At The Stream: Why IS racism wrong if Darwinism is true?

_{Denyse O'Leary

March 8, 2020

Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Racism}

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Ask Darwinists — who believe that all life, and our life, and our intellects, are the waste product of random mutation and ruthless natural selection — a few simple questions. You’ll quickly encounter The Thing. It’s their answer to every question. So I wrote, in an essay (Brew a cup of coffee and read it!) aimed at college teachers. They should demand of their “Woke” students answers to each of the following:
What’s wrong with racism?
Why is inequality bad?
Why should those who enjoy the benefits of “privilege” ever surrender it?
If the results of injustice are more aesthetically pleasing to me than those of justice, why shouldn’t I choose injustice? Assuming that I can keep the whip hand, of course. Whatever answers they manage, teachers should “critique [each] response by referring strictly to Darwinian materialism. Any argument that can’t withstand that corrosive acid, toss in the trash.”
John Zmirak, “In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word Was with the Thing, and the Word Was the Thing” at The Stream

Here’s the essay Zmirak refers to.

Hmmm. It may be cruel to expect the young Woke to think carefully about such questions. They might be so much better adapted by their education to relieving their intellectual frustrations by smashing things.

See also: Historian Richard Weikart weighs in on Darwinian anti-Semitism in Poland. According to Weikart, unfortunately, it is not fake news. White nationalists use Darwinism and evolutionary psychology to promote their perspective.

