Nazi.

After reading Kershaw, Goldhagen and Lukacs, I'm pretty convinced Hitler was not a practicing or believing Christian, though he clearly found Christianity useful. Nor did Hitler buy into the occultism of some of the other Nazis.

Whether or not Hitler was a Creationist depends on what one means by the term. Regardless, Hitler was certainly not a Darwinian.

Interestingly, some of these ideas about teleological or vitalistic evolution find echoes in some ways in contemporary ID "theory" (using the term loosely).

On the other hand, much of Darwin's Sacred Cause shows how deeply Darwin held to the multiple contradictions of 19th century Whig ideology. Darwin hated slavery with all his being, yet he could regard the starvation of a million Irish as "natural". This would seem to suggest that Darwin was in many ways a prisoner of his time. I think it is hard for people to acknowledge how deep seated cruelty, social heirarchy, racism, imperialism and colonialism were embedded in the 19th century-even among enlightened philosophes and scientists.

But it is clearly absurd to argue that Darwin started racism.

And Weikart's argument that prior to Darwin Europeans embraced an ethic of life based on joint Christian-Enlightenment principles-at least in the abstract if not always in practice-indicates that Weikart simply hasn't faced up to the extensive cruelty of live in Medieval and early modern Christian Europe.

ABCLarry said:

eric said (August 12, 2009 3:42 PM) --

ABCLarry: Isn’t evolution mostly “progress”?

No, it isn’t.

Evolution of amoebas into humans is a lot of progress, isn't it? It is believed that some evolution has been loss of complexity and/or loss of function, but the general trend of evolution has been progress from simpler organisms to more complex organisms.

novparl said: A sceptical evolutionist? I don't believe it!

Sylvilagus said:

harold said: I'm not convinced that ABCLarry is Lary Farfman, unless there is more evidence than the name Larry and an evolution denial stance.

He's Larry F. all right. Using exactly the same Holocaust denial arguments he always uses. Word for word, practically. The stench is somehow even carried through digital media.

RBH -

Alright, I guess it is. Was. Which leaves open the fascinating question of why he would bother.

It did, he isn't, and we aren't. Go away.

Larry Far From Sane wrote:

"If the Holocaust didn’t happen, then Darwin can’t be blamed for it, so Darwinists ought to be among the biggest Holocaust deniers around."

Well, you can't argue with that logic. No really you can't. So I'm not going to. I suggest that no one else should either.

Why can't this address be blocked? Why can't all the addresses this guy uses be blocked? This guy is definately a waste of protoplasm.

DS said: Why can't this address be blocked? Why can't all the addresses this guy uses be blocked? This guy is definately a waste of protoplasm.

Why not ban anyone who questions Darwin? Then you can have a meeting of the Saved.

Btw, I claimed that AH's reference to Jebus in 1923 was his last. In fact, Wikip's article on his religious beliefs cites a 1927 reference. It also points out that Adi & Eva had a non-religious marriage. (Before comitting suicide in the traditional RC way).

Heil the fittest!

novparl said: Btw, I claimed that AH's reference to Jebus in 1923 was his last.

the last reference A.H. made to Xianity - 23 years before his death!

I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.

novparl said: Why not ban anyone who questions Darwin?

Dave Luckett said:

the last reference A.H. made to Xianity - 23 years before his death!

And that is tripe, like practically everything else you write. I quoted him referring to the Christian God, the God of his radio audience, two months before his death.

Dan said:

novparl said: Why not ban anyone who questions Darwin?

Because everyone questions Darwin, including all the moderators of this site.

Thanks RBH. I can appreciate how much work it is to take out the garbage.

As for Larry -

There are four lights.

Captain Picard

Stanton said: It's sad that Novparl thinks he has an argument when, he doesn't care to realize that there is a significant difference between 2 months and 23 years.

The 1945 quote, inevitably, makes no ref. to Jebus.

You don't read, inevitably, the Wiki article, which is unDarwinian, i.e. balanced.

