Posted on 04/08/2005 5:59:08 PM PDT by CHARLITE
In all our contemporary conflicts over the teaching of evolution in schools, there’s one question that nobody asks: To what does the embrace of Darwinism lead?
Historian Richard Weikart explores that topic in a book called From Darwinto Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. Despite that provocative title, Weikart is no sensationalist. He’s not out to prove that Hitler and the Nazi party were directly inspired by Charles Darwin’s theories. But what Weikart does demonstrate, through exhaustive research, is that Darwin’s ideas about the origin of species helped create a culture that devalued human life. And in that culture, Nazism was able to thrive.
Darwin wasn’t the first person to claim that the strong and healthy have higher value than the weak and sick, or that some races are inferior to others. Those ideas, Weikart says, were around long before Darwin. What Darwin provided was a scientific foundation for these beliefs. Weikart writes, “Only in the late nineteenth and especially the early twentieth century did significant debate erupt over issues relating to the sanctity of human life. . . . It was no mere coincidence that these contentious issues emerged at the same time that Darwinism was gaining an 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.” And it wasn’t just the sanctity of life that came under attack. Darwinism also strengthened what Weikart calls “scientific racism,” the theory that some races were less fully evolved than others.
Because of Darwin’s theories, leading scientists in the early part of the twentieth century felt emboldened to propose radical ideas about how the sick or members of other races should be treated. Even as we read them today, some of their statements still sound shocking in their willful ignorance. Several scientists, for example, compared the mentally ill to apes. Textbooks were written that allegedly demonstrated scientifically that Africans, Native Americans, and Australian aborigines were subhuman. The eugenics movement—advocated in Americaas well as Europe—was able to bring about the sterilization of thousands of supposedly “inferior” people.
In that environment, a young Adolf Hitler found fertile soil for his radical ideas for the “super race.” Weikart could not trace those ideas directly to Darwin, as we have little evidence of which authors Hitler read and admired. But in his days in Viennaand Munich, theories about racial inequality were everywhere. As Weikart says, “Eugenics and euthanasia . . . were embraced by a diverse crowd of secular social reformers,” and their ideas filled the popular press. The few authors we do know that Hitler admired were steeped in that culture.
Those ideas are still with us today. Look at what happened to Terri Schiavo a week ago. It’s a good time for us to remind people of the social consequences of Darwinism as Weikart so well documents. It’s bad enough to teach flawed theories in a classroom, but it gets downright dangerous when we let such theories lead us to a diminished view of human life and dignity.
Leaving aside the author's bogus assertions and misinterpretations of evolution leading to immorality, the issue of whether believing in evolution leads to immorality or not is completely irrelevant to whether it's true or not.
If somehow people believing the moon was made of green cheese led them to commit less violence and theft, that wouldn't then justify falsely teaching kids in school that the moon was made of green cheese.
When human beings believe they are Gods, the deaths of a Terri Schiavo occur. Next, Congressmen Frank, Wexler, and their "secular, death" cronies in the Democrat Party will be calling for the deaths of the aged and infirm, so as to reduce the excess "older" population. Then, when that happens, the Democrat Party can truly declare: "There is no Social Security problem"!!!
Yeah, but if you think your actions is permitted because
that's just the way the world works, many types of behaviours
can be "excused". It's not like people need "excuses" to
behave the way they do, to themselves, or to others, since
people have done what they do since we can remember, and since
there is a written history, but it sure can justify oneselves
actions or beliefs.
Example: people always laugh about the "Darwin" Awards...
instead of one saying about the person who "wins" the award,
"Wow, that person was confused, how did they get to think
they could really do that??"... etc...
One can say, "Oh, well, it's just the law of the universe,
working itself out" Two different mindsets which would lead
to different types of feelings about the events, and possibly
two different actions...in at least that way, it can make a huge
difference.
I agree with you completely. I've never had a problem with creation vs. evolution. To me, there isn't an intellectual or spiritual conflict, and you are so right that Darwin's theory has been misused by any number of advocates for different "theologies" to prove their own specific points of view; - ideas and conclusions with which Darwin himself would disagree.
I don't happen to believe for an instant that man evolved from apes, and I don't think that Darwin ever implied such a thing. But I do believe that reptiles evolved from marine life by adapting to life (with legs) on land.......millions of years ago. I also think that dinosaurs were related to the bird family.
Thanks for your response; - excellent comment.
Char :)
Think of it as Evolution in Actiom
That's odd. I always do an "Exact Phrase" search before posting any article. Nothing came up when I searched this one.
Sorry about that. I guess sometimes the search engine slips up.
Char
People have been subjugating and wiping each other out- for all of recorded and unrecorded history. Your socialist fascist talking points are tripe.
I work with a lot of writers (many of them very well known on web journals and here on FR). Some of them truly thrash around, looking for subject matter/topics.....and I suppose this one could be a result of such searching. But then, it is written from a specific theological point of view, so the conclusions should be considered from that fact.
Have you read this book?
Have you read this book?
You want them to follow this to its logical conclusion? ha.
Darwin makes a lousy God, but he sure has many who worship him!
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