But how can evolution be “wrong”?

_{Denyse O'Leary

June 23, 2019

Evolution, Intelligent Design}

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Out of Our Minds: What We Think and How We Came to Think It by [FernÃ¡ndez-Armesto, Felipe]

Concluding a review of Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s Out of Our Minds: What We Think and How We Came to Think It,
philosopher John Gray writes,

Most puzzling in this fascinating compendium of ideas is Fernández-Armesto’s own idea that human imagination is an immaterial faculty. “Human intelligence,” he avers, “is probably fundamentally unmechanical: there is a ghost in the human machine.” Again, he is not the first to suggest that the human mind may not be wholly explicable in mechanical terms. Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer with Darwin of modern evolutionary theory, believed the human animal emerged via natural selection but at some point acquired higher mental powers from a non-natural source. Having studied animal minds and emotions, Darwin was horrified by Russel Wallace’s suggestion. What was at stake for Darwin was not just his own theory, which was meant to include the human mind. It was the idea of science itself, which – though he never unequivocally rejected theism – he thought meant explaining events in the world by reference to natural processes within it. Whether Fernández-Armesto rejects this idea of science is unclear.
The puzzle is deepened by his observation that most ideas are bad or wrong or both. If what makes humans unique is the power of seeing what is not there, what makes them so destructive is that they believe what they have seen to be real. Untold millions have killed and died for the sake of dreams – gods, utopias, visions of the past or future – conjured up in the imagination. The ancient Gnostics, discussed by Fernández-Armesto when he considers the origins of Christianity, believed a malignant deity or “demiurge” had consigned human beings to a lower world of ghosts and phantasms. It’s an entertaining metaphysical speculation. But perhaps we should consider the more mundane possibility that in the course of its evolution something went badly wrong with the human brain. The destructive power of ideas may have a natural explanation. There may be no ghost in the human machine, simply some crossed wires we cannot untangle.
John Gray, “The perils of the human imagination” at New Statesman

Well, it’s important to know whether there is a “ghost in the human machine” vs. “crossed wires we cannot entangle” because the ghost may be acting badly. But evolution caan’t go “badly wrong.” Ain’t no such animal.

Comments

Bornagain77 @ 5
and yet,,, Richard Weikart has thoroughly documented how Darwinian ideology was foundational to the Nazis’ racism:
I haven't read Weikart's book. Have you? What I have read is that there are equally competent historians who strongly disagree with his interpretation of those events. I would also think it is possible to make a far stronger case that Nazi racism was much more firmly rooted in the anti-Semitism that had been endemic throughout Christian Europe for centuries before Darwin published. For Weikart to try and lay the blame squarely on Darwin sounds much more like anti-evolution advocacy than history. If that's what he's actually doing, then it is also little more than an extended argumentum ad consequentiam
The claim from atheists that Hitler was a Christian should be the very definition of the word ludicrous,,
Hitler hated Judaism. But he loathed Christianity, too. “In Hitler’s eyes Christianity was a religion fit only for slaves,” wrote Alan Bullock “Hitler, A Study in Tyranny,” a seminal biography. “Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle of the fittest.”

Perhaps Bullock was right but this was the same Hitler who said in a speech in Munich on April 12 1922:
My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. And as a man I have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient world some two thousand years ago—a civilization which was driven to its ruin through this same Jewish people
That sounds much more like the Christian anti-Semitism of Martin Luther.Seversky_{June 24, 2019
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Bornagain77 @ 4
In order to try to counterbalance the unmitigated horror committed by the atheistic/Darwinian regimes of the Nazis and Communists over the last century, Seversky reaches over the entire span of Christianity’s 2000 years of existence and cherry picks atrocities to try to claim that Christianity is as murderous as the atheistic/Darwinian regimes have been over the last century.
Slaughtering the women and children of a defeated enemy is an atrocity whether it's 200 or 200,000 victims. The numbers are irrelevant. You don't get Christianity off the hook by trying to argue they killed fewer. If they were true to their beliefs, they shouldn't have been killing any at all.

34Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

In rebuttal to that preposterous claim let me first point out that Christ himself, rather than call down 12 legions of angels to slay his enemies submitted himself instead to death on a Cross by the hands of his enemies:
Matthew 26:52-53 “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him. “For all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Are you not aware that I can call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?

