[net.religion] On Darwin being evil

rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (10/03/84)

>> Remember Nazi dogma said that Jews were subhuman
>> and it is a tad illogical to want to convert
>> what you consider subhumans into your elite Aryan
>> group, isn't it ? (if we assume Nazism is Christian )

> Pardon me for exploding a few myths, but Hitler found the basis for his
> actions in a rather well-referenced (but little-read) book -
> 		THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
> "Build a better race of people! Select those who are better and get rid
> of the rest!" Nazism was evolution in living color - and living horror.
> [BICKFORD]

The notions of evolution (not necessarily Darwinian theory) are sound.
(If you want to argue the basis for that, there's another newsgroup.)
Hitler took these (presumably) sound notions and imposed his bigotry
and preconceptions ("Proper selection will breed a better race; a better
race means no Jews...") onto them.  He added on top of that an (a)morality
that purported that people existed only as a means of furthering the
goals of the "fatherland", and not as individuals whose freedom had
any importance.  Not that this version of morality (the fascist notion
that society/country/etc is more important than its people) was Hitler's
alone or even originally...

> The evolutionary philosophy doesn't stop there. The "Bulldog of Darwin,"
> Thomas Henry Huxley, viewed blacks as unhuman and unfit to survive, and
> was fully prepared to accomplish natural selection - with him being the
> natural selector (naturally :-).

Same thing.  In this argument, the soundness of evolution is not
the relevant point.  The notion of bigoted unfounded elitist ethnocentrist
racism is.

> But then, "Nobody expects Auschwitz!"

On the contrary, as long as there are people who purport that *their* faith
is the one true faith, that *their* ethnic group has some special innate
superiority over others, etc., I will continue to EXPECT Auschwitzes.  And
Spanish Inquisitions.  (Sacrilegious attacks at the holy words of Monty
Python will get you nowhere, Bickford. :-)
-- 
WHAT IS YOUR NAME?			Rich Rosen
WHAT IS YOUR NET ADDRESS?		pyuxn!rlr
WHAT IS THE CAPITAL OF ASSYRIA?		I don't know that ...  ARGHHHHHHHH!