Posted on 06/20/2007 5:24:39 AM PDT by spirited irish
In addition to original Darwinism, today there are two other versions of evolutionary theory: punctuated equilibrium and neo-Darwinism, a revamped version of the original Darwinism. No matter the variant though, evolution serves as the creation myth for the theological and philosophical worldview of Evolutionary Humanism (Naturalism).
“Evolution is a religion,” declared evolutionary Humanist Michael Ruse. “This was true of evolution in the beginning and it is true still today…One of the most popular books of the era was ‘Religion Without Revelation,’ by Julian Huxley, grandson of Thomas Huxley…As always evolution was doing everything expected of religion and more.” (National Post, Canadian Edition, 5/13/2000)
“Humanism is a philosophical, religious, and moral point of view.” (Humanist Manifestos I & II, 1980, Introduction, Paul Kurtz)
The primary denominations of Evolutionary Humanism are Cultural Marxism/Communism, Secular Humanism, Postmodernism, and Spiritual Communism. The offshoots of these are among others, New Age/green environmentalism/Gaia, socialism, progressivism, liberalism, multiculturalism, and atheism. Individually and collectively, these are modernized versions of pre-Biblical naturalism (paganism).
All worldviews begin with a religious declaration. The Biblical worldview begins with, “In the beginning God…” Cosmic Humanism begins, “In the beginning Divine Matter.” Communism, Postmodernism, and Secular Humanism begin with, “In the beginning Matter.” Matter is all there is, and it not only thinks, but is Divine:
“…matter itself continually attains to higher perfection under its own power, thanks to indwelling dialectic…the dialectical materialists attribution of ‘dialectic’ to matter confers on it, not mental attributes only, but even divine ones.” (Dialectical Materialism, Gustav A. Wetter, 1977, p. 58)
In explicitly religious language, the following religionists offer all praise, honor, and glory to their Creator:
“We may regard the material and cosmic world as the supreme being, as the cause of all causes, as the creator of heaven and earth.” (Vladimir Lenin quoted in Communism versus Creation, Francis Nigel Lee, 1969, p. 28)
“The Cosmos is all that is or ever will be.” (Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980, p. 4)
Evolutionary Humanism has demonstrated itself to be an extremely dangerous worldview. In just the first eighty-seven years of the twentieth century, the evolutionist project of radically transforming the world and mankind through the power of evolutionism has led to the extermination of between 100-170 million ‘subhuman’ men, women, and children.
Deadly Problems
First, in order that materialist ethics be consistent with the idea that life evolved by chance and continues to evolve over time, ethics must be built on human social instincts that are in a continuous process of change over evolutionary time. This view demolishes both moral ethics and social taboos, thereby liberating man to do as he pleases. Over time this results in a lawless climate haunted by bullies, predators, despots, psychopaths, and other unsavory elements.