So what? This is the same Jesus that said in Matthew 10:34-36
34Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

Modern day Atheists, starting with the French revolution, to Communist Russia to present day China and North Korea have been particularly brutal and murderous of professing Christians. The murderous brutality of present day Muslims against Christians in the middle east hardly needs to be mentioned since they often behead their Christian victims on TV.
Autocratic regimes are brutal in their treatment of any group, whether political or religious, that they perceive as a threat to their supremacy. Besides, no true Christian should be playing the victim card. They should be concerned with the suffering of others, not their own.Seversky_{June 24, 2019
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It is correct that human beings can be extremely evil--all kinds of human beings. But when it comes to concerning myself with genocide, evil empires and so forth, it just makes sense to put more weight on the recent past rather than the distant past. I'm not living in the 1200s. I'd spend my time worrying about totalitarianism, Communism,...EDTA_{June 23, 2019
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Seversky
When the dinosaurs became the dominants clade of animals on Earth for billions of years, that was neither right nor wrong, it’s just what happened. If you think it was right or wrong then you need to explain by what measure you are deciding that.

...looking at the anti-Semitic atrocities committed by the so-called Christian states of Europe for centuries before Darwin published …
Can you see a contradiction in those two ideas? In one case, evolution cannot be right or wrong. It is just what happens. In the next case, you bemoan certain "atrocities" and blame them on Christians. I think you have to pick one or the other. Christian morality or evolution which "can't be wrong about anything".Silver Asiatic_{June 23, 2019
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Seversky, you claimed that “Not one of those (Democides) are directly and solely attributable to Darwin’s theory.” and yet,,, Richard Weikart has thoroughly documented how Darwinian ideology was foundational to the Nazis’ racism:
From Darwin to Hitler – lecture video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_5EwYpLD6A In his book, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (2004), Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics (a movement wanting to control human reproduction to improve the human species), but also on euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination. This was especially important in Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles. The Role Of Darwinism In Nazi Racial Thought – Richard Weikart – October 2013 Excerpt: The historical evidence is overwhelming that human evolution was an integral part of Nazi racial ideology. http://www.csustan.edu/history/faculty/weikart/darwinism-in-nazi-racial-thought.pdf
As Adolph Hitler himself stated,
“The law of selection exists in the world, and the stronger and healthier has received from nature the right to live. Woe to anyone who is weak, who does not stand his ground! He may not expect help from anyone.” – Adolf Hitler “Any crossing of two beings not at exactly the same level produces a medium between the level of the two parents . . . Consequently, it will later succumb in the struggle against the higher level. Such mating is contrary to the will of Nature for a higher breeding of all life . . . The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he after all is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development of organic living beings would be unthinkable.” – Adolf Hitler – Mein Kampf
The claim from atheists that Hitler was a Christian should be the very definition of the word ludicrous,,
Hitler hated Judaism. But he loathed Christianity, too. “In Hitler’s eyes Christianity was a religion fit only for slaves,” wrote Alan Bullock “Hitler, A Study in Tyranny,” a seminal biography. “Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle of the fittest.” per washington post
Besides directly undermining Hitler’s, (and the overall German society’s), innate sense of objective morality, Darwinism also directly undermined Stalin and Mao’s innate sense of objective morality,
The Darwinian Foundation of Communism by Dr. Jerry Bergman Summary In the minds of Hitler, Stalin and Mao, treating people as animals was not wrong because they believed that Darwin had ‘proved’ humans were not God’s creation, but instead descended from some simple, one-cell organism. All three men believed it was morally proper to eliminate the less fit or ‘herd them like cattle into boxcars bound for concentration camps and gulags’ if it achieved the goal of their Darwinist philosophy. per answers in genesis
Karl Marx himself was deeply influenced by Darwin:
