Was Norway shooter a Social Darwinian terrorist?

See followup at: Was Andres Breivik "not insane"? DLH

Norway's police perspective in 2012: Norway: Islamists, not far-right, main threat By REUTERS 01/17/2012 11:59

Despite Breivik attacks, police security chief says home-grown Islamic extremism poses higher threat than right-wing extremists. OSLO - Radical Islam remains the most serious threat faced by Norway despite the attacks by an Islamophobe extremist who killed 77 people last summer, the chief of the security police said on Tuesday. Janne Kristiansen, head of Norway's Police Security Service, said her agency would focus on broad-based dangers from home-grown Islamic extremism even though threats against public officials have risen since the July attacks, which targeted Norway's left wing.. . . "The number of violent right-wing extremists is still low," she said. She added that a rising tide of hate-filled debate on Internet sites brought "a significant source of uncertainty" to her overall threat assessment.

DLH

Norway killer Breivik is 'not psychotic', say experts 4 January 2012

The conclusion that Breivik was insane angered many people in Norway . . . Experts monitoring the Norwegian killer, Anders Behring Breivik, say they believe he is not psychotic, contradicting court-appointed psychiatrists. . . . Breivik's killings on 22 July were the worst act of violence Norway has seen since World War II, and have had a profound impact there.

DLH

Darwin himself could evidently see the 'writing on the wall' re Social Darwinism, desperately fearing it's manifestation, judging from the immense gratitude he expressed towards a friend of his for his observations about the African soldiers he knew. I believe he was one of their officers. This friend confirmed to Darwin, I believe in a letter, his own assesssment of the African slaves he had seen in Brazil, as being highly intelligent and possessing superb physiques - notably, in comparison with their Brazilian 'owners'. For these latter he felt a deep loathing and seemingly fathomless contempt, on account of their arrogant cruelty and indeed stupidity in relation to their African slaves. Axel

Sept. 20, 2011. Per kirosfocus's requests for “something more appropriate,” I changed the title to “Was Norway Shooter a Social Darwinian terrorist?” and added a comment DLH

Did Anders Behring Breivik obey Jesus’ command?

Breivik was supposed to bring them before Christ so that they can be judged and executed, not carry out the execution himself. paragwinn

Breivik was supposed to bring them before Christ so that they can be judged and executed, not carry out the execution himself.

paragwinn

Chirp, chirp . . . [PS: BA you'll love this one!] kairosfocus

F/N: Looks like we need to heed Keynes' warning again, from the closing off of his General Theory:

Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. [and obviously this is not just Hitler or Stalin and it is not just economists] I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

We have some serious re-thinking to do. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

More from John West. Clipping: _____________ >> Breivik's Social Darwinism rears its ugly head yet again in his discussions of global ecology and overpopulation. He argues that "radical policies will have to be implemented" to reduce the human population by more than half, or 3.8 billion people. (p. 1202) He writes that if "second and third world countries" cannot curb their production of human offspring, "nature will correct their suicidal tendencies as they are unable to feed their populations." (p. 1202) He further argues that Western countries should not interfere in this natural process, even if it results in mass starvation. "If starvation threatens the countries who have failed to follow our [population control] guidelines we should not support them by backing their corrupt leaders or send any form of aid." (p. 1202) Indeed, "[f]ood aid to 3rd world countries must stop immediately as it is the primary cause of overpopulation." (p. 1203) Perhaps the most blatant example of Breivik's Social Darwinism is his endorsement of "reprogenetics," a form of "positive" eugenics to allow human beings to take control of their evolution and produce better humans through genetic engineering. According to Breivik, "[t]he never-ending collective pursuit for scientific evolution and perfection should become the benchmark and essence of our existence." (p. 1199) He explains further:

The Nazis destroyed the reputation of "eugenics" by combining it to scientific racism and mass extermination. But seeking biological perfection is still a logical concept and I don't see why we should abandon it. We just have to make sure that we offer it as a voluntary option to everyone or at least start by legalising it (promotional voluntary reprogenetics or private reprogenetics). We should legalise reproductive technologies that will allow parents to create off spring with biological improvement (reprogenetics). This must be a non-coercive form of biological improvement which will be predominantly motivated by individual competitiveness and the desire to create the best opportunities for children. (p. 1200)

Breivik advocates "[t]he commercialisation and state/media encouragement of reprogenetics favoring the Nordic genotype" and "[t]he usage of large scale surrogacy facilities as a secondary reproduction option for countries to compensate for non-sustainable fertility rates. The donors of eggs and sperm will then exclusively carry the Nordic genotypes." (p. 1192) Breivik is clearly a madman and/or a moral monster, and his Social Darwinism did not "cause" his murderous rampage. Nor am I trying to suggest that modern Darwinists are somehow responsible for his heinous acts. Of course they aren't. But Breivik's call for a new eugenics--as opposed to his murders--is another matter. The most disturbing thing about Breivik's eugenics proposals is that they are not simply inspired by his own private demons. Instead, they largely spring from "mainstream" Darwinists, past and present. The part that comes from the past is Breivik's obsession about the preservation of the "Nordic" race, which he believes features "rare characteristics that have been acquired through an evolutionary process which has taken more than 1 million years." (p. 1158) Breivik claims that new cultural attitudes toward "race-mixing" are leading people of Nordic ancestry to act unnaturally and undo what a million years of evolution has produced. Here Breivik is echoing the concerns of leading Darwinian eugenists from the early twentieth century like Madison Grant, who is cited by name in Breivik's manifesto. (pp. 1152-1153) . . . . However, Breivik does not simply draw on Darwinian thinkers from years gone by. His proposal for "reprogenetics" comes from a mainstream evolutionary biologist currently on the faculty of one of America's most prestigious Ivy League institutions. The biologist's name is Lee Silver. He is a Professor at Princeton and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Silver is the scientist who coined the term "reprogenetics," and his 1997 book Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and Cloning Will Transform the American Family features prominently in Breivik's lengthy manifesto in a passage that appears to have been cut and pasted from Wikipedia:

Reprogenetics is a term referring to the merging of reproductive and genetic technologies expected to happen in the near future as techniques like germinal choice technology become more available and more powerful. The term was coined by Lee M. Silver, a professor of molecular biology at Princeton University, in his 1997 book Remaking Eden. remakingeden.001.jpg In Silver's formulation, reprogenetics will involve advances in a number of technologies not yet achieved, but not inherently impossible. Among these are improvements in interpreting the effects of different expressions of DNA, the ability to harvest large numbers of embryos from females, and a far higher rate of reinsertion of embryos into host mothers. The end result, according to Silver, is that those parents who can afford it will be able to pick out the genetic characteristics of their own children, which Silver says will trigger a number of social changes in the decades after its implementation. Possible early applications, however, might be closer to eliminating disease genes passed on to children. According to Silver, the main differences between reprogenetics and eugenics, the "science" of improving the gene pool which in the first half of the 20th century became infamous for the brutal policies it inspired, is that most eugenics programs were compulsory programs imposed upon citizens by governments trying to enact an ultimate goal. Reprogenetics, by contrast, would be pursued by individual parents, who would be trying to improve their children with the same motivations that compel them to purchase expensive courses in preparation for standardised testing (e.g. the SAT).

Unlike Breivik, Silver does not advocate using genetic engineering to preserve the "Nordic" race. But he does argue that "reprogenetics" will allow human beings to take control of their evolution and evolve themselves into higher beings . . . >> _____________ In other words, there was more than enough information there to show the real roots of thought at work. Looks like the eugenics weed is trying to shoot up again, we have some serious rooting out to do. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

F/N: John West drops the hammer on Breivik and the secularist spinmeisters who tried to turn this incident into a smear of Bible-believing Christians, here. (HT: UD News.) Money quote: ____________ >> To be sure, Breivik identifies himself as "100% Christian" in his manifesto (p. 1403), and he certainly talks incessantly about defending "Christian" civilization. But he also makes clear that his Christianity is a simply pose adopted for political reasons. Answering why he chose to align himself with a group supposedly espousing "Christian values," he states: "My choice was based purely [on] pragmatism." (p. 1380) He goes on to explain that "Christianity" has far more "mass appeal" than nationalism, white supremacy, or a revival of paganism, and so it is a more effective "banner" under which to build his movement. (p. 1381) In sum, Breivik views religion like Machiavelli viewed religion--as a political tool. It's worth noting that Machiavelli's The Prince is listed by Breivik as one of his favorite books. (p. 1407) As for his own religious beliefs and practices, Breivik frankly admits: "I'm not going to pretend I'm a very religious person as that would be a lie. I've always been very pragmatic and influenced by my secular surroundings and environment." (p. 1344, emphasis added) Indeed, Breivik acknowledges that he used to believe that "Religion is a crutch for weak people. What is the point in believing in a higher power if you have confidence in yourself!? Pathetic." He continues: "Perhaps this is true for many cases. Religion is a crutch for many weak people and many embrace religion for self serving reasons as a source for drawing mental strength (to feed their weak emotional state f[or] example during illness, death, poverty etc.). Since I am not a hypocrite, I'll say directly that this is my agenda as well." (p. 1344, emphasis added) In other words, at best he views his embrace of religion as a psychological crutch to give him strength for his horrific activities. Although he adds that he has not yet actually prayed to God for strength, he expects that he may do so when he goes on his murderous rampage: "If praying will act as an additional mental boost/soothing it is the pragmatical thing to do. I guess I will find out... If there is a God I will be allowed to enter heaven as all other martyrs for the Church in the past." (p. 1345) Note the "if" in his statement about whether God exists. Breivik himself doesn't even appear to believe in God. He frequently identifies himself as a "cultural Christian," a term which he defines at one point as the same thing as a "Christian atheist." (p. 1360) Unsurprisingly, Breivik's idea of "cultural Christianity" has little to do with Christianity as most people would understand that term. For example, Breivik makes clear that to join his movement for cultural Christianity "[i]t is not required that you have a personal relationship with God or Jesus." (p. 1361) Indeed, Breivik would like to expand "Christianity" to include those who worship the Norse pagan god Odin. Breivik calls for the Christian church to be "re-create[d]... as a nationalistic Church which will tolerate and allow (to a very large degree) native cultures/heritage/thought systems such as Odinism." (p. 1361) And despite using the adjective "cultural," Breivik's "cultural Christianity" doesn't leave much room for Christians to actually influence society apart from social rituals. Indeed, Breivik emphasizes that he wants a secular European state where "[t]he Church and church leaders will not be allowed to influence non-cultural political matters in any way. This includes science, research and development and all non-cultural areas which will benefit Europe in the future. This will also include all areas relating to procreation/birth/fertility policies and related issues of scientific importance (reprogenetics)." (p. 1137, [my] emphasis added) As can be seen, Breivik harbors a special concern that Christians not be able to influence issues related to science and pubic policy "in any way." Why? Because he sees biological science--not traditional religion--as the ultimate savior of society. In his view, advances in biology will makes possible a vigorous new form of Social Darwinism that will save the Nordic race through positive eugenics. >> _____________ The more we probe, the more we see the real danger: the social darwinism that wreaked so much havoc in the first half of the C20 has not died out, it has gone underground. We need to expose its roots, all the way back to Galton and Darwin, and we need to frankly address the associated moral hazards in Darwinism and wider Evolutionary Materialism. Only when we again solidly ground moral principles in the foundations of our civilisation and its generally accepted as credible or reasonable worldviews, can we be sure that the problem has been solved. Evolutionary materialism is the root problem, and its habit of hiding in lab coats must be exposed. Over to Will Hawthorne for more. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Mung @ 219: "... And then she musters and posts what evidence she can that Hitler espoused Christianity." Exactly. Previous to that, I was giving her the benefit of the doubt, putting it down to a (very) poor choice of words chosen as part of a point made for rhetorical effect. Ilion

FG: Pardon, it matters a great deal what Hitler did to the Christian faith, at least if you care concerning truth and fairness. For, the underlying agenda out there is to smear Christians as Nazis, terrorists and the like, as we saw int his case -- again. And it matters because his tactics are tactics that have worked, and have been destructive. Now, Hitler was indeed popular in Germany, first because across the 1920's everybody else discredited themselves -- especially after the 1923 hyperinflation wiped out the savings and stability of the middle classes. the reads were a known threat and Hitler looked like a saviour. Then, after he got power in a backroom deal in 1933, someone burned down the parliament. The people were manipulated to think it was a conspiracy of the far left. The scared populace and parliament were tricked into giving Hitler an enabling act for seven years in the face of the crisis. Then Hindenberg died, then the next manufactured crisis was the claimed coup by the SA, and by the time that was over extrajudicial killings had been accepted and he Gestapo and SS were in control. The media were singing off the same hymn sheet, and the rest of the world was in economic crisis while Germany was beginning to prosper. remember, this was before the era in which the population would seriously believe that hey were being systematically and colossally lied to by their government. Our government are good men, they would not lie to us! maybe those wicked Englishmen like that criminal Churchill, but not OUR government. And the radio and newspapers are by decent upstanding people, they would not lie to us. And look, the newsreels at the theatres would not lie to us too. (Go look up the impact of the War of the Worlds theatre broadcast in the USA.) Only a few protests got out by "traitors" like the signatories to the Barmen Declaration. Meanwhile Hitler was breaking out of the perceived oppressions and injustices of the Versailles Treaty. then, the Czechs were oppressing our fellow Germans across the Border, and the Austrian mess needed to be settled, all successfully. Then, the Poles attacked Germany [yup, they had the dead bodies in Polish uniform to prove it -- courtesy your friendly local concentration camp of course], and the armies were on standby just in case . . . Then that ever so perfidious Albion and their side-kicks the french were at Germany's throat again. But our genius beat them, even over the achievements of the Kaiser's army. In six weeks. England was hemmed in and battered by the Luftwaffe, no threat to us. Then Russia tried to attack. But we were ready and beat them back, and were going to get rid of that menace to the East once and for all. then those English sky pirates were burning cities from the skies. And were shortly joined by their American cousins. And of course hardly anyone heard of the mass murders. (And the White rose movement that tried to warn were swiftly apprehended and executed.) Put all of this on top of a church whose theological leadership were in large part going apostate for generations. (As in, guess where Modernist or Liberal skeptical theology had its start.) Not too hard to figure out, is it. Resemblance to the sort of things that may well be beginning to happen is NOT coincidental. As in, that Breivik is a fundy Christian terrorist and would be theocrat, just like we thought. GEM of TKI PS: Do they really teach the actual history of the 3rd Reich in school, including what is was like to be living as a German in that era? kairosfocus

Who cares if Hitler and the Nazi's 'adopted', 'espoused' or 'exploited' Chritianity? They were criminals of the worst kind, only interested in power and dominance. They would use or twist anything to suit their purposes. A far more important question might be why the majority (not all) of German Christians enthusiastically supported Hitler and the Nazi's. How did they square that with their beliefs and the teachings of their churches? fG faded_Glory

Hitler’s regime espoused Christianity...

The Nazis adopted (if you prefer that to espoused) Christianity, at least culturally, as did Breivik.

If we prefer adopted to espoused you'll say adopted rather than espoused?

I do not think that Hitler was a Christian, and took care not to say so. I do not think the Nazi regime was Christian, and took care not to say so. What I intended to convey, and clearly failed, was that the Nazi regime exploited (I said, “espoused”, then tried “adopted”, but perhaps “exploited” will do better) Christianity, at least culturally.

And then she musters and posts what evidence she can that Hitler espoused Christianity. Mung

Mung at 140 For quantitative evidence of "change over time" check out Mendel's Accountant That gives students full access to all population dynamics models and they can test for themselves the reality of how a species' DNA changes with time. They might even learn something from it! DLH

Ilion: The title is not fair or balanced, in my opinion. Yes, this man was influenced by social darwinism, which is therefore an issue we still need to deal with 60+ years after Hitler. But equally, the proper question of drivers is not that of Darwinism as such. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

KF @ 210: "... Which is the bigger issue that made me hang around in this thread even when the headline was not changed." KF @ 214: "I must still insist that there is decisive evidence — from their own writings — that both Hitler and now this newest mad man, were social darwinists. ... So, again, let me ask DLH to revise the headline for the thread to something more appropriate." Hmmm ... speaking directly, it appears that KF is saying that the title of this thread is both correct and so incorrect that he'd prefer to have nothing to do with the thread. Ilion

F/N: I should note also that the inference of Hitler's social darwinism on the example of a key text does not hinge crucially on capitalisation or not. GUN may have a point on that minor matter, but that point is not material relative to the main force of the context of the remarks and the associations of the ideas and even terms Hitler used; which I highlighted in response to GUN's rebuttal. kairosfocus

Dr Liddle: I understand your statement that in effect your use of "espoused" was not intended to entail that Hitler was loyal to the Christian Faith. I do note that your use of the term, which has a fairly widely understood standard meaning, was bound to create serious misunderstandings, if you did not intend that meaning. I must still insist that there is decisive evidence -- from their own writings -- that both Hitler and now this newest mad man, were social darwinists. There is convincing evidence -- which you have unfortunately again chosen not to face and address on its merits -- that social darwinsm was seen as a mainstream applied science rooted in the established theory of origins, across the first half of C20. The concern is that such social darwinism has not gone away in recent years, but from this case, has only gone underground. It must be rooted out, and that implies acknowledging the real history of this movement starting with Darwin and Galton. In the wider context, it is clear that some very toxic talking points are being pushed, targetting Christians. In the teeth of easily accessible information, this new mad man was headlined across the globe as a fundamentalist Christian. Instead of equally headlining the corrections and doing a public self examination of such a dangerous failure, there has been a let's move on attitude. All of these need to be faced and dealt with, regardless of the problems with the headline for this thread. So, again, let me ask DLH to revise the headline for the thread to something more appropriate. GEM of TKI --------------------- Sept. 20, 2011 kirosfocus - Per your request for "something more appropriate," I changed the title to "Was Norway Shooter a Social Darwinian terrorist?" and added a comment Sept. 20, 2011. Thanks for finding Breivik's statement and clarifying the issues of Social Darwinism. DLH kairosfocus

KF @ 210: ""Pardon, I must be direct." Now you want to be direct? Ilion

kf: I did not mean to imply that Hitler was a Christian. I cannot retract my claim that he was, because I did not make it. Sometimes the communication gulf here seems impossible to bridge, so all I can do to retract those comments I did make, as they clearly did not convey my meaning, and the meaning they inadvertently conveyed is one I most emphatically did not intend. I apologise for having failed to convey what I did intend. I also regret having, against my better judgement, returned to this thread. I will not post in it, or even open it again. Lizzie Elizabeth Liddle

PS: My follow up comment in my own personal blog, which is mainly meant for Caribbean readers. I think we need to listen to Mr O'Reilly on this one, though I can hardly say that I give him or his TV channel an across the board endorsement. kairosfocus

Dr Liddle: Pardon, I must be direct. First, kindly cf 137 above, which was directed specifically to you. The remarks you have made above are simply irresponsible. You were presented with the study papers regarding indictment for Nazi religious persecution of the Christian churches from the Nuremberg trials, and were pointed to the summary indictment section, written July 1945. You know, or should know what terms like espoused mean and will communicate, given your education level. It is clear that Hitler and co sought to subvert the Christian church and to mislead a Christianity-influenced culture, along the way to destroying the influence of the Christian faith, and substituting his own ideologies that would "justify" unlimited aggressive warfare, indeed the indictment speaks in terms of attempted world conquest (and not without justification). As touching eugenics, genocide and social Darwinism, we have a clear record from Hitler's writings from before he gained power, that shows just where he was coming from. I again highlight how part of the section shows Hitler giving the social darwinists' solution to Darwin's challenge on the breeding ratio of inferior and superior varieties of humans [Darwin spoke of in effect the Irish, the Scots and the English under slightly disguised terms], in Descent Chs 5 - 7. Nor is this any great surprise as the level of sponsorship for the eugenics movement in that time and the sort of ideas captured in the logo for the 1921 2nd Int'l Eugenics Congress, show just how this was seen as a culmination of the science on man, putting tremendous pressure on educated people, Christians and others to go along with "science," in the name of avoiding bringing their nations down tot the level of disintegration and mediocrity that would leave them helpless in the face of those that practiced "scientific" breeding principles, under "the self-direction of human evolution." Indeed it is that same mediocrity argument that Hitler takes up and uses to justify his Aryan racial superiority thought. Notice, the often neglected warning by H G Wells -- a student of Huxley -- in the opening of his 1897/8 popular novel, War of the Worlds, i.e. the implications of darwinism as applied to "favoured" and unfavoured HUMAN "races," were understood all too well a full generation before Hitler:

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water . . . No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us . . . . looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance only 35,000,000 of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope, our own warmer planet, green with vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through its drifting cloud wisps of broad stretches of populous country and narrow, navy-crowded seas. And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them. And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?

Darwin himself, Ch 6 of Descent, 1870/1:

Man is liable to numerous, slight, and diversified variations, which are induced by the same general causes, are governed and transmitted in accordance with the same general laws, as in the lower animals. Man has multiplied so rapidly, that he has necessarily been exposed to struggle for existence, and consequently to natural selection. He has given rise to many races, some of which differ so much from each other, that they have often been ranked by naturalists as distinct species . . . . At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.

And then, as though he had not now identified a major moral hazard, Darwin coolly returned to his discussion on why there age gaps int eh fossil record! (And, GUN et al, this is the record, whether or not you like it or can try to twist away from it. At least Wells had the decency to raise the issue.) I remind you, the Eugenics logo was also previously brought to your attention, but seems to have escaped your attention. 100 million ghosts from the century just past say: you dare not neglect this! I hope the lesson I assume you are learning from the error of asserting that Hitler "espoused" Christianity, is giving you an opportunity to reflect on the reasons why we are taking steps to speak out so strongly on what is now going on. Before it is again too late, bloodily too late. In particular, we know that evolutionary materialism is ancient, and that it has a terrible record that Plato warned us all about long ago. It is inherently amoral, having in it no IS that can ground OUGHT, which is enough to reduce it to absurdity for it is a certainty that we are in fact morally obligated creatures. Even the atheists trying to raisae rhe problem of evils, imply that in their arguments, reducing their favourite argument to absurdity. And, when we see that this same dangerous doctrine that in the past 100 years energised ruthless factions that in power took over 100 million lives though democides, is now being written into the very definition of science that we are supposed to swallow without question, we have reason to be deeply concerned. Multiply that by a situation where we are seeing in this thread the sort of slanders of Christians and denial of evident facts that Breivik was in fact a self-confessed social darwinist, and our concerns are multiplied again. let me clip from his remarks, as may be seen at 162- 3 above:

Social-darwinism was the norm before the [sic] 1950. Back then, it was allowed to say what we feel [in context, 80 - 90%]. Now, however, we have to disguise our preferences to avoid the horrible consequences of being labeled as a genetical preferentialist.

Note, the we's and our. Worse, I and others have given very specific grounds for showing why Hitler was indeed a social darwinist -- a dominant view at the time [there are traces even in Churchill] -- and for tracing this back to Darwin's writings in especially Chs 5 - 7 of Descent of Man [which I do not see you engaging seriously, and GUN's puerile attempts above underscore reasons for concren rather than lifting hem]. So, please understand why I find your remark above ALARMING;

Hitler, like Breivik, exploited the Christian tradition to devise a eugenicist ideology that owes nothing to either Christ or Darwin. To call either Hitler, or Breivik either “Christian” or “Darwinian” is wrong . . .