You don't address, inevitably, why this devout Catholic didn't have a Catholic marriage. By his personal chaplain, whose name was....I'm looking at you, Dave F...ett.

Make a pt of echoing "inevitably".

Ach ja, Herr F...it, you quote him not referring to Jebus on 30 Jan 45, 2 months before his Catholic suicide (he got permish from the Pope). Since you and Shtanton enjoy splitting hairs, das ist 3 months and a week.

Goin' cruisin' this weekend?

novparl yammers: The 1945 quote, inevitably, makes no ref. to Jebus.

stevaroni said:

novparl yammers: The 1945 quote, inevitably, makes no ref. to Jebus.

Not true, nov. You are apparently as ignorant of theology as you are of science. The quote clearly references "God the Almighty" in the Christian sense. According to the Christian Doctrine of Trinity, God is the "Triune God", existing as three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. A reference to one is a reference to all, there is no distinction.

And, by the way, nov, why do you always mis-spell "Jesus"?

Interestingly enough, my surname - which is my real one - was first rhymed to me in that amusing fashion when I was in the fourth grade. I congratulate novparl for raising his discourse a full grade beyond its usual level.

Exactly. I was getting down to the evo level.

Now - what was the name of Adolf's chaplain?

Heil Jebus.

novparl said: Exactly. I was getting down to the evo level. Now - what was the name of Adolf's chaplain? Heil Jebus.

Dave Luckett said:

novparl said: Exactly. I was getting down to the evo level. Now - what was the name of Adolf's chaplain? Heil Jebus.

No doubt you imagine there is a point to this. Why not come out with it?

Why not tell me the chaplain's name, since you know all about AH's churchianity? You can't, can you?

You remind me of the hysterical Mercans appearing on British tv screens screaming in terror of illness care reform. I'm for survival of the fittest, of course. (Anyway, Bush spent all the money.)

novparl said: Why not tell me the chaplain's name, since you know all about AH's churchianity? You can't, can you?

That, and everytime someone does provide evidence contrary to your demonstrably false claims, you not only refuse to look at the evidence provided, you then go about lying about how no one was able to provide contradictory evidence.

It's how you earned your reputation of being a lying troll here in the first place.

I've had a conversation like this one before. The bloke started out as just indefinably odd, strangely intense. His discourse was unresponsive, orthagonal, as though he wasn't talking to me at all, and he used oddly distorted words - sort of malapropisms, but not amusing ones.

Then he began examining the objects on my desk, one by one, asking me where I got each one from, and could I tell him about it. He didn't seem to follow me saying that I didn't know, and that it didn't matter. He picked up a government-issue stampholder, for example, and asked me where it was made. I said I didn't know, he stared at me as though I had told him "Mars", and simply repeated the question. And again.

It slowly became clear to me that he wasn't actually in connection with reality, but just as I was about to attempt a referral to the psych branch, he jumped up and started screaming something about poisonous crabs. He then started taking off his pants.

The ambulance seemed to take forever to get there, but it did arrive at last and they took him away. I later heard that he'd been committed, diagnosis, acute paranoid schizophrenia.

We're right now just at the point when I realise that Nov isn't tracking any more. He was always a little weird, but now...

Nov, you're losing it. Get treatment. Seriously.

Novparl,

What was the name of Darwin's butler? What was the name of his dog? You can't tell us can you?

What was the name of Darwin’s butler? What was the name of his dog?

stevaroni said:

What was the name of Darwin’s butler? What was the name of his dog?

Beagle, of course.

Dave F...it

Schizophrenia is a vague diagnosis. Evos are easily impressed by pseudo-Greek words.

The pt is, as a few of you know, that AH didn't have a chaplain. Read the Wiki article on AH's religious beliefs. Or is Wik part of some vast conspiracy?

Hasta manyana, you blokes.

I really have no clue why anyone responds to that bonehead at all.

fnxtr said: I really have no clue why anyone responds to that bonehead at all.

The pt is, as a few of you know, that AH didn’t have a chaplain.

