Posted on 08/22/2010 7:10:42 PM PDT by Halfmanhalfamazing
Last night, Glenn Beck blended his anti-progressive polemics with anti-evolution dogma, attacking Charles Darwin as "the father of modern day racism" who "plant[ed] the seed that leads to progressivism, eugenics." He expanded on this critique on the radio this morning, saying that Darwin wrote about "the savages" and announcing: "I understand why Darwin has to be taught in schools now. You have to teach evolution, because if you don't teach evolution, progressivism falls apart." According to Beck and his cohorts, a direct line can be drawn between Darwin, eugenics, and Hitler: "Charles Darwin is the father of the Holocaust."
(Excerpt) Read more at proglib.newsvine.com ...
Then they can stew in reality and get burnt even more. The last time this happened was when he was talking about how the nazis learned propaganda from american progressives. Naturally the left went nuts so Beck brought out the quote from the guy's own autobiography.
Classic.
I find it amusing how the left never figures out that their lies can't defeat the truth. They just keep trying over and over and over again.
Beck really nows how to get under the lefts skin, and he irritates the hell out of them. They can’t take a single chink in the armmor of their Utopian dreams of a eugenically pure Utopia. Soon Beck will have them eating somnolent green! What a kick!
Astoundingly stupid.
He's got a point. The French Revolution, first.
Well done, Glenn Beck, well done indeed ...
Newt Gingrich once stated the problem of evolutionism and morality about as succinctly as is possible in noting that the question of whether a man views his neighbor as a fellow child of God or as a meat byproduct of random processes simply has to affect human relationships.
Basically, every halfway honest person with any brains and talent who has taken any sort of a hard look at evolution in the past 60 years has given up on it and many have denounced it. A listing of fifty or sixty such statements makes for an overwhelming indictment of that part of the scientific community which goes on trying to defend evolution and they (the evolosers) have a favorite term ( "quote mining") which they use to describe that sort of argument.
My own response to that is to note what I view as the ultimate evolution quote by the noted evolutionist (actually, FORMER evolutionist) Jeffrey Dahmer:
"If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing…"Jeffrey Dahmer, in an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC, Nov. 29, 1994.
Dahmer converted to Christianity before he died. The basic tenets of true religion appear to be inprinted upon most of us biologically which is the only reason that Islammic societies and "secular humanist" societies like Britain and Canada function at all. A psychopath like Dahmer is basically somebody on whom that imprint did not take. For those guys, it has to be written down somewhere, and it has to be written down accurately; the bible does that. Telling somebody like Dahmer that we all evolved from "lucky dust" is a formula for getting people killed.
Evolution was the basic philosophical cornerstone of communism, naziism, the various eugenics programs, the out of control arms races which led to WW-I and WW-II, and all of the grief of the last 150 years. Starting from 1913, Europe had gone for a hundred years without a major war. They didn't even have to think. All they needed to do was act cool, go to church, have parades, formal balls, attend board meetings, and they'd still be running the world today; they'd be so fat and happy they'd not know what to do with themselves. Instead, they all got to reading about Darwinism, fang and claw, survival of the fittest and all the rest of that nonsense, and the rest as they say is history.
The most interesting analysis of that sad tale is probably Sir Arthur Keith's "Evolution and Ethics".
Keith apparently viewed belief in evolution as some sort of duty of the English educated classes, nonetheless he had a very clear vision of the problems inherent in it and laid it out in no uncertain terms:
From Sir Srthur Keith's "Evolution and Ethics:
Chapter 3
The Behavior of Germany Considered from an Evolutionary Point of View in 1942
....It is worth noting that Hitler uses a double designation for his tribal doctrine National Socialism: Socialism standing for the good side of the tribal spirit (that which works within the Reich); aud Nationalism for the ethically vicious part, which dominates policy at and outside the German frontiers.
The leader of Germany is an evolutionist not only in theory, but, as millions know to their cost, in the rigor of its practice. For him the national "front" of Europe is also the evolutionary "front"; he regards himself, and is regarded, as the incarnation of the will of Germany, the purpose of that will being to guide the evolutionary destiny of its people....
... "Humanitarianism is an evil . . . a creeping poison." "The most cruel methods are humane if they give a speedy victory" is Hitler's echo of a maxim attributed to Moltke. Such are the ways of evolution when applied to human affairs.
...I have said nothing about the methods employed by the Nazi leaders to secure tribal unity in Germany methods of brutal compulsion, bloody force, and the concentration camp. Such methods cannot be brought within even a Machiavellian system of ethics, and yet may be justified by their evolutionary result.
12.
....No aspect of Hitler's policy proclaims the antagonism between evolution and ethics so forcibly as his treatment of the Jewish people in Germany.... ...Hitler is an uncompromising evolutionist, and we must seek for an evolutionary explanation if we are to understand his actions....