But, demonstrably, this -- especially the highlighted --is false, a falsity that was pointed out to you with linked resources. For social darwinism and eugenics beyond reasonable doubt are traceable to Darwin's thought and direct claims in his public and private writings, and to the circle surrounding Darwin, indeed his family in succeeding years was deeply involved with the said movement, and used his name to promote it, e.g. cf. the activities of his son Leonard. Nor is his cousin Galton to be neglected in this. Again, kindly cf 137 above, which was directed specifically to you. Also, above I have documented just how deep rooted the accusations that are of concern are. It is not true that there has been an across the board retraction, and certainly not one given anywhere near so prominent a billing as the initial accusations. Nor have I seen any across the board serious, sustained self examination of the scandal of failure to do duties of care to truth and fairness that would begin to compare with the initial announcements. As you know, my participation in this thread is under protest, as I think the title -- even in the form of a question -- is wrong. This, despite my having documented the social darwinism above. The real issue on this point seems to be that social darwinist thought has simply gone underground, it is not truly dead, so it needs to be killed. On the broader question, the gleeful jumping on to accuse Christians and make them out to be the moral equivalent of and inspiration for terrorists -- in the teeth of vast and easily accessible evidence to the contrary -- is a telling sign about what has become ever so toxic in our civilisation, and especially its media culture. Where we see the use of immoral equivalency and the persistent attempt to push Christians into the same boat with IslamIST terrorists and Nazi mass murderers, that is willful slander and a grave reason for concern. Which is the bigger issue that made me hang around in this thread even when the headline was not changed. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

kf:

Dr Liddle I challenge you to read this and then explain what you have written above.

kairosfocus, I think I have explained what I wrote. But let me try one more time: I do not think that Hitler was a Christian, and took care not to say so. I do not think the Nazi regime was Christian, and took care not to say so. What I intended to convey, and clearly failed, was that the Nazi regime exploited (I said, "espoused", then tried "adopted", but perhaps "exploited" will do better) Christianity, at least culturally. There are numerous references to Christianity in Mein Kampf; a Christian motto was inscribed over the swastika on a belt buckle; Hitler's speeches made frequent references to God, and to Germany as a "Christian Nation". Wiki says (but I have not verified the citation):

In a proclamation to the German Nation February 1, 1933 Hitler stated, "The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and co-operation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_views He was also, unspeakably, a racist a eugenicist, and the instigator of genocide. And my point is that it is no more or less justified to call Hitler, or Breivik, a Christian than it is to call him "Darwinian". Here is Hitler on eugenics: "Nature generally takes certain measures to correct the effect which racial mixture produces in life. She is not much in favour of the mongrel. The later products of cross-breeding have to suffer bitterly, especially the third, fourth and fifth generations. Not only are they deprived of the higher qualities that belonged to the parents who participated in the first mixture, but they also lack definite will-power and vigorous vital energies owing to the lack of harmony in the quality of their blood. At all critical moments in which a person of pure racial blood makes correct decisions, that is to say, decisions that are coherent and uniform, the person of mixed blood will become confused and take measures that are incoherent. Hence we see that a person of mixed blood is not only relatively inferior to a person of pure blood, but is also doomed to become extinct more rapidly. In innumerable cases wherein the pure race holds its ground the mongrel breaks down. Therein we witness the corrective provision which Nature adopts. She restricts the possibilities of procreation, thus impeding the fertility of cross-breeds and bringing them to extinction." Not only is it evil, which goes without saying, it is anti-Darwinian, and biologically incorrect. His model is not "natural selection" but "artificial selection" and he erroneously assumes that "natural selection" will eliminate "mongrels". It doesn't. Darwin didn't say so - and, if he had done, would have been wrong. And here is Hitler on Christianity: "The religious teaching of the Jews is principally a collection of instructions for maintaining the Jewish blood pure and for regulating intercourse between Jews and the rest of the world: that is to say, their relation with non-Jews. But the Jewish religious teaching is not concerned with moral problems. It is rather concerned with economic problems, and very petty ones at that. In regard to the moral value of the religious teaching of the Jews there exist and always have existed quite exhaustive studies (not from the Jewish side; for whatever the Jews have written on this question has naturally always been of a tendentious character) which show up the kind of religion that the Jews have in a light that makes it look very uncanny to the Aryan mind. The Jew himself is the best example of the kind of product which this religious training evolves. His life is of this world only and his mentality is as foreign to the true spirit of Christianity as his character was foreign to the great Founder of this new creed two thousand years ago. And the Founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of His estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God; because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests. But at that time Christ was nailed to the Cross for his attitude towards the Jews; whereas our modern Christians enter into party politics and when elections are being held they debase themselves to beg for Jewish votes. They even enter into political intrigues with the atheistic Jewish parties against the interests of their own Christian nation." In other words, Hitler, like Breivik, exploited the Christian tradition to devise a eugenicist ideology that owes nothing to either Christ or Darwin. To call either Hitler, or Breivik either "Christian" or "Darwinian" is wrong. The press retracted; this OP needs to retract too IMO. As, kf, you agree. Elizabeth Liddle

F/N: A little bit on exposing the toxic climate being cultivated, here. Somebodies out there in media land and in talking head land have some serious explaining to do. I think we need to watch Mr O'Reilly's commentary here [not exactly a general endorsement!], and ponder on it. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

F/N: believe it or not, the blame the Christians line is apparently still being pushed as at July 25 in Wa Po. Cf Here, from a UCC modernist theologian and Chicago Theological Seminary prof who is an on Faith Columnist for that newspaper. Something is deeply, deeply wrong here. Something we had better do something about, fast. kairosfocus

Elizabeth, You are not answerable to me. But you do seem to acknowledge that you are at least in same way answerable to the truth. Funny that. For a declared atheist. Mung

So what word can be properly used to describe someone who has not only allied themselves with that which is a lie, but who also then refuses to be corrected? I offered numerous opportunities in this thread to Elizabeth to amend, clarify or retract her statement without resorting to labeling it as a lie, even though that was in fact my first inclination. See my posts at: #130, #132, #141, #174 I thought perhaps she didn't really believe it. But incredibly, she is actually attempting to defend it! Now Elizabeth has in fact summed up the teachings of Jesus in the phrase, "love your neighbor as yourself." This was in fact itself a summary given by Jesus of the Law of Moses and is only one half the statement, here it is in full:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Are these sayings of Jesus what the Nazis espoused? Mung

From the confidential, declassified documents: THE NAZI MASTER PLAN THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES Description: This study describes, with illustrative factual evidence, Nazi purpose, policies and methods of persecuting the Christian Churches in Germany and occupied Europe. I. The nature of the persecution II. The problem of establishing criminal responsibility III. The Basic National Socialist Attitude toward Christian Churches IV. Policies adopted in the persecution of the Christian Churches V. Methods used to implement the policy of Persecution [July/6/1945] http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/donovan/pdf/Nuremberg_3/Vol_X_18_03_02.pdf junkdnaforlife

F/N: Just one pointer, from the 9th page of the PDF, on III The Nazi attitude to the churches. Dr Liddle I challenge you to read this and then explain what you have written above. kairosfocus

Hitler's ultimate plan was to destroy Christianity. From the declassified Nuremberg trials: [A link to further study the court documents and transcripts posted by Kairos from mung @201] “The Persecution of the Christian Churches…the Nazi plan to subvert and destroy German Christianity, which it calls it, an integral part of the National Socialist scheme of world conquest." Not fans of Jesus: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/13/weekinreview/word-for-word-case-against-nazis-hitler-s-forces-planned-destroy-german.html?src=pm junkdnaforlife

PPS: Mung has linked the actual investigation postwar into the Nazi persecution of the Christian Church, kindly at least look at its table of contents. kairosfocus

Dr Liddle: As the Barmen Declaration of Barth et al plainly said, the Nazis tried to subvert, pervert and overthrow the gospel based Christian faith, creating a counterfeit. Men paid for that courageous declaration with horrible suffering and even death. Have the courage and respect to recoginse this, please. GEM of TKI PS: this is what "espouse" means:

es·pouse (-spouz) tr.v. es·poused, es·pous·ing, es·pous·es 1. a. To take in marriage; marry. b. To give (a woman) in marriage. 2. To give one's loyalty or support to (a cause, for example); adopt. [Middle English espousen, from Old French espouser, from Latin spnsre, frequentative of spondre, to betroth; see spend- in Indo-European roots.] es·pouser n. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

--> There is a vast difference between this and what the Nazis tried to do and intended to do. kairosfocus

Onlookers: Kindly remember, all of this is in a thread where I AM PARTICIPATING UNDER PROTEST AS I THINK THE HEADLINE IS INAPPROPRIATE. The mad-bad man involved in this murder was plainly a social darwinist racist, who seems to have attacked those he saw as betrayers of the volk. He blasphemously redefined the meaning of Christianity, and subverted symbols that have a Christian root. He sought to intensify polarisation, and he was willing to murder nearly 100 people simply to grab headlines. He has snipped from and bent many ideas. But, on the point where much was made by way of trying to discredit me, it stands plainly demonstrated that this man is clearly influenced by social darwinism. Maybe I missed it but I have not seen any serious retraction of some very inappropriate assertions and insinuations made above, in the face of such direct proof form the man's own mouth so to speak. Let that tell you about what is really going on. So, let us all take some time out, and reflect. Then, let us do better. Good evening GEM of TKI kairosfocus

GUN: Kindly observe the explicitly social Darwinist framework of the already linked, with the specific response to a problem posed by Darwin in Chs 5 - 7 of Descent of Man. I note further that the intensity of refusal to acknowledge an important moral hazard exposed right there in Darwin, and taken up across the world in the decades thereafter -- NB early Nazi laws were modelled on law in I believe California -- is simply telling me that this issue is not dead. Your failure to read in context where the clip from the man begins:

Any crossing of two beings not at exactly the same level produces a medium between the level of the two parents. This means: the offspring will probably stand higher than the racially lower parent, but not as high as the higher one. Consequently, it will later succumb in the struggle against the higher level. Such mating is contrary to the will of Nature [--> notice, the capitalisation] for a higher breeding of all life.

. . . and thus sets it onward in the light of "a higher breeding of all life," and "if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development of organic living beings [--> i.e. evolution viewed as progress] would be unthinkable" i.e evolution in context, are all too telling on wrenching this way and that to avoid the plain meaning and ideas context at work. Your attempt to wrench the words from their context and project them unto a different "creationist" one, is telling. Telling on the resort to a turnabout accusation in the wider context of a smear and the narrower context of a smear on a mass murder that is at stake in this thread. Something very dangerously poisonous is going on, onlookers, something that leads to the sort of pattern above; where AFTER it is indisputable that the main case in view and the background one are both shown to have key social darwinist influences, there is still a desperate attempt to divert the matter, turn it about, and cast blame elsewhere, on the actual victims of the smear that occasioned this thread in the first instance. This madness has to stop. Or, else, this is a warning of the sort of outright bigotry verging on hate and on the willful deception and slander flowing from that bigotry verging on hate, that are now lurking in our civilisation. Remember, the underlying context is that we have a problem of an institutionally dominant worldview, evolutionary materialism that pretends that it is science and that it is the view of the "brights" so that those who beg to differ are ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked. All the while that view inherently has in it no foundational IS that can bear the weight of OUGHT, and ends up lending credibility to ruthless factions that think that -- as Plato warned 2350 years ago in The Laws, Bk X -- the highest right is might. Doubtless, that "might" includes might in manipulation and domination of institutions of influence, leading to the distortion of how we understand issues, history, people and especially disfavoured things such as he Christian faith and its scriptures and history. And yes, I got Avalos' jibes and the jibe of so many others involved with or travelling companions of the new atheists on the alleged "bronze age god" village atheist level talking point now being so routinely trotted out loud and clear, left and right. Sorry, the "god" of a priori evolutionary materialist scientism you have to answer for is a lot more recent than that and the effects of his disciples across the past 100 years have to be looked at very soberly. Certainly, that is what the ghosts of 100 million victims of democides at the hands of such ruthless factions across the past 100 years are moaning out to us in warning. It is worth pausing to look at what Plato had to say in warning c 360 BC:

[[T]hese people would say that the Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT. (Cf. here for Locke's views and sources on a very different base for grounding liberty as opposed to license and resulting anarchistic "every man does what is right in his own eyes" chaos leading to tyranny.)] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[ Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles; cf. dramatisation here], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless tyranny; here, too, Plato hints at the career of Alcibiades], and not in legal subjection to them . . .

We have been warned. And, it is time to look back at what has been going on, take stock and do better than this. New atheists, evolutionary materialists wearing holy lab coats and travelling companions, I mean you. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

EL: "Without a some mutual assumption of integrity, there can be no communication, so I bid you farewell too." Translation: unless you are willing to lie to yourself about what you see with your own eyes, then there can be no communication between us. Response: 1) you blew that assumption a long time ago; 2) I don't give a damn about "communication"; I care about reason and truth: I know I've told you that already ... perhaps I just didn't communicate it well enough; 3) I am so bummed that my "moral and intellectual superior" (in the words of some silly person in his first, and last, post on my blog) doesn't want to "communicate" with me. Ilion

kf: as I have said, consistently, in this thread: it is quite wrong to condemn a religion, or an ideology, or a scientific theory because someone misuses it. The Nazis adopted (if you prefer that to espoused) Christianity, at least culturally, as did Breivik. Both the Nazis and Breivik (as far as we can tell from his ramblings) promoted eugenics. That neither of those things says anything about either Christianity or Darwinism, except that sick minds will pervert any idea, whether good, bad or morally neutral, to their own ends. Which is why I was so angry about the headline of this OP, and why I share your concern about early reports that Breivik was a Christian Fundamentalist (which, unlike this thread, were corrected) and why I was also concerned about initial reports that the bomb was the work of Muslim terrorists. Elizabeth Liddle

Dr Liddle: Here is Wiki, on that buckle's background. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Ilion, the same goes for you, I'm afraid. Without a some mutual assumption of integrity, there can be no communication, so I bid you farewell too. Peace Lizzie Elizabeth Liddle

“Dr Bot: Kindly read here, in the dragon’s own voice. It is time to come out of being in denial. GEM of TKI” --His voice directly reflects those of Gobineau, H. S. Chamberlain, and other anti-evolutionists, and his arguments are precisely those used to argue AGAINST evolution (e.g. “sharp outward delimitation of the various races”, “uniform character”, etc). Hitler did not even believe in speciation. (I previously discussed some of his quotes here: https://uncommondescent.com/darwinism/darwin-as-racist-vs-darwin-as-anti-slavery-hero/comment-page-1/#comment-363121 “To bring about such a development is, then, nothing else but to sin against the will of the eternal creator. [--> note want of capitalisation, and recall, the dominant view of the time was an eternal nature, the Big Bang type cosmology only triumphed in the 1960's, indeed in 1925/6 when MK was written it was not yet proposed]” --That was a typo. I can find only one translation where it is lowercase, and “Creator” and “Eternal Creator” are elsewhere always capitalized in that particular translation, and every other translation (there are lots to pick from) have “Eternal Creator” capitalized in that instance (and every instance). The translation which has the phrase in lowercase, btw, has quite a few typos. He also very often speaks of a Creator and speaks of nature, man, and the universe as a creation (not just publically, but in more private settings such as can be seen in Table Talk), and thus it’s unlikely he believed that the universe was eternal. As for “nature” often being capitalized – well, that was just the normal thing to do at the time, especially in formal writing. It’s only in recent times that we don’t often capitalize such words: take a look at the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence. I recall someone highlighting his use of “Eternal Nature”, which seems to be alluded to. So what did he mean by “Eternal Nature”? He didn’t mean it literally. Anyone who doubts me, try this – just google a text version of Mein Kampf and do a search for “eternal” and scan through the book, and see just how often he uses the term (a LOT) and how often it’s meant literally (rarely). He speaks of the “Etnernal Jew” and called Jews the “eternal blood-sucker” who took advantage of Germany’s “eternal financial troubles”. And did you know that “England which with methodical diabolism hunts Ireland's people to death in eternal revolutions” and that there’s an “eternal conflict between Germany and France”? goodusername

"Interestingly, you must assert to everyone here that you actually believe it to be the case that Hitler’s regime did in fact espouse Christianity." Even that would be lying ... for to "actually believe" that falsehood, one must undertake deliberate steps so as to avoid knowing the truth. Ilion

We do seem to have identified a certain disregard for the truth and for accepting responsibility for what one says. Time for me to go dredge up some prior statements by Lizzie about what a wonderful person she is and how she and she alone is responsible for what she says, etc.

Now I’ve had one too many accusations of lying from you Mung, so this is the last time I will respond to your posts for a while.

An excellent way to avoid lying is to not say anything. To anyone. Interestingly, you must assert to everyone here that you actually believe it to be the case that Hitler's regime did in fact espouse Christianity. Else you are in fact lying, and in fact you are a liar, even according to your own "only if I truly believe I am saying something false am I lying" definition. Perhaps some of your atheist friends will come to your rescue and make the case that you have failed to make and establish that Hitler's regime did in fact espouse Christianity. We'll see. I've resisted providing quotes to the contrary from Nazi sources because I don't want to further spread their filth. However, this may be of some relevance: http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/donovan/pdf/Nuremberg_3/Vol_X_18_03_02.pdf Mung

Dr Liddle: I have already pointed out that he belt buckle in question is a Nazified adaptation of the Prussian army belt that seems to have been in use in one form or another since the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 or thereabouts, i.e. 70 years. Similarly, the Nazi regime put the swastika into the Iron Cross, which had been in use since 1813. In short, and as was long since pointed out, they were subverting the Christian traditions and impacts on German culture. I find this disappointing. Especially, as the wider context (did you follow up the link on the Weikart Ayala exchange on Unbelievable?) is that there is an agenda to tr to suggest that Nazism was primarily rooted in Christian sources. This, to distract attention from the quite plain links in the already linked from Hitler's writings. So, when I see the sort of days of plastering int eh major media as happened on this new mad man, I think I have cause for serious complaint. ESPECIALLY with the same BBC that has already proved to my satisfaction after a one year complaints procedure that they are up to their eyeballs in anti-Christian bigotry that they think they can get away with. Something very, very, very rotten is going on Dr Liddle. Please, do better next time. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Of course, EL *is* lying. For, after all, she did not say that the Nazi regime tried to co-opt Christian phrases or symbols, she said that the Nazi regime espoused Christianity. Isn't she so cute when she stamps her (dainty or non-dainty) little feet? Ilion

No, Mung I am not lying, and I just linked to a picture of a belt buckle with a swastika and the words "Gott mit uns" which means "God with us" and I don't expect they meant the Jewish God or Allah, although conceivably they meant Thor. Now I've had one too many accusations of lying from you Mung, so this is the last time I will respond to your posts for a while. I don't mind if people disagree with me, or point out errors, even if I disagree that they are errors. But I don't lie, as I have told you, and you have no reason to think otherwise. So we will take a break from our conversations. Peace Lizzie Elizabeth Liddle

Elizabeth, what evidence do you have to support your assertion that Hitler’s regime espoused Christianity? Or are you in fact, lying? Mung

Let's not forget: The underlying moral hazard problem of evolutionary materialism still continues to this day. A good illustration is from Provine's 1998 Darwin Day address, at U Tenn:

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . . The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will . . .

Take that challenge, present it as "science" with all the prestige that this implies, put it into a cultural matrix that has begun to lose a sense of the moral worth and equality of people as made in God's image through apostasy, and then see what happens when you have might makes right factions playing power games. That, sirs, is the recipe for a lot of what went wrong in C20, and it is a warning to us in C21. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

social darwinist=eugenicist social darwinist~= darwinian Darwinian evolution ~=eugenics Please stop making the associations. social darwinist=eugenicist. Call it by its own ugly name. Elizabeth Liddle

F/N: Let's not forget the other major issue, which JDFL nailed in no 5 above long since:

Prof. FX Gumby, yes from your rundown of his books you list he looks like a mixed bag of crazy. However, what we are dealing with here (at least in the US) is two day 24 news cycle blast from the legacy media beating the “right-wing Christian fundamentalist” drum. The manifesto is out sure, but the populace is fully submerged and marinating in the original slime smear. This is how it works. Smear slime on page one, retraction or correction a week later buried on page 37 next to a Sears lawnmower ad. So a little balance is in order.

This has been happening over and over again [it happened with the AZ shooting early this year for instance], and it needs to be put under the harsh light of public exposure and complaint, so that those who are doing it will be sufficiently ashamed -- or will realise it no longer works and discredits them -- as to stop. kairosfocus

Ben H Thanks. I think we need to diagnose this cancer right, to get it rooted out. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

F/N: Let's go back to where we began this morning in 162 - 3, with a clear smoking gun statement statement from this mad- bad- man's own mouth (and since he knew what he did was atrocious, he is mad and bad, not just mad):

Social-darwinism was the norm before the [sic] 1950. Back then, it was allowed to say what we feel [in context, 80 - 90%]. Now, however, we have to disguise our preferences to avoid the horrible consequences of being labeled as a genetical preferentialist.

Now, obviously this is not the only influence on his behaviour, but it is clearly an influence. As can be seen in detail in the above 163, he says in effect that he is racialist- social- darwinist, and claims this is the overwhelming majority crypto- opinion. So, what was so hotly resented when inferred from earlier clips [national darwinist esp] yesterday as one of the influences on him, is in effect a matter of proof beyond reasonable doubt now. I do not know if his claim of a crypto- opinion is near to truth but if even 5 - 10% are like this, this is serious. We know where this went already. No sane person wants to go back there. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Onlookers: Why is it that we are being forced to prove over and over what should long since be generally known and accepted -- albeit unpleasant -- documented fact? Something is wrong here. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

PPS: the Nazi stamp was of course to add the swastika. kairosfocus

Dr Liddle, The belt logo went back to the Franco-Prussian war IIRC, just as the original Iron Cross went back to c. 1813. Both were traditional German military symbols, not specifically Nazi. But of course they have been forever tainted. The Nazi attitude to Christianity was already documented above. GEM of TKI PS: I think you would be well advised to read the same as just linked for Dr Bot. There is no question that Nazism was social darwinist (or -- per Descent of Man chs 5 - 7, that such went back to CD himself as an application and context of his theory), and that this is documented in AH's main book, long before he attained state power. Kindly see above, somethings directed to you yesterday. kairosfocus

Dr Bot: Kindly read here, in the dragon's own voice. It is time to come out of being in denial. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

EL@174 But the fact that the Nazis condemned Darwinism as false science and ordered Darwin's books burnt proves that Darwin was to blame because the Nazis were simply trying to hide their real motives!! ;) DrBot

Eocene: Iron Cross! (Bonnggg . . . echoing empty head . . . ) How could I overlook that connexion! I was so used to the Maltese type cross that I forgot the appropriation and use by the Nazis (and subsequent use by neo-Nazis). Yet another rotting-fish connexion. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

http://tksanders.com/godmitus.jpg Elizabeth Liddle

Elizabeth Liddle:

Hitler’s regime espoused Christianity

Really? You can of course support this assertion with evidence? Mung

kairosfocus I appreciate your profound insites of the mind of a madman. Don't let these darwinists tell you that you don't know what how such insane peopl think. Ben ben h

PS: Dr Bot, had you looked at 162 above you would have seen that the issue of explicit social darwinist influence on this man has been on the public record (including at UD) before I raised it. kairosfocus

kf:

As one who is already on record how the above headline should be changed, I do not need to say more on that subject, save to again publicly ask that DLH do so.

