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Author Topic:   Hitler, Evolution, and Christianity
robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 121 of 146 (218715)
06-22-2005 3:56 PM
Reply to: Message 120 by ringo
06-22-2005 3:50 PM


Re: Why Marxism is atheistic
My goal was to show that Nazism and Communism can legitimately be called neither "religious" nor "scientific" (some call them "religious").
1. I wanted to show that Hitler used a perverted notion of natural selection, applying it to races.
2. I wanted to show that Hitler was not a Christian.
3. I wanted to show that Marx used Darwinism perversely to re-inforce the idea of dialectical materialism.
4. I wanted to show the devastating effect of such misuses of science.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 120 by ringo, posted 06-22-2005 3:50 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 122 by ringo, posted 06-22-2005 4:15 PM robinrohan has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 122 of 146 (218724)
06-22-2005 4:15 PM
Reply to: Message 121 by robinrohan
06-22-2005 3:56 PM


Re: Why Marxism is atheistic
What I'm saying is that I don't see where you've achieved your goal.
1. Hitler used a perverted notion of animal breeding, applying it to races. That's unnatural selection.
2. It has been shown that Hitler definitely claimed to be a Christian, when it suited him, and it suited him when he was trying to win over Christians.
3. In your own quote, Marx spoke of rising above the "dog-eat-dog" animal world. How is that a perversion of Darwinism?
4. You have not shown (to my understanding, anyway) that any of the above were misuses of science.
I'm not saying I disagree with you. I'm just saying I don't see where you're making your case. I don't see any real link to science in anything you've said, and I don't see where you've shown (other than by assertion) that an appeal to science would have had any impact.

People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 121 by robinrohan, posted 06-22-2005 3:56 PM robinrohan has replied

Replies to this message:
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robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 123 of 146 (218742)
06-22-2005 5:18 PM
Reply to: Message 122 by ringo
06-22-2005 4:15 PM


Re: Why Marxism is atheistic
I'm glad you responded. I need to thrash it out some more--and do some homework on Marxism.
I think we can lay to rest the idea that Hitler was a Christian, though.

This message is a reply to:
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robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 124 of 146 (218921)
06-23-2005 9:26 AM
Reply to: Message 117 by robinrohan
06-22-2005 12:28 PM


The Dangers of "Art"
It occurs to me that what I have called the "irrational secular" might also be called the "artistic." These ideologies (and some of the writings) of Nazism and Communism might be called artistic productions that claim to be "scientific." They are artistic productions in that they are eloquent, they are emotionally forceful, and they are fanciful.
So we have the scientific, the artistic, and the religious.
We can think of the categories in terms of genre.
This message has been edited by robinrohan, 06-23-2005 08:34 AM

This message is a reply to:
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cmanteuf
Member (Idle past 6766 days)
Posts: 92
From: Virginia, USA
Joined: 11-08-2004


Message 125 of 146 (218933)
06-23-2005 10:41 AM
Reply to: Message 116 by robinrohan
06-22-2005 9:19 AM


Re: Darwinism and Marxism
robinrohan writes:
Is he saying that the lack of design in the animal kingdom corresponds to a lack of design in human society--so there's no reason why human society can't be designed anyway we see fit?
I think he's saying that nature is about competition for resources, with the "fit" profitting at the expense of the "weak" - just as Marx saw Victorian society. Thus the struggle of class against class is reflected in the struggle of the "weak" against the "strong" within a species in nature as well.
At least, that's what I think he's trying to say. I base this mostly on the Social Darwinists, who thought that Darwin was saying just that as well. I've not looked into Marx' views on evolution while I have done so with the Social Darwinists, so that is my bias on this issue.
robinrohan writes:
This sounds very different from the Marxist-Leninist ideas you describe.
This is no surprise: Marx and the Marxist-Leninists disagreed on an awful lot of issues. It is just an amusing point of the historical record that Marx thought Darwin supported his theories and the orthodox Marxist-Leninists were Lamarckians.
Also I wanted to make a point about the immense dangers that political resolution of scientific "disputes" can bring.
Chris
This message has been edited by cmanteuf, 06-23-2005 10:43 AM

This message is a reply to:
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ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 126 of 146 (218970)
06-23-2005 12:29 PM
Reply to: Message 124 by robinrohan
06-23-2005 9:26 AM


Re: The Dangers of "Art"
robinrohan writes:
These ideologies (and some of the writings) of Nazism and Communism might be called artistic productions that claim to be "scientific." They are artistic productions in that they are eloquent, they are emotionally forceful, and they are fanciful.
That's kind of what I've been getting at (although apparently not stating it very clearly ). It was all about the effect on the audience, not the actual content.

