Beginning with the Columbine Massacre:
It was the spring of 1999, a Denver suburb. The day, April 20 — Adolf Hitler’s birthday. An 18-year-old white nationalist, Eric Harris, donned a shirt emblazoned with “Natural Selection” before heading off to high school. For weeks he had been preparing a special event in honor of the Führer. Together with a co-conspirator, Dylan Klebold, he planted a bomb in the Columbine High School cafeteria. Harris planned to shoot his fellow students as they fled the explosion. When the bomb failed to detonate, he and Klebold entered the school and opened fire, killing 13 and wounding 24 before turning their guns on themselves.
Why was Harris — as are many white nationalists today — so eager to honor both Hitler and Darwin? Why did he think Darwin’s theory of natural selection provided fodder for his white nationalist ideology?
If we delve deeply into the ideology of Nazis, neo-Nazis, and white nationalists, we find that Darwinism — the view that species have evolved over eons of time through the process of natural selection — plays a fundamental role, shaping their views about race and society.
Richard Weikart, “Darwinian Racism: How Evolutionary Theory Shaped Nazi Thinking” at Evolution News and Science Today (February 2, 2022)
You may also wish to read: Historian Richard Weikart helps talk show maven Whoopi Goldberg (born Caryn Elaine Johnson, 1955) understand why the Holocaust WAS about race. Weikart is not trying to Cancel Goldberg; rather, he thinks there are some things she (and perhaps most people) don’t clearly understand about the Holocaust. First, to the Nazis — whatever anyone else may think — it was about race. Weikart goes onto explain in considerable detail that the on-the-ground interpretation of Darwinism underlay this development.
Denis Rader, the “BTK killer”, was a member of the Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita and had been elected president of the church council.. Does that invalidate Christianity?
Weikart’s anti-Darwinian campaign sounds like one long argument from consequences fallacy.
Obviously, Denis Radar was not a Christian
@Seversky:
Did you not notice the “LUTHERAN church” in the sentence above? Martin Luther is beloved by white nationalists. They even use him in their ads.
Sev,
I think you are looking for “guilt by association”. In Weikart’s case, he is connecting cause and effect. In contrast, nobody has said that Lutheranism or Rader’s particular church caused him to kill.
And obviously not a Scotsman.
Darwin’s second book had a direct line to the eugenicists that ended up with Nazi ideology and continues with anyone who believes race means anything. It was Darwin who wrote about civilized races killing off the savage races of man as a positive thing.
Darwin’s first book led to survival of the fittest playing out under Stalin and other socialist/communist nations who killed millions of their own people under the guise of might makes right, which is survival of the fittest.
Sc, fail. First, Christian commitment involves a core moral transformation dimension, one is usually born a Scot irrelevant to his or her later moral state. It is possible to profess Christian faith falsely, and it is possible for a claimed church to be an assembly of evil (and that is assuming that the church, for the sake of argument, supported him in his wrongdoing, I suspect there is a good chance it did not).
For a simple example on the underlying point, let me cite a key foundational ethical-theological text:
In short, you err, first, as you do not know the teaching you are clearly deeply hostile to.
Secondly, you manifestly wish to taint in order to marginalise in the context of an atmosphere-poisoning distraction from a serious point by a serious scholar.
let us therefore refocus that point through a key text from Herr Schicklegruber’s writings:
There is no reasonable doubt as to Darwin’s influence here. And from Darwin’s second book, the Descent of Man, we see a telling further argument taken as a mere matter of fact on the way to “explaining” missing links*:
There is a clear line from Darwin to Schicklegruber and it is high time to acknowledge it.
Nor, is revulsion at racism, undermining of sound morals, eugenics, euthanasia, genocide etc mere fallacious emotive appeal to consequences, as objectors above should know, reductio is more than to incoherence, demonstrating severe failing at the bar of first duties that govern our very rationality is a very legitimate and sound point. Where, already evolutionary materialism can neither account for mind nor morality without self-referential discredit or even account for the functionally specific, complex organisation and information required for origin of body plans including our own.