Noted, with gratitude. I'd like to add my voice to the request. Elizabeth Liddle

Mr MacNeill: As one who is already on record how the above headline should be changed, I do not need to say more on that subject, save to again publicly ask that DLH do so. However my remarks just above point to the significance of the moral hazard injected into science, education, thought, policy and culture in the late C19 by Evolutionary Materialism riding on the coat tails of Darwinist evolutionary theory. Across C20, in various guises, this was responsible for giving the ideological and worldviews foundation for democides and genocides going well past 100 millions, and for the horrors of the eugenics movement beyond that. This madman is evidence that this thing is still with us yet, just underground. Who to tell, with a cleverer lunatic, it may yet surface in the face of a charismatic politician presenting himself as saviour of the nation or a continent or a civilisation. That already happened. So, we have to address the IS-OUGHT gap, we have to face the implications of evolutionary materialism and its "scientific" cover. We have to make it crystal clear that ought is real and vital. As a part of that we are going to have to look back at some very painful chapters of the past, and then we will have to seek a reformation of education, institutional science and culture. This horror in Norway is a wake-up call, and we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted by those who would prefer that we pay no attention to what happened with the man, and what happened with the response -- I heard some incredible statements by Norwegian pols on BBC this morning about their police performance -- and the media response. The fact is, for DAYS, I was picking up, drumbeat, the unfounded assertions that this was a right wing fundy, Christian wacko. A bit of serious due diligence work would have shown this is not so, and that the cluster of influences actually at work point in some very unwelcome directions. Similarly, there seems to be a willful determination in too many influential quarters to not look at the issue of IslamISM as a threat, and to in fact use this as a turnabout rhetorical occasion -- that is a meaning of kairos too -- to pound on those who have tried to warn against a real threat. It is too late to think that we can now go back to oh just a madman, too much has been turned on this incident already. So, we need to look very seriously at what is going on with our civilisation, and face some things we would rather not face. As at this point, "let us now look away . . . " comes across to me as ENABLING BEHAVIOUR. Good day, sir. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Allan MacNeil #166 "The alternatives . . .are pure political propaganda of the most morally reprehensible kind." Is not your accusation based on YOUR misscharacterization of the headline from a question to a statement the in itself a morally reprehensible act? Furthermore, you assert a question has the same moral reprehensibility as Hitlers 11 million murders, or Stalin's 20 million murders, or Mao's 60 million murders, Or the communists > 100 million murders conducted by acting on Darwin's evolution in the 20th century? What happened to YOUR moral compass? DLH

this is in a context where we already saw that he was taking steps to conceal his extremism ...

... by writing about it, apart from the bits about how he was inspired by Darwin, which were so cleverly concealed only YOU are able to uncover them. Sorry, but my explanatory filter is flashing DESIGN in big red letters. Allen is quite correct:

Ergo, the only morally responsible heading for this post is: “Norway shooter a narcissistic psychopath” ... and the other two alternatives ... are pure political propaganda of the most morally reprehensible kind.

It's a shame you lack the moral fibre to admit this. DrBot

Onlookers: Of course this madman was influenced by many streams of thought, and in turn he has sought to influence all sorts of things, up to and including a clash of civilisations. However, he is a warning that to a significant extent social darwinism is not dead, it has only gone underground. One of the warnings we need to heed comes form some of the closing words of Keynes' General Theory:

Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. [and obviously this is not just Hitler or Stalin and it is not just economists] I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

That should tell us some of the weight of moral responsibility that comes with scholarship. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Now CNN is reporting that both Anders Behring Breivik's attorney and his father are asserting that he was and is insane: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/07/26/norway.terror.attacks/index.html?hpt=hp_c1 Ergo, the only morally responsible heading for this post is: "Norway shooter a narcissistic psychopath" and the other two alternatives: "Norway shooter a Christian fundamentalist" and "Norway shooter a Darwinian terrorist" are pure political propaganda of the most morally reprehensible kind. Allen_MacNeill

Dr BOT: I am sorry, you have just proved that you are unwilling to examine even an explicit confession of his sympathies and influences [NB: this is in a context where we already saw that he was taking steps to conceal his extremism], and face the implications thereof. That's saddening, but that is what you have now demonstrated in the above; beyond reasonable doubt. It is also telling. Please, think again. Good day. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

i.e disguised by burial deep in the document:

LOL - he certainly was declaring explicitly that his actions were inspired by the theory of evolution then wasn't he. I think you need to take a long hard look at yourself KF and the reasons why you are so desperate to hijack these horrific events in order to justify your own distorted and fanatical perspective on science and history. I really am quite disgusted by you, such behaviour has no place in civilised society. DrBot

Smoking gun: The following clip gives a bit of the context for the second bullet point in 162 above, from p 1227, i.e disguised by burial deep in the document: ___________ >> So why is tribalism and our ethnic heritage so important? Despite what the Marxists would like to believe, our genetical heritage is the most important cultural marker as it is a visual proof that you represent a certain culture, certain traditions, a certain identity. How you look will in a blink of an eye tell people a thousand things about you, who your ancestors where, tells you a lot about your mentality, and your countries or regions achievements the last few years. These thousands of pieces of information is forwarded by the blink of an eye to another individual. If you however do not have any genetical affiliation, people will only be left with a lot of questions. Where are you from, are you Muslim, are you a tourist, what culture do you represent, are you an integrated individual, are you an assimilated individual, are you the new imported servant class or are you adopted? This is what most people ask themselves when they meet an individual. I would f example instantly know, from recognition, that another person is an undiluted Norwegian or not and most other people would as well. Preferentialism based on looks and ethnic origin is the rule for 80-90% of Europeans People who are familiar with “the game”; the socio-economic rat race where looks, culture and economy are the deciding factors know how the unwritten rules work. We say something, some politically correct BS like it’s the inside that counts, or that all ethnic groups are equal, but we don’t really mean it. The only reason lie publicly and even to our friends is because our countries are ruled by a Marxist entity and we are not allowed to say the truth. Social-darwinism was the norm before the 1950. Back then, it was allowed to say what we feel. Now, however, we have to disguise our preferences to avoid the horrible consequences of being labeled as a genetical preferentialist. >> ____________ Let's zero in to the key point:

Social-darwinism was the norm before the [sic] 1950. Back then, it was allowed to say what we feel [in context, 80 - 90%]. Now, however, we have to disguise our preferences to avoid the horrible consequences of being labeled as a genetical preferentialist.

That is going to be as close to an outright declaration as you are going to get from such a clever man in this age. It is plainly fair comment to conclude on this, that he is indeed social darwinist -- and note his earlier remarks that "science" must take priority over scriptures [which speak to the fundamental equality of people as being made in God's image] -- and holds that 80 - 90% of the population secretly agrees with him but conceals out of fear of the power elites. This underscores the cogency of my earlier inference of social darwinist influence, and that is to be viewed in the context that this was seen prior to about 1950 - 70 as an application of the results of "science," indeed as applied science. Some heated remarks and assertions of immoral equivalency above need to be withdrawn. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

F/N 2: While this is bound to make blood boil, we should note what Mrs O'Leary has now pointed to at CEH in a follow-up post, in the context that we must realise that this man has been concealing his root motives to evade police attention. It is not just number of references to particular words, but the structure of his thought that counts: ____________ >> Support for Darwinian ideas can be seen in several places in his manifesto:

* While arguing against the feminist destruction of marriage, he said, approvingly, “Marriage is not a ‘conspiracy to oppress women’, it’s the reason why we’re here. And it’s not a religious thing, either. According to strict, atheist Darwinism, the purpose of life is to reproduce.” * While lambasting political correctness, he spoke approvingly of social Darwinism: “Social-darwinism was the norm before the [sic] 1950. Back then, it was allowed to say what we feel. Now, however, we have to disguise our preferences to avoid the horrible consequences of being labeled as a genetical preferentialist.” * Supporting segregation in Africa, he said, “Nevertheless, people who are very short sighted will consider these policies quite cynical or darwinistic. However, long term, it is the most humanistic and responsible approach.” * The first thing he said when describing his vision of a perfect Europe was: “‘Logic’ and rationalist thought (a certain degree of national Darwinism) should be the fundament [sic] of our societies.”

As for his family background, it is clear neither of his parents, step-parents or siblings were Bible-believing Christians, and in his lengthy description of his personal life and beliefs, Biblical Christianity appeared to be the farthest thing from his mind. His “conservatism” was more about whether he allied with skinhead neo-Nazi hip-hop vs. leftist heavy-metal music. His personal summary of his political views is: “Cultural conservative, revolutionary conservative, Vienna school of thought, economically liberal.” . . . >> _____________ Revealing. kairosfocus

Footnotes: 1: Think strategically in analysing this demonically ruthless fellow. He long planned something, and the mass killing -- with a 6 ton bomb as a distraction! -- was plainly designed to get headlines and trigger discussions that would not otherwise happen. 2: Worked to the extent of making a lot of people wade through a 1500 pp document by an otherwise unknown person. So, he is sending a message and making a call to form up/join his new Knights Templar -- notice his resort to Latin. (Maybe, English, in his mind, is the new Latin -- save it is far more widely spoken?) 3: It is likely that he has some sort of secret network he contacted offline, though perhaps not actual confederates in the attack -- past mass shootings show that his range of casualties is possible for one accurate, fast shooter. It is normal for people to perceive more than one person in such circumstances. Until firm evidence turns up, hold this part with a grain of salt. 4: He is responding to a real enough problem, the IslamIST -- note my shift and specific emphasis, I am talking about maybe 10% of the Muslim world, per a Saudi prince's estimate -- agenda. (Have a look at the 1982 world plan recovered by Swiss Financial police here, and the civilisation- jihad- settlement strategy recovered in the HLF trials here [cf esp pp. 21 ff, English begins p 15]. There was also a map and discussion of a 100 yr world conquest programme on the net. There is a considerable body of evidence of a global IslamIST strategy to bring the world under Allah, his prophet, his warriors and his law; a strategy that is being actually pushed on the ground. The 1991 document is particularly revealing of how it works. Even paranoids have enemies.) 5: He sees himself as breaking through media censorship by any means necessary -- notice,t he ruthless, factionalist amorality, similar to what Plato warned against -- and setting up the resistance movement of the native peoples, and probably has taken on board the point that it was the Christians who were the nucleus of survival and recovery in the post Roman world of collapse in Europe. 6: So, he sets out to find a way to remake Christianity and Christendom in his image, note his aim as already clipped at 25 ff above (cf. single post here):

“As for the Church and science, it is essential that science takes an undisputed precedence over biblical teachings. Europe has always been the cradle of science, and it must always continue to be that way. Regarding my personal relationship with God, I guess I’m not an excessively religious man. I am first and foremost a man of logic. However, I am a supporter of a monocultural [note the cultural reference] Christian Europe.” . . . . “I trust that the future leadership of a European cultural conservative hegemony in Europe will ensure that the current Church leadership are replaced and the systems somewhat reformed,” he writes. “We must have a Church leadership who supports a future Crusade with the intention of liberating the Balkans, Anatolia and creating three Christian states in the Middle East. Efforts should be made to facilitate the de-construction of the Protestant Church whose members should convert back to Catholicism. The Protestant Church had an important role once, but its original goals have been accomplished and have contributed to reform the Catholic Church as well. Europe should have a united Church lead [sic] by a just and non-suicidal pope who is willing to fight for the security of his subjects, especially in regards to Islamic atrocities.” . . . . It is not required that you have a personal relationship with God or Jesus in order to fight for our Christian cultural heritage and the European way. In many ways, our modern societies and European secularism is a result of European Christendom and the enlightenment. It is therefore essential to understand the difference between a ‘Christian fundamentalist theocracy’ (everything we do not want) and a secular European society based on our Christian cultural heritage (what we do want). So no, you don’t need to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus to fight for our Christian cultural heritage. It is enough that you are a Christian-agnostic or a Christian atheist (an atheist who wants to preserve at least the basics of the European Christian cultural legacy (Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter)). The PCCTS, Knights Templar is therefore not a religious organisation [sic] but rather a Christian ‘culturalist’ military order.” . . .

7: His thought is pretty clearly structurally fascist, in effect looking for the ruthless, messianic figure to lead the titanic struggle against the existential threat, in light of a key point of common identity and unity that is in the end ethnic: not just nationality but culture.

(Sidebar: I hold that such out of control political messianism is inherently a species of anti-Christian idolatry. Caesar is God's servant to do you good and to guard the civil peace of justice, with reasonable powers of taxation as a means to those ends per the consensus of the governed; he is not properly a saviour- figure, and should he want to become that, he has become a counterfeit saviour. I firmly believe in constitutional democracy, and suspect that a constitutional monarchy may be the most long term stable form of government.)

8: Oddly, Fascism --as its kissing cousin Nazism reveals in its name: National SOCIALISM -- is actually a movement of the left, i.e. it is statist-collective in focus [fasces are a bundle of twigs gaining strength from unity and subjugation to one will . . . ], not individualist in focus. But in a world where the left is dominant, fascism is relatively right.

(Sidebar, 2: Truly right wing thought in former days was monarchist, then later on libertarian-individualist ranging over into anarchist. US style "Conservatives" are more or less a bit right of centre, and libertarians like many in the tea party are a bit to the right of that. The right has changed since the death of monarchy, and since the era of the rise of the social welfare state.)

9: So, plainly, we should not allow this horrible incident to cloud our judgement on the global challenge of IslamISM and the need for a measured, careful, respectful but firm response. (I suspect this man expected to trigger a clash between the new media space and the traditional, secular-left dominated mainstream media. He has succeeded in that as this very blog shows.) 10: At the same time, the longstanding polarisation in our civilisation is heated up through this incident, and we must not forget the ease with which initial speculation on Islamist attacks morphed into the all too common plotline -- oops, this is an echo of the plotline for an early episode for a BBC series Bonekickers [IIRC] that I unsuccessfully complained of to BBC trust (they were simply not listening, and were frankly smug in their stance that hey had a right to smear by fiction . . . ) -- on yet another murderous right-wing fundy theocratic Christofascist nut. 11: Maybe, we now have another reason for that London location! 12: In this context, let us be careful to observe the subtle influence of the devaluation of human life, respect for rights, respect for liberty, etc etc, that can all be significantly traced to the subtle cultural effects of the rise of evolutionary materialism as a "scientific" view over the past 150 years. (Notice this man's references to "science" and the "scientific," not just directly to Darwin and to words re-interpreted in that context. Don't forget that Marx et al spoke of "scientific" socialism.) 13: In that context, we had better be aware of the inescapable IS-OUGHT gap at the heart of such evolutionary materialist thought, and we had better face it frankly and do something about it; 14: especially when that feeds into the notion of one race, one ethnicity -- here, blending genes with memes in a cultural matrix -- being superior, and winning a contest for survival of "favoured races." _______ A real mess . . . and you will understand my pessimism about our civilisation. (If you want to know my bet: make sure your kids and grandkids learn Chinese. [And, ironically, this is also Prester John II: Christianisation is a strong trend in China, similar to the Roman Empire across C2 - 3.]) GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Just for any future references on Scandinavian News in English, Folks here on either side may want to bookmark this link. http://www.thelocal.se/ What you'll find if you do a search in the paper's archive on any of these right or left wing extremist groups is that there are countless screwball organizations here in Scandinavian countries like Norway, Sweden, Dänemark and Finland. Both sides , Atheistic Left and Christian Right absolutely hate each others guts and regularly duke it out in protests and gangland style fighting. I was over in So-Cal this past June and told friends and family that the News over in the USA just doesn't report on alot of the daily chaos that happens over here in Europe. There are constant demonstrations and riots in one form or another. This European Union Socialist Utopia is anything but some type of paradises. Almost every weekend there is some sort of Socialist protest in town squares over here and it doesn't matter if their ideology is leftwing atheistic communistic or rightwing Christian Nazis , the point is there are many and not so united because both extremist sides fight even among themselves. Here is the German English News by the same news organization. Interestingly they also have forum comments at the end of each article and the same political ideological bickering and fingerpointing that is prevalent here exists there. http://www.thelocal.de Okay everyone, have fun. I believe this thread has worn out it's discussion with neither side admitting nothing. Why is that not suprising ??? Eocene

The great fault here is always the attempts to connect evil deeds to common opinions and so discredit those opinions. its a conviction everywhere that murderers are not motivated by evil designs but by the opinions claimed to be behind their intents and then actions. This man was evil by any standard of mankind. He murdered anybody in his way. No targets here. it does not come from his opinions which are probably common. I am a "fundamentalist" Christian. I am opposed to feminist attacks against marriage and opposed to immigration, now and past, and very opposed to multi culturalism. A longer list still. To tell me that my beliefs are in any way responsible for such evil is to be a great attack of itself of innocent people acting out of integrity and intelligence yet with contrary views to prevailing decisions. If he acted out of Christian or darwinian impulses it was still just evil intentions at work here. I'm sure he was deranged and then evil and it didn't matter about his beliefs in common things. that was not what made him deranged or evil. Hold the line on any absurd accusation of connecting evil deeds to opinions. No connection is possible. Robert Byers

I have a total of four blogs. The oldest is The Evolution List: http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/ currently #181 among all science blogs netwide. I also maintain a blog for my evolution course at Cornell: http://evolution.freehostia.com/ which is updated every summer (i.e. when the course is in session). I sometimes mirror posts at The Evolution List and the course website, especially if the posts touch on material being discussed in class. I am also very slowly filling in my blog on evolutionary psychology: http://evolpsychology.blogspot.com/ mostly by reworking the chapters of my audio textbook on the same subject. Finally, there is a "historical artifact" blog on evolution and design: http://evolutionanddesign.blogsome.com/ which is now closed to comments, and which I maintain as a record of the notorious evolution/ID seminar course I offered at Cornell in the summer of 2006. As for the quotation about evolution from a Cornell website, all instructors at Cornell have complete freedom to define the subject matter of their courses. Therefore it should come as no surprise that I disagree with some of the definition you quoted, for the reasons I discussed in my earlier comment. And yes, as I have pointed out on numerous occasions, the real focus of the dispute between evolutionary biologists and supporters of ID is not natural selection per se, but rather on the source of the variations which are either eliminated or preserved in the demographic process we refer to when we use the term "natural selection". The "engines of variation" produce the various phenotypes that are either preserved or eliminated, and therefore also determine both the tempo and scope of evolutionary change. If an ID supporter can also assert that evolution (i.e. what Darwin called "descent with modification") has occurred (as Michael Behe, William Dembski, and many of the moderators and regular commentators at this website have asserted), then the real dispute is not over evolution per se, nor is it over all four of the conditions/prerequisites of natural selection (i.e. variety, heredity, fecundity, and demography), it is mostly about the source of the first of these prerequisites. IDers assert "you can't get here from there" and EBers assert "yes you can", and then the fur starts to fly... Allen_MacNeill

Allen, interesting post at your blog. Is this a new host or do you maintain more than one blog?

...this would require that natural selection be a process in and of itself, rather than the outcome of the four processes listed above.

Assuming natural selection is not itself a process, how have you not just relocated the problem of teleology to four processes rather than one process? IOW, have you really got rid of it? Mung

Allen, thank you for your response. My comment was, of course, intended as humor. Unfortunately it came at your expense for which I apologize. I hope you realize that the material I quoted did in fact come from the Cornell web site. Mung

"This is a non-sequitor. You are using an incredibly fallacious statistical survey. You have to actually read the pages and use your mind ..." Of course. But then, some persons here will "ague" something like, "Dennett *does not* say that consciousness is an illusion or that minds do not really exist." Ilion

In comment #138 Mung asked:

"Allen, is that what you teach your biology students?"

No. This is what I teach the students in my evolution course: http://evolution.freehostia.com/ Unfortunately, my textbook is not yet completely uploaded in .pdf form. It will be by the beginning of the fall semester. It will also be available starting September 15th as a series of audio CDs from The Modern Scholar (like The Teaching Company, only better). If anyone reading this would like to access the course packet, the password is "evolutioncp" without the quotation marks. As for the assertion that "evolution is a fact", I spend almost the entire third class in the course refuting this assertion. The theory of evolution, like all scientific theories (indeed, like virtually all concepts developed by humans) is an inference, not a fact. One can observe a dropped rock fall to the ground. This observation constitutes a fact. One can observe many rocks falling to the ground, measure the acceleration with which they do so, and then formulate a mathematical equation that precisely describes such movement. This is an inference. Ergo, both evolutionary theory and intelligent design theory are both inferences, not facts. If you are interested in how one goes from "facts" to "inferences", you can go here: http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2009/01/tidac-identity-analogy-and-logical.html As for my introductory biology/physiology summer course, we only have time in six weeks to cover scientific methods, biochemistry, cell biology, animal physiology, neurobiology, molecular genetics, and Mendelian genetics. Evolution gets mentioned occasionally, but usually isn't covered in "skin-in" physiology courses. Allen_MacNeill

the word philosophy* You can do a search of Capital Volume 1 for the words "communism" or "socialism" and find that both words combined only occur five or six times. Does it, therefore, not reflect a key influence? Phaedros

See 10:30 PM update to main post briefly examining Breivik's manifesto. Further WND articles: Norway's terrorist: Not alone after all? International effort widens net in search of possible suspects Norway shooter considered WMD, jihadi alliance 'We want control of our own countries in Western Europe' DLH

"An average of one mention per 300 pages does not reflect a key influence." This is a non-sequitor. You are using an incredibly fallacious statistical survey. You have to actually read the pages and use your mind in order to interpret his actualy words and thoughts to determine. You can't just sit there and do a search for how many times a single word occurs and then determine it's hardly about that. You might do a search for how many times the philosophy occurs in some philosophical paper or tract, find it hardly occurs, and then conclude that it's "hardly" about philosophy. That, as can plainly be seen, is ludicrous. Phaedros

People like this guy and that insane kid from Arizona are just posesed imop. If you search their pasts deeply enough you will find the origin of their demons and possibly the places where they conceeded their wills to them. It does not matter wether one thinks they are a follower of Christ. The world is full of people like Judas, who sell out their faith for small things that are coveted. Frost122585

KF, Onlookers and those who's blood is superficially boiling :) "F/N 2: And in this context the title page begins to smell very much like rotten fish." Yes, exactly! "1: 1982 — the Muslim Brotherhood world subjugation plan, so 2083 is 101 years beyond this." You would know more about this than I. "2: 2083 is also 400 years past the lifting of the last siege of Vienna by the Turks, Sept 12 1683; led by Jan Sobieski, king of Poland." Interesting. "3: Maltese cross, not Latin cross, tied to Knights Templar — Dan Brownish link? But in any case, a military monastic order." Wasn't it also a symbol used by the Nazis? One of the witnesses stated that he was "dressed like a Nazi" with certain insignias. "4: Cross is of course going to be a red flag to those expecting Right Wing theocratic Christian nutcase." Of course it is. If he was found eating bread when they arrived to nab him they would find some way of tying the bread to Christianity, since Jesus ate bread. Hey, whatever works. "5: Why the anglicised name and location in London? Why write in English? Apart from international language, he probably sees the anglophone world as the strength base of his neo-warped christendom." Yes. At the very end of the "manifesto" he admonishes "patriots" from other nations including Spain, France and Germany to produce translations of it. I suspect that for him English would be more familiar to a Spaniard than Norwegian. He intends this to be an international movement. Also, at the beginning, he addresses his manifesto to all people in Europe, and seems to intend this as a uniquely European struggle, but interestingly enough he also addresses it to "my friends in the US." "6: Now let’s see where he buries the redefinition of Christianity: p. 1361, in his QA section." He clearly has no understanding of the fundamental teachings of Christianity. "7: BTW, That puts a very different colour on pushing the fundament remark late too, p. 1386. He is HIDING things." I think he's hiding that he's not really interested in politics; he just wants to kill people. He set off the bomb as a diversion because he knew he would have more time to kill more people on the island if he kept the Norwegian police busy in Oslo. This guy calculated everything. He also recorded every detail of his bomb manufacturing enterprise, including his budget, how he came across the farm that he purchased, where he rented the car from, how he removed the rental car stickers from the vehicle so he could pass the car off as his own when meeting with the owners of the farm. He didn't really mention what his "mission" was, and he didn't even mention shooting people (as far as I read), and the fact that he published this all before the massacre on the island further demonstrates that the bomb was a diversion. The "manifesto" too was part of that diversion. I think he knew that the bomb would not be as effective as point blank shooting, because at this time of year in Oslo, most government officials are on vacation. Also, he was running out of money and chose to carry out his "mission" sooner than later (he was prepared to do it at any time of his choosing, as he was quite good at considering potential problems), so his last couple of weeks consisted of a frantic attempt to make his bombs operational by mid July. He mentions several other cell units (8b and 8c), but I think that's all a front too. I think he acted alone. What is appalling is that he recorded about visitors who came to the farm while he was in the middle of bomb manufacturing, and none of these people seemed to notice what was afoot, not even the daughter of the owner of the property, who walked right into the building where the task took place in order to collect some belongings. Had she arrived when she initially intended - which was several days before, he wouldn't have had time to hide anything; since her intent was to be there in 1/2 hour. His attitude towards the potential of being caught prior to the "mission" was to not get paranoid about it. If it happens, it happens - another calculation. He wouldn't have killed anyone in that manner. This was a man of some interesting moral compromises, which seem to place his intent in question. For example, he's an avid fan of TV shows such as "True Blood," which clearly present a cultural view of multiculturalism, that is contrary to his own. It doesn't make any sense to me that he's willing to kill for his beliefs, but he doesn't object to being offended by a TV show. Simply doesn't add up. Another thing that doesn't add up is how anyone in their right mind (well of course he wasn't in his "right mind") could think that a political movement could gain ground from such an act. The act and the political/social POV don't exactly add up, except for the one thing that lends support, and that one thing requires belief - Darwin-based views on the value of human life. He's just a deranged (but very intelligent and calculated) mass murderer. I wouldn't even go so far as to call him a terrorist. He wanted to get caught apparently; possibly because he couldn't stomach the thought of living the rest of his life as a fugitive. So he even calculated the act of getting caught. This man relished the thought of committing a (for him exhillerating) act of mass mayhem, and so he planned it and carried it out, understanding full well and planning on the consequences. Politics had nothing to do with it. He used politics and religion as a convenient ploy and excuse. So apparently something drove him to it other than religion. I wouldn't say that Darwinism drives people to do such acts, but it certainly builds the groundwork for deranged yet strangely logical and calculating individuals to excuse them; namely - "I may get arrested and spend the rest of my life in jail, but that will be the end of it." There will be no final judgment - and in Norway there isn't even a death penalty. If with Darwinism or even atheism one can design their own meaning to their lives, such logic must also be applied to this deranged and evil killer. He found the meaning to his life and lived it out - there's nothing in Darwinism or atheism to say that he can't - he derived his worldview from a European culture that has largely abandoned long held Christian morality for a secular ethic based in what they call "science" but really isn't. If this makes your blood boil, please don't be angry at me for saying so, for you have no moral basis from which to disagree. CannuckianYankee

tgpeeler:

I’m curious. Just to be clear, a human is more important than a fish? Right? How about an ape? Or a whale? A reptile? A plant? Bacteria? Where and how do you draw the line? On what basis?