Perhaps Darwin could not envision the evil unleashed by his ideas. Nonetheless, he did have some inkling, for he wrote in his “Autobiography” that one who rejects God,
“…can have for his rule of life…those impulses and instincts which are strongest or…seem to him the best ones.” (Fatal Fruit, Tom DeRosa, p.7)
Humanist Max Hocutt realizes that materialist ethics are hugely problematical, but offers no solution. An absolute moral code cannot exist without God, however God does not exist, says Hocutt. Therefore,
“…if there were a morality written up in the sky somewhere but no God to enforce it, I see no reason why we should obey it. Human beings may, and do, make up their own rules.” (Understanding the Times, David Noebel, p. 138-139)
Jeffrey Dahmer, a psychopath who cannibalized his victims, acted on Darwin’s advice. In an interview he said,
“If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then…what is the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought…I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime.” (Dahmer in an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC, 11/29/1994)
With clearly religious overtones, atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell summarizes the amoral materialist ethic:
“Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way.” (Russell, “Why I am not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects,” 1957, p. 115)
Next, materialist epistemology and metaphysics dispossesses man of soul, free will, conscience, mind, and reason, thereby dehumanizing (animalizing) man and totally destroying not only the worth, dignity, and meaning of human life, but the possibility of freedom. The essence of this annihilation is captured in the following quotes:
Man is “but fish made over…” declared biologist William Etkin (Pushing the Antithesis, Greg L. Bahnsen, p. 224). And his life is but a “partial, continuous, progressive, multiform and continually interactive, self-realization of the potentialities of atomic electron states,” explained J.D. Bernal (1901-1971), past Professor of Physics at the University of London (The Origin of Life, Bernal, 1967, xv). Furthermore, “The universe cares nothing for us,” trumpets William Provine, Cornell University Professor of Biology, “and we have no ultimate meaning in life.” (Scientists, Face It! Science and Religion are Incompatible,” The Scientist, Sept. 1988)
Man... “must be degraded from a spiritual being to an animalistic pattern. He must think of himself as an animal, capable of only animalistic reactions. He must no longer think of himself…as capable of ‘spiritual endurance,’ or nobility.” By animalizing man his “state of mind…can be ordered and enslaved.” (Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics, “Degradation and Shock,” Chapter viii)
Finally, Evolutionary Humanism posits the notion that despite the fact that man is “but fish made over…” there are in fact, some exceptions to this rule. For it happens---by chance of course---that some lucky ‘species’ and ‘races’ of the human animal are more highly evolved (superior) and therefore enlightened than the others, who are---unluckily for them---less evolved and as a consequence, subhuman. Paired to this view is the idea that if a species or race does not continue to evolve (progress up the evolutionary ladder), it will become extinct. Together, these ideas lead logically to the deadly conclusion that in order to preserve the fittest of the species---or the spiritually evolved, as is the case with Spiritual Communism--- it is morally incumbent upon the superior to replace (via the science of eugenics and population control) and/or liquidate the subhumans. In his book, “The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex,” (1871) Charles Darwin foresaw this eventuality:
“At some future period…the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world…the anthropomorphous apes…will no doubt be exterminated.” (Descent, 2nd ed., p. 183)
In practice, the materialist worldview is a hellish recipe for catastrophe, as was amply demonstrated by the 20th century’s two most blood-soaked political movements--- pagan Nazism and atheist Communism. Both rejected God, and both were animated by Darwinism
Nazi Germany
Hitler’s murderous philosophy was built on Darwinian evolution and preservation of favored species. In his book, “Evolution and Ethics, British evolutionist Sir Arthur Keith notes,
“The leader of Germany is an evolutionist not only in theory, but, as millions know to their cost, in the rigor of its practice.” (1947, p.230)
It was Darwinism that inspired Hitler to try to create---by way of eugenics--- a superior race, the Aryan Man. In pursuit of his ambition, Hitler eliminated what he considered were inferior human animals, among which were for example, Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, and Christians.
