Sure if the idiots ignored the words “by Means of Natural Selection” they could grab onto the words “Favored Races” as an excuse for their bad ideas. Of course if their Jewish they could take the idea of being the Chosen People and run right off the cliff with it too. Just because people take one phrase out of context and turn it into an excuse for their own stupidity doesn’t mean the core idea of the writing that contains that phrase is bad or that the writers was a bad person. Look at all the stupid stuff liberals have done with the Commerce Clause in the last 40 years, does that mean the Constitution is bad and the Founders should be held responsible?
Bad people take perfectly good ideas and screw them up, that’s how you know they’re bad people. They do it with Darwin, they do it with the Constitution, they do it with the Bible, they do it with Wealth of Nations, they do it with mediocre Beatles songs, they just do it.
It’s not possible to take Darwin’s teachings as a WHOLE to get an excuse to commit atrocities either. That’s why the people that commit atrocities using Darwinism, or Jesus, as an excuse edit.
“Bad people take perfectly good ideas and screw them up, that’s how you know they’re bad people. They do it with Darwin, they do it with the Constitution, they do it with the Bible, they do it with Wealth of Nations, they do it with mediocre Beatles songs, they just do it. It’s not possible to take Darwin’s teachings as a WHOLE to get an excuse to commit atrocities either. That’s why the people that commit atrocities using Darwinism, or Jesus, as an excuse.”
I agree that people can take anything and turn it to their own uses. My point is that some ideas lend themselves to logical, moral consequences. You said that atrocities, like eugenics, could no more be blamed on Darwin than atrocities committed by Christians could be blamed on Jesus. I disagree with that statement.
Darwin’s ideas - taken as a whole - do lead one inexorably to naturalistic evolution. That is, the idea that human beings are just animals by another name. Successful organisms exist because of the idea of “survival of the fittest” or, put another way - only the strongest survive. Human beings are no “better” or “greater” than any other life organism. All that exists is by mindless, directionless, random chance. There is no need for an “Intelligent Designer”, there is no purpose, other than existence, for existence. We, as human beings, have no meaning, we are “flukes of nature”, there are no moral absolutes because there is no God to determine what moral standards are. Aren’t these the logical outcomes of Darwin’s beliefs? What does he teach that would contradict such beliefs? What does he teach that would prohibit the study and implementation of eugenics on human beings?
However, with Jesus - what does He teach that could remotely justify slaughtering Jews or “heretics”?