Well, as you probably realise, I don’t subscribe to the Chain of Being stuff anyway. - Elizabeth Liddle

Mung

"Chief of Norway’s intelligence police, PST, Janne Kristiansen says that Anders Behring Breivik was not extreme in his views on the internet. She would rather call him a moderate." This is also apparent from some of his "manifesto." He urges his readers to be as friendly as possible to neighbors, giving them bites to eat when they visit, and he felt bad about not being able to invite his prodding family over to his farm (not wanting to be found out before his "mission" was accomplished), stating that it's important when planning a "mission" to maintain ties with one's social group. In other words, he was a master of "blending in," and not drawing attention to himself. That's how he was able to plan such a crime for 10 years and not get caught, even while manufacturing bombs on a rental property on which at times he received visitors, including local police. So he appeared as a regular guy next door rather than a radical. Even on-line he avoided the more radical websites and preferred a blog by the anonymous "Fyordman," who, while somewhat racist, is not exactly a neo-nazi. Also, his views on God can be somewhat deciphered from one of his daily notes written from the farm several days before the attack, where he prayed to God (after not doing so for a very long time), demanding that God take the side of the European "Patriots" and help them in their struggle. So his "religion" (if you can call it that) is one not of submission to a higher power, but an attempt to manipulate God to do his own bidding. No wonder he didn't pray much. CannuckianYankee

F/N 2: And in this context the title page begins to smell very much like rotten fish. 1: 1982 -- the Muslim Brotherhood world subjugation plan, so 2083 is 101 years beyond this. 2: 2083 is also 400 years past the lifting of the last siege of Vienna by the Turks, Sept 12 1683; led by Jan Sobieski, king of Poland. 3: Maltese cross, not Latin cross, tied to Knights Templar -- Dan Brownish link? But in any case, a military monastic order. 4: Cross is of course going to be a red flag to those expecting Right Wing theocratic Christian nutcase. 5: Why the anglicised name and location in London? Why write in English? Apart from international language, he probably sees the anglophone world as the strength base of his neo-warped christendom. 6: Now let's see where he buries the redefinition of Christianity: p. 1361, in his QA section. 7: BTW, That puts a very different colour on pushing the fundament remark late too, p. 1386. He is HIDING things. Okay GEM of TKI kairosfocus

F/N: Why attack the leftie "allies" as he sees them, instead of say a Mosque? I suspect he thinks this is attacking what makes euro culture weak in the face of the Islamist tidal wave. Then, the predictable reaction - notice how it is echoed above -- against "christians" will help trigger the polarisation and militancy he wants to replace conventional Christian ethics. Sick. kairosfocus

UPDATE: document.no observes: ____________ >> Hans Rustad 25.07.2011 kl. 23.41 Chief of Norway’s intelligence police, PST, Janne Kristiansen says that Anders Behring Breivik was not extreme in his views on the internet. She would rather call him a moderate. Her statement is an embarrasment for the media who since Friday has made a big fuzz about Behring Breivik’s writings on the net, amongst others this website. Her dismissal of his opinions as almost moderate suggests that the media employs guilt by association by deliberate design. In an interview with the newspaper VG, Kristiansen reveals that they had an eye on Breivik after he was on a list of people bying sensitive chemicals from Poland. But his name was put on hold, there was no reason to put him under surveillance: his behaviour on the net did not give reason for concern.

- He may have had a few breaches of traffic rules on his record. But he has deliberately arranged his life so as not to draw the attention of the police. He has also deliberately desisted from violent exhortations on the net. He has more or less been a moderate, and has neither been part of any extremist network. He had registered weapon, and was member of a pistol club, Kristiansen enumerates to VG. The most surprising is that he has managed to live like this for such a long time. Everything he did, he had a legitimate reason for. It had raised an alarm if I had bought a few tons of fertilizer, but not if a farmer does, she adds. >>

____________ Take it for what it's worth. Let's infer . . . 1: This monster was one smart, cool cookie. He PLANNED this, for years. 2: Imagine, buying 6 tons of Ammonium Nitrate is not going to trigger attention, as this is a farmer. And of course the fuel oil is for the farm machines. If ANFO is about as dense as stone, we are looking at maybe 2+ cu m of stuff, could fit in the back of a pickup truck. 3: And if his online writings were deliberately designed not to draw attention, then it becomes doubly important to look at subtle clues, such as how he manipulated the term "christian" and how he redefined "logic," rationalism, culture etc. 4: After all it is evident that his design was to become a mass murderer out of the blue to highlight the agenda he proposed. 5: Demonically mad, but that is not inconsistent with being very, very smart. 6: And, I bet he counted on the secularised media misreading him and casting blame on Christians, to trigger a further polarisation in the civilisation. 7: I suspect he thought the polarisation would make for a more militant new cultural identity, a new, cultural christendom movement -- to counterbalance Islamism and its secularist left fellow travellers -- that redefines Christian symbols and heritage into what he wanted. 8: And of course that would set up the next level of war of civilisations and cultures and nations he wanted. (In his twisted mind he is sparking the resistance movement.) 9: Lost in there, the core Christian ethical commitment highlighted in 25 on above. 10: He clearly think the euro culture and people will win the national darwinist struggle, this time around too. (Recall Darwin in his 1881 letter on how the turks got beat, and the social/racial darwinist spin that lurks in that letter.) Sick. Demonically sick. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

"Objective statistics and actions suggest that Breivik acted on the social principles of Darwinism, not Christianity." - DLH It is difficult to draw a very tight correlation between 'Darwinism' and Breivik's views. As was said above, he only used Darwin's name 5 times and even acknowledged 'Darwinian atheists.' But, we can do something more clearly with how he uses the term 'evolution.' In other words, it makes sense to call him a 'socio-cultural evolutionist' more than a 'social Darwinist'. "If the present [read: socio-cultural] evolution continues, immigration will increase the pressure on the welfare state rather than relieving it because many immigrants do not join the tax-paying part of the population." (2083: 409) "It appeared to many including writers like Francis Fukuyama that we have reached the end of History, meaning that we have reached the final stage in the evolution of human society with democracy as the best way to organise society." (746) "The cost of equality is that we throw out all truthfulness in order to seem like nice people to each other. / It arises from our fear of evolving to the next stage, which would naturally occur from our most capable people, because we’re afraid of personally being left behind — just as we’re afraid of having a lower place in the current crab bucket of society." (2083: 690) He defines [socio-cultural] evolution as: "seeking to get better" (692) and speaks of "scientific evolution" (1132). Does anyone at UD define 'Darwinism' as 'seeking to get better' or posit that 'science evolves?' 2083 is much more focussed on reVo than eVo, but it is not a 'scientific reVo'. Thanks, Gregory Gregory

EL @ 134 "No indeed, tgpeeler, human life cannot be both valuable and worthless." So you DO agree to the truth of the law of non-contradiction? Is that what I'm hearing? EL "And no, as a “proponent of naturalistic evolution” I do not “agree that there is no qualitative difference in the value of a fish or a human being”." Interesting. Why not? Given your naturalism and atheism? I'm curious. Just to be clear, a human is more important than a fish? Right? How about an ape? Or a whale? A reptile? A plant? Bacteria? Where and how do you draw the line? On what basis? Inquiring minds want to know. If you run away, who will make your "argument?" tgpeeler

Elizabeth Liddle:

Hitler’s regime espoused Christianity

You know this to be true from your own studies into the subject I take it? I recently completed reading a Christmas Eve address by Goebbels and there was nary a mention of Jesus or Christ. Mung

mung re #106, #109 Yes. “Your mission” Mung, “should you decide to accept it” is to detail how you “teach” your “indoctrinating biologists class” and distinguish why it is a “doctrine” rather than “science”. DLH

Is it just coincidence? Indoctrinating Biologists 101 Biological Indoctrination 101 Working up a syllabus. But for sure there's going to be a section on: Why Your Inner Fish is a Load of Carp But as an example from Cornell material:

Evolution is change in form and behavior of populations of organisms over generations. Evolution can lead to speciation, the formation of new species from existing species over time as changes accumulate in the genome of isolated populations of a species. That evolution occurs is a fact; there is a wealth of evidence showing that organisms have changed--evolved--over time.

So evolution is change over time. Whoop de doo. Allen, is that what you teach your biology students? Mung

Elizabeth Liddle 127 Eugenics is an ideology based on artifical selection which was around long before Darwin, and indeed, gave him his idea of “natural selection”. kairosfocus 135 We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognisance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea... ~ Francis Galton The creed of Eugenics is founded upon the idea of evolution. ~ Francis Galton bevets

Dr Liddle: The historic, authentic Christian faith is an established fact of 2,000 years standing. It is not a wax nose to be half melted and reshaped as we will, in direct contrast to the sort of ideas now being popularised and vulgarised by Dan Brown and ilk as well as too much of the media. I suggest you look here and I suggest you look at the table here. This is not a theology blog, but the issue is one of a historically founded fact with ample first generation documentation, strongly supported by research. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Dr Liddle: Re, 127:

Hitler’s regime espoused Christianity and eugenics. That is not a black mark against Christianity any more than it is a black mark against Darwinism.

By now you know or should know that Hitler's regime was in fact fundamentally hostile to Christianity -- e.g. cf the already linked NYT expose cf JDFL's link here, five days ago], so the above little exercise in subtle immoral equivalency does not show you in a good light at all. Hitler tried to subvert the churches of Germany, with long-term intent to destroy Christianity. (And, this was his actual idea-root, documented in his major book in 1925/6.) That is why the strong stance repudiating Nazism as idolatry and subversion of the gospel taken by key leaders at Barmen in 1934 was so important. And, as the just above linked shows his eugenics was explicitly a social darwinism motivated ideology. The roots of such, I have already pointed out to you at 45 above. I know, these are very painful facts, but facts they are. As are the facts documented in the linked diagram, from the logo for the 1921 Second Int'l conference on Eugenics. Take a careful look at the roots and the slogan in the logo, and the level of endorsement for eugenics as a "scientific" movement, as is described here. Christians of the time were under considerable social and intellectual pressure to acknowledge the "science" of the day, as presented or endorsed by extremely prestigious sources; an applied "science" which has now been repudiated -- after horrible things were done through the devaluation of the principle of Imago Dei. Do you see part of why Christians of today are going to be very careful indeed to ascertain the warrant for claimed science that is ethically controversial in our day? Next, you should be prepared to acknowledge the historical fact that while selective breeding of animals goes back one way or another to the dawn of human history and there were advocates of breeding up superior human beings [and the sad practice of exposing unwanted, apparently sick or weak babies in classical -- pagan -- times], eugenics as a scientific movement was named and founded by Darwin's cousin Galton, in key part on the premises in Darwin's theory. As the NWE article summarises:

The word eugenics etymologically derives from the Greek words eu (good) and gen (birth), and was coined by Francis Galton in 1883. The term eugenics is often used to refer to movements and social policies that were influential during the early twentieth century. In a historical and broader sense, eugenics can also be a study of "improving human genetic qualities." It is sometimes broadly applied to describe any human action whose goal is to improve the gene pool. Some forms of infanticide in ancient societies, present-day reprogenetics, preemptive abortions, and designer babies have been (sometimes controversially [--> I add: as such are patently anachronistic, after the fact moral equivalency arguments]) referred to as eugenic . . . . During the 1860s and 1870s, Sir Francis Galton systematized his ideas and practices according to new knowledge about the evolution of humans and animals provided by the theory of his cousin Charles Darwin. After reading Darwin's Origin of Species, Galton noticed an interpretation of Darwin's work whereby the mechanisms of natural selection were potentially thwarted by human civilization. He reasoned that, since many human societies sought to protect the underprivileged and weak, those societies were at odds with the natural selection responsible for extinction of the weakest. Only by changing these social policies, Galton thought, could society be saved from a "reversion towards mediocrity," a phrase that he first coined in statistics and which later changed to the now common "regression towards the mean."[2] According to Galton, society already encouraged dysgenic conditions, claiming that the less intelligent were out-reproducing the more intelligent. [--> cf, Hitler's discussion and the backdrop in Darwin's Descent of Man chs 5 - 7] Galton did not propose any selection methods; rather, he hoped that a solution would be found if social mores changed in a way that encouraged people to see the importance of breeding. Galton first used the word eugenic in his 1883 Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development, a book in which he meant "to touch on various topics more or less connected with that of the cultivation of race, or, as we might call it, with 'eugenic' questions." He included a footnote to the word "eugenic" which read:

That is, with questions bearing on what is termed in Greek, eugenes namely, good in stock, hereditarily endowed with noble qualities. This, and the allied words, eugeneia, etc., are equally applicable to men, brutes, and plants. We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognisance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea; it is at least a neater word and a more generalized one than viriculture which I once ventured to use.[3: Francis Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development (London, Macmillan, 1883): 17, fn1. Retrieved January 24, 2008.]

This, doubtless, is not pleasant reading for you, but I think that this is a matter where some unpleasant facts that have had serious adverse impact on history need to be faced squarely. GEM of TKI PS: I am also quire unhappy with how you have brushed aside Marxist thought as though it had no link to darwinism across C20. I point out how Stalin for instance even while in school, began from Darwin, to discredit the teachings of the priests who seemed to have dominated education in Russia at that time. Similarly, the general evolutionary materialist "scientific" picture was seen as extended by Marx, to include their theory of socio-cultural and economic evolution on the various materialisms, e.g historical and dialectic. What was challenged by Lysenko et al was the emerging neo-Darwinian synthesis -- which is a development on Darwin, and of course he got political sponsorship. He was wrong. But at no point was there a question that the general intellectual and "scientific" picture was not a materialistic, evolutionary one. Indeed, from what I gathered decades ago, the motivation for requiring doctoral candidates in the USSR to present a paper on atheism, was to show that they had the proper "scientific" perspective. (You will notice that I habitually refer to evolutionary materialism. This covers the specific areas of my concern, and I draw your attention to the very different view presented by Wallace, as I already have linked.) kairosfocus

No indeed, tgpeeler, human life cannot be both valuable and worthless. And no, as a "proponent of naturalistic evolution" I do not "agree that there is no qualitative difference in the value of a fish or a human being". And with that, I'll leave this thread. There's a limit to how much boiling my blood can take. Elizabeth Liddle

EL @ 127 "It just makes those who do so morally reprehensible." And why might that be? Upon what basis is someone morally reprehensible? Because you say so? Because it offends your sensibilities? It obviously didn't offend the shooter's sensibilities. So how do we tell who's the evil one here? Actually, if you were true to your doctrine you would have to say there is no evil. I thought I saw you saying something about not beging able to get "ought from is" in a post somewhere above. But if all that exists is the physical world, then IS is ALL THERE IS. You have no standing to talk of ought. Think about it. I think darwinists would be well served to study the logic of implication. This means, darwinist, that when I say this (life is contingent, meaningless, temporary, and amoral) THEN other things necessarily follow. This is what you just do not get. You cannot have it both ways. Human life cannot be valuable beyond measure AND worthless. Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't you, as an proponent of naturalistic evolution, agree that there is no qualitative difference in the value of a fish or a human being? So why the outrage? Go ahead, explain it to me. tgpeeler

Elizabeth Liddle:

Hitler’s regime espoused Christianity

According to what definition Christianity?

Quite. That's the problem isn't it? People cherry pick what suits them from what is available, whether it's a scientific theory or a religion. Despite the fact that the dog's dinner that emerges satisfies no-one's definition of the originals. Look, it was wrong for the press to say that the killer was a Muslim; they retracted it. It was wrong for the press to say that the killer was a Christian Fundamentalist. They retracted it. It is wrong for this OP to suggest that the killer was a Darwinist. It remains unretracted, and to my astonishment, at least some people seem to think that is OK. kairosfocus, bless him, doesn't. Elizabeth Liddle

Elizabeth Liddle To say: "Hitler’s regime espoused Christianity" suggests you little of either Hitler or Christianity or the persecution and murder of Christians in WWII. There is much evidence of Hitler associated with the occult and satanism. He killed millions of Christians in the Holocaust. See publications by and about Dietrich Bonhoeffer DLH

Elizabeth Liddle:

Hitler’s regime espoused Christianity

What do you mean, specifically, by "Hitler's regime?" Hitler himself? Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels? Mung

Elizabeth Liddle See: James Perloff The case against Darwin

Karl Marx said: "Darwin's book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.". . . "Landmarks in the Life of Stalin." In it we read: At a very early age, while still a pupil in the ecclesiastical school, Comrade Stalin developed a critical mind and revolutionary sentiments. He began to read Darwin and became an atheist. G. Glurdjidze, a boyhood friend of Stalin's, relates: "I began to speak of God. Joseph heard me out, and after a moment's silence, said: "'You know, they are fooling us, there is no God. ...' "I was astonished at these words. I had never heard anything like it before. "'How can you say such things, Soso?' I exclaimed. "'I'll lend you a book to read; it will show you that the world and all living things are quite different from what you imagine, and all this talk about God is sheer nonsense,' Joseph said. "'What book is that?' I enquired. "'Darwin. You must read it,' Joseph impressed on me." . . Sir Arthur Keith, president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, wrote in the 1940s: "The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution." In his demented way, Hitler was fulfilling this prediction Darwin made in his book, "The Descent of Man": "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. ... The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian [Aborigine] and the gorilla."

WND.com Feb 21, 2001 DLH

Elizabeth Liddle:

Hitler’s regime espoused Christianity

According to what definition Christianity? Mung

DLH:

Did not Breivik apply “might makes right”? Communist regimes espoused Atheism and Darwinism.

No, they did not. Russian communism espoused atheism, but not Darwinism, which was what put their agricultural program back for so long (or was one reason). And you are still confusing "Darwinism" with "eugenics". Hitler's regime espoused Christianity and eugenics. That is not a black mark against Christianity any more than it is a black mark against Darwinism. Eugenics is an ideology based on artifical selection which was around long before Darwin, and indeed, gave him his idea of "natural selection". Nobody on this board, that I know of, denies that artifical selection can be utilised to produce good quality crops and farm animals. That some have sought apply this idea (not that there is any reason to think that Breivik did) to people does not make artifical selection not true. It just makes those who do so morally reprehensible. Yes, ideas have consequences, and yes people are responsible for their actions. But that does not make evolutionary biologists responsible for Breivik. It makes Breivik responsible for Breivik. Your headline (which I'm sorry to see has still not been edited) is a shameful exploitation of an appalling tragedy to make a cheap debate point about a scientific theory. The fact that it is pinned to the top of this site today should be a source of embarassment to regular posters, and anyone associated with the ID movement. And lest anyone assume "mock outrage", it's not. And yes, I'm still angry. Elizabeth Liddle

There are numerous cases of serial killers who explicitly state their decision to go on a killing spree was undergirded by Darwinism. It is really important to get people to understand this, as eliminating Darwinistic rationales would stop this from happening in the future. That's why it is counterproductive to on the one hand say this event shouldn't point the finger at Darwinism, yet on the other say we need to stop this thing from happening in the future. I think the examples are just much too common to minimize Darwinism's role. Additionally, most people seem to misunderstand how Darwinism plays a logical role. Most think it has something to do with natural selection. However, the real issue is that Darwinism eliminates belief in the Imago Dei, the notion that humans are unique creations by God, and should never be objectified as tools for use by some megalomaniac. Social Darwinism, ironically, is actually an instance of Intelligent Design at work, as is any idea of progress founded upon Darwinism. -------------- (DLH wrapped sentences.) Eric Holloway

See my update at the bottom of the lead post. Having grandparents from Norway, I join in prayers for those who have lost family and friends through this tragedy. In the middle ages, Viking marauders caused people to pray: “Oh Lord save us from the rage of the Nordic people” Breivik may have tapped into roots that “might makes right”. The primary issue is the press’ mischaracterization of Breivik as a “Christian fundamentalist terrorist Further articles/blogs: Michael Brown explores A Right Wing, Fundamentalist Christian Mass Murderer Breivik, McVeigh: Darwinian Terrorists? Norway terrorist claims Christianity, but Darwinism too For background see: Religion in Norway DLH

mung re #106, #109 Yes. “Your mission” Mung, “should you decide to accept it” is to detail how you “teach” your “indoctrinating biologists class” and distinguish why it is a “doctrine” rather than “science”. DLH DLH

BTW, James Watson is a molecular geneticist, not an evolutionary biologist. Allen_MacNeill

So AM has no words to dissuade a psychopath, but I bet Mike does. That's a problem for the defense, isn't it. Is it that some of us believe in the possibility of talking a potential mass murderer out of his sin, and that some of us do not? So the materialist camp writes it all off as nut-jobbery, and the theists reason that it could have possibly been prevented with the injection of some reason: that there exists an objective morality and that we're all accountable for our actions in eternity. material.infantacy

Re comment #118: How about this one: http://www.zazzle.com/evolution_women_from_man_to_business_woman_photocard-243916274761144096 or this one: http://www.spreadshirt.co.uk/evolution-yoga-women-C4414I12745868 BTW, the iconic "march of human evolution" illustration is from a 1965 Time/Life book on human evolution:

"The March of Progress was originally commissioned by Time-Life Books for the Early Man volume (1965) of its popular Life Nature Library. This book, authored by anthropologist F. Clark Howell (1925-2007) and the Time-Life editors, included a foldout section of text and images (pages 41-45) entitled “The Road to Homo Sapiens”, prominently featuring the sequence of figures drawn by noted natural history painter and muralist Rudolph Zallinger (1919-1995). As the popularity of the image grew and achieved iconic status, the name "March of Progress" somehow became attached to it."