Comments

KF @ 132: This is great! JT says a Christian is more likely to have a criminal record than an Athiest, you 'counter' with a bunch of non-sequitars, I point out your non-seqs, and you reply with ... the 'True Scotsman' fallacy! And then you recommend a book that "... will be eye opening reading on what we are up against". I click on it annnd - it's by Vox Day!!! You've got to move UPWIND from that volcano! Best of all, you have obviously not read the last two lines of the original message you're responding to! Go read message 120 again, this time reading the entire message and not jumping to conclusions and starting to type before you finish it. The last two sentences are separated from the previous paragraph by a blank line to make it easy to find. - 2 points for bad form.MatSpirit_{March 11, 2020
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@134 Ed George
Reason isn’t governed by anything.
Whaat?! Were not you a 'scientist'? Reason is not governed by anything? Have you heard about physico-chemical processes? Neurotransmitters? Brains? 'Natural selection'? Wow.
Reason is an ability.
Nope. C-. It is the result of neuronal processes, like windiness is the result of digestive processes. Ain't naturalism lovely?Truthfreedom_{March 11, 2020
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Anybody else see an inconsistency between demanding atheists provide solid, well-grounded reasoning for their morality but when it comes to God's moral prescriptions it's all "Okay, boss, whatever you say" and no questions asked?Seversky_{March 11, 2020
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@132 Jim Thibodeau
Yeah, if somebody is mugging me, I’m not thinking “well at least his morality is properly grounded, unlike that considerate guy over there sipping coffee!”
Of course not! You should be thinking : "he is a meat-robot, the result of RM+NS+billions of years, with no-epiphenomenal morals, unlike that considerate meat-robot over there robotically sipping coffee". It’s a bunch of empty, typical, darwinian non-sense.Truthfreedom_{March 11, 2020
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KF
Nope, EG, it is obvious that it has not registered with you that our reason itself is inescapably morally governed, by first duties to truth, right reason, prudence, sound conscience, fairness & justice etc.
Reason isn’t governed by anything. Reason is an ability. I can reason that killing people is not good for society and, therefore, not good for me. In fact, can you think of any moral value that cannot be arrived at by our ability to reason, predict consequences, etc? Hopefully you realize that our reason is a subjective process. It takes in objective evidence and spits out subjective conclusions.Ed George_{March 11, 2020
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JT, your attempt to dismiss analysis of the first duties of reason in fact inescapably appeals to same and directly fails. You seem utterly unwilling to recognise that ideas have consequences. There is no prize for guessing why. KF PS: Again, the 2360 year old lesson from history that has you so desperate:
Ath [in The Laws, Bk X 2,360 ya]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ --> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity] . . . . [Thus, they hold] 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, leading to an effectively arbitrary foundation only for morality, ethics and law: accident of personal preference, the ebbs and flows of power politics, accidents of history and and the shifting sands of manipulated community opinion driven by "winds and waves of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming . . . " cf a video on Plato's parable of the cave; from the perspective of pondering who set up the manipulative shadow-shows, why.]
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 -- having no IS that can properly ground OUGHT -- leads to the promotion of amorality on which the only basis for "OUGHT" is seen to be might (and manipulation: might in "spin") . . . ]
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 influenced by that amorality at the hands of ruthless power hungry nihilistic agendas], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is,to live in real dominion over others [ --> such amoral and/or nihilistic factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless abuse and arbitrariness . . . they have not learned the habits nor accepted the principles of mutual respect, justice, fairness and keeping the civil peace of justice, so they will want to deceive, manipulate and crush -- as the consistent history of radical revolutions over the past 250 years so plainly shows again and again], and not in legal subjection to them [--> nihilistic will to power not the spirit of justice and lawfulness].
kairosfocus_{March 11, 2020
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MS & JT, If about 4/5 of a country across all classes are nominally Christian in identity -- not, Christian by repentance, personal commitment and life-transforming discipleship [a far smaller number] . . . another issue with the posing of the matter already -- then you will obviously find that that nominal identity will dominate in crime statistics. If on the other hand, you specify and measure by good proxies for serious Christian commitment, the proportion will be far, far lower. I have already noted that those who explicitly identify as atheists will tend to come from classes unlikely to be in the criminal system for the sort of crimes most in gaol are there for. White collar crimes are another matter. And, collectively, there is the issue of the ongoing holocaust, a natural law crime that under colour of law is actually protected by law enforcement agencies. Further to this, we note a desperation to distract attention from the implications of and historical lessons regarding evolutionary materialism. Remember, just in the past century atheistical regimes murdered over 100 millions and it is no accident that penetration of atheistical worldviews and cultural agendas in halls of power are directly connected to the dehumanisation of the unborn that set the stage for the ongoing, worst holocaust in history. KF PS: It is striking to see the attitude and hostility being revealed in this thread. Folks, this is what is lurking in the hearts of indoctrinated atheists, and the parallel to what Plato warned against so long ago should give us pause. PPS: I suspect this book will be eye opening reading on what we are up against, including on this latest rhetoric of tainting argument.kairosfocus_{March 11, 2020
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@MatSpirit, yeah, if somebody is mugging me, I’m not thinking “well at least his morality is properly grounded, unlike that considerate guy over there sipping coffee!” It’s a bunch of empty rhetoric.Jim Thibodeau_{March 11, 2020