I really have no clue why anyone responds to that bonehead at all.

jackstraw said:

stevaroni said:

What was the name of Darwin’s butler? What was the name of his dog?

Beagle, of course.

Darwin had a butler named Beagle? What are the odds against that?

Hitler and all his goons where wack jobs, and someone is trying to make sense of it?
when wack jobs seek to rule its all about what they can say that will work. hmmmm sounds like all of our polititions

Henry J said:

I really have no clue why anyone responds to that bonehead at all.

When something itches, people tend to scratch.

Are these the kinds of itches that should be scratched in public? :-)

@ Stevadroni

Evangelisch is German for Protestant. You just have to type it into Google. Or Bing.

The Pape don't have a chaplain for the same reason Jebus didn't (Oh Stanton, once again I invite you to type JEBUS into Google/Bing/Bingle.)

Aha. "Konigsburgh" is not possible in German. You mean Konigsberg, now Kaliningrad. It's quite simple. AH vaguely encouraged a "German (Prod.) Church" and Muller was its Bishop. Head of 600 000 members, according to one source. You just have to use Google.

Wed. 19/8 noon.

AH vaguely encouraged a “German (Prod.) Church” and Muller was its Bishop.

novparl said: AH vaguely encouraged a "German (Prod.) Church"

...oops, should be... "It must have surprised you when somebody was actually able to answer your insipid little change-the-subject question about Hitler’s chaplain."

Proofread Steve, proofread.

Holy crap Klinghoffer is nuts.

novparl said: Why not tell me the chaplain's name, since you know all about AH's churchianity? You can't, can you?

Stevarooni - what the heil is your point?

Calm down, our foam-flecked friend.

novparl said: Stevarooni - what the heil is your point? Calm down, our foam-flecked friend.

Calm down, our foam-flecked friend.

Reinhard Heydrich used the word "natural selection" in the orders for the Holocaust. Heydrich's belief was that those Jews who survived rthe Nazi forced labor progarm would live to breeed a race of super-Jews whose toughness, combined with their observed intelligence, would make them rivals for the Aryans. Franz Boas -- a Jew who denied his Jeiwsh ancestry and insisted he was "German" despite his Biblical name -- used Eskimos for medical specimens. Madison Grant and Charles Davenport were Hilter's poster boys. If you can't accept this reality, you're in serious trouble -- anti-religious nutcakes have tried to use Darwin as an antidoe to God: if Christianity goes -- as it did in Germany -- the majority will feel free to get rid of people they don't like on a racial basis -- like ther people who told us about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Guess who? No more Holocaust! No more Darwin! Let every individual answer for his or her own deceptions or crimes.

John said: Reinhard Heydrich used the word "natural selection" in the orders for the Holocaust.

Reinhard Heydrich cited "natural selection" as making the Holocuast necessary: Wannsee, January 20, 1942. Heydrich, who was part Jewish himself and in serious denial, said that those Jews who survived what had been until then a very brutal forced labor program would represent a "natural selection" and their robust descendents could pose a threat to the "Aryans." This resulted in pure evil, but it stemmed from Darwin's explanation about how evolution worked. Darwin is central to the Holocaust: German Jews had enjoyed full civil rights since the founding the the Empire, Prussian Jews since 1813, substantially for a century before that. Walter Preuss, a Jew, wrote the constitution of the Weimary Republic. Walter Rathenau, a Jew, served as its foreign minister. Anne Frank's father was an officer in the Kaiser's army. So was Sigismund Guttmann, who put Hitler in for the Iron Cross. Sweeping statements about "traditional German anti-Semitism" flounder in their own ignorance. Hitler and his thugs used Darwin to bring the anti-Semitism of the gutter and the occult into a country where Jews had generally been respected and had played a constructive role in the Prussian and later German state. Darwin clearly inspired Haeckel, Nietszche -- and Hitler. Hannah Arendt and Jacques Barzun understoof this perfectly and said so.(PS: During previous anti-Jewish outrages, children and those Jews who wished to convert were generally spared. The Nazi murderers didn't accept converts and shamefully they killed women and children FIRST -- so they wouldn't live to breed. They didn't bother to relocate most old people because they were bred out and not future threat. Pure Darwinism. Read the protocol for Wannsee. The intention is stated bluntly and is not debatable.