It must not be thought that in seeking to explain Hitler's actions I am seeking to justify them. The opposite is the case. I have made this brief survey of public policy in modern Germany with a definite object: to show that Dr. Waddington is in error when he seeks to place ethics on a scientific basis by a knowledge of evolutionary tendencies and practice.
Chapter 4
Human Life: Its Purpose or Ultimate End
IN THE COURSE OF GATHERING INFORMATION concerning man's morality and the part it has played and is playing in his evolution, I found it necessary to provide space for slips which were labeled "Life: Its Ultimate and Proximate Purposes." Only those who have devoted some special attention to this matter are aware of the multitude of reasons given for the appearance of man on earth. Here I shall touch on only a few of them; to deal with all would require a big book. The reader may exclaim: Why deal with any of them! What has ultimate purpose got to do with ethics and evolution! Let a man with a clearer head and a nimbler pen than mine reply. He is Edward Carpenter, who wrote Civilization: Its Cause and Cure (1889).
14.
It is from the sixteenth edition (1923) I am to quote, p. 249:
If we have decided what the final purpose or Life of Man is, then we may say that what is good for that purpose i
s finally "good" and what is bad for that purpose is finally "evil."
...If the final purpose of our existence is that which has been and is being worked out under the discipline of evolutionary law, then, although we are quite unconscious of the end result, we ought, as Dr. Waddington has urged, to help on "that which tends to promote the ultimate course of evolution." If we do so, then we have to abandon the hope of ever attaining a universal system of ethics; for, as we have just seen, the ways of national evolution, both in the past and in the present, are cruel, brutal, ruthless, and without mercy. Dr. Waddington has not grasped the implications of Nature's method of evolution, for in his summing up (Nature, 1941, 150, p. 535) he writes "that the ethical principles formulated by Christ . . . are those which have tended towards the further evolution of mankind, and that they will continue to do so." Here a question of the highest interest is raised: the relationship which exists between evolution and Christianity; so important, it seems to me, that I shall devote to it a separate chapter. Meantime let me say that the conclusion I have come to is this:
the law of Christ is incompatible with the law of evolution as far as the law of evolution has worked hitherto. Nay, the two laws are at war with each other; the law of Christ can never prevail until the law of evolution is destroyed.
All of that, of course, deals only with the question of ethics and the logical consequences of evolutionism. The fact that evolution is junk science argues against it as well.
Wow, stupid and ignorant at the same time. Eugenics go all the way back to the Marovingian kings in France, not to mention the French and US slave trade. And on top of it Darwinism actually refutes eugenics in it’s support for natural selection.
And, no, I don’t think beck is stupid.
“Charles Darwin is the father of the Holocaust.”
Stevie Wonder is blind.
Love is blind.
God is love.
Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.
Wait a second ... too many premises. Nevermind!
I think you’re caviler in your characterization of evolutionists as non-creationists. Many of us firmly believe in evolution as the mechanism of creation, not as being opposed to it. Remember, when the bible was written it was written in language people could understand when they received it.
My thoughts on the matter:
If we are all just evolved animals, human life is devalued, and you eventually come to the conclusion that maybe some groups of people are more evolved than others.
Which is exactly the beliefs that drove the nazi’s actions.
I cringed when I heard Glenn say this. He is dead wrong.
Darwin was an ardent abolitionist who wrote of his intense opposition to slavery. The suggestion that he planted the seed of eugenics is likewise baloney; he openly opposed that as well.
That some people twist and distort Darwin's writings to support their repugnant ideas has no bearing on the character of the man himself. Many scientific ideas have been and will always be abused.
“Darwinism actually refutes eugenics in it’s support for natural selection”
Actually it doesn’t. It gives a wonderful cover to the social engineers and advocates of eugenics. If natural selection will eventually select out the weak and for the better, it’s an extremely short step to think you are performing the work that nature would be doing soon anyway.
Can you point to a word in Darwin’s writing warning against eugenics, ie,,,”man made evolution”?
God does not use broken tools.
The phrase, "survival of the fittest", is actually not found in Darwin's writings. It is, however, found in Galton's.
Those defending Darwin cannot have read his Descent of Man, wherein he applies the principles of natural selection to human beings -- a thing he prudently avoided in his earlier Origin of Species. In the Descent, the eugenic and racial inferences are clearly and startlingly drawn by Darwin himself.
Darwin understood the eugenic implications of his own theory, and warned his readers against imminent evolutionary backsliding. “It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” Insert a few terms like “Aryan” or “Jew” and that could be in any Nazi screed.
If the left went nuts about that, then the left hasn’t studied history.
I dont have the time or patience to pore over his writings to find the specific passages, but the answer is yes. I can recall reading in his work that it is society's obligation to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves.