People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 124 by robinrohan, posted 06-23-2005 9:26 AM robinrohan has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 128 by robinrohan, posted 06-23-2005 12:47 PM ringo has replied

  
robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 127 of 146 (218981)
06-23-2005 12:45 PM


Evolution and Dialectics
I've been reading an essay by Engels entitled, tellingly, I think, "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific."
Engels sets forth the idea that earlier theories of socialism, which he calls Utopian, were inadequate because they were unscientific.
Marxism is the scientific kind. What's scientific about it?: The idea of "dialectics," which seems to me here to be, at bottom, a synonym for evolution:
"Nature is the proof of dialectics, and it must be said for modern science that it has furnished this proof with very rich materials increasing daily, and thus has shown that, in the last resort, Nature works dialectically and not metaphysically; that she does not move in the eternal oneness of a perpetually recurring circle, but goes through a real historical evolution. In this connection Darwin must be named before all others. He dealt the metaphysical conception of Nature the heaviest blow by his proof that all organic beings, plants, animals, and man himself, are the products of a process of evoluiton going on through millions of years."
I think we see here a clear influence, but it was more an influence of reinforcing the idea of evolution of society rather than Darwinism suggesting such an idea in the first place.
The term "metaphysical," being opposed to dialectics and evolution, is puzzling. Essentialism? Special creation?

  
robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 128 of 146 (218984)
06-23-2005 12:47 PM
Reply to: Message 126 by ringo
06-23-2005 12:29 PM


Re: The Dangers of "Art"
By "art," you mean a method of persuasion; but by "art" I mean a way of arriving at truth (a faulty way).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 126 by ringo, posted 06-23-2005 12:29 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 129 by ringo, posted 06-23-2005 1:50 PM robinrohan has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 129 of 146 (219010)
06-23-2005 1:50 PM
Reply to: Message 128 by robinrohan
06-23-2005 12:47 PM


Re: The Dangers of "Art"
We may not be on the same page, but I think we're in the same chapter.

People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 128 by robinrohan, posted 06-23-2005 12:47 PM robinrohan has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 130 by robinrohan, posted 06-23-2005 1:56 PM ringo has not replied

  
robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 130 of 146 (219016)
06-23-2005 1:56 PM
Reply to: Message 129 by ringo
06-23-2005 1:50 PM


Re: The Dangers of "Art"
We may not be on the same page, but I think we're in the same chapter
I agree. The way I came up with the label "art" was to ask myself, what other types of discourse are there besides religious discourse and scientific discourse? I came up with "artistic discourse."
Artistic discourse is fine and can be very beneficial as long as it is not mistaken for scientific discourse, which in the cases we are discussing, it was, I think.
But it also must not be mistaken for religious discourse.

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robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 131 of 146 (219303)
06-24-2005 10:40 AM
Reply to: Message 122 by ringo
06-22-2005 4:15 PM