It is time to rethink.
KF
* We now have millions of fossils in museums, billions observed in the ground [e.g. Barbados is in major part literally built out of fossil coral, with fossil clams aplenty in the midst; just look at road cuts]. The gaps are even deeper and systematic, to the point of being a trade secret of Paleontology, echoing Gould.
Sev, kindly see the just above. Here is Huxley’s student, Wells, giving a literary warning on consequences in the opening words of War of the Worlds:
The implication was there and was understood long before the Nazi aggression.
KF
PS, just from Wikipedia, it is obvious that Rader led a secret, demonic life driven by awful fantasies which were concealed from wife and daughter much less community and church.
As something observed many times, it is definitely not a fail. For example. Is Anders Brevek a Christian?
Sc, it is obvious that you simply sidestepped a highly substantial issue, in order to continue a well poisoning agenda. That speaks and not to your benefit. Meanwhile, the direct evidence that gives key substantiation on Weikart’s concern is also sidestepped. KF
PS: Brevik, I gathered, identified with the cultural Christian heritage but is more of the same; I gather he had little regard to Christian commitment and of course resorted to out of control anger then to murder. (I cannot say whether he has had a latterday conversion experience, I only can hope he does even as a certain thief on a cross.) Moral transformation, by sharpest contrast, is central to Christian commitment and genuine discipleship, it cannot be sidestepped without violence to what it means to be a genuine Christian. I would note that even in the scotsman case there are certain breed standards such as great courage that are so close that there is a serious sense in which a born Scot who resorts to cowardice is a failed Scot . . . and that comes through even to my own family which has that derivation, generations later; oats is not quite the same level but you bet it was on the breakfast table and explicitly tied to that heritage. The civilisational formation that was significantly gospel influenced, Christendom, as with any civilisation, has been of mixed character, and indeed, the very calls to prayer, penitence and thanksgiving issued by the Continental Congress cited in another current thread pivot on precisely that issue. The corrective is that regarding liberty and lawful order, the challenge is that the natural tendency of government is lawless oligarchy. At the kind of individual level and extreme group level in this OP, it needs to be frankly faced that the texts cited are real, both from Darwin and Herr Schicklegruber. Wells raised the concern in a classic and widely circulated novel half a century before the holocaust. That some continue to cling to racism tied to classic Darwinist ideas is sad but needs to be faced. Also, the sobering challenge that evolutionary materialism undermines and marginalises moral government. Then, we have the central, corrupting evil of an in progress holocaust that beats the Nazi slaughter of Jews every couple of months. There is need for reformation.
😆 It’s not about people who make mistakes in one side or another , it’s about the background ideology .
Darwinism? Humans just accidents in this universe. Moving pieces of meat that will rot tomorrow. Nothing to see here folks. Nothing is objectively important. You can do whatever you want as long as you are not caught.
Christianity?Human have objective value, uniqueness ,dignity. Eveything he/she does has objective value/or is objective evil . You cannot do whatever you want without objective repercussions even nobody saw you , a sin doesn’t depent if others know about it or not because is on God to judge.
There is such a huge difference between these 2 ideologies that seems insane that are real people that would defend darwinism.
I rest my case. If Joe the Christian does something that Frank the Christian thinks is wrong, Frank will always that Joe is not a true Christian (Scotsman).
I am not criticizing Christianity, I am criticizing Christians.
Scamp
Breivik has identified himself as a fascist[42] and a Nazi,[43] who practices Odinism.[43][44][45]
“Breivik mener Jesus er “patetisk” [Breivik thinks Jesus is “pathetic”]”. Dagen (in Norwegian). 19 November 2015.
“Breivik: Jeg er ikke kristen (Breivik: I am not a Christian)”. Vårt Land (in Norwegian). 15 November 2015.