But to some extent, this is beside the point. Whether jerks misused Darwin's work to justify their evil has no bearing on whether the concept of evolution is true.
While Rush is living rent-free in their penthouse,
Glenn, appears to occupy the whole top floor.
Good point. In fact, Darwin was known to despise the expression "survival of the fittest." He resisted it at first but eventually accepted that it had caught on too much to undo.
by Martin Luther
Beck will quickly become irrelevant like Ann Coulter if he sprouts crap like this
I found it fascinating that Darwin was related to the Wedgewood family.
I think Darwin's role is being overstated. Other thinkers in the 19th century were headed in the same direction, like Alfred Wallace. Herbert Spencer's notions came to be called "Social Darwinism" but I believe he was already spouting them before Darwin became famous--those kinds of ideas would have been applied to human society even if Charles Darwin had been eaten by an iguana on the Galapagos Islands.
“You have to teach evolution, because if you don’t teach evolution, progressivism falls apart.”
If one accepts that statement I suppose the corollary is a true categorical statement as well: “You have to teach creationism (OK, `Intelligent Design’: old wine, new bottle. Happy?), because if you don’t teach creationism, conservatism falls apart.”
A hundred years ago, presidential candidate WJ Brian firmly believed the world was only 64,000 years old. The Church taught that dinosaur bones were placed in the soil by God to test our faith.
Nietzsche wrote in his works on existentialism on evolution and de-evolution in the human race. The Nazis took those concepts and twisted them to their own purposes as well.
If you have any respect for yourself as a human being, you have to admit that we can’t go back to accepting that kind of BS as truth.
Hahaha, great graphic and that’s exactly right
context context context
Bovine excrement.
Here is the beginning of the paragraph IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING the sentence you quote:
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.
This is exactly the OPPOSITE of "Nazi screeds," which urged Germans to resist and disdain "the instinct of sympathy" for the weak. Darwin directly asserts, on the contrary, that this instinct represents, "the noblest part of our nature," and that neglecting it for any reason would engender "an overwhelming ... evil".
Quite right. Ain't no "first stupid." Related ideas were all the rage when St. Augustine was a student, and the Greeks had most of the possibilities mapped out before that.
I do think it's interesting to see the mile-posts along the road, especially ones that were transmission points of a given type of stupidity. For instance, Darwin was central in the conversations and writings of the Birth Control movement types in the 20s and '30s, who included British, American, and Nazi doctors and scientists. The breeding-out-the-poor-and-feeble-minded thing was very fashionable among Progressives and do-gooders. By the way, the Birth Control League was later renamed "Planned Parenthood."
Whether jerks misused Darwin's work to justify their evil has no bearing on whether the concept of evolution is true.That's the bottom line here, and everybody here knows it, though many will refuse to admit it.
The Theory of Evolution describes the history of biological species on planet earth over a 4 billion year history. If, in the last 100 years or so of that 4 billion years, some weird variants of the planets most successful big-brained specie come up with a political theory that justifies murder, that political theory has nothing to do with whether or not the Theory of Evolution aptly describes the history of life for those 4 billion years.
This is an extremely stupid argument for the otherwise brilliant Beck (and I am one of his fondest admirers) to get into. He has truly ventured into an area that is outside of his area of expertise.
The problem with the sort of thinking that puts forth the idea that evolution is the mechanism of creation, at least from a Christian perspective, is that in order for it to be true, death had to come before man. However, the Bible clearly teaches that death is the result of sin. Therefore, the ideas of evolution and Biblical creation are mutually exclusive.
he didn’t say the father of the idea of eugenics.
He said
“the father of modern day racism” who “plant[ed] the seed that leads to progressivism, eugenics.”
The key word being modern.
I’m not particularilly happy with Glen since his doesn’t appear to see the problem with homosexual unions, ec.
However, in regards to Darwin and the Holocaust. Darwinism is NOT the direct cause of the holocaust...human depravity is. However, Hitler and his minions, were able to effectively use and apply Darwinian principles of “survival of the fittest” as an apologetic for their actions. That is a matter of history. I have seen the NAZI propoganda movies evoking Darwinism as a justification for labeling other groups besides Arians as genetically inferior. Jews were likened to rapidly breeding rats.
So, although it is a stretch to blame Darwinism for the Holocaust, it is not wrong to see it as an enabler and rationalle.
God does not use broken tools.
But I understand He draws straight with crooked lines.
There are a number of such examples. See, for instance, my preceding post (#30). Note that Darwin was acknowledging that assistance for the weak and infirm was "bad" (my word) from the perspective of human improvement, but nevertheless asserted that checking our human sympathy for any such cause would be evil. IOW, Darwin is saying that we should follow our instinct for sympathy as against the implicit logic of evolution.
