Pharyngula

Posted by: Mena | June 1, 2009 11:34 AM

I still can't get over how even the most apologetic anti-choicers are more concerned about how this is going to reflect on the rest of them than on the fact that a man was murdered. It seems like in order to be anti-choice you need to be a bit selfish and a lot crazy, with a healthy dose of needing to be a bully. Just check out the Free Republic site. They are wondering what he was doing in a church because he was obviously a satanist. What century are we living in?

Posted by: Orson Zedd | June 1, 2009 11:38 AM

This does throw a wrench in that whole, "God gives us morality" wheel that my family throws around. Usually pointing them to scripture doesn't get anything more than, "Yeah, well, that was a necessary for the time." Really? Offering your daughters to rapists is a good thing?

So, I doubt this will get them to change their mind.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 1, 2009 11:38 AM

If god doesn't keep believers from killing, then does belief matter?

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592

Posted by: Barklikeadog | June 1, 2009 11:41 AM

Amen Brother! Amen!

Posted by: raven | June 1, 2009 11:42 AM

And yes, I've noticed some presumed atheists ranting about "justifiable homicide" and murdering anti-abortionist families in the comments here, and I deplore it. The only reason I am not deleting those vile comments right and left is that I think they are useful warnings: do not become the monsters you despise.

Some of the worst of those "presumed atheists ranting" were just wacko trolls posting crap for attention and fun. The worst was doctordefender who also posted the exact opposite message under another ID. One ID wanted to kill xian terrorists, the other ID wanted to kill MDs.

This says more about what mentally disturbed 12 year old do for cheap intertainment than what atheists think.

Posted by: Alpinist | June 1, 2009 11:44 AM

Great post, PZ. I just wish I could see the "crazy twitterers" link here at work, since it's blocked for being pornography. =(

Posted by: GBM | June 1, 2009 11:45 AM

"Would it have been ethical for a German citizen to have killed the commandants of concentration camps, under the assumption that if they could make no one willing to take the job, it might stop the killing?"

Yes. Interestingly, that is because the Jewish adults he was killing are people rather than bags of cells that have the potential to someday become persons. Unlike say, fetuses.

Posted by: Carlie | June 1, 2009 11:47 AM

And for those simpering asshats at Operation Rescue, I'll quote Kristjan Wager (who always says things better than I do): "Words have consequences".
You can't spew hatred and venom and scream that someone is a murderer and something needs to be done about it from the rooftops, then hide behind saying "We never advocated
violence". Bullshit.

Posted by: Angel Kaida | June 1, 2009 11:48 AM

Also, PZ, this was a great post. :) Forgot to mention.

Posted by: Carlie | June 1, 2009 11:56 AM

Cue the Xian Death Cult Terrorists Supporters in 10 9 8 7..... They will be here.

Oh, that's easy to predict:

"But we're not all like that!"
"But we don't condone violence!"
"But he was acting alone!"
"But he wasn't a Real True Christian(tm)!"
"But he was just frustrated that a serial killer was on the loose!"
"But killing is ok in a time of war!"

Bunch of buts.

Posted by: Sastra | June 1, 2009 11:57 AM

"If Only God Matters to Him, Do You?"

I agree that religion doesn't matter in this issue -- except for those parts where it does.

Religion can come down on any side of any issue, but when held fervently "against the world," it has the habit of making human problems intractable, because it's all been solved in the Transcendent. The person who frames the argument as God vs. Man -- and who then places himself on "God's side" -- tends not to see himself as having any responsibility to be cautious, or doubtful, or willing to compromise. "Me? This has nothing to do with me. These aren't my views. I'm just passing on what God says and wants. Ignore me. I'm just a weak and sinful human, and am not involved."

If God is the source of all value, all meaning, all wisdom, all knowledge, and all good, then we all know what people "without God" are also without.

Posted by: Dianne | June 1, 2009 11:58 AM

Would it have been ethical for a German citizen to have killed the commandants of concentration camps, under the assumption that if they could make no one willing to take the job, it might stop the killing?

You sure you want to go there? Because it seems to me that the next step is to say, "Would it have been ethical for a German citizen to take a job as a KL commandant if he or she truly believed that Jews were eating Christian babies?"

The deliberate and premeditated killing of a person is murder, no matter how evil you think that person was. Comparing the death of an 8 week old embryo which does not even have stationary neurons to the death of a living breathing thinking H sapiens is an insult, even if that person is Hitler or Stalin.