John wrote:

"Darwin is central to the Holocaust:"

So then you admit that Darwin was right? Great. Now all you have to do is correctly place the blame for the holocaust on those who deserve it. Darwin is not one of them.

Koster's post is the sort of nonsense that happens when a black-and-white mind, already committed to an untruth, looks at history.

It is true that there were liberal elements in Germany and central Europe and a history of toleration of Jews. It is also true that there was a long and bitter history of the vilest and most vicious antisemitism, and this history long predated Darwin. It is useless and plainly false to say that one or the other must be the case. Both were.

From time to time one or the other became dominant as policy in various places. In Hitler's Germany, which briefly became capable of dictating policy from Caen to Kiev and from Oslo to Oran, killing Jews became the supreme task of the State. In the middle of a desperate war, vast resources were devoted to it, and that committment actually grew with the desperation.

How did this happen? There had always been antisemitism; there had always been ghettoes, travel laws and discrimination, restrictions in occupation and the occasional pogrom, riot, Jew-baiting and multiple murder, but the Shoah was on a scale far beyond anything ever known.

The answer to that question does not involve Darwin or evolution. Oh, there's no doubt that a perversion of evolution was seized on by some Nazis and made part of their demented internal construction of reality. They did that with anything that could be made to serve. But the Shoah happened because of that perversion of reality, not the accurate construction of reality that is the Theory of Evolution.

The Shoah was caused by a strand of European history and personal psychopathy erected into State policy. Darwin had nothing to do with it. To attempt to say that he did is in itself a breathtaking abandonment of reality. It shifts blame from those who rightly bear it and misplaces it to a gentle Englishman who bears none whatsoever.

I think that both transactions are psychologically satisfying to some who oppose evolution. They villify Darwin, and shift blame from the Nazis themselves. Most rational people would regard the latter effect as an obvious derangement of history, a fatal blunder. But for the viler and more demented antievolutionist on the extreme religious right, it's a feature, not a bug.

This latest doesn't explain how a nation that had Jews in the cabinet (Rathenau, Balin) and the officer corps (Guttman, Frank) when officially Christian turned to extermination once Darwin and his continuators replaced Christianity as the official credo. Simply put: some Jews unfiortunately associated themselves with Communist attempts to take over Germany -- Rosa Luxemburg, Kurt Eisner, Bela Kun in Hungary. Hitler, who hated Jews for personal reasons (he believed his own father was half-Jewish, as did Heydrich) used Darwin's teachings to justify his own vicious atack on people who had generally been useful and constructive elements of pre-Hitler Germany. Read Edwin Black -- son of two Holocaust survivors, author of "War Against The Weak" -- to see the Darwinian influence in the eugenics program in the United States (directed by people with names like Davenport and Grant mostly against Africans and American Indians) and in German-held territory mostly against Jews and Gypsies. The key is that once the Jude-Christian prohibition against murder of non-combatants is lifted by systematic atheist, fanatics will cite Darwin -- not the Bible -- to exterminate whoever they want to. Stalin did to to Ukrainians and the Polish gentry, Hitler did it to Jews and Gypsies. Both were Darwinian. Both cited Darwinian ideas in dropping out of religious vocations as teenagers. Read more biography and less self-serving rhetoric. Heydrich's words" "natural selection" - a death warrant for millions of innocent people. Where might you have encountered those words and that concept before? PS: In terms of "black-and-white," let me add that those black folks who know that Darwin equated them as the missing link between Man and Ape and hoped to see them go extinct -- "Descent of Man" -- probably don't like him much. Asians laugh at him for thinking whites were superior....

Here's the actual Darwinian content of the Wannsee protocol for the Holocaust, Wannsee, January 20, 1942:
Reinhard Hedyrich is chairing the conference.

"Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes.
"The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of NATURAL SELECTION and would, if released, act as the seed of a NEW JEWISH REVIVAL. (See the experience of history.)....Severely wounded veterans and those with the Iron Cross will be accepted into old age ghettos...."

What Heydrich is proposing here is an expansion of the Darwinian principal by political methods -- mass murder of Jews young enough to breed, otherwise, indifference. Believing that Jews as a RACE, not a religion, could pose a future threat, he wanted to exterminate them as a RACE. The Jewish religion is mentioned only as a method of classification. Christianity is not mentioned -- Heydrich, a lapsed Catholic of partially Jewish ancestry, was an atheist. Most Jewish and other German thinkers who fled or survived the Holocaust understand clearly that it was Darwin's influence which was used to justify the mad hatred that a collection of murderous Nazi perverts, bullies and thugs had for all Jews, good, bad, or indifferent. Can it be that the mad infatuation that some people feel for Charles Darwin -- a man dismissed as an amateur scientist by Louis Paster and Rudolf Virchow, and a man who stole his key idea from Alfred Russel Wallace -- is as simple as a blind hatred of all religion, and Christianity in particular? I wonder. You can look the Wannsee protocol up on the web or in Shirer or Payne. He said it: "natural selection." The idea, stolen from Wallace, that made Darwin famous.

John wrote:

"He said it: “natural selection.” The idea, stolen from Wallace, that made Darwin famous."

Now you're just plain lying. Darwin did not steal anything from Wallace. But then again, I suspect that you already know this.

Look John, do you have any point to make here, any point at all? If you condemn Darwin because Hitler used his theory in a misguided attempt to justify attempted genocide, then you must also condemn Christianity, since Hitler used that to justify his attempted genocide as well. The point is that it doesn't matter what HItler did or why. Darwin was right, period. You have done absolutely nothing to call into question the validity of natural selection. Indeed, why would anyone use it if it did not work?

As far as racism goes, modern evolutionary theory shows us that there is no scientific basis for racism. We have Darwin to thank for that, whatever his personal views on race may have been. His views were still extremely progressive for the time. Why don't you criticize the fundamentalist cults that still advocate violence against other races instead of blaming someone who has been dead for over one hundred years?

And if you want to criticize someone for trying to use political means to force their pseudoscientific ideas on others, just look at the Discovery Institute. Now there are a bunch of little Hitlers for you. Why don't you take you Darwin bashing and go peddle it where someone will care?

And now John exposes his allegiances and his intellectual roots. Jews "associated themselves" with Communism, and therefore were killed, and serve them right. He thinks that calling a nation "officially Christian" means it could not have been guilty of antisemitism. That's a laugh.

Even more breathtaking are his assertions that there was a "Jude-Christian prohibition against the murder of non-combatants" until atheists "lifted" it, and that the Nazis were the "continuators" (sic) of Darwin.

Both of those are obvious untruths, easily and immediately demonstrated to be false. There was never any such prohibition. Murder of non-combatants, up to and including actual genocide, was freely practiced by Christians and "Christian nations" throughout their history, and the Pentateuch is explicit in permitting it, where God says to. (It seems that God said to, rather often.)

The Nazis inherited nothing whatsoever from Darwin. Their caricature of his theory was a gross perversion of it, as was their perversion of every other scientific, historical and ethical idea they touched. That they seized on anything that they could twist to their own purposes is of course obvious, but they made far greater use of Christianity than of Darwin.

Hitler said he was a Christian, and frequently referred to Christianity and to Jesus in his speeches. Does that mean Christianity is to be blamed for him? Of course not - although that is not to say that Christians did enough to oppose him.

Heydrich may have parroted a few of Darwin's phrases without troubling to understand them - much as John does - but this ignores the fact that Darwin would have been appalled to the marrow of his bones by Heydrich, and that nothing whatsoever in the Theory of Evolution condones any crime, let alone genocide. Heydrich's "death warrant for millions of innocent people" was Heydrich's personal monstrosity, enabled by the power of Hitler's state, and nothing more.