Darwin on Marx – by Richard William Nelson | Apr 18, 2010 Excerpt: Marx and Engels immediately recognized the significance of Darwin’s theory. Within weeks of the publication of The Origin of Species in November 1859, Engels wrote to Marx – “Darwin, by the way, whom I’m reading just now, is absolutely splendid. There was one aspect of teleology that had yet to be demolished, and that has now been done…. One does, of course, have to put up with the crude English method.” Marx wrote back to Engels on December 19, 1860 – “This is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our view.” The Origin of Species became the natural cause basis for Marx’s emerging class struggle movement. In a letter to comrade Ferdinand Lassalle, on January 16, 1861, Marx wrote – “Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.” Marx inscribed “sincere admirer” in Darwin’s copy of Marx’s first volume of Das Kapital in 1867. The importance of the theory of evolution for Communism was critical. In Das Kapital, Marx wrote – “Darwin has interested us in the history of Nature’s Technology, i.e., in the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which organs serve as instruments of production for sustaining life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis of all social organisation, deserve equal attention?” To acknowledge Darwin’s influence, Marx asked to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin. https://www.darwinthenandnow.com/2010/04/darwin-on-marx/
In fact, Lenin even kept a little statue of an ape staring at a human skull on his desk. The ape was sitting on a pile of books which included Darwin’s book, “Origin”.
“V.I. Lenin, creator of the Soviet totalitarian state, kept a little statue on his desk—an ape sitting on a pile of books including mine [The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle of Life], gazing at a human skull. And Mao Zedong, butcher of the tens of millions of his own countrymen, who regarded the German ‘Darwinismus’ writings as the foundation of Chinese ‘scientific socialism.’ This disciple mandated my works as reading material for the indoctrination phase of his lethal Great Leap Forward.” Nickell John Romjue, I, Charles Darwin, p. 45 https://thunderontheright.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/hitler-lenin-stalin-mao-and-darwin/
Here is a picture of what the little statue on Lenin’s desk looked like:
Hugo Rheinhold’s Monkey https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61Y8HpKyHOL._SL1009_.jpg
Stalin likewise, while at ecclesiastical school of all places, was also heavily influenced by Darwinism,
Stalin’s Brutal Faith Excerpt: 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” 1 1 E. Yaroslavsky, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing house, 1940), pp. 8-12. ,,, per icr
Even Chairman Mao was deeply influenced by Darwinian ‘morality’:
Darwin’s impact—the bloodstained legacy of evolution Excerpt: Chairman Mao is known to have regarded Darwin and his disciple Huxley as his two favourite authors. per creation DOT com Darwin and Mao: The Influence of Evolutionary Thought on Modern China – 2/13/2013 https://nonnobis.weebly.com/blog/darwin-and-mao-the-influence-of-evolutionary-thought-on-modern-china
Even today in America, with its strong Christian heritage, and even though America overcame the Nazi and Communist scourges in Europe, has not escaped unscathed from the devastating effects of “Darwinian morality”.
"At 1,200,000, Abortion is the leading cause of deaths each year in the USA" per skepchick How Darwin’s Theory Changed the World Rejection of Judeo-Christian values Excerpt: Weikart explains how accepting Darwinist dogma shifted society’s thinking on human life: “Before Darwinism burst onto the scene in the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of the sanctity of human life was dominant in European thought and law (though, as with all ethical principles, not always followed in practice). Judeo-Christian ethics proscribed the killing of innocent human life, and the Christian churches explicitly forbade murder, infanticide, abortion, and even suicide. “The sanctity of human life became enshrined in classical liberal human rights ideology as ‘the right to life,’ which according to John Locke and the United States Declaration of Independence, was one of the supreme rights of every individual” (p. 75). Only in the late nineteenth and especially the early twentieth century did significant debate erupt over issues relating to the sanctity of human life, especially infanticide, euthanasia, abortion, and suicide. It was no mere coincidence that these contentious issues emerged at the same time that Darwinism was gaining in influence. Darwinism played an important role in this debate, for it altered many people’s conceptions of the importance and value of human life, as well as the significance of death” (ibid.). per – gnmagazine. The Moral Impact Of Darwinism On Society – Dr. Phil Fernandes – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcQfwICe2Og The Cultural Impact of Darwinian Evolution – John West, PhD – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFh4whzh_NU
Verse:
Isaiah 1:19-20 If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best of the land. But if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.…
bornagain77_{June 23, 2019