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Progress As to the assertion that evolutionary biologists use this illustration as an example of human evolution, consider this:

"Perhaps the most eminent critic of March of Progress imagery was the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) who condemned the iconology of the image over several pages of his 1989 book Wonderful Life. In a chapter entitled “The Iconography of an Expectation”, Gould asserted that...

"The march of progress is the canonical representation of evolution – the one picture immediately grasped and viscerally understood by all…. The straitjacket of linear advance goes beyond iconography to the definition of evolution: the word itself becomes a synonym for progress…. [But] life is a copiously branching bush, continually pruned by the grim reaper of extinction, not a ladder of predictable progress. - Gould, S. J. (1989), Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, pp 30-36

In my own evolution course at Cornell I have the students criticize the "March of Progress" icon, and most of them immediately come up with Gould's criticism, plus the fact that the "end product" is classically a white male. Given current demographics, it should be an Asian female (and would still be wildly inaccurate by Gould's criteria). Allen_MacNeill

In comment #117 mike 1962 asked:

"What words would you use to convince the Norway Shooter of this?"

In my experience, narcissistic psychopaths are essentially immune to words (especially moral exhortations) that conflict with their personal desires. So, to answer your question, in the case of Anders Behring Breivik, I don't think there are any words that would have altered his behavior. Allen_MacNeill

Haeckel. kairosfocus

Prof. XF Gumby: "Proof please or retract. Something published by an “academic Darwinist” in the last 10 years." === Do you Geniuses ever read what your retorting to ??? Also please dump the phony righteous indignation, because you know full well what I'm talking about. Also as you can see, I play no favourites here on this subject. What part of "academic Scientists" - "they won’t publicly promote a racist attitude " didn't you get ??? I believe someone here has mentioned James Watson who back in 2009 with his infamous "blacks are less intelligent than Europeans" rant. But more importantly as the old saying goes , "a picture is worth a thousand words." This of course brings us to every illustration depicting some type of imaginary Ape-type human ancestor with the vivid imagination of a Soothsaying Darwinist who colours the artwork of the half human half animal creature with Negroid features. Seriously, why are all these transitionals given African features ??? My other comment was - "they unconsciously do anyway when they promote all those racist evolutionary graphs & charts which depict someone from Africa with a Negroid background as being the living transitional proof between white Europeans and Apes." So again, the illustrations speak for themselves. Now tell me these pics have no effect on the minds and hearts of young people in schools across the planet ??? I can tell you for a fact that African Students I work with hate it. Eocene

Allen_MacNeill #86: "Killing almost a hundred innocent people (the overwhelming majority of them children) is not right, regardless of whether a deity says so or not (even if they were Canaanites)."

What words would you use to convince the Norway Shooter of this? mike1962

This kind of media spectacle is always disgusting. Either the media will try to paint the perpetrator as some kind of right-winger or they will make excuses for them. As far as I'm concerned this was a guy who wanted to rationalize his urge to use his automatic or semi-automatic weapons in a video game like fashion. There's no denying it in this case. He specifically says that Call of Duty was his training ground. Does that mean video games are to blame necessarily? Not really. Phaedros

Allen MacNeill @ 56 "2) the major premise that atheists are immoral and potential psychopathological murderers is invalid." Not to put too fine a point on it, but premises are true or false. Arguments are valid or invalid. What I find amazing is that self proclaimed atheists are trumpeting moral certainties. Based on ... what? If there is no God and no ultimate accounting then there is no moral law worth calling a law. You can't have it both ways. But then again, they HAVE to have it both ways because atheism is impossible to live out in a rational way. In a "rational" atheist worldview, morality ultimately is defined by force. tgpeeler

Oh, here it is: If philosophies don't affect actions, then why would anyone be concerned whether ID is taught or not? lamarck

Ideas whether good or bad, and in particular omission of ideas in the youth, shape a whole lot more about this society than crime statistics. How many amish shooters have there been? No, face the facts Bio Professors, you are inculcating this crap if only by omission and it effects people's thinking and so their actions. Probably in the last 10 minutes, the term "natural selection" has been typed 500 times worldwide on the internet by people not even talking about evolution, the idea has branched out. With this much evidence for ID you start to have a responsibility towards mankind. lamarck

I agree with Gumby. Let's leave all the tawdry point scoring to our anti-ID guests. We shouldn't be trying to score points when we have so many ridiculous accusations to respond to. After all, the entire ID movement is nothing but cheap point scoring. See here for an example. With that sort of thing going on, it's no wonder our guests obsess on a few comments from a few fun-loving shit disturbers. That sort of thing only happens on this blog, and not on all those other blogs and forums that our guests frequent; and it's worse here than anywhere else. material.infantacy

PS: it is instructive to quite what I actually wrote in point 10 as reworded above, for comparison as this shows what the problem really is:

10 –> And, it is high time that incidents like this stop being used to smear Christians, this is at least the second time in less than seven months, or did we so soon forget what was done in the Arizona case!

(And for record: by pointing out the roots of social darwinism in Darwin, the implications of the redefining of terms by this madman, the implications of his fundament remarks on Darwinism, nationality, logic, rationalism etc, and the reworking of "christian" etc, I have not smeared "evolutionists," but I freely confess to highlighting that since Plato 2,350 years ago, it has been warned that evolutionary MATERIALISM is amoral, prone to triggering ruthlessly amoral factions, and the agenda that "the highest right is might," with over 100 million victims in the past 100 years. I believe that I can document every point just made, as fact.) kairosfocus

Time for me to move on to better things, like laundry and dishes. I have to say the general lack of appreciation of the tawdry, point-scoring nature of the OP has been most unsatisfying, though perhaps illuminating. I might be back tomorrow to see if things have moved on any. Maybe not. Prof. FX Gumby

I'd like to publicly and sincerely apologize to everyone here for not jumping on the "left-wing Darwinian fundamentalist nut job acts out darwinian principles" bandwagon, and to Allen MacNeill personally for insinuating that in his boasting about how he could teach his students how to engage in the scientific endeavor generally and in the field of biology in particular without regard to any moral or ethical implications of their work that he is somehow indoctrinating them into believing that there are no moral or ethical implications. Or, I could just have that spanking. Please. Mung

Forgive me for barging in. Allen_McNeill To be clear, if an action is right then it seems to me that it is right regardless of whether a deity says so (or not). Killing almost a hundred innocent people (the overwhelming majority of them children) is not right, regardless of whether a deity says so or not (even if they were Canaanites). There can be no moral/ethical justification for such an act, including one fallaciously linked to a scientific theory. Here's a good link: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/10/god-obligation-and-euthyphro-dilemma.html JohnPen

Allen you're way too huffy and puffy about this, I think you does protest too much. He should be able to say whatever he wants until Elizabeth, or you or whoever, finally answers his questions. You wouldn't be here if you thought he's talking nonsense, you wouldn't bother with it. lamarck

Prof Gumby: Pardon me but where in the above or anywhere else did I suggest that ethical responsibility is a sole duty of scientists? I'll save a search: NOWHERE. You have set up and knocked over a strawman. However, scientists, as the gatekeepers of the most prestigious knowledge base in our civilisation do have a particular responsibility regarding the impacts of science in society. And, i tis convenient to hide behind a veil of immoral equivalency, when in fact the major global problem is that for days now we have been inundated all over the world with a smear of Christians, specifically. We deal witthe main issue and then deal with secondary matters. On such secondary matters, I endorse the suggested retitling proposed by MI on 103 above:

Norway shooter a Christian fundamentalist and young earth creationist?

GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Allen MacNeill:

I hereby formally request that Mung be moderated (at the very least) or permanently banned from this forum on the basis of comment #98.

Can I just have a spanking instead? -------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. "Your mission" Mung, "should you decide to accept it" is to detail how you "teach" your "indoctrinating biologists class" and distinguish why it is a "doctrine" rather than "science". DLH Mung

I hereby request that Allen MacNeil be moderated or banned for the intellectual dishonesty he has demonstrated by willfully avoiding the logical outcome of his own observations:

19 Upright BiPed 04/21/2010 2:52 pm Allen, I appreciate that you see information as a causal force that is not reducible to material/energy. I also appreciate the fact that you see meaningful information as a distinct entity from noise. In previous threads you have made the point that meaningful information must be first perceived in order to exist. It is, in fact, a product of perception. What I do not understand is why you say that a) meaningful information is recorded in DNA (that which is transcribed into function) and b) that meaningful information is necessarily the product of perception, but then you equivocate on the conclusion that the meaningful information recorded within DNA was first the product of perception.

. . . . . . .

32 Upright BiPed 04/22/2010 8:52 pm Allen McNeil, if you don’t mind, I am still awaiting your clarification at #19 33 Upright BiPed 04/23/2010 9:12 am Allen MacNeil, if you don’t mind, I am still awaiting your clarification at #19 35 Upright BiPed 04/24/2010 6:35 am …again Professor MacNeil, it would be great to have your clarification at #19. Thanks. 38 Upright BiPed 04/25/2010 12:09 pm Prof MacNeil, would you be so kind as to clarify your position at post #19 Thanks 39 Upright BiPed 04/26/2010 7:47 am Allen MacNeil, Could you please give a clarification at post #19. It seems to be an important point, and I would like to better understand your position. Thanks 46 Upright BiPed 04/27/2010 10:59 am Professor MacNeil, Would you please be so kind as to give a clarification at post #19. Thank You. 47 Upright BiPed 05/01/2010 3:06 pm Allen MacNeil, Would you clarify your position above at #19 please. I have asked several times for this clarification on this thread (as well as others). The need for a clarification emerges from you own statements, and it would seem to be a rather important point within the debate. Consequently, it appears odd that you would avoid making your position clear – or, are you uncertain about your position yourself? Your response would be appreciated.

Upright BiPed

KF,

2 –> Note, scientists as professionals had better be able to join the is of science to the ought of morally governed professional, institutional and community conduct by responsible human beings, on pain of even worse things than social darwinist eugenics, genocides and nuking of cities.

Moving off topic, why do you feel that this is the sole responsibility of scientists? Surely the ethical implications of using scientific discoveries is a matter for society as a whole? Back on topic, I would suggest editing your point 10 as follows: 10 –> And, it is high time that incidents like this stop being used to smear anyone. With particular reference to this forum, this includes evolutionists. Does anyone have a problem with that? Prof. FX Gumby

I hereby formally request that MacNeill be banned for his comment at #88 and his endorsement of comment #85. I would endorse a ban of any who cannot control their behavior such that they make disparaging comments about or cast aspersions on this blog or its moderators. I also recommend that the blog title be renamed "Norway shooter a Christian fundamentalist and young earth creationist?" so that we can do away with all of this mock outrage. Thanks in advance. --------------------- Don't waste your "chips" DLH material.infantacy

Moderators: I hereby formally request that Mung be moderated (at the very least) or permanently banned from this forum on the basis of comment #98. --------------------------- Indoctrinate:

1) to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., especially to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view. . . .

Evolution as commonly taught presupposes naturalism and excludes intelligent design or creation. That clearly is a "viewpoint" or "Ideology". Be careful over crying "wolf". DLH Allen_MacNeill

Eocene: Okay, several matters. Looks like the response problem is part of a much bigger picture, Well, we are in the face of global terrorism and a wave of demoniacal mad men now. The Problem of people going along is not just the pulpits, it is the classroom, the lecture hall, the TV news, the newspaper, etc etc etc. Three of the few were Barth, leading theologian of the time, Boenhoffer, leading German theologian of the time, and Niemoller the WW I U Boat hero turned pastor. Such men should have been listened to. But hen all over Europe at the same basic time, they were mocking that old dinosaur warning about the strategic threat rising in Germany, Churchill. There is a HUMAN problem of being in denial of unpleasant realities, and worse, unpleasant threats that are hardish to see. Some time I will tell you about how people here failed to take the volcano seriously, and are in many cases still doing so. (Let's just say I once had a government minister on national radio all but denouncing me by name for neurotic fantasies of destruction by the volcano. The city where that dismissive broadcast was made, is now under 20 - 40 ft of volcanic deposits.) I have had to accept what I cannot understand about such an attitude. But it is a reality. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Eocene,

The problem with academic Darwinism today is that though they won’t publicly promote a racist attitude, they unconsciously do anyway when they promote all those racist evolutionary graphs & charts which depict someone from Africa with a Negroid background as being the living transitional proof between white Europeans and Apes.

Proof please or retract. Something published by an "academic Darwinist" in the last 10 years. Prof. FX Gumby

F/N: For further record, a few points for pondering: 1 --> On grounding worldviews with reference as well to grounding oughtness, cf here. 2 --> Note, scientists as professionals had better be able to join the is of science to the ought of morally governed professional, institutional and community conduct by responsible human beings, on pain of even worse things than social darwinist eugenics, genocides and nuking of cities. 3 --> In this context, let us note the amoral shaping influence of evolutionary materialism, which has for generations been ideologically tightly coupled to darwinist style evolutionary theory. 4 --> Indeed, it is fair comment to highlight that the institutional influence of this ideology has led to an attempt to redefine science on evolutionary materialistic terms, so the issue of the amorality of this worldview cannot be so easily brushed aside or dismissed, nor the tendency to lead to ruthless power-seizing factions that Plato commented on 2350 years ago. 5 --> I already pointed out above with citations the roots of social darwinism in darwinism itself, and have already pointed to the path not taken, in light of the contribution of Wallace, the co-founder of evolutionary theory, who viewed "The World of Life [as] a manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind and Ultimate Purpose," actually highlighting moral duties stemming from that view -- I especially liked his call on the churches to stand up for the creation of a society of decency, starting with then revolutionary ideas like the provision for old age and a decent living wage. 6 --> In addressing the mad man, I highlight again how the media plainly failed to do due diligence to see how this man re-interprets Christianity to try to co-opt it into his socio- cultural, ideological, racial-national VOLKISH agenda. 7 --> It is in that light that I point out the implications of the redefinitions he supplies for logic, rationalism [and by implication rationality] science, culture, etc. 8 --> He has explicitly reinterpreted, and redefined so we need to look at how he defines to understand the terms he uses. Even Christianity does not mean what we expect. 9 --> So it is a reasonable expectation that we should understand his usage of key terms in light of his declared definitions, whether of Christianity or of logic, science, culture, fundament or whatever. 10 --> And, it is high time that incidents like this stop being used to smear Christians, this is at least the second time in less than seven months, or did we so soon forget what was done in the Arizona case! GEM of TKI kairosfocus

I must now go to Cornell to teach my indoctrinating biologists class. =P Mung

Kario "First as you seem Norwegian, my condolences in your time of mourning." === Actually I'm American, but married a Scandinavian.[and a posterchild of a typical "Lebensborn" blonde/blue eyed project if I do say so] (kidding) We actually live about an hours drive from Oslo. --- Karios "Please help see that some common sense measures are taken so the sort of situation where the cops took 90 minutes to arrive does not happen again, and the situation where you have sitting ducks in a shooting gallery does not happen again." === The problem here in Scandinavia is they are not use to this type of rubbish happening in their lands as it does over in the States, UK, central or east Europe or for that matter any third world country. They simply find it hard to understand or comprehend and don't really know how to come up with tough guy responses where other countries like the States would be Johnny on the spot. My wife and I had a 2:00am attempted break in to our house one morning and scared the crooks away. We called the Police and the response was, "Okay, well, are they still there?" "Ah No!" "Well okay then, just come to the station tomorrow and fill out a report." My wife's daughter called the fire department last summer to report that some homeless bums had started a fire in the forest. The response on the phone was this. "Okay well, is it still burning?" , "Ah YES!" , Well couldn't you just put it out?" , Ah No I can't." - "Alraight well someone well be there after awhile."[actually took them 50 minutes to drive a five minute run] The laws here are pretty stupid as well. Here in this kind and loving Socialist society if you kill someone you might get 3, 5 or 6 years, but if you cheat on those greedy coveted income tax monies you'll probably at the very least pull 20 years. Rumor has it that this Idiot Jerk Terrorist will only get 21 years. I could sit here all day and make comparisons to other country responses, but you get the full picture. --- Karios: Next, I am sorry, the locus of cultural blame is a lot closer to home than those often harassed men and nowadays women who stand in our pulpits." === The official state Scandinavian Church is actually a joke and doesn't even remotely reflect a shadow of what is found in the bible. --- Karios: "If you look up the Barmen Declaration, you will see that the warning against Hitler and co was issued by actually many of the leading Christian theologians of the time starting with Karl Barth." === Yes I've seen this before here - "A limited number of Protestants, such as Barth and Bonhoeffer, objected to the Nazis on moral and theological principles" Catholics will even come up with their token pacifist Priest who stood up to the Nazis. The big problem though is , what about the other 60+ million just in Germany alone ??? It's the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of ALL those Bohemoth organizations who bare the brunt of the responsibility(bloodguilt) and no one has done anything about it. The common people unfortunately will only do and follow what their leaders tell them. They have not been trained to read the bible for themselves and follow it's commands. The belief is that it's not the responsiblity of the average Joe/Jane Church goer, it's the job of the Priest, Pastor or Reverend to do their religious thinking and study for them. They will simply obey. Hence we have the present screwed up world that we all live and survive in when it should have been different. Let's be honest here. Christendom had their shot here. They ruled with an iron fist and had power over all of academia, but they blew it. No Atheist/Agnostic/Muslim/Pagan is at fault or to blame for Christendom not taking care of business properly. Back to OP. Yes Darwinian concepts and thinking played right into the hands of the racist movement that was going on in through most of the 19th and 20th century. That was the perverted thinking of the times. But there was no excuse for any Christian Organization to adopt and promote Darwinian ideas and that's EXACTLY what they did and no amount of history rewriting will change this. The problem with academic Darwinism today is that though they won't publicly promote a racist attitude, they unconsciously do anyway when they promote all those racist evolutionary graphs & charts which depict someone from Africa with a Negroid background as being the living transitional proof between white Europeans and Apes. The world will never come together as long as such racial biggoted concepts/beliefs are promoted around the Earth. I have asked this question over and over and NEVER get a straight answer any evolutionist. On any of those evolutionary charts, why is it that ONLY a white muscular stud looking European Male the only representation of modern mankind ??? Why not a chinese, or a Mexican ??? Why not a modern black man or Philipino ??? How about an India or Pakistani ??? See really evolutionary theory is about being white and on top of the pile. Eocene

I must now go to Cornell to teach my introductory biology class. We're covering hormonal regulatory systems today. Perhaps surprisingly to some, we will not be discussing any moral or ethical conclusions to be drawn from the topics we will be covering today (including the moral implications of having testosterone as one's principle sex hormone). Allen_MacNeill

Whether or not he be a Darwinian, I fail to see this as his primary motivation. fmarotta

KF, Re 90, read what DrBot wrote in 92 above. Sadly revealing for the Onlookers. Prof. FX Gumby

For the record (and to make my position as clear as possible), I strongly believe that the only justifiable headline for a thread like this is "Norway shooter a narcissistic sociopath" and that asserting either that "Norway shooter a Christian fundamentalist" or "Norway shooter a Darwinist terrorist" are both symptoms of a much deeper social pathology, one that necessarily results in unnecessary (but apparently deeply satisfying) demonization of people with whom one disagrees on non-moral grounds. Committing a moral wrong to counter another moral wrong does not make it right. Allen_MacNeill

the problem of a global smear with serious implications

Why keep smearing if you find it so objectionable?

... and my remarks were in part a warning that this man uses terms refashioned to his own ideology. So, if we are to understand what he means in what he says we need to look beyond the surface, such as his abuse of the Maltese cross from p. 1 on, etc.

Unless I'm misreading something you basically seem to be arguing that although he makes no explicit statements about grounding his ideology in 'darwinism', he actually is because you have carefully analysed what he wrote and determined that he is definitely a 'darwinist' despite the fact that he doesn't identify himself as such?

this man uses terms refashioned to his own ideology

8) DrBot

To be clear, if an action is right then it seems to me that it is right regardless of whether a deity says so (or not). Killing almost a hundred innocent people (the overwhelming majority of them children) is not right, regardless of whether a deity says so or not (even if they were Canaanites).