Evolutionism in Nazi Germany resulted in gas chambers, ovens, and the liquidation of eleven million “useless eaters” and other undesirables. Evolutionist Niles Eldridge, author of “Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life,” reluctantly concurs. Darwin’s theory, he acknowledges,
“has given us the eugenics movement and some of its darker outgrowths, such as the genocidal practices of the Nazis.” (2005, p. 13)
The Soviet Union
Even though Karl Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto before Darwin published his “On the Species,” the roots of Communism are nonetheless found in Darwinism. Karl Marx wrote Fredrich Engels that Darwin’s ‘Origin’,
“is the book which contains the basis in natural science for our view.” (Marxian Biology and the Social Scene, Conway Zirkle, 1959)
Stephane Courtois, one of the authors of The Black Book of Communism, relates that,
“In Communism there exists a sociopolitical eugenics, a form of Social Darwinism.” (p. 752)
Vladimir Lenin exulted that,
“Darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species bear no relation to one another (and) that they were created by God, and hence immutable.” (Fatal Fruit, Tom DeRosa, p. 9)
Lenin exercised godlike power over life and death. He saw himself as, “the master of the knowledge of the evolution of social species.” It was Lenin who “decided who should disappear by virtue of having been condemned to the dustbin of history.” From the moment Lenin made the “scientific” decision that the bourgeoisie represented a stage of humanity that evolution had surpassed, “its liquidation as a class and the liquidation of the individuals who actually or supposedly belonged to it could be justified.” (The Black Book of Communism, p. 752)
Alain Brossat draws the following conclusions about the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and the ties that bind them:
“The ‘liquidation’ of the Muscovite executioners, a close relative of the ‘treatment’ carried out by Nazi assassins, is a linguistic microcosm of an irreparable mental and cultural catastrophe that was in full view on the Soviet Stage. The value of human life collapsed, and thinking in categories replaced ethical thought…In the discourse and practice of the Nazi exterminators, the animalization of Other…was closely linked to the ideology of race. It was conceived in the implacably hierarchical racial terms of “subhumans” and “supermen”…but in Moscow in 1937, what mattered…was the total animalization of the Other, so that a policy under which absolutely anything was possible could come into practice.” (ibid, p. 751)
21st Century America
Ronald Reagan loved God and America. America he said is, “the moral force that defeated communism and all those who would put the human soul into bondage.” (Republican National Convention, Houston TX, 8/17/1992)
Even though he was optimistic about America’s future he nevertheless cautioned that America must maintain her reliance on God and her commitment to righteousness and morality. He liked quoting Alexis de Tocqueville’s insightful analysis of the source of America’s greatness:
“Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret and genius of her power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” (In the Words of Ronald Reagan, by Michael Reagan)
As America moves into the 21st century, we have yet to admit a shameful, dark secret. Evolutionism…the creation myth, that empowered Nazism and Communism, is being taught to America’s youth in our government-controlled schools. The animalization of Americans is well advanced and coupled to a corresponding slow collapse of human worth. Already we hear of human life spoken of in dehumanizing categories such as ‘vegetable,’ “non-persons,” and ‘uterine content.’
Ominously, Evolutionary Humanism has also outstripped Judeo-Christian precepts in our universities, judiciary, federal bureaucracy, corporations, medicine, law, psychology, sociology, entertainment, news media and halls of Congress. As Biocentrism it fuels the nonhuman animal rights project, the gay rights movement, radical feminism, and the increasingly powerful and influential green environmentalist program, which demands that America submit to the draconian mandates of the Kyoto Treaty.
America, the “moral force that defeated communism” is on the verge of completely rejecting God, the natural order, and moral absolutes and instead, embracing the godless religion of evolution, amorality, and the unnatural.
Evolutionary Humanism is the most dangerous delusion thus far in history. It begins with the ‘animalization of Other,’ in tandem with the elevation of the ‘superior,’ for whom this serves as a license to make up their own rules, abuse power, and force their will onto the citizens. This is accompanied by a downward spiraling process that pathologizes the natural order, moral ethics, virtue, and social taboos while simultaneously elevating narcissism, tyranny, cruelty, nihilism, confusion, perversion, sadism, theft, and lying to positions of politically correct “new morality,” which is then enforced through sensitivity training, speech codes, hate crime laws, and other intimidation tactics. If not stopped, as history warns us, this rapidly escalating downward process leads inevitably to totalitarianism, enslavement, and eventually mass murder.
In a portent of things to come, evolutionist B.F. Skinner said:
“A scientific analysis of behavior dispossesses autonomous man and turns the control he has been said to exert over to the environment. The individual…is henceforth to be controlled…in large part by other men.” (Understanding the Times, David Noebel, p. 232)
Copyright Linda Kimball 2007 www.patriotsandliberty.com/
Linda is the author of many published essays on culture, worldview, and politics. Her essays are published both nationally and internationally. She is a member of MoveOff.org
Post # 100 is for you two as well.