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In order to try to counterbalance the unmitigated horror committed by the atheistic/Darwinian regimes of the Nazis and Communists over the last century, Seversky reaches over the entire span of Christianity’s 2000 years of existence and cherry picks atrocities to try to claim that Christianity is as murderous as the atheistic/Darwinian regimes have been over the last century. In rebuttal to that preposterous claim let me first point out that Christ himself, rather than call down 12 legions of angels to slay his enemies submitted himself instead to death on a Cross by the hands of his enemies:
Matthew 26:52-53 “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him. “For all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Are you not aware that I can call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?
Moreover, Christ himself commanded his followers to not return evil for evil but to return good for evil:
Matthew 5:38-40 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.
In fact, Jesus instead of commanding his followers to kill those who did not believe, (as Mohammad told his followers to do), instead told his followers to endure persecution.
John 15:20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.
In fact, all the disciples, save for John, suffered martyrs deaths.
Did the Apostles Really Die as Martyrs for their Faith? By Sean McDowell http://magazine.biola.edu/article/13-fall/did-the-apostles-really-die-as-martyrs-for-their-f/
Martyrdom, especially where Christians were a minority, has been a staple of Christian life throughout Christian history:
The New Encyclopedia of Christian Martyrs – September 1, 2001 https://www.amazon.com/New-Encyclopedia-Christian-Martyrs/dp/0801012252
Modern day Atheists, starting with the French revolution, to Communist Russia to present day China and North Korea have been particularly brutal and murderous of professing Christians. The murderous brutality of present day Muslims against Christians in the middle east hardly needs to be mentioned since they often behead their Christian victims on TV. In fact, Christianity easily qualifies for the most persecuted religion in the world today:
Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians http://www.amazon.com/Persecuted-The-Global-Assault-Christians/dp/1400204410 Knowing our world: The three major reasons for persecution of Christians worldwide – Denyse O’Leary Excerpt: The world-wide picture is sobering. Pew Research Center, Newsweek, and The Economist all agree that Christians are the world’s most widely persecuted group. Marshall and team offer information about three quite different reasons for persecution by different types of regimes (pp. 9–11): First, there is post-Communist persecution, following the collapse of Communism in the late 1980s, where the regimes ” … have since retreated to an onerous policy of registration, supervision, and control. Those who will not be controlled are sent to prison or labor camps, or simply held, abused, and sometimes tortured.” The most intense persecutor is the still Communist (not post-Communist) regime, North Korea (pp. 9–10). There, “Christians are executed or sent to prison camps for lengthy terms for such crimes as the mere possession of a Bible.” Second, in some countries, “Hindu or Buddhist religious movements equate their religion with the nature and meaning of their country itself.” They persecute minority tribes as well as religions (pp. 10–11). These countries include Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan. Third, of course the Muslim world where “Even though the remaining Communist countries persecute the most Christians, it is in the Muslim world where persecution of Christians is now most widespread, intense, and, ominously, increasing. Extremist Muslims are expanding their presence and sometimes exporting their repression of all other faiths. … Even ancient churches, such as the two-thousand-year-old Chaldean and Assyrian churches of Iraq and the Coptic churches of Egypt, are under intense threat at this time. (p. 11).” http://www.thebestschools.org/bestschoolsblog/2013/03/30/knowing-world-major-reasons-persecution-christians-worldwide/
That hardly sounds like Christianity is the murderous religion that Seversky is falsely trying to portray Christianity as being. And even if you add up all the murderous atrocities that were listed by Seversky (that were committed by those who falsely claimed to be Christians even though they were killing people in direct contradiction to the commandments of Christ), the number of murders is still only a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of millions of murders committed by those who followed the morality enshrined in Darwin’s maxim ‘survival of the fittest’, (as well as those hundreds of millions of murders committed by Muslims following the murderous teachings of Mohammad):
Tears of Jihad - Mar 3 2008 | by Bill Warner Excerpt:,,,120 million Africans,,, ,,,60 million Christians,,, ,,,80 million Hindus,,, ,,,10 million Buddhists,,, This gives a rough estimate of 270 million killed by jihad (since Islam was founded). https://www.politicalislam.com/tears-of-jihad/
bornagain77_{June 23, 2019
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Seversky, you claimed that "Not one of those (Democides) are directly and solely attributable to Darwin’s theory." and yet,,, Richard Weikart has thoroughly documented how Darwinian ideology was foundational to the Nazis’ racism:
From Darwin to Hitler – lecture video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_5EwYpLD6A In his book, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (2004), Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics (a movement wanting to control human reproduction to improve the human species), but also on euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination. This was especially important in Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles. The Role Of Darwinism In Nazi Racial Thought – Richard Weikart – October 2013 Excerpt: The historical evidence is overwhelming that human evolution was an integral part of Nazi racial ideology. http://www.csustan.edu/history/faculty/weikart/darwinism-in-nazi-racial-thought.pdf
As Adolph Hitler himself stated,
“The law of selection exists in the world, and the stronger and healthier has received from nature the right to live. Woe to anyone who is weak, who does not stand his ground! He may not expect help from anyone.” – Adolf Hitler “Any crossing of two beings not at exactly the same level produces a medium between the level of the two parents . . . Consequently, it will later succumb in the struggle against the higher level. Such mating is contrary to the will of Nature for a higher breeding of all life . . . The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he after all is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development of organic living beings would be unthinkable.” – Adolf Hitler – Mein Kampf
The claim from atheists that Hitler was a Christian should be the very definition of the word ludicrous,,
Hitler hated Judaism. But he loathed Christianity, too. “In Hitler’s eyes Christianity was a religion fit only for slaves,” wrote Alan Bullock “Hitler, A Study in Tyranny,” a seminal biography. “Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle of the fittest.” per washington post
Besides directly undermining Hitler’s, (and the overall German society’s), innate sense of objective morality, Darwinism also directly undermined Stalin and Mao’s innate sense of objective morality,
The Darwinian Foundation of Communism by Dr. Jerry Bergman Summary In the minds of Hitler, Stalin and Mao, treating people as animals was not wrong because they believed that Darwin had ‘proved’ humans were not God’s creation, but instead descended from some simple, one-cell organism. All three men believed it was morally proper to eliminate the less fit or ‘herd them like cattle into boxcars bound for concentration camps and gulags’ if it achieved the goal of their Darwinist philosophy. per answers in genesis
Karl Marx was deeply influenced by Darwin:
Darwin on Marx – by Richard William Nelson | Apr 18, 2010 Excerpt: Marx and Engels immediately recognized the significance of Darwin’s theory. Within weeks of the publication of The Origin of Species in November 1859, Engels wrote to Marx – “Darwin, by the way, whom I’m reading just now, is absolutely splendid. There was one aspect of teleology that had yet to be demolished, and that has now been done…. One does, of course, have to put up with the crude English method.” Marx wrote back to Engels on December 19, 1860 – “This is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our view.” The Origin of Species became the natural cause basis for Marx’s emerging class struggle movement. In a letter to comrade Ferdinand Lassalle, on January 16, 1861, Marx wrote – “Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.” Marx inscribed “sincere admirer” in Darwin’s copy of Marx’s first volume of Das Kapital in 1867. The importance of the theory of evolution for Communism was critical. In Das Kapital, Marx wrote – “Darwin has interested us in the history of Nature’s Technology, i.e., in the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which organs serve as instruments of production for sustaining life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis of all social organisation, deserve equal attention?” To acknowledge Darwin’s influence, Marx asked to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin. https://www.darwinthenandnow.com/2010/04/darwin-on-marx/
In fact, Lenin even kept a little statue of an ape staring at a human skull on his desk. The ape was sitting on a pile of books which included Darwin’s book, “Origin”.
“V.I. Lenin, creator of the Soviet totalitarian state, kept a little statue on his desk—an ape sitting on a pile of books including mine [The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle of Life], gazing at a human skull. And Mao Zedong, butcher of the tens of millions of his own countrymen, who regarded the German ‘Darwinismus’ writings as the foundation of Chinese ‘scientific socialism.’ This disciple mandated my works as reading material for the indoctrination phase of his lethal Great Leap Forward.” Nickell John Romjue, I, Charles Darwin, p. 45 https://thunderontheright.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/hitler-lenin-stalin-mao-and-darwin/
Here is a picture of what the little statue on Lenin’s desk looked like:
Hugo Rheinhold’s Monkey https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61Y8HpKyHOL._SL1009_.jpg
Stalin likewise, while at ecclesiastical school of all places, was also heavily influenced by Darwinism,
Stalin’s Brutal Faith Excerpt: 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” 1 1 E. Yaroslavsky, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing house, 1940), pp. 8-12. ,,, http://www.icr.org/article/stalins-brutal-faith/
Even Chairman Mao was deeply influenced by Darwinian ‘morality’:
Darwin’s impact—the bloodstained legacy of evolution Excerpt: Chairman Mao is known to have regarded Darwin and his disciple Huxley as his two favourite authors. per creation DOT com Darwin and Mao: The Influence of Evolutionary Thought on Modern China – 2/13/2013 https://nonnobis.weebly.com/blog/darwin-and-mao-the-influence-of-evolutionary-thought-on-modern-china
Even today in America, with its strong Christian heritage, and even though America overcame the Nazi and Communist scourges in Europe, has not escaped unscathed from the devastating effects of “Darwinian morality”.
At 1,200,000, Abortion is the leading cause of deaths each year in the USA – graph http://skepchick.org/wp-conten.....704889.jpg How Darwin’s Theory Changed the World Rejection of Judeo-Christian values Excerpt: Weikart explains how accepting Darwinist dogma shifted society’s thinking on human life: “Before Darwinism burst onto the scene in the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of the sanctity of human life was dominant in European thought and law (though, as with all ethical principles, not always followed in practice). Judeo-Christian ethics proscribed the killing of innocent human life, and the Christian churches explicitly forbade murder, infanticide, abortion, and even suicide. “The sanctity of human life became enshrined in classical liberal human rights ideology as ‘the right to life,’ which according to John Locke and the United States Declaration of Independence, was one of the supreme rights of every individual” (p. 75). Only in the late nineteenth and especially the early twentieth century did significant debate erupt over issues relating to the sanctity of human life, especially infanticide, euthanasia, abortion, and suicide. It was no mere coincidence that these contentious issues emerged at the same time that Darwinism was gaining in influence. Darwinism played an important role in this debate, for it altered many people’s conceptions of the importance and value of human life, as well as the significance of death” (ibid.). per - gnmagazine. The Moral Impact Of Darwinism On Society – Dr. Phil Fernandes – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcQfwICe2Og The Cultural Impact of Darwinian Evolution – John West, PhD – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFh4whzh_NU
Verse:
Isaiah 1:19-20 If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best of the land. But if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.…
bornagain77_{June 23, 2019
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Bornagain77 @ 1
“169,202,000 Murdered: Summary and Conclusions [20th Century Democide] I BACKGROUND 2. The New Concept of Democide [Definition of Democide] 3. Over 133,147,000 Murdered: Pre-Twentieth Century Democide II 128,168,000 VICTIMS: THE DEKA-MEGAMURDERERS 4. 61,911,000 Murdered: The Soviet Gulag State 5. 35,236,000 Murdered: The Communist Chinese Ant Hill 6. 20,946,000 Murdered: The Nazi Genocide State 7. 10,214,000 Murdered: The Depraved Nationalist Regime III 19,178,000 VICTIMS: THE LESSER MEGA-MURDERERS 8. 5,964,000 Murdered: Japan’s Savage Military 9. 2,035,000 Murdered: The Khmer Rouge Hell State 10. 1,883,000 Murdered: Turkey’s Genocidal Purges 11. 1,670,000 Murdered: The Vietnamese War State 12. 1,585,000 Murdered: Poland’s Ethnic Cleansing 13. 1,503,000 Murdered: The Pakistani Cutthroat State 14. 1,072,000 Murdered: Tito’s Slaughterhouse IV 4,145,000 VICTIMS: SUSPECTED MEGAMURDERERS 15. 1,663,000 Murdered? Orwellian North Korea 16. 1,417,000 Murdered? Barbarous Mexico 17. 1,066,000 Murdered? Feudal Russia” This is, in reality, probably just a drop in the bucket. Who knows how many undocumented murders there were. It also doesn’t count all the millions of abortions from around the world. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
Not one of those are directly and solely attributable to Darwin's theory. If he had never published, it's highly likely that all of them would have happened because they were driven by political and religious beliefs that had no basis in evolutionary theory even if it was occasionally used as a justification. As for Weikart's anti-evolutionary BS, before taking him at his word, thy looking at the anti-Semitic atrocities committed by the so-called Christian states of Europe for centuries before Darwin published.
Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown. In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. Council of Toledo 694: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities’ Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total. Second Crusade: 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. Fulda, Germany 1235: 34 Jewish men and women slain. 1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. 1290 in Bohemia (Poland) 10,000 Jews killed. 1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. 1348 All Jews of Basel, Switzerland and Strasbourg, France (two thousand) burned. 1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). 1389 In Prague 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. 1391 Seville’s Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored “badges of shame” that all Jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear. 1492: In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way. 1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain.
Or if, you want some Biblical stats:
GE 34:13-29 The Israelites kill Hamor, his son, and all the men of their village, taking as plunder their wealth, cattle, wives and children. GE 6:11-17, 7:11-24 God is unhappy with the wickedness of man and decides to do something about it. He kills every living thing on the face of the earth other than Noah's family and thereby makes himself the greatest mass murderer in history. EX 9:22-25 A plague of hail from the Lord strikes down everything in the fields of Egypt both man and beast except in Goshen where the Israelites reside. EX 12:29 The Lord kills all the first-born in the land of Egypt. EX 17:13 With the Lord's approval, Joshua mows down Amalek and his people. EX 32:27 "Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. EX 32:27-29 With the Lord's approval, the Israelites slay 3000 men. NU 12:1-10 God makes Miriam a leper for seven days because she and Aaron had spoken against Moses. NU 15:32-36 A Sabbath breaker (who had gathered sticks for a fire) is stoned to death at the Lord's command. NU 16:27-33 The Lord causes the earth to open and swallow up the men and their households (including wives and children) because the men had been rebellious. NU 16:35 A fire from the Lord consumes 250 men. NU 16:49 A plague from the Lord kills 14,700 people. NU 21:3 The Israelites utterly destroy the Canaanites. NU 21:35 With the Lord's approval, the Israelites slay Og "... and his sons and all his people, until there was not one survivor left ...." NU 25:4 (KJV) "And the Lord said unto Moses, take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun ...." NU 25:8 "He went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly." NU 25:9 24,000 people die in a plague from the Lord. NU 31:9 The Israelites capture Midianite women and children. NU 31:17-18 Moses, following the Lord's command, orders the Israelites to kill all the Midianite male children and "... every woman who has known man ...." ) NU 31:31-40 32,000 virgins are taken by the Israelites as booty. Thirty-two are set aside (to be sacrificed?) as a tribute for the Lord. DT 2:33-34 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Sihon. DT 3:6 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Og. DT 7:2 The Lord commands the Israelites to "utterly destroy" and show "no mercy" to those whom he gives them for defeat. DT 20:13-14 "When the Lord delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the males .... As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves." DT 20:16 "In the cities of the nations the Lord is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes." JS 6:21-27 With the Lord's approval, Joshua destroys the city of Jericho--men, women, and children--with the edge of the sword. JS 8:22-25 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly smites the people of Ai, killing 12,000 men and women, so that there were none who escaped. JS 10:10-27 With the help of the Lord, Joshua utterly destroys the Gibeonites. JS 10:28 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the people of Makkedah. JS 10:30 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Libnahites. JS 10:32-33 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the people of Lachish. JS 10:34-35 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Eglonites. JS 10:36-37 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Hebronites. JS 10:38-39 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Debirites. JS 11:21-23 Joshua utterly destroys the Anakim. JG 1:4 With the Lord's support, Judah defeats 10,000 Canaanites at Bezek. JG 1:17 With the Lord's approval, Judah and Simeon utterly destroy the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath. JG 3:29 The Israelites kill about 10,000 Moabites. JG 20:43-48 The Israelites smite 25,000+ "men of valor" from amongst the Benjamites, "men and beasts and all that they found," and set their towns on fire. JG 21:10-12 "... Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword and; also the women and little ones.... every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall utterly destroy." They do so and find four hundred young virgins whom they bring back for their own use. 1SA 14:48 Saul smites the Amalekites. 1SA 15:3, 7-8 "This is what the Lord says: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass ....' And Saul ... utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword." 1SA 30:17 David smites the Amalekites. 2SA 8:5 David slew 22,000 Syrians. 2SA 8:13 David slew 18,000 Edomites in the valley of salt and made the rest slaves. 1KI 20:29-30 The Israelites smite 100,000 Syrian soldiers in one day. A wall falls on 27,000 remaining Syrians. 2KI 14:5, 7 Amaziah kills his servants and then 10,000 Edomites. 2KI 19:35 An angel of the Lord kills 185,000 men. IS 13:15 "Everyone who is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their ... wives will be ravished." IS 13:18 "Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children." IS 14:21-22 "Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers."