Posted by: Angel Kaida | June 1, 2009 12:06 PM

This is fucking terrifying.

Tiller got what he deserved and so will you by Paula on Monday at 7:00am.

Tiller was more evil than Hitler. Hitler didn't kill Christians. Tiller murdered innocence and raped the world of beautiful children of our savior. OUR Savior. Not just mine. But yours too. Regardless of what you might think. Tiller makes me sick. The man (or woman) that bravely sent him to hell should be praised. There's no doubt that BHO and the rest of the liberal baby killers will give this hero the death penalty. At which point we REAL christians should move to have this man canonized. He is a saint. In every sense of the word. The world needs to wake up. The two biggest problems facing this world is the abortion holocaust and radical Islam. Both should be stamped out. And nothing short than any army of Christ will accomplish that.

I know that these people are on the fringe, and that even this might be a particularly disturbed Poe, and that most of them are simply Internet Tough Guys who couldn't harm a fly in reality, but... it's sickening and very frightening to see this mindset in all its hate-filled glory.

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | June 1, 2009 12:08 PM

Posted by: Rev Spitz | June 1, 2009 12:07 PM

blah blah blah blah blah

Posted by: blf | June 1, 2009 12:11 PM

I've noticed some presumed atheists ranting about "justifiable homicide" and murdering anti-abortionist families in the comments here,

Whilst I missed those, I was shocked by the people in the recent Bill Donohue thread calling for him to be tortured or raped. Both the calls Pee Zed refers to, and those, are not even wrong. (Yes, I know that Pauli quote is usually only applied to nonsense “science”, but I don't see why it shouldn't also be applied to nonsense “ethics”/“morals”.)

Posted by: Gavin | June 1, 2009 12:16 PM

I think that comments which advocate violence should be deleted. Threats do not exist without a medium. Have some standards.

Posted by: Alverant | June 1, 2009 12:18 PM

Darby @5, the flaw in such an argument is how reasonable the belief is. Equating a non-sentient group of cells with a full fledged person is not reasonable. Equating a Jewish person with a full fledged person is very reasonable. Using your logic, if a person solidly believed that contraception killed people (by preventing them from existing) and murdered store employees who sold condoms would also be considered being "pro-life".

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 1, 2009 12:20 PM

I do believe in a Universal consciousness which comes with it a mutual and undeniable responsibility for all living things. A consciousness that demands exploration of the Universe (past and future) with no restrictions. A consciousness that demands highest moral standards and the infinite and undying search for truth. This is because I am human and alive and I don't need the threat of going to hell to scare me into it.

That consciousness you believe in, it needs to speak the fuck up. I'm not sure many people hear it.

Posted by: raven | June 1, 2009 12:23 PM

Paula the Xian fundie Tiller was more evil than Hitler. Hitler didn't kill Christians.

Wait

What?

Seems to me, Paula's meaning is clear. Jews, gays, gypsies, Slavs, and other untermenchen aren't human. According to her, it is perfectly OK to kill them.

Another example of xian morality. Enough "xian morality" accumulated in one place would be enough to end life on this planet.

Posted by: catta | June 1, 2009 12:26 PM

I think religion was a bit more than the usual non-working safety catch, considering this quote from the kansas.com article:

"It seems as though what is happening in Kansas could be compared to the 'lawlessness' which is spoken of in the Bible," it said. "Tiller is the concentration camp 'Mengele' of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgment upon our nation."

Doesn't sound much like caring about children, unborn or otherwise. Sounds more like he's afraid, above all, of the country not coddling his invisible friend enough to prevent a destructive tantrum and/or eternal damnation for everyone in it.

It's a convenient publicity stunt to say it's all about concern for "little ones" (man, I hate that phrase). But in reality, it's about not wanting a celestial dictator to punish you for the "transgressions" of others - something which the Bible says he is rather fond of.

At least in this case and judging by the above quote, I think religion may very well be a cause.

Posted by: Richard Harris | June 1, 2009 12:27 PM

Shit! My # 25 should've read,

Darby @ # 5, Would it have been ethical for a German citizen to have killed the commandants of concentration camps,...?
The Germany of the Nazi era wasn't a democracy, so 'rights' were assigned by the Nazis. You'd be in trouble if you killed the camp guards, etc., because that would be against their human rights. The Jews, Gypsies, Communists, homosexuals, etc. didn't have much in the way of human rights. Considering that Nazi Germany was a 'Christian' country, that tells you all you need to know about religion & ethics.