Well see, the problem arose in that your verbiage indicated that you seemed to think that I had already explicitly stated such a case, and that you were challenging such a statement. Which of course caused me to wonder what exactly you were responding to since I hadn't actually stated any such thing. Ergo, if you wish to carry on a conversation, next time try responding to things that have already been said, not things that you think, conceivably, at some point in the future, might be said. Makes discussions go much more smoothly when you actually deal with what people have said....
That being said, I'm finding all of this being attributed to ToE just too much of a stretch to be taken seriously. Genocide and political purges were around well before Darwin. It seems that there is nothing too evil to attribute to Darwin, and nothing bad that has happen that can't be blamed on ToE and that accusation expected to be accepted without question.
Bad things did happen before the theory of evolution. But note, I never said they didn't. That's just an unfounded assumption that you are illogically attributing to my argument (again, the problem you seem to have with assuming things, and then attributing your assumptions to others). My argument is that evolutionism (the philosophy, not the pseudo-scientific mechanics of the theory in the natural realm) served as a philosophical foundation for certain very specific evils that plagued the world over the past couple of centuries - Communism, Nazism, and eugenicism. Please try to confine you rebuttals to those things that I've actually said.
Oh no, you did NOT just say that word....
You fault evolutionary theory because it doesn't address the metaphysical, and maintain that this "dispossesses man of soul, reason, mind, personhood, memory,free will, conscience, Laws of Logic". Why do you not reject the metaphysical because it doesn't deal with the material, and therefore must deny the obvious fact that we are corporeal?
No, I typed it.
Can you point me to a standard reference on philosophy that lays out the tenants of this philosophy of evolutionism, just so I know exactly what you mean when you use the term?
This secular humanistic machinery is designed to and now produces a pop culture of sexual perversion, socialism, hypermaterialism, radical egalitarianism, Bible rejection and spontaneous generation.
Instead of reflecting a love of God and country, the far left now uses the public schools as a powerful tool that echoes the anti-Christian bigotry, immorality and politics of the far left.
The theory of evolution is so popular with the far left because it allows them to attack the Bible for reasons of politics and immorality while pretending that science (what a hoot) is their real motivation.
This is why someone like Hillary Clinton, a Bible rejecting Marxist could even be remotely considered for any public office in America. Unfortunately the left has made great gains in their goal of destroying our historical, fundamental acceptance of the Bible as the rock of our foundational worldview. They have replaced it (through dishonest, illegal and unethical means) with a worldview of 'fundamentalist secular humanism' so their radical politics and perverted personal choices would no longer be in the closet.
What is your definition of a "standard" reference? And does your definition coincide with the definition that others might give as to what is a "standard" reference on the subject? And of course, your question is somewhat dishonest, since my arguments are "non-standard" (meaning, they won't be featured in your typical and supportive reference works about evolution), since I am presenting original argumentation to support my contentions. Besides, since you're so good at divining meaning from what people haven't said, why don't you take a crack at reading what they have said, and criticially think about what you've read?
For everyone following the thread - evolution-friendly source work, accessible to all with internet access - The Journal of Evolutionary Philsophy Just to show I'm fair.
So, I'm being "dishonest" by assuming that the terms you're using have the commonly understood and accepted meanings, when you're actually making up new definitions as you go?
"We can still be in awe of the “Wisdom in all the achievements of creative skill” while attributing this wisdom not to a single Creator, but distributing it over billions of years in trillions of lineages of replicators, trying their luck in the great tournament of life, mindlessly discovering and rediscovering the brilliant design principles that constitute the diversity of life. (emphasis mine)
Let's see his silly equation amounts to:
mindless luck + billions of years = wisdom and creative skill
That is the secular humanistic god, "Time and chance"
...and they exhaustively shout this nonsensical religious point of view to students everyday at taxpayer expense, helping to create good little liberal humanists.