I think the whole point (or the hole in the point of) theistic morality is that if God says it is right, then it is right, even if it is actually mass murder. The really tricky part is figuring out what God thinks is right, as opposed to what people think God thinks is right. Lots of people believe they know what God thinks is right, but many of them disagree with each other. Of course even if God appears in the sky to millions and says 'Go kill some Babies' how do we determine if that is what God actually wants us to do, or if it is just a test of human morality. DrBot

Mr MacNeill (et al): Pardon, but in your rush to turnabout the issue into immoral equivalency, apparently you have not paused to notice that I specifically identified the story of the origin of the nuclear weapon as an ethics case study that needs to be in the curriculum of science education. That telling oversght, I think, is a key indicator for the astute onlooker, who is the real audience for this for record remark. And BTW, nuclear physics is not strongly connected to evolutionary materialist ideologisation of science, science education and our civilisation. Beyond this, I think that it is further telling that, having pointed out that this demented man has laid out something as declaratively foundational, and that this should be taken seriously among the influences that shaped his behaviour, we still find the game of saying there are x references to this term and to that. But already we know from 25 ff above that the term you so emphatically headlined as having 1000+ references, Christianity/ Christian etc, is redefined by this man on his terms into a term of cultural/racial/ ideological identity; i.e. this term is actually an example of the point that was so impatiently brushed aside, and my remarks were in part a warning that this man uses terms refashioned to his own ideology. So, if we are to understand what he means in what he says we need to look beyond the surface, such as his abuse of the Maltese cross from p. 1 on, etc. Looking like a lamb, speaking with the voice of the dragon, in short. (And, think about the original context for that metaphor.) And, as we look at the balance of the thread above, the point made in the OP is underscored: the problem of a global smear with serious implications -- a problem that needs to be corrected in major international institutions -- is being brushed aside in the rush to push handy stereotypes against Christians, design thinkers and the like. For record, Good day GEM of TKI kairosfocus

This recently made video, from Rich Deem's website, seems most appropriate: Are People Basically Good or Evil? The Evidence (Part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8Fl2OadGvM Rich Deem's main website: Evidence for God from Science http://www.godandscience.org/ ============== notes: The Knock-Down Argument Against Atheist Sam Harris's 'flourishing' moral argument – William Lane Craig – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvDyLs_cReE Cruel Logic - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qd1LPRJLnI =============== Atheist Atrocities Frightening Stats About Atheists - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP1KpNEeRYU Though Christians have certainly fallen way short of the Christian ethic to love you neighbor as yourself during history,,, That faqilure of Christians comes no where near the unmitigated horror visited upon man by state sponsored atheism within the last century. The sheer horror would be hard to exaggerate,,, Chairman MAO: Genocide Master “…Many scholars and commentators have referenced my total of 174,000,000 for the democide (genocide and mass murder) of the last century. I’m now trying to get word out that I’ve had to make a major revision in my total due to two books. I’m now convinced that that Stalin exceeded Hitler in monstrous evil, and Mao beat out Stalin….” http://wadias.in/site/arzan/blog/chairman-mao-genocide-master/ bornagain77

Re comment #85: I was saddened but not surprised to see the title of this OP. But on the basis of past experience, on the last point I must regretfully disagree. Allen_MacNeill

Prof Gumby: Please look at what the man actually says about what is declaratively foundational in his thought and agenda for society and how it shapes his understandings of logic, rationality, rationalism etc etc. Note also how he refers to nation and to culture in that context. WHERE he says is nowhere near so crucial as what he says. I have a fair comment right to hold that whenever he uses thoughts in this cluster the influences are present. And that other influences of like ilk are present too, such as that we should note how this eerily echoes the thoughts in Darwin's 1881 letter on beating the Turks hollow as a manifestation of the natural selection, Malthusian forces in action. So, let us see how he starts on p 5 by count:

Multiculturalists/cultural Marxists usually operate under the disguise of humanism. A majority are anti-nationalists and want to deconstruct European identity, traditions, culture and even nation states. As we all know, the root of Europe's problems is the lack of cultural self-confidence (nationalism). Most people are still terrified of nationalistic political doctrines thinking that if we ever embrace these principles again, new “Hitler’s” will suddenly pop up and initiate global Armageddon... Needless to say; the growing numbers of nationalists in W. Europe are systematically being ridiculed, silenced and persecuted by the current cultural Marxist/multiculturalist political establishments. This has been a continuous ongoing process which started in 1945. This irrational fear of nationalistic doctrines is preventing us from stopping our own national/cultural suicide as the Islamic colonization is increasing annually. This book presents the only solutions to our current problems. You cannot defeat Islamisation or halt/reverse the Islamic colonization of Western Europe without first removing the political doctrines manifested through multiculturalism/cultural Marxism…

He is speaking from the right, indeed, but with a voice that is plainly deeply shaped by the fascist vision -- ironically, strictly a left wing ideology -- of the identity politics leading to a social darwinist clash at VOLKISH level, with a socio-cultural overlay and ideological factors. He plainly sees an alliance of the post 1945 left with its multiculturalism, with the Islamists, i.e. a twisted version of the Eurabia thesis. He is probably college educated, and may have had discipline problems with not toeing the partyline [at least from his viewpoint; he refers to Star Chamber courts]. It then seems that to him these are built on the foundation of the clash of nations, understood in ultimately a social darwinist sense. When on 39 he turns to Islam, he does so in these terms, where again I highlight the key tems:

I must admit, when I first started the study on Islamic history and Islamic atrocities more than 3 years ago I really had my doubts about the “politically correct” information available. I started to scratch the surface and I was shocked as I uncovered the vast amount of “ugly, unknown” truths concerning Islamic atrocities. There is a common misconception regarding Islam and Christianity. A lot of people believe today that Christianity still is and was as evil as Islam?! I can attest to the fact that this is absolutely incorrect. Jihadi motivated killings, torture and enslavement count for more than 10 times as Christian motivated killings. However, the politically correct Western establishments want us to think otherwise. The essence of multiculturalism is that all cultures and religions are “equal”. In this context our Western governments launched a great “campaign of deception” against their own people with the goal of creating a falsified version of the Islamic and European Civilisation, in order to make them equal. According to them, this is needed in order to successfully implement multiculturalism. Islamists, Arab Nationalists and Marxist theorists have been at the forefront of falsifying our history since WW2. Especially Edward Said's book Orientalism published in 1978, have been the driving force in this process. In the past, Europe has had a stereotypical view of Islam just as Islam has had a stereotypical view of us - and these views are largely hostile. For century after century Islam was an enormous threat to what might loosely be called Christendom. It shaped every aspect of European history and was directly responsible for Europe’s colonial empires. Up till around 1750 they were a dangerous and direct competitor to our interests. Gibbon writing in the 1780s was the first to think that the danger had passed. On a local scale the threat lasted even longer. Barbary pirates ravaged the coast of England up till the 1830s carting off coastal villages into slavery and at even later dates on the west coast of Ireland and Iceland. And this was at the height of the British Empire. More than 1,5 million Europeans have been enslaved since the first Jihadi invasion of Andalusia, most of which were brought to North Africa.

I think we can see levels of influence in his thoughts, and it is reasonable to highlight the significance of his solution proposal for the grounding of European culture in the future, wherever it appears in his actual writing. BTW, it seems he has never heard of the power of the executive summary! GEM of TKI kairosfocus

To be clear, if an action is right then it seems to me that it is right regardless of whether a deity says so (or not). Killing almost a hundred innocent people (the overwhelming majority of them children) is not right, regardless of whether a deity says so or not (even if they were Canaanites). There can be no moral/ethical justification for such an act, including one fallaciously linked to a scientific theory. Allen_MacNeill

Whilst it is quite offensive to see how this event is being hijacked and politicised in the name of Intelligent Design (which is what this blog is all about after all) I can't say I'm at all surprised: I was expecting to see a thread like this here and it is serving to reveal some of the commentators true colours. Can Uncommon Descent descend any lower? DrBot

Re comment #79: Will Provine has asserted that there is "no ultimate foundation for ethics". The word that seems to bother people in this quotation is "ultimate". Will is very clear that there are many proximate foundations for ethics. This is simply mainstream ethical theory, which encompasses deontological, teleological, theological, and many other foundations/justifications for human behavior. Personally, I find the use of the phrase "ultimate foundations for ethics" to be essentially meaningless, as it does not define what "ultimate" means. Does it mean "logically necessary"? If so, then I respectfully disagree with my old friend. Does it mean that there is some foundation/justification that supersedes all others? If so, then I would respectfully point out that this would mean that the fact that a deity (or deities) asserted it to be valid is unnecessary and therefore irrelevant (c.f. the Euthyphro dilemma). Allen_MacNeill

Good catch Chris! OK, there's your replacement headline: "Norwegian shooter a testosterone terrorist?" Elizabeth Liddle

In comment #76 ellijacket wrote:

"I haven’t read anything about him or what he wrote so any assertion I make would be on false premises."

Did you read the title of this thread? If so, then your assertion that you "...haven’t read anything about him or what he wrote..." is a false statement. To refresh your memory, the title of this thread is "Norway shooter a Darwinian terrorist?" Did you read this and immediately answer "No" or "Yes" or "Irrelevant"? Allen_MacNeill

Prof. FX Gumby: <blockquote) KF, No, not a key influence. An average of one mention per 300 pages does not reflect a key influence. The quote you reference and that I’ve referenced further above appears on page 1376. If it’s “foundational” as you say, surely it would have been on, say, page 1? At least in the first 10? As Allen MacNeill has pointed out better than I have, it is very easy to cherry pick from among a person’s likes or influences and inflate it’s importance. Whereas "Christian" gets 2211 hits. And no, I'm not saying he's a Christian. FWIW "atheism" gets 51 hits, most, but not all, pejorative. Elizabeth Liddle

In comment #76 ellijacket wrote:

"If someone believes in Darwinism then of course it will affect how they live."

In what way? Please be specific, especially in relation to the stated premise in the title of the OP. For example, there are at least two alternatives: 1) If someone believes in Darwinism then it will necessarily have a causal relationship to their moral/ethical beliefs and behavior. 2) If someone believes in Darwinism then it will NOT necessarily have a causal relationship to their moral/ethical beliefs and behavior. Alternatively, 1) If someone believes in the historical accuracy and moral tenets expressed in the Bible then this will necessarily have a causal relationship to their moral/ethical beliefs and behavior. 1) If someone believes in the historical accuracy and moral tenets expressed in the Bible then this will NOT necessarily have a causal relationship to their moral/ethical beliefs and behavior. Allen_MacNeill

Dr. MacNeill, You state that Provine said there is NO necessary connection between any science and any system of morals/ethics. If he also said: "“‘Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.” William Provine – Atheist" Those two statements seem to contradict each other. Maybe they don't but I don't see how both could be true. ellijacket

KF:

And, I think you will find that I have explicitly disavowed the thread’s headline.

Yes, in fairness, you did and thank you for that. However, I think your view that "it can be seen as pointing out how the attempt to twist the case from the patent case of the mad man it is, into yet another poisonously laced caricaturing attack on Christians" is charitable to say the least. As for attacks on Christians, I don't know how it was played in the media elsewhere, but the reports I saw and heard used "Christian fundamentalist" as a label, quoting the early reports from Norwegian authorities. I didn't construe anything I heard along those lines as an "attack". But perhaps the BBC was different. As I said above, none of those media people are here at the moment, when at least the OP writer and some others are willing to promote the Breivik = Darwinist line. Hence the focus of my discussion. Prof. FX Gumby

To be clear: I agree with Hume, Moore, Lewontin, and Provine (among many others) who have asserted that there is NO necessary connection between any science and any system of morals/ethics. Allen_MacNeill

I quoted Will Provine to say that I thought he made has an honest worldview based on his beliefs. All beliefs affect worldviews so Darwinism will affect worldviews if anyone wants to admit it or not. This has nothing to do directly with Breivik but only with the discussion on whether Darwinism has a say or not in how people live. If someone believes in Darwinism then of course it will affect how they live. How can I state what did or did not affect Breivik? Neither you nor I could make that assertion. I haven't read anything about him or what he wrote so any assertion I make would be on false premises. I personally think he's a lunatic. ellijacket

In comment #70 kairosfocus wrote:

"...there is a problem of amorality in evolutionary materialism [as in the notorious is-ought gap]..."

What if we change this to:

"...there is a problem of amorality in nuclear physics [as in the notorious is-ought gap]..."

To me it seems that these two versions are semantically equivalent. That is, there does not appear to be a necessary connection between any scientific theory and morals/ethics. This was the essence of G. E. Moore's analysis of the "naturalistic fallacy", which is still the underlying assumption of mainstream ethical theory. By describing the connection between "is" and "ought" statements as "notorious", does kairosfocus intend to assert that ethical prescriptions can be valid justifications for ethical prescriptions, and therefore that the "naturalistic fallacy" is not a fallacy but rather a legitimate ethical principle? If so, then it seems to me that the use of evolutionary theory (i.e. a science based on "is" statements) as a foundation for eugenics (i.e. an ethical theory based on "ought" statements) would be fully justified. Allen_MacNeill

This thread seems a little too heated for my liking so I'll just drop in to offer the perspective of Peter Hitchens which is slightly more neutral and perhaps more realistic too: http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2011/07/all-the-hallmarks-of-what.html Chris Doyle

To detach myself slightly from the anger that is still simmering away: ellijacket: You ask:

I merely listed a quote of his and stated it is an honest worldview derived from his belief in materialistic Darwinism. Where in my comment did I call Will Provine immoral or any other name? If you can’t show me that I would appreciate a retraction on your part.

AussieID had written (#32):

Atheism, though, can not see anything as, you call it, ‘morally reprehensible’ because everybody’s morality is different and there is no definite Wrong or Right. There just IS.

I replied (#35):

This is untrue. Also irrelevant. But untrue.

AussieID replied by quoting Provine (37):

“‘Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.” William Provine – Atheist

Now it seemed to me that Aussie ID was trying to connect his claim that under atheism, nothing is "morally reprehensible" with Provine's statement. Provine does not in fact say that nothing is morally reprehensible, merely that there "is no ultimate foundation for ethics" which is not the same thing. I'm not sure what he meant by it, but I'm pretty sure, and Alan confirms it, that Provine did not mean that nothing was morally reprehensible - if I had to guess his meaning, it would be that there is no god-given or absolute foundation for deriving a system of ethics. I would agree with Provine, if this is what he meant. But then I don't think that even those who claim a god-given foundation for ethics do a terribly good job of saying what it is, unless it's the simply the pragmatic one of "you'd better behave or you'll go to hell". Certainly I don't find the bible a good ethical handbook - it's not even consistent. There are some Buddhist writings that I find pretty sound, ethically, but then Buddhism is essentially atheist. On the contrary, the golden rule - do as you would be done by - seems to have emerged spontaneously in many different religious cultures probably because it makes a lot of practical sense, and is a good community rule - helps us to live in communities. So as foundations go, I'd actually trust to biology more than I'd trust to scriptures. If that's the rule we evolved to derive and adopt, then it's good enough for me. And if Breivik had adopted it, 96 people would be alive today, who aren't. And weirdly, it's the rule that Christians, atheists, and even Darwinian evolutionists tend to agree on. Elizabeth Liddle

KF, No, not a key influence. An average of one mention per 300 pages does not reflect a key influence. The quote you reference and that I've referenced further above appears on page 1376. If it's "foundational" as you say, surely it would have been on, say, page 1? At least in the first 10? As Allen MacNeill has pointed out better than I have, it is very easy to cherry pick from among a person's likes or influences and inflate it's importance. Prof. FX Gumby

In comment #67 ellijacket wrote:

"I merely listed a quote of his and stated it is an honest worldview derived from his belief in materialistic Darwinism. Where in my comment did I call Will Provine immoral or any other name? If you can’t show me that I would appreciate a retraction on your part.

To what end did you quote my friend Will Provine? Was it to indicate that his beliefs have nothing to do with the topic under discussion? To be clear: Did you quote Will Provine to indicate that there is NO necessary causal relationship between his beliefs (i.e. "Darwinian materialism") and the behavior demonstrated by Anders Behring Breivik? If so, why did you post it? And if not, please so state and I will be happy to post a retraction to that effect. To be as specific as possible: If ellijacket is willing to state for the record that there is NO necessary causal relationship between "Darwinian materialism" and the behavior demonstrated by Anders Behring Breivik, I will be happy to agree with that assertion. Allen_MacNeill

Prof Gumby: Kindly note that you and Dr Liddle are not the only commenters in-thread. I do not really wish to name names, but there is a problem. Also, sorry but the thing tha tis being trumpeted tothe skies all over the media is NOYT thst this man is associated with Darwin, but that he is a fundy Christian. That is the real material issue and that is what most needs correction, and emphasis. So when I see an almost in passing note then back to the usual, I think some serious pausing is needed. Why not look at my three-parter from was it 25 on, where I addressed the matter in the main and see if I am fundamentally in error in my concerns and facts and reasoning? I would welcome well merited correction. And, I think you will find that I have explicitly disavowed the thread's headline. When I have taken up the "Social Darwinism is not linked to Darwinism issue," it has been to correct common talking points, on evidence. From Darwin's corpus. And, I have long pointed out that there is a problem of amorality in evolutionary materialism [as in the notorious is-ought gap], with fairly serious and longstanding evidence, some of it 2350 years old. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

In comment #65 kairosfocus quoted the following list of factors cited by Anders Behring Breivik as justifications for his behavior : "...logic, rationality, reason, science..." Does this mean that "logic, rationality, reason, [and] science..." are necessarily causative factors in the behavior of Anders Behring Breivik? Allen_MacNeill

kairosfocus:

Onlookers: I find in the above thread a telling, sad, sign. In the face of direct evidence that we are looking at a media smear of Christians and the Christian faith — at minimum by their playing to their own biases and failing to do due diligence before headlining slander-laced talking points, ever so many commenters seemingly find it extremely hard to acknowledge that such a smear has been exposed and needs to be corrected.

No. Original reports suggested Muslim terrorism. Then it emerged that he had Christian affiliations and was white, so earlier reports were corrected. Then it emerged that he was not religious, just culturally Christian, so those reports were corrected in turn. In contrast, here, in the OP we have a headline implying that he was a "Darwinian" terrorist. And it is still uncorrected, despite emerging evidence that he was not even a eugenicist, let alone a "Darwinian".

Meanwhile, we find a jumping on effect.

What is being jumped on is exactly what you (rightly) jumped on - the identification of the terrorist with a view that he did not even hold. Even if "Darwinian" would have been the right word to describe it, which it isn't

I shudder to think of what is going on elsewhere.

Which is exactly why this blog should do as the papers have done, which is to correct misleading headlines. And in this case, there is the additional motivation in that it is a site that promotes ID as an alternative scientific view to Darwinian evolution, so to have a headline in which the word "Darwinian" is misleadingly applied to an ideology, not a scientific theory, is, well, a smear.

We need to step back and ask ourselves, seriously, what is going on. Before it is too late. GEM of TKI

We do. Let the smears stop now. Be the change you want to see. Elizabeth Liddle

Dr. MacNeill, I merely listed a quote of his and stated it is an honest worldview derived from his belief in materialistic Darwinism. Where in my comment did I call Will Provine immoral or any other name? If you can't show me that I would appreciate a retraction on your part. ellijacket

The conversion of a number 8 0 into an icon of a person wearing sunglasses and smiling in the comment above was done automatically by the editing software and was not intended by me. Allen_MacNeill

Prof Gumby: In noting a social darwinist influence, I am not excluding other influences. Kindly note the already excerpted:

In a question-and-answer section of his manifesto, Breivik asks himself, “What should be our civilisational [sic] objectives, how do you envision a perfect Europe?” His answer is hardly the response of a “Christian utopian”: “‘Logic’ and rationalist thought (a certain degree of national Darwinism) should [note: SHOULD] be the fundament [sic] [i.e. foundation] of our societies. I support the propagation of collective rational thought [note previous defn as hitghlighted] but not necessarily on a personal level.” . . .

OF COURSE THESE ARE THE RAVINGS OF A MADMAN, BUT MADMEN ARE OFTEN QUITE LOGICAL, JUST LACKING IN COMMON SENSE AND A MORAL COMPASS. But it should be plain that though Darwinism in the social context is to frequent, where it comes up here, it is assigned a key role and one that controls his interpretation of what is logical or rational. Did you add into the Darwinism influence count the times where this man uses or implies terms or concepts sch as logic, rationality, reason, science or the like cognate terms? As, all these will be in part influenced by the FOUNDATIONAL assertion just clipped. In short, I am plainly well within fair comment on what is there, to note that a social-racial-national darwinist view is a key influence. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

In my experience it appears to be extraordinarily easy for most people to assume a causal link between what people express agreement with and preferences for and their behavior. In many cases it appears to me that when people do this they are very selective in what they choose as their causal links. For example, which of the following preferences (expressed repeatedly by a well-known historical figure) can be causally linked to this person's behavior: This person... 1) was a strict vegetarian 2) had a preference for Alsatian dogs 3) expressed a deep love for children 4) loved the operas of Richard Wagner 5) was especially fond of Franz Lehar's opera, "The Merry Widow" 6) enjoyed watercolor painting 7) was nostalgic about the time he spent in the city of Vienna In addition, this person... 8) expressed virulently anti-Semitic views in his public speeches and published writing 9) exhibited the behaviors of a narcissistic sociopath Which of the preference listed in points 1 through 6 is causally linked to the behaviors listed in points 8 and 9? Allen_MacNeill

KF:

Onlookers: I find in the above thread a telling, sad, sign. In the face of direct evidence that we are looking at a media smear of Christians and the Christian faith — at minimum by their playing to their own biases and failing to do due diligence before headlining slander-laced talking points, ever so many commenters seemingly find it extremely hard to acknowledge that such a smear has been exposed and needs to be corrected.

You'll note that at least Elizabeth Liddle and I have acknowledged that the media have been incorrect in labelling Breivik a Christian fundamentalist. We are now more concerned with those anti-evolutionists here and now who are "playing to their own biases and failing to do due diligence before headlining slander-laced talking points." Prof. FX Gumby

kairosfocus:

Dr Liddle: Practitioners of science had better be in part about what ought to be. That is why the failure to seriously address the moral hazard in the heart of Darwin’s theory as identified by him, is so sobering.

As was the failure to seriously address the moral heart of Einstein's theory. But it makes no difference to the truth or otherwise of the theory. Yes, science raises huge ethical dilemmas all the time. They are extremely important to resolve. But resolution does not involve denying the science - it involves scrupulously investigating its implications and taking steps to minimise harm. For example - and this is on point - the possibility is arising, right now, that genotyping will enable us to predict with significant odds what diseases someone is likely to suffer from. As a consequence, insurance companies may start to insist on genotyping before issuing health insurance, and denying cover for certain groups. This is in itself a form of eugenics. But do we then talk about "evil geneticist insurance companies"? No. Because issue isn't the science, but the ethical implications of that science. Exactly the same applies to Darwin's scientific theory. Elizabeth Liddle

PS: Just to make my point clear, I am speaking about a worldview that in Plato's words [as was linked onwards], leads to the notion that the highest right is might. Atheists, having a conscience implanted by the God they would deny, can be moral, but evolutionary materialism, by dint of the lacking of a foundational IS that can bear the weight of OUGHT, per Hume's IS-OUGHT guillotine argument, is inherently amoral and undermining of sound ethics and morality. kairosfocus

In comment #57 kairosfocus wrote:

"...playing to their own biases and failing to do due diligence before headlining slander-laced talking points..."

In which of the following statements is this happening: 1) Anders Behring Breivik is a Darwinist 2) Anders Behring Breivik is a Christian fundamentalist 3) Anders Behring Breivik is a psychopathological mass murderer Allen_MacNeill

Mr MacNeill: Kindly note, the issue on the table in my remarks was the inherent IS-OUGHT gap of evolutionary materialism, which indubitably across 2400 years of history has led to associated factionalism, and which in the last century cost 100+ millions their lives. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

To continue the logic developed above, let's change the major premise: 1) people who accept the historical accuracy and moral prescriptions expressed in the Bible are immoral and potential psychopathological mass murderers; 2) fundamentalist Christians accept the historical accuracy and moral tenets expressed in the Bible; therefore 3) fundamentalist Christians are immoral and a potential psychopathological murderers Allen_MacNeill

Onlookers: I find in the above thread a telling, sad, sign. In the face of direct evidence that we are looking at a media smear of Christians and the Christian faith -- at minimum by their playing to their own biases and failing to do due diligence before headlining slander-laced talking points, ever so many commenters seemingly find it extremely hard to acknowledge that such a smear has been exposed and needs to be corrected. Meanwhile, we find a jumping on effect. I shudder to think of what is going on elsewhere. We need to step back and ask ourselves, seriously, what is going on. Before it is too late. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

In comment #47 ellijacket wrote:

"All beliefs affect our worldview. Will Provine’s view of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are a direct and honest result of his belief in materialistic Darwinism. What other view could he possibly come to?"

The logic of this comment (and the title of the OP) seems clear to me: 1) atheists who accept the scientific validity of evolutionary theory are immoral and potential psychopathological mass murderers; 2) Will Provine is an atheist who accepts the scientific validity of evolutionary theory; therefore 3) Will Provine is immoral and a potential psychopathological murderer It is perhaps somewhat inconvenient to ellijacket's logic that I happen to know Will Provine. Indeed, he is one of my mentors and very best friends. I do not know a more generous, kind, loving, mild-mannered, and scrupulously moral person. What is one to conclude from this? There are two alternatives: 1) Will Provine is an exception to the rule that atheists are immoral and potential psychopathological murderers (i.e. the major premise is valid) 2) the major premise that atheists are immoral and potential psychopathological murderers is invalid. Allen_MacNeill

It appears that my hopes

Attempts by any side to shoehorn him into their opponents’ camp are simply shamefully cheap debating tactics and blatantly ridiculous. The same goes for any mass murdering nutcase. I would hope the readers and writers here have the maturity and honesty to recognise that.

were in vain. The attempts by some here to use this tragic event to score cheap culture war points is absolutely disgraceful. What is even more disgraceful is the huge stretching and squishing that people are going through to label Breivik a "Darwinian terrorist." KF:

2 This man clearly has social darwinist influences.

This is false. Or rather it is true to the extent that he clearly has Shakespearean influences. To be absolutely tedious, let's go through each of the five references to Darwin in his manifesto (http://unitednations.ispnw.org/archives/breivik-manifesto-2011.pdf):

[Australian writer Keith Windschuttle] urges us to remember how unique some elements of our culture are: “The concepts of free enquiry and free expression and the right to criticise entrenched beliefs are things we take so much for granted they are almost part of the air we breathe. We need to recognise them as distinctly Western phenomena. They were never produced by Confucian or Hindu culture.” “But without this concept, the world would not be as it is today. There would have been no Copernicus, Galileo, Newton or Darwin.”