John's imputations against Darwin are contemptible lies. Darwin stated that all humans were of the same species, fulminated against the ill-treatment of black people, was a staunch abolitionist, advocated help, support and kindly treatment of the poor and disabled, and deplored what he described as the extermination both of indigenous people and of the apes. He was undeniably Eurocentric, but so was practically every European of his day.

The most risible part of this is that John admits that Hitler's and Heydrich's reasons for hating Jews were entirely personal - in fact, they were psychopathic - but still he tries to blame Darwin. His confusion is pitiful, but the effect is merely ridiculous. Or it would be, if it were not for his malice and vicious libels against a great, kindly, and gentle man who bears no responsibility whatsoever for the Shoah.

John,

Just in case I have not made my position clear, allow me to clarify for you.

Even if Hitler was proven to be an exact clone of Darwin, specifically brought back to life by aliens in order to exterminate all life on earth, evolution would still be true. Deal with it.

Even if Darwin invented the atomic bomb and used it to destroy all living things, evolution would still be true. Deal with it.

Even if Darwin were proven to be the antichrist and had every Jew tattooed with the number 666, evolution would still be true, Deal with it.

Now, have I made myself clear? Notice that I do not condone any of these things. I merely point out that they are all completely irrelevant to the validity of a truly great scientific theory. No one cares if you like Darwin or not, you must still respect the fact that he was right.

Describing the nightclub "Elements, The Lounge", owner Demetrios Mallios said "It’s the natural selection of a well-rounded crowd."

http://www.parkplacemag.com/Escape/escape0711.htm

According to John's reasoning, this means that Darwin was responsible for the menu and entertainment at "Elements, The Lounge".

John, you're just another lying sack of shit, like all creationists.

Hitler was a creationist fraud, just like you. The Nazis burned science books and murdered anyone who questioned their cult, just like you wish you could get away with.

Face it, John, you're the Nazi here. The reason creationists keep flogging the Darwin/Hitler lie is because they know they've got blood on their own hands that they can never wash off, and they desperately need to manufacture a scapegoat. But no matter how many times you repeat this lie, it will never change the fact that Hitler was one of yours. Nor will it ever change the fact that evolution actually happens in the real world.

John is a colossal idiot if he actually believes that the American slaveowners were Darwinists. I suppose he's stupid enough to think that it was Darwin who started the whole shtick of "The Curse of Ham" and "The Curse of Cain," and it was Darwin who inspired Manifest Destiny.

It seems odd that Darwin inspired Stalin when Stalin neither used Darwin, nor Evolutionary theory, as an excuse for the atrocities he committed, nor were there any suggestions in Stalin's memoirs that he even read any of Darwin's writings.

It also seems odd that the Nazis were "systematic, fanatical atheists who cited Darwin, and not the Bible," when the Nazis used the swastika, symbol of the god Thor, protector deity of the Teutonic peoples, as well as permitted things like "Gott Mitt Und" to be printed on officers' belt buckles. That, and it seems odd that the Nazis sited Darwin when they also saw fit to ban and burn his works, as well as take the suggestion that apes are related to humans as being a grievous insult.

John said: The key is that once the Jude-Christian prohibition against murder of non-combatants is lifted by systematic atheist, fanatics will cite Darwin -- not the Bible -- to exterminate whoever they want to.

John the Nazi creationist fraud said: Can it be that the mad infatuation that some people feel for Charles Darwin -- a man dismissed as an amateur scientist by Louis Paster and Rudolf Virchow, and a man who stole his key idea from Alfred Russel Wallace -- is as simple as a blind hatred of all religion, and Christianity in particular? I wonder. You can look the Wannsee protocol up on the web or in Shirer or Payne. He said it: "natural selection." The idea, stolen from Wallace, that made Darwin famous.

