A skeptical physicist ends up confirming climate data

[lucrezaborgia]

(12-12-2011 02:29 PM)myotch Wrote:  Eugenics was particularly nasty, and Ben Stein made a very good point linking a godless evolution with the eugenics methods of Nazism and, ahem, Planned Parenthood.

I don't think he did. I think the Nazi's would have done it even if they were religious. It's not like religion has ever stopped mass murder in the past. Manifest Destiny was used in the US to promote the genocide of Native Americans. The Catholic Church was complicit in the wholesale destruction of "savages" worldwide. Don't think for a second that religion automatically imbues humanity with platinum morality. At it's base, the idea that "we're better than them" is dangerous regardless of what justification is used to "prove" it.

[myotch]

The "manifest destiny" you speak of was a perversion of (the politically incorrect term) White Man's Burden, where the Europeans were seen as civilizing factor in the world, not a destructive one. The ends may have been appropriate, but the means had little to boast of in terms of being civil.

Like I tried to explain before, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Darwinist evolution gave credence to the notion that some people, even whole races, could be somehow genetically inferior, less evolved. That this worked in conjunction with existing biases and an absolutely explosive political atmosphere where a nation and people were looking for someone to blame for perceived loss of national dignity, without a moral structure that would hinder theft, violence, murder, and genocide, is the point the film was trying to make.

Same with Planned Parenthood in the American south, and its targeting of black people for sterilization and abortion.

Of course, Stein makes the point that you refuse - that religion is a morally informative structure.

[lucrezaborgia]

(12-12-2011 03:39 PM)myotch Wrote:  The "manifest destiny" you speak of was a perversion of (the politically incorrect term) White Man's Burden, where the Europeans were seen as civilizing factor in the world, not a destructive one. The ends may have been appropriate, but the means had little to boast of in terms of being civil.

Yet even when the "savages" were civilized they still weren't accepted as equals.

myotch Wrote:Like I tried to explain before, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Darwinist evolution gave credence to the notion that some people, even whole races, could be somehow genetically inferior, less evolved. That this worked in conjunction with existing biases and an absolutely explosive political atmosphere where a nation and people were looking for someone to blame for perceived loss of national dignity, without a moral structure that would hinder theft, violence, murder, and genocide, is the point the film was trying to make.

Nazi Germany wasn't without morals. Those morals simply weren't universally applied. Jews, Gypsies, and Poles aren't people so the morality used between certain Germans didn't apply. Blaming evolution for the atrocities of WWII is an overly simplistic argument that does not take into account many other factors.

I definitely agree that a little knowledge is more dangerous than outright ignorance. For example...why do people keep saying "Darwinist evolution?" Darwin never said "survival of the fittest." Herbert Spencer was the one who coined that as well as writing stuff that fits way more with the Eugenics movement than anything Darwin wrote.

myotch Wrote:Of course, Stein makes the point that you refuse - that religion is a morally informative structure.

Morally informative? For who though? The positive parts of religious morality usually only apply to people within the religion. Everyone on the outside of it is fucked.

[myotch]

I guess that depends on the religion in question.

As far as Christianity in 1930's-40's Germany goes, I can't apply a particular Christian morality to the Nazi's treatment of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, or the mentally disabled. If Germany saw itself as particularly Christian (and it is and was a christianized nation), what of their Jewish, gypsy, or homosexual neighbors? Were they not to love them, too? Certainly there were good "Jews" in their society, just as there was a "good Samaritan" in ancient Israel.

In Christianity, the concept of "love your neighbor" does not merely include one's Christian neighbor, nor does a "good" person necessarily mean one who believes as another does or belong to the same race as another.

I used "Darwinist evolution" because of the time frame. Darwin himself didn't come up with much of what was attributed to him, and he had contemporaries working on the same theory. However, his book Origin of the Species did spark an intellectual interest in the matter of evolution that was significantly wider than the academic world, and much larger than the theology world. Hence, he is given much credit, and even though much of his work has been scientifically discredited, his bigger picture remains.

[lucrezaborgia]

(12-12-2011 04:36 PM)myotch Wrote:  I guess that depends on the religion in question.

As far as Christianity in 1930's-40's Germany goes, I can't apply a particular Christian morality to the Nazi's treatment of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, or the mentally disabled. If Germany saw itself as particularly Christian (and it is and was a christianized nation), what of their Jewish, gypsy, or homosexual neighbors? Were they not to love them, too? Certainly there were good "Jews" in their society, just as there was a "good Samaritan" in ancient Israel.

In Christianity, the concept of "love your neighbor" does not merely include one's Christian neighbor, nor does a "good" person necessarily mean one who believes as another does or belong to the same race as another.

Tell that to the Westburo Baptist Church. Fundamentalists of all stripes will mouth about how Christianity is all about love while beating everyone with the bible about how some certain segment of humanity are actually demons in disguise and how their specific sect is the only worthy group of people in the world. You don't think that kind of dehumanization would lead to ordinary people doing really bad things?

Your conception of Christianity isn't the same as everyone else today or in the past. Christianity was used to support slavery in the past and, specifically, it was used in America to show how African Americans were inherently suited for slavery due to the curse of Ham. I don't think any of the Christians of the crusades thought the Muslims were really people either. It's sad, but it's a fact that religion has been used to do both wonderful and horrible things. Christianity isn't an exception.

Evolution was merely a convenient way for the Nazi's to "prove" that their ideas were scientific but it certainly wasn't the main reason.

[myotch]

Westboro is not in charge.

Every single society that ever was and ever will be will have pockets of people who believe in some type of biased ideology, racism, religionism, genderism, and maybe even intellectual separation. When those things become part of the overall governing system, though, is where problems of systematic injustice arise.

[lucrezaborgia]

(12-12-2011 06:52 PM)myotch Wrote:  Westboro is not in charge.

Every single society that ever was and ever will be will have pockets of people who believe in some type of biased ideology, racism, religionism, genderism, and maybe even intellectual separation. When those things become part of the overall governing system, though, is where problems of systematic injustice arise.

Exactly.