Reference here is simply a quote from someone else championing Western culture, with Darwin as an example of a great scientist.

The latest wave of radical feminism has severely wounded the family structure of the Western world. It is impossible to raise the birth rates to replacement level before women are valued for raising children, and before men and women are willing to marry in the first place. Human beings are social creatures, not solitary ones. We are created to live with partners. Marriage is not a “conspiracy to oppress women”, it’s the reason why we’re here. And it’s not a religious thing, either. According to strict, atheist Darwinism, the purpose of life is to reproduce.

Reference here is justifying that his anti-feminist rant is not religiously motivated. Not that he is espousing "strict atheist Darwinism".

We say something, some politically correct BS like it’s the inside that counts, or that all ethnic groups are equal, but we don’t really mean it. The only reason lie publicly and even to our friends is because our countries are ruled by a Marxist entity and we are not allowed to say the truth. Social-darwinism was the norm before the 1950. Back then, it was allowed to say what we feel. Now, however, we have to disguise our preferences to avoid the horrible consequences of being labeled as a genetical preferentialist. Many people I know who supports mass-Muslim immigration (by voting on political parties in support of multiculturalism) deliberately avoids living with Muslims, simply because they don’t like them. But they still support mass-Muslim immigration.

In his anti-Islamic rant. Note that this is the only reference specifically to social darwinism in 1500+ pages.

Segregation in combination with a complete halt in aid and facilitating the African governments to implement nationalistic doctrines are in fact the best African strategy. Policies like these are in fact the most anti-racist approach of all as it clearly defines the new responsibilities and limitations. Because with responsibilities and limitations, comes opportunity. Nevertheless, people who are very short sighted will consider these policies quite cynical or darwinistic. However, long term, it is the most humanistic and responsible approach.

Defending his racial segregation ideas. Note that he is not self-identifying as "darwinistic".

Q: What should be our civilisational objectives, how do you envision a perfect Europe? A: “Logic” and rationalist thought (a certain degree of national Darwinism) should be the fundament of our societies. I support the propagation of collective rational thought but not necessarily on a personal level. Because, if a woman was purely rational, she would choose to not have babies at all, and instead live her life in a purely egotistical manner. We should strive to become a civilisation where the individual’s acquisition of wealth would no longer be the driving force in our lives. Instead, we would focus much more of our resources to better ourselves and our communities by channelling at least 20% of the budget to research, science and technology. Good welfare arrangements combined with embracing the ideal of perfection requires a solid cooperation/symbiosis (social cohesion) and is only possible in a monoculture where everyone has complete confidence to everyone.

This is the only place where he appears to favour "Darwinism", but what he describes thereafter is not scientific Darwinian evolution or even social darwinism. More a sort of tribal collectivism. The last reference is the book list I quoted above. Above this reference, he cites Star Wars as one of his favourite films. Shall we now say Norway shooter a Jedi terrorist. There is as much basis for this headline as the current one. Can we now dispense with the cheap culture war potshots and drag this blog out of the muck? Prof. FX Gumby

Dr Liddle: Practitioners of science had better be in part about what ought to be. That is why the failure to seriously address the moral hazard in the heart of Darwin's theory as identified by him, is so sobering. And it underscores how in an era of professionalised science, we need a unit in science edu, compulsory at undergrad and grad levels, on ethics of science in society with key case studies like special darwinism, eugenics, and the nuclear bomb. As I have highlighted again and again, evolutionary materialism -- a worldview that likes to dress up in lab coats -- has in it an inherent is-ought gap, is inescapably amoral and as Plato warned from long since, 2350 years ago, is dangerous for our civilisation. As I pointed out yesterday, I do not think it is an accident that it is a forgotten corner of science that the co-founder of evolutionary theory thought that "The World of Life [is] a manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind and Ultimate Purpose," GEM of TKI kairosfocus

ellijacket:

Elizabeth, Respectfully, anything that we believe affects our worldview. If someone believes in materialistic Darwinism then that will affect how they view the world and most assuredly other people. How can it not?

It possibly does. So?

All beliefs affect our worldview. Will Provine’s view of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are a direct and honest result of his belief in materialistic Darwinism. What other view could he possibly come to?

Mine. Honestly I cannot believe this thread. We have a headline that asks "Norwegian shooter a Darwinian terrorist?" That headline is shameful propaganda. The Norwegian shooter was a terrorist. Details are still coming out as to the content of his specific fanaticism, but "Darwinian" is not a description of any of it, and to imply it is to mischievously conflate a scientific theory (which people here think is unsound) with an ideology that every right-thinking person on the planet, be they Christian, Muslim, atheist, biologist, Darwinist, evolutionist, flat-earthist, would condemn, in order apparently to score back debating-points the writer thinks were lost when early reports described Breitvik, wrongly, as a "Christian Fundamentalist". Breitvik is neither a "Darwinian" nor a "Christian Fundamentalist". His actions appear derive from a megalomaniac and narcisstic delusion that Christian Nordic Culture are under threat from Islam and that this threat is amplified by the Norwegian left and the ideology of multiculturalism. There is nothing Christian OR "Darwinian" about any of that, and think the headline as it stands is a disgrace to this site. kairos, news, can you not change it so something less despicable? Sure, make the argument that the theory of Darwinian evolution is misused by despicable ideologies. So is Christianity, for goodness sake. Misuse does not make either a scientific theory wrong, nor even a theology wrong. To imply that it does is, well, I used the word "mischievous" above, but it does not represent the depth of my feelings here. Elizabeth Liddle

Eocene: First as you seem Norwegian, my condolences in your time of mourning. Please help see that some common sense measures are taken so the sort6 of situation where the cops took 90 minutes to arrive does not happen again, and the situation where you have sitting ducks in a shooting gallery does not happen again. If this mad man could get away with this you can be assured organised terrorists are taking note. Next, I am sorry, the locus of cultural blame is a lot closer to home than those often harassed men and nowadays women who stand in our pulpits. If you look up the Barmen Declaration, you will see that the warning against Hitler and co was issued by actually many of the leading Christian theologians of the time starting with Karl Barth. And, I am afraid evo mat scientism has been a god of our age, and like all idols, it has proved hollow. And, surprise -- NOT -- this latest apostasy demands blind conformity, indeed to dare to suggest that scientific theories are provisional and should be studied in light of methods, strengths and weaknesses has been treated as heresy by the Darwinist heresy hunters. We have seen all of this before. When will we learn from history? We now need to deal with the world as we see it, not as we wish it had been. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

kairosfocus: "Sadly, the failures of Christendom — that partly christianised culture now moving on to secularism and neo-paganism in various forms — are not that hard to explain, even among church members and even ardent supporters." === The supporters as you call them are only as good as the leadership which directs them. The leadership of Christendom failed miserably in most of Europe from it's introduction into Europe towards and during both world wars her. The parishioners for the most part were trained to follow and obey what the clergy dealt them. People were indoctrinated to never questions the ecclesiastical hierarchies. As a result of the horrible failures of the clergy especially during WWII, the majority of central and Northern Europe are for the most part Secular Atheists. Seriously, despite what any census records say, the membership roles listed for statistical sakes are merely nothing more than traditional eye candy for propaganda purposes. Ask the average Sven and Inge on the streets and they don't believe there is a God. When I live in Great Britain in the 1870s, there were still several WWII veterans who said they couldn't believe there was a God where both sides were supposedly praying to the same God for victory. The bottomline is that the standards and principles for the ways Christains were to conduct their lives NEVER changed. The real reprehensible ones are the clergy of all those churches. Had they not stuck their collective biased noses into politics[and this goes for all those nations] then certainly Christianity would have been a true force for piece. Though church going mat still seem to be strong as ever in certain parts of the USA still, in Europe it's a shambles. They have no one else[Atheists, Muslims, whatever] to blame but themselves. No doubt if business had of been taken care of properly way back when, then there would never have been so-called perceived enemies such as TalkOrigins.org , TalkRational.org, Infedels.org - etc - etc - etc and no need for a UD, Discovery Institute, etc. --- Eocene

"design emerges from the properties of the universe itself", properties of the universe are part of the design not a consequence of it. "but meaning, purpose, beauty, goodness and, love.” No creator = no purpose or meaning or anything else. Accidents have a purpose or meaning? I think not. deric davidson

Eocene: Sadly, the failures of Christendom -- that partly christianised culture now moving on to secularism and neo-paganism in various forms -- are not that hard to explain, even among church members and even ardent supporters. We start from the premise that we are finite, fallible, morally fallen [virtue is a stumbling lifelong struggle for the best of us] and too often ill-willed. Blend in an entirely too common willingness to adhere to the spirit of the age. Add in the "scientific" prestige of darwinism, including social darwinism from the 1860s on. Infuse the intoxicating spirits of jingoistic nationalism and the racism and tribalism that are a longstanding global challenge. Then, just watch the people stand aside and look as they -- verbally or literally -- kill our prophets. Look up the story of the Barmen Declaration. Call it by its ugly name: apostasy, in the spirit of the counterfeit of Christ, the antichrist. Bernard Lewis is apt, from his 1990 essay on the roots of Muslim rage:

. . . The accusations are familiar. We of the West are accused of sexism, racism, and imperialism, institutionalized in patriarchy and slavery, tyranny and exploitation. To these charges, and to others as heinous, we have no option but to plead guilty -- not as Americans, nor yet as Westerners, but simply as human beings, as members of the human race. In none of these sins are we the only sinners, and in some of them we are very far from being the worst. The treatment of women in the Western world, and more generally in Christendom, has always been unequal and often oppressive, but even at its worst it was rather better than the rule of polygamy and concubinage that has otherwise been the almost universal lot of womankind on this planet . . . . In having practiced sexism, racism, and imperialism, the West was merely following the common practice of mankind through the millennia of recorded history. Where it is distinct from all other civilizations is in having recognized, named, and tried, not entirely without success, to remedy these historic diseases. And that is surely a matter for congratulation, not condemnation. We do not hold Western medical science in general, or Dr. Parkinson and Dr. Alzheimer in particular, responsible for the diseases they diagnosed and to which they gave their names.

GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Charles Darwin: "The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence." clipped: James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA: “…people of African descent appear to be innately less intelligent than white Europeans.” What does Sam Harris say about aforementioned jem: “Watson’s opinions on race are disturbing, but his underlying point was not, in principle, unscientific. There may very well be detectable differences in intelligence between races. Given the genetic consequences of a population living in isolation for tens of thousands of years it would, in fact, be very surprising if there were no differences between racial or ethnic groups waiting to be discovered. I say this not to defend Watson’s fascination with race, or to suggest that such race-focused research might be worth doing. I am merely observing that there is, at least, a possible scientific basis for his views.” Residual fragments of root ideologies responsible for mankind’s most horrific century can be clearly identified within Sam Harris’s secular “reason”. Funny how it seems to be white men of comfortable economic standing namely from the US and England that are trying to indoctrinate the world in neo-Darwinism. junkdnaforlife

Elizabeth, Respectfully, anything that we believe affects our worldview. If someone believes in materialistic Darwinism then that will affect how they view the world and most assuredly other people. How can it not? All beliefs affect our worldview. Will Provine's view of 'good' and 'evil' are a direct and honest result of his belief in materialistic Darwinism. What other view could he possibly come to? ellijacket

kf: yes, of course science can be abused. That makes absolutely no difference to the truth or otherwise of the science. Science is about what is, not about what ought to be. To conflate the two is a major mistake, whether it is made by fanatical ideologues or people who disagree with the science. The fact that Truman ordered the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki says absolutely nothing about the truth or otherwise of e=mc^2. BTW there's an excellent (IMO) article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/25/anders-behring-breivik-norway-extremists which should give us all, as internet denizens, pause for thought. Elizabeth Liddle

Dr Liddle: I am afraid The Beard is just a tad eggy. Let's clip Descent of Man, Ch 6, for record:

Man is liable to numerous, slight, and diversified variations, which are induced by the same general causes, are governed and transmitted in accordance with the same general laws, as in the lower animals. Man has multiplied so rapidly, that he has necessarily been exposed to struggle for existence, and consequently to natural selection. He has given rise to many races, some of which differ so much from each other, that they have often been ranked by naturalists as distinct species . . . . At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.

The real concern I have here (and have long had as the link shows) is that, having made a horrendous point that highlights a major moral hazard in his theory, Darwin calmly went back to his main point in the context, explaining that there will be gaps in the fossil record. Similarly, there are even worse remarks on the Turks and the Europeans from one of his letters, here from Bevets' page:

I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world. Letter to W. Graham July 3rd, 1881

Sorry, if we look for roots of social darwinism as a direct inference from darwin's thought [don't forget the infusion of Malthusianism and Malthus' positive checks!], they lie rather close to home, right from the original title of origin, or rather sub-title: the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. We need to face that, face its consequences over the past 150 years, and soberly address them. For science can be seriously abused, as the 100+ million moaning ghosts of the last century plainly tell us in grim warning. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

And the stupidest thing about this whole "social Darwinism" thing is that the only conceivable relationship between Darwinian evolution as a scientific theory and "social Darwinism" is the part that no-one disagrees with, and which long preceded Darwin anyway - namely selective breeding. Does anyone here dispute if you want to win the Largest Marrow prize at your village Fruit and Produce show, what you need to do is to sow only seeds from your largest marrows, and discard the others? It's true, right? And does that mean it's right to apply it to people? No, of course it doesn't. gah. Elizabeth Liddle

I was born in 1952. Go figure. Elizabeth Liddle

"If you're going to San Francisco Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair ..." Elizabeth, you're turning into a hippy!!! AussieID

"We live in a universe in which design emerges from the properties of the universe itself, and not only design, but meaning, purpose, beauty, goodness and, love." Lizzie Liddle - atheist. Elizabeth Liddle

Ah you've been pipped at the post by the others Lizzie! But I do respect, but disagree, with your attempt! Big Smiley Face!!! AussieID

"Let me summarise my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us about gods, ethics, meaning of life, life after death, and free will: Absolutely nothing." Elizabeth Liddle - Atheist. Elizabeth Liddle

"We live in a universe which has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference". Dicky Dawkins AussieID

"‘Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either." William Provine - Atheist AussieID

True, Elizabeth. True. AussieID

Sat 11 June Day 41 … I prayed for the first time in a very long time today. I explained to God that unless he wanted the Marxist-Islamic alliance and the certain Islamic takeover of Europe to completely annihilate European Christendom within the next hundred years he must ensure that the warriors fighting for the preservation of European Christendom prevail. ---Diary of Anders Behring Breivik, as reported in The Guardian 07-24-11 Pedant

Atheism, though, can not see anything as, you call it, ‘morally reprehensible’ because everybody’s morality is different and there is no definite Wrong or Right. There just IS.

This is untrue. Also irrelevant. But untrue. Elizabeth Liddle

"Social darwinist" ~= "Darwinian". And it's a bad term anyway. Actually even "eugenicist" is euphemistic. What we have here is racism, in all its ugliness, albeit dressed up as a culture war. Norway shooter a racist terrorist? Yes, it looks like it. And that would be a far better headline for this OP. Elizabeth Liddle

Breivik [manifesto]: "Marriage is not a “conspiracy to oppress women”, it’s the reason why we’re here. And it’s not a religious thing, either. According to strict, atheist Darwinism, the purpose of life is to reproduce. - Social-darwinism was the norm before the 1950. Back then, it was allowed to say what we feel. junkdnaforlife

G'day Elizabeth, My points have nothing to do with Breivik's belief in eugenics, etc. I still will link eugenics with evolution because one grew naturally from the other (and although you link it to the time period of the early 20th Century, liberal eugenics is still being pushed with genetically-engineered "haves" and "have nots" being the possible outcome. This is, of course, based on Darwinian themes!) You also wrote, "Yes, the eugenicist thinking of the early twentieth century owed something to Darwin’s theory." Something? SOMEthing? A little more than just 'some thing' Elizabeth, please! Atheism, though, can not see anything as, you call it, 'morally reprehensible' because everybody's morality is different and there is no definite Wrong or Right. There just IS. Again, to exploit a tragedy is wrong. So, you will also agree that legacy media is wrong is tainting this awful event as one in which Christianity has been thoughtlessly slandered? (The families are, of course, the most pressing facet here for care, but this blog is purely bringing up a point) So, you will lend your voice to correcting this view? AussieID

kairosfocus - yes, I agree, the BBC should not have described him as a Christian Fundamentalist. Nor should early reports, as with Oklahoma, have pointed at Muslim terrorists: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/24/charlie-brooker-norway-mass-killings?intcmp=239 I fully agree that the BBC should not have used that description, and, indeed, the British papers have been at pains today to point out that his religious affiliation seems to have been cultural, not a reflective of his belief. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2011/jul/24/norway-anders-behring-breivik-beliefs?intcmp=239 Elizabeth Liddle

EL and BB: 1 WND did incorporate relvant materials as I clipped above. 2 This man clearly has social darwinist influences. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

What was truly inexcusable in this case is something also reported by WND through linking an external story:

Norway police arrived 90 minutes after gunman fired at youth on island Published On Sat Jul 23 2011 OSLO, NORWAY — Police arrived at an island massacre about an hour and a half after a gunman first opened fire, slowed because they didn’t have quick access to a helicopter and then couldn’t find a boat to make their way to the scene just several hundred meters offshore. The assailant surrendered when police finally reached him. Survivors of the shooting spree have described hiding and fleeing into the water to escape the gunman, but a police briefing Saturday detailed for the first time how long the terror lasted — and how long victims waited for help. The shooting came on the heels of what police told the Associated Press was an “Oklahoma City-type” bombing in Oslo’s downtown: It targeted a government building, was allegedly perpetrated by a homegrown assailant and used the same mix of fertilizer and fuel that blew up a federal building in the U.S. in 1995 . . . . A SWAT team was dispatched to the island more than 50 minutes after people vacationing at a campground said they heard shooting across the lake, according to Police Chief Sveinung Sponheim. The drive to the lake took about 20 minutes, and once there, the team took another 20 minutes to find a boat. Footage filmed from a helicopter that showed the gunman firing into the water added to the impression that police were slow to the scene. They chose to drive, Sponheim said, because their helicopter wasn’t on standby. “There were problems with transport to Utoya,” where the youth-wing of Norway’s left-leaning Labor Party was holding a retreat, Sponheim said. “It was difficult to get a hold of boats.” At least 85 people were killed on the island, but police said four or five people were still missing.

Another report linked through WND adds:

Suspect in Norway attacks bought six tons of fertilizer Published On Sat Jul 23 2011 SUNDVOLLEN, NORWAY—The Norwegian man suspected in a bombing and shooting spree that killed at least 92 people bought six tons of fertilizer before the massacre, the supplier said Saturday as police investigated witness accounts of a second shooter . . .

Something was seriously wrong with the first responder system, and it is clear that we now need a system of armed volunteer marshals for public events in remote places or other places where large numbers of people could be harmed in the time it takes for SWAT teams to arrive. For instance, why was not the Norwegian Navy equivalent to the Seals on-call? Similarly, we need something to deal with security checks on those who buy large quantities of Ammonium Nitrate fertiliser, a known high explosive. A law on nitrate compounds would do. Prof Gumby has a solid point on the Norway terrorist/mass murderer:

Breivik was first and foremost a nut. Attempts by any side to shoehorn him into their opponents’ camp are simply shamefully cheap debating tactics and blatantly ridiculous. The same goes for any mass murdering nutcase . . .

If the mass media would do due diligence (as WND, headline aside, seems to have done), that would be a foregone conclusion. But unfortunately, JDNA also has a sobering point, given the poisonously polarised atmosphere currently spreading like a disease across our civilisation:

Prof. FX Gumby, yes from your rundown of his books you list he looks like a mixed bag of crazy. However, what we are dealing with here (at least in the US) is two day 24 news cycle blast from the legacy media beating the “right-wing Christian fundamentalist” drum. The manifesto is out sure, but the populace is fully submerged and marinating in the original slime smear. This is how it works. Smear slime on page one, retraction or correction a week later buried on page 37 next to a Sears lawnmower ad. So a little balance is in order.

It is high time that we called the media to account for such smear tactics. And it is high time that we made up our minds that we are in an era of mass murder by terrorists and madmen of all stripes, so we need to take reasonable common-sense measures to protect ourselves, at a youth camp, in church, at a sports event, in a pizza restaurant, on a crowded street, in a bus, in an airliner, on a cruise ship. It is time for us to get rid of our knee-jerk, cleverly cultivated aversion to an armed citizenry. I vote for an internationally recognised volunteer corps of armed marshalls, equipped with appropriate weaponry up to and including automatic weaponry where appropriate. And for the rest of us, I think we need to resurrect an old form of sport and martial arts, the quarterstaff. This should now become a part of the regular school curriculum, right next to supervised firearms training and associated safety training. Is our civilisation serious? That is the real question. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

WND should have included this comment about atheists from page 1307 in the manifesto: "A majority of so called agnostics and atheists in Europe are cultural conservative Christians without even knowing it. So what is the difference between cultural Christians and religious Christians?" "If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God then you are a religious Christian. Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God. We do however believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. This makes us Christian." barrybowen

And yet, global media, up to and including he once great BBC could not pick that up and strike a reasonable balance on the merits? That makes me sick. Heart-sick. Beware when something in the mass media fits your favourite stereotypes just a bit too well!!! Such is functionally specific and complex, so it is likely to be an artifact of design, not a mere natural happenstance. That is, yes, I am applying the explanatory filter, common sense version, to media information to detect propagandistic designs. (And you thought the ID EF was useless?) Now, let us clip some pretty explicit core ethical instructions from the Christian rule-book [specifically the New Testament], which would immediately identify whether this man's ideas and behaviour are legitimately Christian:

Rom 13:8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,”[a] and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. 1 Pet 3:8 Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For,

“Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. 11 He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”[a]

13 Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear what they fear[b]; do not be frightened.”[c] 15 But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 17 It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil . . . . 4:14 If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. 16 However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? . . . 19 So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.