No. First of all, as has already been established courtesy of searching through Mein Kampf in detail, Hitler's assorted eructations on nature reproduce well-known creationist canards, including the static species fallacy, and Hitler also asserted that fertile, viable hybrids were inpossible, which is manifestly refuted by this scientific paper (among many others): Speciation By Hybridisation In Heliconius Butterflies, by Jesús Mavárez, Camilo A. Salazar, Eldredge Bermingham, Christian Salcedo, Chris D. Jiggins and Mauricio Linares, Nature, 441: 868-871 (15th June 2006) Also, even an elementary search of Mein Kampf reveals the following statistics. The number of instances of key words are as follows: "Darwin" : ZERO "Almighty" : 6 "God" : 37 "Creator" : 8 Hitler was inspired by the anti-Semitic ravings of one Lanz von Liebenfels, who was a defrocked monk, and whose magnum opus bore the Pythonesque title of Theozoology, Or The Account Of The Sodomite Apelings And The Divine Electron. This was in effect a warped Biblical exegesis, which rewrites the Crucifixion story, and also contains a mediaeval bestiary replete with instances of Liebenfels' florid imagination. Additionally, the Nazis placed textbooks on evolutionary biology on their list of seditious books to be burned, as illustrated nicely here, where we learn that in 1935, Nazi guidelines with respect to seditious books included: 6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklärung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Häckel). Translated into English, this reads: Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel) The evidence is therefore conclusive. Nazism was not inspired by evolution, and indeed, much of Hitler's own writings are creationist in tone. The Nazis destroyed evolutionary textbooks as seditious (much as modern day creationists would love to), and the Nazi view of the biosphere is wholly at variance with genuine evolutionary theory, involving fatuous views of race "purification" by the establishment of monocultures that are the very antithesis of genuine evolutionary thought, which relies upon genetic diversity.

Always glad to hear from people who get so mad they spout obscenties like the gutter trash they appear to be, and accuse me of denying evolution and citing Satan -- in fact I did neither. Pasteur and Virchow said Darwin was an amateur scientist -- you smarty boys know who they were, of course.... the people who invented modern medicine and public hygiene when they proved that Spontaneous Generation was a myth even though Darwin believed in it. Now let's see who's the liar: does the word "natural selection" appear in the orders for the Holocaust or does it not? Was the twisted murderer who wrote the order an atheist who hated his own Jewish genes? Were Walter Rathenau and Albert Balin actually members of the Kaiser's cabinet. Was Anne Frank's father actually an officer in the Kaiser's army. Did Hannah Arendt -- a Holocaust refugee -- mention Darwin as the motivator. If these things are true, and Darwin had NO influence, why did the Holocaust originate in Germany, where Jews had enjoyed full civil rights, fior a century, rather than in Russia or France? Last question: what three countries actually accepted Jewish refugees when dear of Darwin's mighty British Empire refused them and left them to die or be murdered: British quote: "Australia has no race problem and is nor desirous of importing one" -- Evian-les-Bains, 1938. Jewish quote: "The British foreign office doesn't seem to object to the final solution at all as long as the Germans do the actual killing." Come all, all you smart foes of Christianity. Which three countries took refugees? (1) The United States -- heavily Christian. (2) The Dominican Republic -- heavily Catholic.(3) The Japanese Empire, where Jews were respected for their intelligence and for funding the Russo-Japanese War, and where Darwin was laughed at because he was such an obvious racist. The prime instigator of saving Jews, Chiune Sugimara was -- guess what -- a Christian. Darwin really did say that Africans were links between (white) man and the anthropoid ape -- "Descent of Man" - and was relieved that they would soon go extinct. But of course he wasn't a racist or a bad scientist if you smart little bous scream that he wasn't, even though Pasteur and Virchow said so. He was ENGLISH!!! If you guys knew how funny you were making a hero out of an incestuous mountebank the rest of the world makes fun of, you wouldn't be white either --your faces would be red...if you were smart enough to get the joke. No curse a man you don't have to face....You never know who you're talking to, but before I got "saved" I was a biker and we used guys like you to grease our brakes...But I don't want another Holocaust -- I didn't want the last one but I wasn't around. If YOU don't want one, look objectively at how badly mistaken Darwin was about "natural selection" as the engine that drove Evolution, of how that affected humanity, and of what it may someday do to sissy boys who prate because they can't reason.