In the USA, rights are democratically decided, so the killer, Scott Roeder, was acting against human rights, whereas George Tiller wasn't, (as far as I know).

Posted by: Lynna | June 1, 2009 12:32 PM

Tiller did everything he could to be both morally and legally right. He even held informational sessions in his clinic for Kansas lawmakers. He was an educator as well as a doctor. Still, the Operation Rescue website called for his death in every way short of actually saying, "Go out and shoot the guy."

Posted by: Aquaria | June 1, 2009 12:34 PM

Religion can come down on any side of any issue, but when held fervently "against the world," it has the habit of making human problems intractable, because it's all been solved in the Transcendent.

This make me think, in a stone cold horror way, of that saying, "God's work is never done," and how it can make a hard core zealot even more implacable. If he's decided that killing is God's work, such a person will be extremely dangerous.

Posted by: Tim | June 1, 2009 12:39 PM

Want to save babies? There are plenty already drawing breath who could use some help. If half the resources used to make this country safe for money was put into making the United States a safe and rewarding place to raise children, fewer woman would make that choice you god-botherers so despise.

Posted by: Seraphiel | June 1, 2009 12:42 PM

This was an act of terrorism.

All the organizations this guy was hanging out with should probably be checked out to make sure they aren't producing more terrorist cells.

Posted by: shamar | June 1, 2009 12:43 PM

Maybe some here who know more about this subject than me could answer a question for me......at what point in development is a forming baby supposed to have a fully functioning brain and nervous system and therefore be considered to have sentient consciousness?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 1, 2009 12:46 PM

I always wonder why the "pro-life" people aren't constantly protesting at the fertility clinics that have hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos in storage. Many of which never get used, are destroyed when thawed and some destroyed because they will not be used by the couple.

Unless I'm missing something.

Posted by: SteveM | June 1, 2009 12:55 PM

re 52:

Heinlein didn't think that occurred until about the age of 25 in most human males.

My point is that it doesn't matter. Even if it occurred at the moment of conception. It still does nopt have a right to the woman's body, only by her consent can it be there.

Posted by: CW | June 1, 2009 12:57 PM

I don't have any statistical data on this, but my impression is some women who need late term abortions are probably unable to get them and just die.

Posted by: kermit | June 1, 2009 12:59 PM

Rev. BDC @ 41 "Hitler didn't kill Christians?"

Well, maybe Christians who had Jewish ancestors, or gay Christians, or handicapped Christians, or intellectuals claiming to be Christians, or Pacifist Christians, but not, you know, *real Christians.

Posted by: CW | June 1, 2009 1:01 PM

Hitler didn't kill Christians?

Posted by: KI | June 1, 2009 1:05 PM

Thanks, PZ, for needed rationality. I was going to go to the Planned Parenthood clinic to scream in the face of one of these fundies, took a hot shower, came back and read the part about becoming a monster. Not where I want to go. Don't know what to do about it, though, I have a real short temper and am prone to overreacting and violent speech (too much of a pain-fearing wuss to actually get physical), and have no money to contribute to anything.

Posted by: Another George | June 1, 2009 1:10 PM

"Roeder was an amoral, obsessed nut who found support for his delusions among a particularly ugly American subculture."

Yup, and elements of that ugly subculture are amongst the most prolific comment posters at christianpost.com. Indeed there was at least one comment there (since flagged as inappropriate) which actually celebrated the murder: "I think we should all be celebrating for the antiseptic removal of this "doctor." And we should take them ALL out."

You don't have to register to vote thumbs up or thumbs down on individual posts. Clicking on a poster's name brings up a list of their posts complete with voting icons, which makes it easy to circumvent the site's limit of two votes per article. Using Google Chrome's incognito mode allows more than one vote per post. Finally, the site is low traffic enough that mere handfuls of votes are noticed.

Fucking with a particularly ugly American subculture by voting is a lame way of expressing outrage, but who cares at this point?

Posted by: blf | June 1, 2009 1:12 PM

I just cannot believe that there was only one single solitary American who was willing to do [legal late-term abortions].

According to the report in The Grauniad, Dr Tiller's clinic was one of three (3(!)) in the entire USA who would perform legal abortions after the 21^st week.

Posted by: Vanessa | June 1, 2009 1:14 PM

I'll echo the person upthread who said that if the only thing keeping you from going on a killing spree at the drop of a hat is a story about a bearded dude who talked to bushes thousands of years ago suggesting that it's not nice to go on killing sprees, then I'm really fucking scared of you.