Seversky_{June 23, 2019
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But evolution caan’t go “badly wrong.” Ain’t no such animal.
By George, she's got it! When the dinosaurs became the dominants clade of animals on Earth for billions of years, that was neither right nor wrong, it's just what happened. If you think it was right or wrong then you need to explain by what measure you are deciding that. Unfortunately, for those with the hubris to believe that humans are in some way special, the same is true of us. There's no reason to think it's somehow "right" that we have become the dominant species of life on Earth, at least for a short time. More likely, we just got lucky and that means we could just as easily get unlucky if we aren't careful.Seversky_{June 23, 2019
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It is good to see that John (“human life has no more meaning than that of slime mould”) Gray,,,
“human life has no more meaning than that of slime mould.” John Gray - Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals - page 33 - 2002
It is good to see that John (“human life has no more meaning than that of slime mould”) Gray has finally realized how destructive unrestrained imagination can be,,
"Untold millions have killed and died for the sake of dreams,,, conjured up in the imagination." - John Gray
Too bad that John Gray has not yet realized that Darwinian evolution itself is based, not on empirical science, but on unrestrained imagination.
As I have pointed out several times now, assuming Naturalism instead of Theism as the worldview on which all of science is based leads to the catastrophic epistemological failure of science itself.
Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris), who has unreliable beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the reality of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Bottom line, nothing is real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, – Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – video – 39:45 minute mark https://youtu.be/8rzw0JkuKuQ?t=2387
Thus, although the Darwinist may firmly believes he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to. It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
And indeed, as John Gray pointed out, untold millions have died and suffered untold misery because of the unrestrained imagination of the pseudo-science of Darwinian evolution,,,
If we present man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present him as an automation of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of instincts, heredity, and environment, we feed the despair to which man is, in any case, already prone. I became acquainted with the last stages of corruption in my second concentration camp in Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment—or, as the Nazis liked to say, of ‘Blood and Soil.’ I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers. —Viktor E. Frankl, Holocaust survivor and Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry, University of Vienna Medical School; from his book, The Doctor and the Soul: Introduction to Logotherapy, 1982, p. xxi). “169,202,000 Murdered: Summary and Conclusions [20th Century Democide] I BACKGROUND 2. The New Concept of Democide [Definition of Democide] 3. Over 133,147,000 Murdered: Pre-Twentieth Century Democide II 128,168,000 VICTIMS: THE DEKA-MEGAMURDERERS 4. 61,911,000 Murdered: The Soviet Gulag State 5. 35,236,000 Murdered: The Communist Chinese Ant Hill 6. 20,946,000 Murdered: The Nazi Genocide State 7. 10,214,000 Murdered: The Depraved Nationalist Regime III 19,178,000 VICTIMS: THE LESSER MEGA-MURDERERS 8. 5,964,000 Murdered: Japan’s Savage Military 9. 2,035,000 Murdered: The Khmer Rouge Hell State 10. 1,883,000 Murdered: Turkey’s Genocidal Purges 11. 1,670,000 Murdered: The Vietnamese War State 12. 1,585,000 Murdered: Poland’s Ethnic Cleansing 13. 1,503,000 Murdered: The Pakistani Cutthroat State 14. 1,072,000 Murdered: Tito’s Slaughterhouse IV 4,145,000 VICTIMS: SUSPECTED MEGAMURDERERS 15. 1,663,000 Murdered? Orwellian North Korea 16. 1,417,000 Murdered? Barbarous Mexico 17. 1,066,000 Murdered? Feudal Russia” This is, in reality, probably just a drop in the bucket. Who knows how many undocumented murders there were. It also doesn’t count all the millions of abortions from around the world. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM Hitler, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao – quotes - Foundational Darwinian influence in their murderous ideology (Nov. 2018) https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/historian-human-evolution-theorists-were-attempting-to-be-moral-teachers/#comment-668170
bornagain77_{June 23, 2019
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