There is no philosophy of evolution, except some boogieman that Christian fundamentalists like to concoct. The "philosophy" of Christianity posits that slavery is acceptable, that it's okay to slaughter infants and toddlers of your enemies, rape the wives and daughters of your enemies, kill the first born of every parent in an area, rip open the wombs of the pregnant women of your enemies, drown everyone, and stone people for things as ridiculous as gathering wood on a supposed holy day. That's just for starters. Christianity isn't particularly righteous. You're lying to yourself if you imagine it is.
All of these things (Communism, Nazism, eugenicism, Islam, Christianity, etc.) have one thing in common-- authoritarianism (the people subject to the rules don't have any say in the rulemaking). Don't try a holier than thou argument, because it doesn't ring true.
tacticalogic—Why do you not reject the metaphysical because it doesn’t deal with the material, and therefore must deny the obvious fact that we are corporeal?
Let’s rephrase your question thusly:
“Why do you not reject the soul, mind, free will, conscience, Laws of Logic, memory, personhood, and conscience because they are not material, and therefore must deny the obvious fact that we are corporeal?”
The very fact that you have freely chosen (free will) to make this inquiry, which makes use of your immaterial (spiritual) abilities, completely disproves your belief that you are something on the order of a block of wood.
You’re very welcome! And I’m glad to see your participation, which is always thought provoking.
Let's not. Let's answer the question as asked, explaining why one standard is applied to the physical, while the metaphysical is held to the exact opposite.
Biosemiotics-—another way of saying: “…matter itself continually attains to higher perfection under its own power, thanks to indwelling dialectic…the dialectical materialists attribution of ‘dialectic’ to matter confers on it, not mental attributes only, but even divine ones.” (Dialectical Materialism, Gustav A. Wetter, 1977, p. 58)
In other words: Matter thinks, it’s Divine!
Evolutionary Humanism is simply going full circle back to hylozoism.
And when we’ve figured out why we’re applying one standard to the physical and another to the metaphysical, we can explore why trying to hold them to the same standard - that each deals with only that in it’s own realm and can’t be faulted for not addressing things outside that realm - is “hypocrisy”.
You forgot the barf alert.
Tactic-—Can you point me to a standard reference on philosophy that lays out the tenants of this philosophy of evolutionism, just so I know exactly what you mean when you use the term?
Irish-—Well here’s the problem, Tactical. Materialism is all about the ‘material’ world, or sensism. What cannot be ‘sensed,’ cannot exist. Therefore, even though materialism clearly has a cosmology, philosophy, ideology, upside-down morality, etc., technically, none of these things exist, despite the fact that materialists continually resort to their use. Materialism is anti-idea, anti-intellectual, and therefore, pro-stupidity.
IOW, you don't have an answer, so you're resorting to BS and insults.
tactic-—And when we’ve figured out why we’re applying one standard to the physical and another to the metaphysical, we can explore why trying to hold them to the same standard - that each deals with only that in it’s own realm and can’t be faulted for not addressing things outside that realm - is “hypocrisy”.
Irish-—In other words, you believe that you’re just an animal with an animals instincts. Thus if, let’s say, you’re a dog, then you ought not be held accountable for ‘doing what dogs do” because you’re just a dog and can’t help doing what dogs do. Of course, dogs can be trained by a superior life form, and that’s exactly the view held by Laventi Beria (Psychopolitics), Lenin, etc. This encapsulates your dreadful worldview,
Now if God created you, then you are both corporeal (material) and incorporeal (spiritual). In this view, you come fully equipped with free will, mind, soul, individuality, conscience, memory, etc. And because you’re made in the image of He who created the universe, you also possess innate dignity, worth, meaning, purpose, and so on. Our founders summarized this view thusly: “that all men are CREATED equal and endowed by the CREATOR with certain unalienable (means not from man but from God) rights...”
Your Creator gave you the ability to choose either Him or man, and being viewd as a dumb animal. Man takes away your choice.
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