Why is it that we find nowhere in the major media coverage any serious reflection of the sort of ethical teachings that I have just excerpted? No-one in even the most basic degree shaped by the teachings of Christ,the Apostles and Prophets, would condone, contemplate or worse actually carry out the sort of attack we have just seen in Norway. And contrary to the criminologist trotted out by BBC, this man is clearly demoniaclally, coldly mad. It seems he murdered about 100 people simply to grab global headlines for his demented cause, after he laid out his foul, Hell-scented fulminations at 1,500 pp length. If that is not demoniacally, criminally insane -- and yes you can be both mad and bad once you have a measure of rationality to think about moral issues -- and "thou shalt not kill" is not that hard to grasp -- I do not know what "madness" means. Then, that settled, let us now strike a nuanced balance, first expressing sympathies and condolences, and calling for common-sense correctives. For instance, in an era of Jihadi attacks how is it that a nation at war with Jihadism would allow a large scale retreat centre to operate without a fast security call-up and/or onsite people knowledgeable in how to -- and equipped with the tools to -- respond to a bombing or shooting attack? It is decades ago that Israel had to deal with waves of mass murders by shootings, and their common sense conclusion was that the attacks stop shortly after the first armed responders turn up and reply to the shooter in kind, as recently happened in the US in an attack on a church. So, teachers in schools etc were armed, and the number of successful incidents went way down. Of course, that does not eliminate the phenomenon, e.g. there was a sleeping family massacred recently. Similarly, right after the 9/11 attacks, I took the view that the best solution was that sound frequent travellers should be recruited into a voluntary corps of sky marshals, given training and licenses. And should be armed with appropriate weapons, non-lethal and lethal. [ . . . ] kairosfocus

AussieID: "Darwinian evolution" is the name for the scientific theory put forward by Darwin in his book "The Origin of Species". If you (or anyone else) wants to make the case that any terrorist was inspired by any writing by Darwin, or by anyone else that drew on that theory to justify an ideology, then don't call it "Darwinian", because not only is it not how the word is normally used, it invites equivocation between a scientific theory, which is morally neutral, and an ideology, which is not. Yes, the eugenicist thinking of the early twentieth century owed something to Darwin's theory. But call it by its right name: eugenicist. Darwin may or many not have been one; whether he was or not has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not his scientific theory is right or wrong. Breitvik may or may not have been a eugenicist (he doesn't seem to have been one to me, but it's possible - a lot of right wing fanatics are) but that does not make him a "Darwinian terrorist", any more than the likely fact that he accepts Newtonian physics makes him an "Newtonian terrorist". Nor do we call alchemy "Newtonian" just because Newton happened to think it had merit. Eugenics is morally reprehensible. That it is tells us nothing about whether Darwinian evolutionary theory is right or wrong, nor does holding the view that it is probably correct make one a eugenicist. To imply otherwise is to exploit a tragedy in aid of a divisive point-scoring exercise that has absolutely nothing to do with science. Elizabeth Liddle

Folks: I think we need to take a breath and calm down. Media whipped up hysteria -- e.g. the BBC was drumming out the same talking points being complained of at a rate of speed not seen in recent years -- is hardly the best mood to think straight in. (And BBC's failure to do due diligence is a far more serious offence to me than a headline such as the above, Dr Liddle. I do not agree with the headline, but it can be seen as pointing out how the attempt to twist the case from the patent case of the mad man it is, into yet another poisonously laced caricaturing attack on Christians -- remember the fulminations of TWT et al and their thereat made against my family only a few weeks back? -- is ill founded,a s one can find references enough to say St Darwin and his ideas to make much the same inference on clips taken out of context.) Next we need to put on our common sense, non-politically correct thinking caps, updating what my old grade school teachers used to say. Let's knock the chief poisonous talking point on the head right away. Oh how handy it has been [cf WND article here] for the spin-meisters to find this man referring to Europe's historic -- and now largely dead -- Christian culture as a counterweight to Islamist aggression, and talking in one breath about a hudna [temporary truce agreement with an Islamist state . . . usually up to 10 years] with the Islamists in parallel with an expulsion of Muslims and a "crusade" to reconquer some historic lands of Christendom now under Islamic control. Clipping the just linked:

Piecing together Breivik's various posts on the Internet, many media reports have characterized the terrorist – who says he was upset over the multiculturalist policies stemming from Norway's Labour Party – as a "right-wing, Christian fundamentalist." Yet, while McVeigh rejected God altogether, Breivik writes in his manifesto that he is not religious, has doubts about God's existence, does not pray, but does assert the primacy of Europe's "Christian culture" as well as his own pagan Nordic culture. Breivik instead hails Charles Darwin, whose evolutionary theories stand in contrast to the claims of the Bible, and affirms: "As for the Church and science, it is essential that science takes an undisputed precedence over biblical teachings. Europe has always been the cradle of science, and it must always continue to be that way. Regarding my personal relationship with God, I guess I'm not an excessively religious man. I am first and foremost a man of logic. However, I am a supporter of a monocultural [note the cultural reference] Christian Europe." . . . . "I trust that the future leadership of a European cultural conservative hegemony in Europe will ensure that the current Church leadership are replaced and the systems somewhat reformed," he writes. "We must have a Church leadership who supports a future Crusade with the intention of liberating the Balkans, Anatolia and creating three Christian states in the Middle East. Efforts should be made to facilitate the de-construction of the Protestant Church whose members should convert back to Catholicism. The Protestant Church had an important role once, but its original goals have been accomplished and have contributed to reform the Catholic Church as well. Europe should have a united Church lead [sic] by a just and non-suicidal pope who is willing to fight for the security of his subjects, especially in regards to Islamic atrocities." . . . . Breivik adds, "I went from moderately agnostic to moderately religious." In a question-and-answer section of his manifesto, Breivik asks himself, "What should be our civilisational [sic] objectives, how do you envision a perfect Europe?" His answer is hardly the response of a "Christian utopian": "'Logic' and rationalist thought (a certain degree of national Darwinism) should be the fundament [sic] of our societies. I support the propagation of collective rational thought but not necessarily on a personal level." . . . . Breivik also points out that his association with Christian cultural values is one of political expedience rather than religious commitment or faith "My choice has nothing to do with the fact that I am not proud of my own traditions and heritage," he explains. "My choice was based purely pragmatism. All Europeans are in this boat together, so we must choose a more moderate platform that can appeal to a great number of Europeans – preferably up to 50 percent (realistically up to 35 percent)." . . . . "As this is a cultural war, our definition of being a Christian does not necessarily constitute that you are required to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus," he writes. "Being a Christian can mean many things; That you believe in and want to protect Europe's Christian cultural heritage. The European cultural heritage, our norms (moral codes and social structures included), our traditions and our modern political systems are based on Christianity – Protestantism, Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and the legacy of the European enlightenment (reason is the primary source and legitimacy for authority). It is not required that you have a personal relationship with God or Jesus in order to fight for our Christian cultural heritage and the European way. In many ways, our modern societies and European secularism is a result of European Christendom and the enlightenment. It is therefore essential to understand the difference between a 'Christian fundamentalist theocracy' (everything we do not want) and a secular European society based on our Christian cultural heritage (what we do want). So no, you don't need to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus to fight for our Christian cultural heritage. It is enough that you are a Christian-agnostic or a Christian atheist (an atheist who wants to preserve at least the basics of the European Christian cultural legacy (Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter)). The PCCTS, Knights Templar is therefore not a religious organisation [sic] but rather a Christian 'culturalist' military order." . . .

A perfect illustration of those nasty right wing theocratic fundies, isn't it? NOT -- and, plainly, explicitly not. How much more explicit did this man have to be than:

"As this is a cultural war, our definition of being a Christian does not necessarily constitute that you are required to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus," he writes. "Being a Christian can mean many things; That you believe in and want to protect Europe's Christian cultural heritage. The European cultural heritage, our norms (moral codes and social structures included), our traditions and our modern political systems are based on Christianity – Protestantism, Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and the legacy of the European enlightenment (reason is the primary source and legitimacy for authority). It is not required that you have a personal relationship with God or Jesus in order to fight for our Christian cultural heritage and the European way. In many ways, our modern societies and European secularism is a result of European Christendom and the enlightenment. It is therefore essential to understand the difference between a 'Christian fundamentalist theocracy' (everything we do not want) and a secular European society based on our Christian cultural heritage (what we do want). So no, you don't need to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus to fight for our Christian cultural heritage. It is enough that you are a Christian-agnostic or a Christian atheist (an atheist who wants to preserve at least the basics of the European Christian cultural legacy (Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter)).

[ . . . ] kairosfocus

G'day DrBot, I disagree that anything has been 'twisted' to support an argument. I see too many Darwinian defenders who don't want to read anything that smears that reputation of the Beard. I hope noone here would hijack this madman's actions to benefit their cause. Having said that, though, why would legacy media sell a story with a base that he was a "Christian fundamentalist"? THAT is hijacking on a HUGE scale. I hope you are similarly offended by their actions and will say so in your next post. AussieID

Lastly, I am so sorry for all the families affected by Breivik in Norway. I write this distant from all these current events but near to one that happened in 1996 in Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia. Here a madman killed 35 people and injured over 20 others in a shooting spree on one day. I met and worked alongside support and social workers dealing with the aftermath. We worked with families deepy affected by his heinous crime. Healing is a long time coming and for many has not yet happened. Incidents like this we all hope are few and far between. AussieID

Peter Quinn sounds almost as fanatical in his ability to twist other peoples words to support his own ideology as the madmen who commit atrocities like this. I agree with EL, this almost joyous hijacking of the act of a lone madman by some regulars at UD to support a political agenda makes me angry, and it is quite sickening to see the depths of depravity that some here will stoop to support their ideological position. DrBot

Also, “In 1912, in his presidential address to the First International Congress of Eugenics, a landmark gathering in London of racial biologists from Germany, the United States, and other parts of the world, Major Leonard Darwin, Charles Darwin’s son, trumpeted the spread of eugenics and evolution. As described by Nicholas Wright Gillham in his A Life of Francis Galton, Major Darwin foresaw the day when ‘eugenics would become not only a grail, a substitute for religion, as Galton had hoped, but a “paramount duty” whose tenets would presumably become enforceable.’ The major repeated his father’s admonition that, though the crudest workings of natural selection must be mitigated by ‘the spirit of civilization,’ society must encourage breeding among the best stock and prevent it among the worst ‘without further delay’.” They go hand in hand. It is irresponsible not to say that one beget the other and are extricably linked. To my initial post it still stands: Legacy media have promoted this awful event as that of a "Christian Fundamentalist". He is not! But, IMAGINE if his Darwinian philosophical POV was the intro to the news story? AussieID

G’day Elizabeth, You write: “But leave Darwin out of it, and don’t imply that “Darwinian” means “eugenicist”. It does not.” I’ll answer that through the words of Peter Quinn in “What Darwin’s Champions Won’t Mention”. “Adrian Desmond and James Moore in their 1991 biography, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist, make clear that natural selection was intended as more than a theory of life’s origins. ‘Social Darwinism’ is often taken to be something extraneous, an ugly concretion added to the pure Darwinian corpus after the event, tarnishing Darwin’s image,’ they write. ‘But his notebooks make plain that competition, free trade, imperialism, racial extermination, and sexual inequality were written into the equation from the start-Darwinism was invented to explain human society’.” ““Darwin played a prime role in bringing about a fateful confusion between cultural and racial differences, conferring new scientific authority and intellectual legitimacy on theories of human inferiority central to eugenics, the most destructive medical movement in history.” “...“by the time Darwin published the second edition of The Descent of Man in 1874, he had added Francis Galton’s eugenic theories and Herbert Spencer’s ‘survival of the fittest’ social philosophy to the mix, calling Hereditary Genius, Galton’s treatise on the biological nature of intelligence and moral character, ‘remarkable’ and Spencer ‘our greatest philosopher’.” ““Darwin’s work is filled with references to the work of those involved in creating a radical new ‘scientific’ justification for labelling races, classes, and individuals as ‘inferior’. . . . Darwin writes in The Descent of Man that ‘a most important obstacle in civilized countries to an increase in the number of men of a superior class’ is the tendency of society’s ‘very poor and reckless,’ who are ‘often degraded by vice,’ to increase faster than ‘the provident and generally virtuous members’.” “All races, as it turns out, descend from the same ancestor but some are more descended than others. ‘I do not think that the Rev. Mr. Zincke takes an exaggerated view,’ Darwin declares, ‘when he says: “All other series of events-as that which resulted in the culture of mind in Greece, and that which resulted in the empire of Rome-only appear to have purpose and value when viewed in connection with, or rather as subsidiary to…the great stream of Anglo-Saxon emigration to the west”.’” “Sounding more like Colonel Blimp than Lieutenant Columbo, Darwin envisions a far grimmer future for races or sub-species less fit than the Anglo-Saxon. ‘At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world,’ he predicts. ‘At the same time the anthropological apes…will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state…even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla’.” “Darwin is cavalier about the extermination of lesser breeds. He estimates that minimal force will be required, for ‘when civilized nations come into contact with barbarians the struggle is short, except where a deadly climate gives its aid to the native race’.” AussieID

Quite. Frankly, I'm almost too angry to post right now. Elizabeth Liddle

EL:

I know of no person, atheist of otherwise, who was “happy about this”.

Polanyi:

... this is brilliant!

:) DrBot

Polanyi:

Oh atheists were so happy about this, another reason to show why “religion is the root of all evil”, they are not going to like how this turned out. Thank you so much for this post, this is brilliant!

I know of no person, atheist of otherwise, who was "happy about this". Except, presumably, Breikvik. Elizabeth Liddle

News (Denyse, I take it!):

Sorry, Elizabeth, it has got to come to light some time.

What has?

Note the addendum to the story above: [Note: The Finnish school shooter and the Columbine shooters also attributed their actions to Darwinism. Barry Arrington here was the lawyer for the Columbine victims and read through every single page of Eric Harris’ journals; I listened to all of the audio tapes and watched the videotapes, including the infamous “basement tapes.” There cannot be the slightest doubt that Harris was a worshiper of Darwin and saw himself as acting on Darwinian principles. For example, he wrote: “YOU KNOW WHAT I LOVE??? Natural SELECTION! It’s the best thing that ever happened to the Earth. Getting rid of all the stupid and weak organisms . . . but it’s all natural! YES!”

Denyse, I don't doubt, firstly, that some evil fanatics cite Darwin to justify eugenics (although they could equally have used the experience of animal breeding to justify it, and I assume you don't want to ban the teaching of animal breeding). Second, someone who believes in eugenics is not a "Darwinian" but a eugenicist. Thirdly, Breikvik does not appear to have been a eugenist. He targetted not Muslims, the carriers of the culture he opposed, but young supporters of the left-wing party, one can only suppose, inasmuch as one can suppose any logic in the actions of someone so evil, because they represented the future of a political ideology that promotes multiculturalism.

In the age of Darwin worship, the memory hole awaits this stark fact. But maybe not this time. - UD News.

If you find evidence that Breikvik was a eugenicist, then that should not be swallowed up in any "memory hole". But leave Darwin out of it, and don't imply that "Darwinian" means "eugenicist". It does not. And to suggest it does, and that it is related to terrorism, is, well, I am, literally at a loss for words.

WIlliam Jennings Bryan was right: Darwinism should not be taught in schools.

"Darwinism" is not taught in schools. Elizabeth Liddle

Polanyi "Oh DLH is so happy about this, another reason to show why “darwinism is the root of all evil” ..." DrBot

WIlliam Jennings Bryan was right: Darwinism should not be taught in schools.

Perhaps we can derive some 'oughts' from ID. I'm short sighted, so maybe I shouldn't be allowed to wear glasses, after all I was designed this way so what right have I to 'correct' this design 'feature'. Perhaps that is the point though, maybe it is intended that we fix what we perceive as flawed designs, and destroy what we perceive as broken - lets get rid of people with disabilities, after all they are design failures. Shouldn't we also be trying to protect the perfection of our design from contamination? Now lets decide what defined purity of design, race perhaps? (Wasn't this what Hitler argued!) It is very easy to construct a logic bubble to justify a prior goal. You could make a similar argument above from an evolutionary perspective. In both cases it is simply twisted logic designed to justify an ideological position - trying to derive an ought from an is. If I was designed then I ought to do this... If I evolved then I ought to do this... Neither the design hypothesis - we are the product of some intentional process - or evolutionary theory - we are the result of non intentional processes that operate when you have descent with modification - actually says anything about how we ought to behave. DrBot

Oh atheists were so happy about this, another reason to show why "religion is the root of all evil", they are not going to like how this turned out. Thank you so much for this post, this is brilliant! Polanyi

There is no doubt that such individuals like this Scandinavian have Nationist Socialists views. I live in Scandinavia and there are countless Neo-Nazi groups here who thrive on Darwinian Survival of the Fittest white Germanic/Nordic views and believe Scandinavia [Sweden, Norway, Danmark and Finland] should kick out the immigrants and go back to a more homogenous blonde haired-blue eyed society. So I don't doubt his Darwinian leanings which are no more than scientific justification for biggoted emtional views. But there was also a subject thread a couple of days ago where the commentors were also blaming Nazi propaganda and philosophy on Darwinian Principles, which I again believe are true. But what I don't understand are the so-called religious groups represented here pointing the finger[and rightly so] at the evils of Darwinian Thought, yet historically those same organizations gave their whole hearted support for Adolf Hitler and his Darwinian Racist schemes. Why ??? Why did the Churches[Protestant mostly] give their support for South Africa's Apartheid Laws ??? Why did the Protestant churches support and actually play a leading role in genecidal weeding out of the Aboriginal genetics of Australia ??? Clearly these activities developed and peaked just after Charles Darwin came out his "Origin of the Species" and "The Decent of Man". Why didn't the Bible help them to reject such Satanic thought, since clearly such racist ideas are not found in the original Christianity of the bible ??? Now before anyone displays righteous indignation here, just look at the historical records. Why recently the "Dutch Reformed Church" just apologized for their part in the South African racism. Clearly the 60+ million Christians[20+ M Catholic & 40+ M Evangelical Protestant taken from a middle 1920s census in just Germany alone] gave whole hearted support for Hitler's Darwinian views. Again the question is why and why not admit the mistake and move on ??? Both Atheisitc Darwinians and pseudo-Christians deserve blame for our world's astrocities. When I first came to Europe 6 years ago, I read about the French government's unconditional surrender to the occupying Nazis forces and a quote by a Reverend of the Mainz, Germany Evangelical Church who publically thanked God in prayer for sending Adolf Hitler to Germany as a Savior. Again, WHY ??? Maybe folks here should reserve judgement comments here until they examine their own church history. Otherwise you're coming off as bad as the gang as those degenerate Atheist forums. Maybe it would be healthier if the thread was closed altogether or at the very least admit the clear ignorant mistakes that were done by both sides. Eocene

tbh, I’d say it’s that kind of headline that feeds the very paranoid fanaticism that Breivik, tragically, embodies.

I agree, it is a shame this website is so tolerant of paranoid fanaticism. DrBot

The Finnish school shooter and the Columbine shooters also attributed their actions to Darwinism.

Where exactly does he attribute his actions to the theory of evolution? Can you provide a reference. Also, I notice that there is still a question of authenticity over the manifesto, and large parts of it were allegedly copied from the manifesto of Ted Kaczynski (The Unabomber). DrBot

Sorry, Elizabeth, it has got to come to light some time. Note the addendum to the story above: [Note: The Finnish school shooter and the Columbine shooters also attributed their actions to Darwinism. Barry Arrington here was the lawyer for the Columbine victims and

read through every single page of Eric Harris’ journals; I listened to all of the audio tapes and watched the videotapes, including the infamous “basement tapes.” There cannot be the slightest doubt that Harris was a worshiper of Darwin and saw himself as acting on Darwinian principles. For example, he wrote: “YOU KNOW WHAT I LOVE??? Natural SELECTION! It’s the best thing that ever happened to the Earth. Getting rid of all the stupid and weak organisms . . . but it’s all natural! YES!”

In the age of Darwin worship, the memory hole awaits this stark fact. But maybe not this time. - UD News.] WIlliam Jennings Bryan was right: Darwinism should not be taught in schools. News

Of course he was not a "Darwinian Terrorist". For shame. He was a deluded paranoid fanatic. What brand of delusion he entertained is of little relevance. What matters is the double delusion that the rightness of his delusion justified the killing of those who did not share it in the name of a greater good. From what we can glean from excerpts from his manifesto suggest that it was fiercely islamophobic, right wing, anti multicultural, and, that the culture he saw as under threat and in need of defence was a Christian conservative one. I'm sure every Christian conservative would dissociate themselves from his views - indeed simply not recognise them as Christian, as the Lutheran pastor who conducted one of the memorial services movingly said - just as every person who accepts Darwinian evolution as a supported theory for the origin of species would similarly dissociate themselves from those views. As would any atheist or liberal dissociate themselves from the views of Stalin or Pol Pot. I'd point out, however, that "Darwinian", unlike "Christian", "atheist", "conservative", or "liberal", is not a description of a belief system, nor is it a political ideology. It is a description of a scientific theory. Any belief system or political ideology is in danger of spawning deluded fanatics, and those fanatics my also entertain bizarre scientific theories - even invoke them to support their ideology. But scientific theories themselves are morally and ideologically neutral. They alone do not produce fanaticism. Belief systems and ideologies do. It was an appalling tragedy. To headline the first story about it as "A Darwinian Terrorist?" is, IMO, simply shameful. tbh, I'd say it's that kind of headline that feeds the very paranoid fanaticism that Breivik, tragically, embodies. I suggest you change it. Elizabeth Liddle

Personally, judging by the manifesto snippet, I think Shakespeare was clearly to blame

Absolutely.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition

It's clear that the actions of the Norwegian killer are the logical outcomes of the bloodthirsty philosphy embedded in Shakespeare. Prof. FX Gumby

Prof. FX Gumby @4 I agree, madmen who commit these acts tend to hijack and distort existing ideas and ideologies to justify their own acts. Sadly I'm not at all surprised to see this tragedy hijacked and distorted to suit the political agenda here. I don't quite share the optimism you express in the last paragraph. Personally, judging by the manifesto snippet, I think Shakespeare was clearly to blame ;) DrBot

Prof. FX Gumby, yes from your rundown of his books you list he looks like a mixed bag of crazy. However, what we are dealing with here (at least in the US) is two day 24 news cycle blast from the legacy media beating the "right-wing Christian fundamentalist" drum. The manifesto is out sure, but the populace is fully submerged and marinating in the original slime smear. This is how it works. Smear slime on page one, retraction or correction a week later buried on page 37 next to a Sears lawnmower ad. So a little balance is in order. junkdnaforlife

I've glanced through his manifesto myself (easily found online). It appears that the media is indeed incorrect in labelling him a Christian fundamentalist, but it's also incorrect for WND to say he identifies himself as Darwinian. The word "Darwin" in various forms is used a total of 5 times in his 1518 page manifesto. If he were really a self-proclaimed Darwinist, you'd think Charles would get a few more mentions? One of the mentions is in a list of "other important books I've read (in random order)" which includes "The Bible, Avesta, Quran, Hadith, Plato - The Republic, Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince, William Shakespeare - First Folio, Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason, Homer - Iliad and Odyssey, Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy, Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels - Communist Manifesto, Charles Darwin - The Origin of Species, Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace, Franz Kafka - The Trial, Arnold Joseph Toynbee - A Study of History." In the previous paragraph, he mentions Hobbes, Locke, Mill, George Orwell and Ayn Rand as being among his favourites. My point is that Breivik was first and foremost a nut. Attempts by any side to shoehorn him into their opponents' camp are simply shamefully cheap debating tactics and blatantly ridiculous. The same goes for any mass murdering nutcase. I would hope the readers and writers here have the maturity and honesty to recognise that. Prof. FX Gumby

Legacy media certainly has portrayed Breivik's motivation as being "right-wing, Christian fundamentalist" all over. On the second day we heard (in Australia)the same script being read on TV. Again, what aspect of Christianity has been shown? The unaware masses will once again hear and associate Christianity with evil but where no link is found. Wouldn't it be interesting if the newsreader did indeed read out, "A Darwinian-professing terrorist ..." What if? What if! AussieID

Well now it makes a bit more sense, if insanity can ever make sense,,, for it certainly didn't sound like any 'fundamentalist' Christian I ever met. My heart, and prayers, goes out for the families and communities. Praise You In This Storm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji2rLXr3cEU bornagain77

Natural selection needs a boost, like me with a shotgun. ~ Eric Harris bevets