LCD
People often create that diversion – by referring to individuals instead of the worldview or theory.
Any manner of violence or murder is compatible with Darwinism. Evolution is amoral. It doesn’t even require what is useful or what is rational or ethical.
Christianity has moral and ethical norms. Serial killing is not compatible with Christianity.
At the same time, every Christian has moral failings. Just because someone commits a sin doesn’t mean he is not a Christian. If he insists that something like murder is compatible with Christianity, then he’s not a believing Christian on that point.
Sc, you are still side stepping the core foundational teaching by an apostle, echoing his master in the all time most famous sermon. i cite it again for your convenience:
Even being a true Scotsman echoes this, as I already noted. Courage is so core a Scottish value that a born Scot who turns coward is a failed Scot. Only, moral transformation through penitent faith and the in-working of the Holy Spirit is even more central to genuine Christian commitment.
Murder is a kind of blasphemy against God, who made his creatures in his image, that is how serious it is, and the gospel ethics starts murder from hate and even undue anger.
So, it is ever more clear that you are fighting against plain facts because you wish to taint Christians and the Christian faith. the cases you cite are not typical of even those who have some affinity towards Christianity through merely cultural identity without any serious commitment. Of such, another Apostle says, faith without works is dead. You are now perilously close to those who in their outright bigotry have tried to suggest that Herr Schicklegruber was a Christian acting out of the tenets of his faith when he set out on aggressive war, mass murder and genocide. Such things say more about the mentality that tries to argue like that than it does about the Christian faith and how genuine disciples of Jesus behave, for all our struggles to consistently live by the teachings of Christ.
Maybe I should note what James also said, so, you believe that there is but one God, you do well — so do the devils and they tremble. A genuine Christian commitment pivots on penitent faith, and it leads to inner transformation expressed in life.
As, likely, you well can know from any number of cases you implicitly refuse to acknowledge.
Sad.
And, of course, you have found this as an oh so handy red herring led away to a strawman soaked in ad hominems, that you have set alight to cloud, confuse, poison and polarise the atmosphere so that the focal evidence on the table regarding the point in the OP and its substantiation is left conveniently behind.
Your resort to toxic distractors speaks.
KF
SA, thanks for the clarification. I had seen news items where he gave some cultural identification back when his terrorist attack was news. KF
KF, I admit that the Brevik example was over-the-top. As far as I know, there is not a single Christian who would try to argue that he was a true Christian.
But why don’t we use a couple more relevant examples.
1) Would you think it possible that a person who believes that having pre-marital sex is acceptable can be a true Christian?
2) Would you believe that a man married to another man can be a true Christian?
3) Would you believe that a woman who uses an IUD can be a true Christian?
Sc, you continue distractions. KF
F/N: Let us refocus from OP:
Now, Darwin:
No footnotes, no recoiling in horror, just, oh that explains gaps. (Except now, with millions of fossils in labs and museums and billions observed all over the world and across the column, the gaps are if anything more deeply pronounced.)
So, let’s see Wells, student of Huxley in the 1890’s, opening words of War of the Worlds:
Now, Herr Schicklegruber:
Weikart has a point.
As for the Columbine murderer, we can see how he might fit right in.
KF
Let’s assume that Hitler’s Holocaust was a direct result of his interpretation of evolutionary theory. Or Stalin’s, or Mao’s. So what?