John said: If you guys knew how funny you were making a hero out of an incestuous mountebank the rest of the world makes fun of, you wouldn't be white either --your faces would be red...

Have just done a Google search on "Hannah Arendt Darwin" and got some interesting results.

Seems that Arendt did suggest a connection between "Darwinism" and Hitler, and was vigorously criticised for it. For instance, there's this http://www.jstor.org/stable/1407859 (I get free access at work.)

This article goes on to note that Hitler thought that the "degenerate" races would swamp the Aryans, so perhaps we can label all the tedious entropy arguments and "evolution can't create new information" and all the rest as "Nazi concepts".

Obviously, John is stupid enough to assume that it was Darwin, and not Martin Luther, who wrote "Of the Jews and Their Lies"

whiny baby Johnny said: Always glad to hear from people who get so mad they spout obscenties like the gutter trash they appear to be...

John the liar said: ... and accuse me of denying evolution and citing Satan -- in fact I did neither.

John the liar said: Pasteur and Virchow said Darwin was an amateur scientist -- you smarty boys know who they were, of course.... the people who invented modern medicine and public hygiene when they proved that Spontaneous Generation was a myth even though Darwin believed in it.

John the Internet Tough Guy whined: No curse a man you don't have to face....You never know who you're talking to, but before I got "saved" I was a biker and we used guys like you to grease our brakes...

John the Holocaust Denier said: But I don't want another Holocaust -- I didn't want the last one but I wasn't around.

John the Holocaust Denier said: If YOU don't want one, look objectively at how badly mistaken Darwin was about "natural selection" as the engine that drove Evolution, of how that affected humanity, and of what it may someday do to sissy boys who prate because they can't reason.

John wrote:

"If YOU don’t want one, look objectively at how badly mistaken Darwin was about “natural selection” as the engine that drove Evolution, of how that affected humanity, and of what it may someday do to sissy boys who prate because they can’t reason."

Please John tell us, exactly how was Darwin mistaken about natural selection? You do have a scientific reference for this claim don't you. We're all dying to hear all about it.

Besides, if Darwin was wrong and Hitler was using his principles, then Hitler was doomed to failure. Don't you think that's a good thing? DO you really think that HItler failed because Darwin was wrong? Would you rather that Darwin was right and that Hitler had succeeded?

Still waiting for your proof that Darwin stole anything from Wallace. You just made that up didn't you? Why do creationist nut jobs always always have to lie? And you wonder why people call you names.

Looks like my comments got screened out -- too bad. Kevin seemed like an intelligent and honest man. The others sounded like Asperger's victims -- scatology, rage, terror, "Nazi Holocast Denier" -- when I cited the actual order? Misrepresentation, I think.
psychiatric basket cases. Don't let these boys near a gun. Hope the pandas are safe.

NB Kevin and other sane people: read "A Delicate Arrangement" by Arnold Brackman about how Darwin stole Wallace's ideas. Read Pasteur's acceptance speech to the Academie Francaise for what Pasteur thought of Darwin. Check Virchow on the web unless you read German. A writer named Bernard Schreiber did a great takeout on Darwin and Hitler -- his book is on thw web. John...glad I'm not a psychiatrist for these guys -- I'd get rich but I'd get bored...name-calling is for little girls....

You're still a fucking biker thug, Johnny, you're just swinging the bible now -- and all the related rage-infested bullshit that you pour into it -- instead of a chain.

Fuck off.

John said: Looks like my comments got screened out -- too bad. Kevin seemed like an intelligent and honest man. The others sounded like Asperger's victims -- scatology, rage, terror, "Nazi Holocast Denier" -- when I cited the actual order? Misrepresentation, I think. psychiatric basket cases. Don't let these boys near a gun. Hope the pandas are safe.