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JT: All of this fancy philosophizing overlooks the important thing about morality which is behavior. If you randomly grab an atheist in America and a Christian in America, and you had to bet on one of them having a criminal record, which one would you bet on? KF @ 121: JT, you have been taken in by a statistical trick. The number of people in the US who are nominally Christian is quite large and spans the range of social classes. The number of declared atheists is by comparison tiny and is typically biased to the classes not likely to indulge in violent crime, or to be caught and convicted for white collar crimes. Let's see now ... John says the AVERAGE Christian is much more likely to have a criminal record than the AVERAGE athiest and you accept that without argument. You try to excuse this because their are more Christians than athiests, but that does not compute because we're talking about averages. You also say that Christians span all social classes. So do athiests. Oh wait, you have a third reason: Athiesm is "... biased to the classes not likely to indulge in violent crime or to be caught and convicted for white collar crimes." In plainer English, you're saying that the typical athiest has BETTER morality than the typical Christian. For once, I agree with you.MatSpirit_{March 11, 2020
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Another darwinian blunder:
Evolution can readily make something from nothing.
Attention: magical thinking from adults/ 'scientists'. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03061-xTruthfreedom_{March 11, 2020
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@127 Vividbleau:
This is nuts, how can something exist that doesnt exist?
Darwinian logic. - Nature's purpose is that it has no-purpose. 150+ years of this crap.Truthfreedom_{March 11, 2020
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“If there is no objective morality then subjective morality is all that is available.” ‘This is nuts, how can something exist that doesnt exist? Vividvividbleau_{March 11, 2020
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acartia:
If there is no objective morality then subjective morality is all that is available.
Thankfully there is objective morality. But that hasn't prevented people from changing it to suit their needs. That's what people do when they can't live up to the standards set for them. And then fools like you come around and proclaim it has always been subjective.ET_{March 11, 2020
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Acartia:
Why you refuse to see a reduction in the abortion rate as good news is a mystery to me.
Because it is still way too high, duh. Someone once said that we can tell something about the nature of a country by how it treats its most vulnerable. We seem to relish in killing our most vulnerable. So what does that say about us?ET_{March 11, 2020
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EG, >"Personally, I think that questioning “traditional” values is a good thing. " Questioning them is fine. Throwing out in one generation values that have been around for thousands of years, and doing it with no thought to the consequences, is reckless to say the least. The generation that ushered in the sexual revolution for instance, had no clue what they were doing nor where it would lead.EDTA_{March 11, 2020
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JT, you have been taken in by a statistical trick. The number of people in the US who are nominally Christian is quite large and spans the range of social classes. The number of declared atheists is by comparison tiny and is typically biased to the classes not likely to indulge in violent crime, or to be caught and convicted for white collar crimes. Further, the issue on the table is a natural law crime, but it is not deemed crime because of what has been passed under colour of law. The concern, is that the enabling of holocaust we see is corrupting our whole civilisation. KFkairosfocus_{March 11, 2020
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JT, dismissive language about philosophising fails to realise that for good or ill, ideas and words have consequences. KFkairosfocus_{March 11, 2020
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JAD & EG:
[JAD:] The key question is: does atheistic naturalism/materialism provide a sufficient foundation for interpersonal moral values and obligations? [EG:] This is an irrelevant question. If there is no objective morality then subjective morality is all that is available. And as has been discussed here before, all evidence from recorded history is consistent with subjective morality. Either that or objective morality is so indecipherable as to be indistinguishable from subjective morality.
Nope, EG, it is obvious that it has not registered with you that our reason itself is inescapably morally governed, by first duties to truth, right reason, prudence, sound conscience, fairness & justice etc. If those duties are merely subjective delusion, it directly implies that our rational faculties are pervaded by grand delusion and collapse in utter incoherence, discredit and absurd chaos. So, we can freely conclude that that opinion is absurdly false. We are in fact under such first duties of reason and live in a world where such makes sense. I again point to Plato's warning, never mind that you and others of like ilk have studiously ignored the following lessons of history paid for in blood and tears:
Ath [in The Laws, Bk X 2,360 ya]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ --> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity] . . . . [Thus, they hold] 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, leading to an effectively arbitrary foundation only for morality, ethics and law: accident of personal preference, the ebbs and flows of power politics, accidents of history and and the shifting sands of manipulated community opinion driven by "winds and waves of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming . . . " cf a video on Plato's parable of the cave; from the perspective of pondering who set up the manipulative shadow-shows, why.]
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 -- having no IS that can properly ground OUGHT -- leads to the promotion of amorality on which the only basis for "OUGHT" is seen to be might (and manipulation: might in "spin") . . . ]
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 influenced by that amorality at the hands of ruthless power hungry nihilistic agendas], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is,to live in real dominion over others [ --> such amoral and/or nihilistic factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless abuse and arbitrariness . . . they have not learned the habits nor accepted the principles of mutual respect, justice, fairness and keeping the civil peace of justice, so they will want to deceive, manipulate and crush -- as the consistent history of radical revolutions over the past 250 years so plainly shows again and again], and not in legal subjection to them [--> nihilistic will to power not the spirit of justice and lawfulness].
KFkairosfocus_{March 11, 2020
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All of this fancy philosophizing overlooks the important thing about morality which is behavior. If you randomly grab an atheist in America and a Christian in America, and you had to bet on one of them having a criminal record, which one would you bet on? All the castles-in-the-sky word games about grounding etc. would disappear and you’d bet on the Christian. Cuz that’s statistically the correct bet.Jim Thibodeau_{March 11, 2020