Sc, the point is, evolutionary materialism is an anti civilisational ideology which here is documented to support aggressive, murderous racism. Which was pointed out in the OP. Further to this, it undermines not only responsibility [i.e. moral government of our freedom] but by reducing rationality to computation on a substrate [how programmed?] it undermines rationality too — a dynamic-stochastic computation is NOT free reasoning. and it undermines freedom ending in grand delusion. Nor is this exactly news, here is Haldane, a co founder of the Neo-Darwinian synthesis:
That’s where it ends, self-defeating utter incoherence that defeats and falsifies itself. Such cannot be true. And, as was documented, by turning such into a crooked yardstick set up as a false standard — which means what is genuinely straight, accurate, upright cannot ever come up to the imagined standard — there is enabling of demonic, murderous chaos. Some may be so benumbed that they react so what, but that is simply telling us they have fallen victim to misanthropic, anticivilisational destructive fallacies. Which is what the history records. But then, such refuse to heed the inconvenient lessons of history. But that’s just another way to see how they have become enablers of misanthropy and anticivilisational chaos and tyranny. KF
PS, nor was this merely Schicklegruber’s idiosyncratic interpretation, H G Wells alone is more than enough to highlight such and Weikart actually documented a massive trend drawing on Darwin’s work. Indeed, the excerpt from Darwin himself is chilling. It’s time to wake up. As for let’s assume, that simply shows refusal to acknowledge the actuality of direct statements, ie denial of objective fact regarding roots of a ruinous ideology via selective hyperskepticism enabling evasiveness.
scamp:
That isn’t obvious at all. Clearly you are just another ignorant troll.
Actions speak. Radar’s actions proved he was not a Christian. It isn’t my fault that you are too dim to understand that.
Anders Brevek wasn’t a Christian at the time he was planning and committed the murders.
No one just gets to call themselves a Christian. That is meaningless. It’s your words and actions that make one a Christian.
Again. So what? Even if I agree that Darwin’s theory has been used to justify all of the atrocities that you list, how does that say anything about the validity of the theory?
Chemistry and physics have killed far more people than evolution. Why aren’t you railing against these subjects?
Sc, anti civilisational ideologies are destructive. As for the validity, that is a very mixed bag due to the issue of unwarranted extrapolation and the pattern of other “engines of variation.” There is some micro stuff such as circumpolar species complexes and how the American Elk and European Red Deer turned out to be freely interfertile in New Zealand. That in no wise allows us to extrapolate to origin of body plans etc, even things like wings. The information threshold is way beyond blind search capability of the observed universe much less our Sol system. When the theory goes beyond even that to be taken as warranting evolutionary materialistic scientism, that is more than an extrapolation too far, and it undermines even the credibility of mind, becoming anti civilisational and self-refuting. As for the physical sciences, we have acknowledged our part in the technology of war etc, the problem in hand is that the biology and its extensions into health and medicine have not adequately done so as can be seen from responses to the above on the line from Darwin in Descent of Man. Similarly, the ongoing holocaust of living posterity in the womb mounts at a million per week. KF
Accepting that evolutionary theory is the best model for what we observe is not an anti civilizational ideology. It does not dictate or suggest any behaviour. Morality comes from the individual, not from a theoretical model of cause and effect.
Sc, evolutionary theory only prevails as alleged best explanation through ideological imposition of a priori materialism which is where the anti-civilisational import arises. Start with, explain origin of life by blind physics and chemistry in a warm pond or the like, accounting for the metabolic network and integrated von Neumann kinematic self replication facility to get reproduction. Also, the implied coded string data structures with codes and algorithms for such a vNSR, which show language and goal directed stepwise process; genome length ~ 100 – 1,000+ kbases. Such is, root of tree of life and is necessary for a complete explanation that has a right to be deemed best, no you cannot skip so called chemical evolution. Then go on to provide an actual observation based anchor for origin of body plans by the dozens, each with genomes ~ 10 – 100+ million bases. Sol system search resources are 10^17 s and 10^57 atoms, mostly H and He in the Sun. Cosmic scale goes to 10^80 atoms and organic relevant reactions are ~ 10^12 – 14/s for fast ones. No, apart from ideological imposition there is no way that the modern evolutionary, scientism based narrative constitutes a best explanation, where codes [seen in D/RNA] are language and algorithms [ditto] are stepwise goal directed processes. KF
PS, on ideological imposition and indoctrination, this is a cat out of the bag classic moment:
PPS, we find ourselves inescapably under branch on which we all sit moral government starting with self evident first duties that even attempted objectors cannot but appeal to, with sound conscience as a witness. No, we do not invent or imagine such then bind them on others, that is a thinly disguised appeal to grand delusion which is self referential and given the pervasiveness of first duties to truth, right reason etc and the linked conscience attested sense of duty, that reflexivity would instantly end in absurdity. No, the only place where the is-ought gap can be successfully bridged is the root of reality, on pain of ungrounded oughtness.