Re: Why Marxism is atheistic
1. Hitler used a perverted notion of animal breeding, applying it to races. That's unnatural selection.
2. It has been shown that Hitler definitely claimed to be a Christian, when it suited him, and it suited him when he was trying to win over Christians.
3. In your own quote, Marx spoke of rising above the "dog-eat-dog" animal world. How is that a perversion of Darwinism?
I wanted to wait until I had a little free time to respond to this. I'm off today.
1. I wasn't talking about eugenics. In the OP, I gave evidence from Mein Kampf that Hitler used and perverted the idea of natural selection, applying it to races rather than species. I later gave evidence from his speeches that when speaking to general audiences, he concentrated mostly on anti-Semitism, claiming that the Jews were destroying Germany through "internationalism." His point was that the Aryan race was superior and it was morally correct for them to dominate other races. We cannot, he says, escape Nature. That we can conquer Nature is a perverted Jewish idea (I've been surprised how often he returned to the idea that we should live according to Nature). To live according to Nature means to live according to the rule of "survival of the fittest." That is natural morality. Also, it is natural for a race to remain pure, just as it is natural for species to have separate gene pools.
Your idea has been that what matters is how the Nazis convinced the masses, not what they "really" thought, even if we could know that. You also said that they convinced the masses through traditional nationalism and religious tie-ins.
My point is that their nationalism was thoroughly racial in their propaganda, based on the idea of the superior Aryans.
Hitler also made Christian references, but from what I've seen this was not his most frequent type of demagoguery. Also, his Christian references are bizarre perversions of Christian doctrine.
But apart from propaganda, we want to know their ideology, their motives for doing what they did once they gained power and where these ideas came from. In above messages, I outlined the Nazi ideology, according to Hitler. Life consists of struggle between races for living space. The superior race is destined to dominate and populate the world while the weaker races will be eliminated or be enslaved. Aryans are the makers of high culture. Whatever helps the Aryan race to dominate is good.
International Marxism is unnatural, says Hitler. So is democracy, another Jewish invention.
2. Hitler's use of Christianity: Sometimes Hitler referred to himself as a Christian in his public speeches but Christianity was not a part of Nazi ideology. On the contrary, Christian ethics is in direct opposition to Nazism. In "Table Talk," Hitler reveals exactly what he thought of Christianity. He despised it. Sometimes he had the idea that after they had won the war it would be wise to just let Christianity die out little by little; at other times he said he would exterminate it. Christianity is unnatural.
3. Marxism used Darwinism in a quite different way. The animal kingdom is dog-eat-dog. So is capitalistic enterprise. But society should be socialized to eliminate this animalistic system. So Marx did not use the idea of natural selection. What he used was the idea of evolution, as I show in the quote from Engels above.
The reason that Marxism is "scientific" is that it is based on the principle of evolution, which Marxists refer to as "dialectics." Just as there is dialectics in the animal world, there is also dialectics in the history of the evolution of human society. Marxism uses Darwinism to make the claim that dialetical materialism is scientific.
So both Nazism and Communism misuse ideas lifted from Darwinism. In the case of Nazism, it is social Darwinism of the racial variety. In the case of communism, it is the idea of evolution, which allows Marxists to say their system is scientific.
Neither of these movements were religious. They were secular and pseudo-scientific.
Marx wrote a clever novel. Hitler wrote a stupid novel. Their discourse was artistic, camouflaged as science.
This message has been edited by robinrohan, 06-24-2005 09:43 AM
This message has been edited by robinrohan, 06-24-2005 09:45 AM

This message is a reply to:
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robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 132 of 146 (219322)
06-24-2005 12:09 PM


Science tottering on its throne
This leads me to a more general issue, which is the relationship between attitudes toward science in the first half of the 20th century versus the second half (from the 70s on, say). It was thought with the Scopes trial in the 30s that the matter of education about evolution had been settled. I think we can affirm that the attitude toward evolution in those days by the public was rather different from what it is today. "Creationism" went underground for awhile, but then re-emerged some half century later. Why did this happen?
It happened, I would tentatively argue, because of pseudo-scientific disasters such as Nazism and, more importantly, Communism--atheistic communism, the influence of which spread across the world. A cultural shift occurred in the US in which Godless communism got linked in the popular mind with science, but particularly with Darwinism, because communism exuded pseudo-Darwinian ideas.
Fundamentalism with its creationist ideas re-emerged and this time it began to develop some political clout--not a lot, but enough to make one uneasy.
This message has been edited by robinrohan, 06-24-2005 11:19 AM

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robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 133 of 146 (219329)
06-24-2005 12:52 PM
Reply to: Message 132 by robinrohan
06-24-2005 12:09 PM


Crime and Monkeys
Besides the association of TOE with Godless communism, there were also other influences of a domestic nature, such as the rise of crime of all types which peaked in the 80s (since then there has been a decline). This rise of crime was associated with Godlessness, among other things.
What could have caused this Godlessness, this immorality? Obviously it begins with the education system where traditional values are being tampered with. For example, in biology courses an atheistic theory of evolution is being taught which is directly opposed to religion and hence opposed to morality. Thus the rise in crime.
Creationists of the world, unite! Fight those communists who claim that we are nothing more than ugly smelly monkeys!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 132 by robinrohan, posted 06-24-2005 12:09 PM robinrohan has not replied

  
robinrohan
Inactive Member


Message 134 of 146 (269213)
12-14-2005 11:42 AM
Reply to: Message 15 by ringo
06-05-2005 11:11 AM


Re: Hitler and natural selection
bump

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macaroniandcheese 
Suspended Member (Idle past 3928 days)
Posts: 4258
Joined: 05-24-2004


Message 135 of 146 (269263)
12-14-2005 2:04 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by ringo
06-10-2005 11:27 AM


Re: A theory about the 20th century
that would be the backlash against modernity which hitler saw as leading to vulgarity. christians and hitler had common goals of eliminating pornography and homosexuality and such. as a result, he appealed to them with what they wanted to hear.

This message is a reply to:
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