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JT, are you aware that the rate of the ongoing slaughter of our living posterity in the womb is per Guttmacher-UN, about fifty million per year? If so, you need to do some serious explaining of dismissive language on how some are vested in saying the sky is falling. If you do not know these numbers or the statistical toll over 40+ years, 1.4 billion [we can readily show 800+ million and on a rough plateau since the 90's that report is plausible], you need to ask why those numbers are not commonly known. Do you know how many were killed in Auschwitz, now a memorial to a horror that set evil loose on the world 70+ years ago? A few weeks worth of the current global slaughter. And BTW, the American share is about 63 millions. Six times the toll of the specifically Jewish holocaust and over twice the losses suffered by the USSR or China in the wider second world war [I count in Mongolia and China since 1931]. I think you need to so some serious rethinking. KFkairosfocus_{March 11, 2020
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EG,
And the acceptable rate of lung cancer zero, yet we celebrate reductions in the rate of lung cancer. Why you refuse to see a reduction in the abortion rate as good news is a mystery to me.
lung cancer is a disease, pregnancy is not. That already speaks i/l/o your attempt to compare holocaust with lung cancer. Holocaust is mass killing of the innocent enabled by state power or the equivalent. That you resorted to such an attempted dismissal simply digs in deeper on the issue. My concern is and remains, that there is global mass killing of our living posterity in the womb -- the ultimately innocent -- under false colour of law, with state enabling, media manipulation, corruption of health care, health services and professions. At a rate that, per Guttmacher-UN is about a million victims per week. That is it is of order four to five times the overall Nazi holocaust per year. Your inability to acknowledge this, having had it repeatedly pointed out to you, is itself a sign of our mortal peril as a civilisation. KFkairosfocus_{March 11, 2020
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Thank you for bringing this up. The abortion rates continue to drop. Another sign that civilization is heading in the right direction.
I don’t know where you are, but here in America the crime rate has been going down for over 25 years. Leaded gasoline was giving people brain damage in the womb, especially in inner cities, and 20 years after tetraethyl lead was banned, the crime rate started seriously declining.Jim Thibodeau_{March 11, 2020
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JaD
The key question is: does atheistic naturalism/materialism provide a sufficient foundation for interpersonal moral values and obligations?
This is an irrelevant question. If there is no objective morality then subjective morality is all that is available. And as has been discussed here before, all evidence from recorded history is consistent with subjective morality. Either that or objective morality is so indecipherable as to be indistinguishable from subjective morality.Ed George_{March 11, 2020
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JT
@EdGeorge you are not emotionally invested in believing the sky is falling. Some people are.
Some people perceive that any change to what they see as "traditional", whatever that means, must be a bad thing. In reality, change can be either good for society, bad for society or neutral. However, even with "good" changes, there is often unforeseen and/or unintended consequences. For example, providing children with comprehensive and non-judgmental information about sex, risks, contraceptives, etc., and providing unrestricted access to contraceptives, has had the beneficial consequence of reducing unwanted pregnancies and therefore abortions. But it is not without unintended consequences such as an increased questioning of "traditional" moral teachings. Personally, I think that questioning "traditional" values is a good thing. Without this questioning we would still have slavery, indentured servitude, subjugation of women, persecution and prosecution of homosexuals, stigmatizing of unmarried women who have sex, etc. However, I realize that there are some here who feel that questioning moral values is wrong.Ed George_{March 11, 2020
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I think the commenters here on my side (those who are sympathetic with traditional natural law morality) unfortunately, have repeatedly allowed our atheist interlocutors to take the discussion off the rails. The key question is: does atheistic naturalism/materialism provide a sufficient foundation for interpersonal moral values and obligations? That is the question that no one from their side has been able to answer. Why haven’t they? Is it because they can’t? Probably. You can’t have a rational discussion about morality (questions about what is right or wrong, good or evil etc.) without propositions or premises which are self-evidently true. For example, I would argue that self-centeredness is a very poor basis for any kind of interpersonal morality. And, that “moral subjectivism” is nothing more than ego centric self-centeredness. Here is my very succinct argument as to why I think so-called moral subjectivism is an illegitimate basis for any kind of viable system of morality.
I have no obligation (epistemically or morally) to accept ungrounded and baseless personal (subjective) opinions. On the other hand, interpersonal morality requires moral obligation (what we ought or ought not to do.) Therefore, it is impossible to base any kind of interpersonal morality on ungrounded personal opinions.
We can further conclude that what is referred to as “moral subjectivism,” cannot provide a viable basis for interpersonal morality or universal human rights. Indeed at best, the term “moral subjectivism” is an oxymoron; at worst, it’s just plain moronic. Again, from what I can see so-called moral subjectivism is just a euphemism for ego centric self-righteousness. People use euphemisms when they don’t want to honestly face the real implications of their beliefs.john_a_designer_{March 11, 2020
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Evolutive Genesis 1:1 (AJV)
There is neither Meaning nor Purpose, neither slave nor free, for you are all evolutive slaves and meaningless puppets.
A very appealing, inclusive doctrine. It even has its deranged 'popes' (dawkins, coyne).Truthfreedom_{March 11, 2020
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@110 Jim Thibodeau How does 'logic' relate to 'evolution'? Thank you.Truthfreedom_{March 11, 2020
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Evolutive Genesis 1:1
There is neither Meaning nor Purpose, neither good nor bad, nor is there morals and justice, for you are all one in Meaninglessness.
Truthfreedom_{March 11, 2020
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@EdGeorge you are not emotionally invested in believing the sky is falling. Some people are.Jim Thibodeau_{March 11, 2020
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@Ed George Why do you believe men and women are equal? Under your beloved evolutionary religion both are equally 'useless and defective lumps of messy DNA'. Is that what you mean?Truthfreedom_{March 11, 2020
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