PPPS, The late Philip Johnson replied to Lewontin:
Evolutionary theory says absolutely nothing about the origin of life and never intended to. It only speaks to how life changes over time.
Sc, did you observe above why I pointed to chemical evo and OoL as well as origin of body plans? As in, the root of the tree of life is pivotal to the tree as in no root no tree? And, the OoL case is in fact a first case of the broader problem, origin of body plans. Do I need to observe that textbooks generally tie the two together for very similar reasons, back in my day highlighting Miller Urey as if it were practically a solution to the problem? As to never intended to, Darwin is the person who speculated about his warm pond, then from the 1920’s to now from Oparin on, there has been a continual attempt to solve the implicit challenge of Darwin’s only illustration in Origin, the tree of life. Let’s make it simple: trees have roots and the tree of life’s root is OoL. As in, where did the coded strings [language!], algorithms [goal directed stepwise processes], execution machinery using molecular nanotech and the von Neumann kinematic self replicator in the cell come from? In short, the oh let’s not go there inadvertently highlights key holes in the framework. No root, no tree. KF
But evolutionary theory does not address the origin of the root. Natural selection acting on variation simply is not an origins theory. There are origin theories but they are either vastly incomplete or mythical.
Using the possible negative consequences of applying evolutionary theory to social decision making as an argument that evolutionary theory is wrong is faulty logic, pure and simple.
Sc, you are doubling down, the root is essential to the tree and is the root of the issue so to speak. We can take the doubling down as an implicit acknowledgement of a critical point of breakdown. That is, there is no good reason to accept the speculations as remotely plausible in accounting for the key elements of an encapsulated, smart gated, metabolising, genetic information storing, self replicating entity, including the functionally specific complex organisation and associated information, on blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. Such includes complex coded strings, algorithms and executing machinery, i.e. language and goal-directed stepwise processes. We of course know on trillions of cases the consistent source of language and goal directed processes, intelligence acting through design. Design in the root, design pervades the tree and accounts for the FSCO/I in dozens of major body plans. Inference to the best, empirically based current explanation, using the principle, like causes like. KF
PS, the problem with oh argument to consequences is that this becomes fallacious only if there is an essentially emotive leap, not a reduction to absurdity. Where, the first absurdity of evolutionary materialistic scientism was highlighted by Haldane, 90 years ago and remains unresolved:
If true, we could not know it as ability reason and warrant has been discredited.
Further, its amorality and opening the door to nihilistic factionalism, known since Plato, is part of that absurdity, the marginalisation of moral knowledge and associated desensitisation to wickedness up to mass murder etc as we know from recent history, is simply a striking feature of the general self referential undermining of rationality, warrant and knowledge. It is far more certain that we are rational and that rationality is inherently morally governed as a part of how it works than that a self referentially absurd claim that undermines rationality is warranted.
We have every epistemic right to reject evolutionary materialistic scientism, never mind its deep embedding in institutions of influence and lab coats.
PPS: It is almost a footnote to point out that the notion that science monopolises or is the decisive, dominant form of knowledge is a philosophical claim and is itself self-referential and self defeating.
True!
But evolutionary theory is an invalid theory by any logic/evidence imaginable was/is being used to drive social decisions. And when bad social outcomes are the result of these social decisions, the invalid theory is ignored.
Are then the proponents of these invalid theories condoning these bad social decisions and then just as guilty?