Or they realize he is right and another of their dirty little secrets got out.
Actually, it gives quite good cover. People who think they know better than God, or nature for that matter, are hardly going to be dissuaded from trying to act on that by Darwin or anyone else. Defiance of God and the natural process has and will always happen. The first guy who figured out that sex leads to pregnancy and tried to stop that was defying God.
If you believe that some are inferior, that can lay the groundwork for eugenics.
Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Eugenics, in he modern sense, originates with Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton. It owed as much to animal husbandry as to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, and long before the development of modern genetics, it made claims that haven’t been verified by science. Darwin himself gave sanction to it, but for reasons unrelated to his research. Hitler grew up in an era enthralled by evolution, and if he studied biology he read Haeckel who was a better propogandist than biologist, although he was capable enough. In Germany it was an age of Blut und Eisen , but Germany’s cultural influence was never wider. All the western elites shared its raw materalism. “Mein Kampf” reeks of it.
Glenn no longer drinks anything with alcohol in it. And he is bringing History to light, History which the secular progressives want lost forever because it tells the truth about this greatest of all nations in human History. Watching his programs for the past several months, I can say without reservation, he is not ignorant. And only a jealous doofus would say his work is ‘bloviating’.
“I may agree with his distrust of big government but I’m afraid he’s still an ignorant, drunk, mormon, moonbat bloviator.”
Beck has not touched liquor for, I believe, 12 years, or thereabouts, so he is not a drunk. He is not as ignorant as you must be as he has a top rated show on TV, a magazine, a radio show, videos, speaking engagements, tours, and is as rich as Croesus, and you? .... Yes, Glenn is a Mormon; you have a problem with that? As to moonbat bloviator, well, Beck has his moments, bless his soul, but his lucid days far outway his loony ones, and the loony ones are invariably extremely humorous. So, if he occasionally bloviates, he gets a pass because of all the other times he is directly on the mark. A bit jealous of Glenn’s success, are you? Armchair critics without a cause are so yesterday.
So before Dawin, there was no racism? There was no slavery? There were no religious wars including Christian ones? By your mindless rant, you have Darwin as the root of all evil. Therefore, before him there was no evil. So where did they get all that evil they speak about in the Bible?
I have used a similar argument when discussing how homosexuals are actually safer under strict Christian rules then if they were left to the rules or beliefs of Darwinistic athiests.
While Christians will declare that homosexuality is a sin and will work to keep it from becoming mainstream or acceptable as marriage, the opposite of that has a very ugly past. Christians are not called on to eliminate or kill people because they are homosexuals. However, while atheists will not view or see homosexuality as a sin or evil, they will and do eventually see homosexuals as a weaker “species” and that does lead to the “elimination” option.
Whether or not Darwin himself proclaimed specifically “survival of the fittest”, his dogma/doctrine/teachings lead to that way of thinking. If something is not making your species stronger or better then it can and should be eliminated. While most atheists are probably not for forced elimination, their dogma of life without a final judgement with God makes that option quite open.
It only takes a few powerful atheists in the right spots to force their “elimination” effort (if all Christians are neutralized or removed from the scene).
Well played sir. For some people like Wendy in that post above evolution is way too black and white of a subject to have a differing opinion. For some reason it’s impossible to be on the side of creation and believe that evolution was somehow used to design man. This just opens doors people are uncomfortable discussing.
but I'm afraid he's still an ignorant, drunk, mormon, moonbat bloviator.
Anyone who has listened to Glenn Beck over the years can attest there is not the slightest bit of truth in what you said (except the Mormon part). Upon what evidence do you conduct such mindless character assassination? You sir, are no conservative...with such mean spirited remarks as you have given, I conclude that things must be slow at DU so you come to FR to do a little trolling.
You are correct. Spencer outlined his theory of social evolution, and his principle of universal evolution, in essays published during the 1850's, before he was aware of Darwin's ideas. For instance 'Progress: Its Law and Cause' (1857, Westminster Review).
I hate even acknowledging something so stupid (I detest Spencer on so many levels) but it should be noted that Spencer claimed to derive his "principle of universal evolution" not from biology, but from the laws of thermodynamics. Quoting Spencer's own formulation of his principle gives a flavor or what a vacuously bloviating blowhard the man was:
Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; during which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation.
One wag at the time hilariously recast Spencer's principle as follows:
Evolution is a change from a no-howish untalkaboutable all-alikeness, to a somehowish and in-general-talkaboutable not-all-alikeness, by continuous sometingelsifications and sticktogetherations.
Hat tip to James R. Moore's The Post-Darwinian Controversies, footnote 39 to Chapter 7. Snatched from my bookshelf, btw. (You can't always find everything on the web.)
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