How many more millions of people have to die before the idea that religion brings morality disappears?

Posted by: kermit | June 1, 2009 1:18 PM

New message for the billboard, same picture:
"If he thinks God wants you dead...
are you safe?

Over the top, perhaps, but recent events suggest maybe not so much.

Posted by: Aquaria | June 1, 2009 1:19 PM

If half the resources used to make this country safe for money was put into making the United States a safe and rewarding place to raise children, fewer woman would make that choice you god-botherers so despise.

Tell me about it. We are extremely anti-family compared to, say, France or Germany. There's nothing to turn off a woman about motherhood worse than creating an environment where she has to worry about being able to accumulate enough leave to recover from childbirth, about having her job still be there when she does return, about health care costs (which can be exorbitant, even with insurance), about outrageously expensive child care that she has to arrange because if she doesn't work they don't eat...

Posted by: Free Radical | June 1, 2009 1:20 PM

I have always thought the best summary of religion and morality was this quote, which I usually see attributed to Steven Weinberg:

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Posted by: llewelly | June 1, 2009 1:24 PM

Darby | June 1, 2009 11:38 AM:

Okay, this is purely as a devil's advocate argument (can you do that if you don't believe in devils-?):


Would it have been ethical for a German citizen to have killed the commandants of concentration camps, under the assumption that if they could make no one willing to take the job, it might stop the killing?

I'm not positive that this is as clearly immoral as others here probably do.

Dr. Tiller was murdered for providing a service which is sometimes necessary to preserve life. You need to re-think your position.

Posted by: raven | June 1, 2009 1:26 PM

There is Christian scripture that would support this."

Which is irrelevant in the modern USA.

There are Xian scriptures which support slavery, genocide, stoning disobedient children to death, killing shellfish and pig eaters, wearers of mixed fabrics, and sowers of multiple seed types in the same field. And of course, the always popular option of selling your children as sex slaves.

Anyone who actually followed all the rules in the bible would be doing multiple life sentences in our country. Some of them are in fact, in prison.

Posted by: blf | June 1, 2009 1:31 PM

Reason # 109823 for never, ever, ever, ever moving to the US.

Near the top of my own list for possibly never returning to the USA is that people—including the police—have guns. Which is rather apropos in the circumstances.

(That will probably set off the gun nuts in 3… 2… 1…)

Posted by: CW | June 1, 2009 1:32 PM

Banning late term abortion because it upsets you means that women will die. How is that ethical?

Posted by: Ktesibios | June 1, 2009 1:33 PM

For all of the apologists for Christopathy who might want to haul out the old "not a true Christian" mantra to describe the murderer, or try to "distance" themselves from wingnut eliminationist rhetoric as contributory to such violence, here's a highly relevant blast from the past:

DR.THOMA: Then how is it that a few days ago a witness, namely, the Witness Ohlendorf, appeared here and admitted that through the Einsatzgruppen he had killed 90,000 people, but told the Tribunal that this did not harmonize with the National Socialist ideology?

VON DEM BACH-ZELEWSKI: I am of a different opinion. If for years, for decades, a doctrine is preached to the effect that the Slav race is an inferior race, that the Jews are not even human beings, then an explosion of this sort is inevitable.

-SS General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, testifying before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, January 7, 1946

Source

Just replace "National Socialist" with "Christian" and "Jews" with "atheists" or the name of any other targeted group and presto!- there's your rationalization, nicely broiled well-done.

Posted by: Free Radical | June 1, 2009 1:33 PM

"Human rights exist. They are not assigned. Governments either respect them, or don't."

Where do they exist? Where are they written? Without the democratic process, how does one determine what they should be?

Posted by: Anonymous | June 1, 2009 1:41 PM

@ BDC
You are right of course. I think my point was however that you aren't going to be considered for a late term abortion unless your life is in danger or there is something wrong with the feotus.

Posted by: Seraphiel | June 1, 2009 1:41 PM

Do you all feel late term abortions are acceptable without mitigating circumstances?

It doesn't matter what I feel, or what you feel, about it.

It's a private medical decision that a woman can make on her own, or with her family if she wants to.

It's none of our business.

Posted by: LadyH | June 1, 2009 1:46 PM

Annonymous @ #90 was myself

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 1, 2009 1:48 PM

Do you all feel late term abortions are acceptable without mitigating circumstances?

In nearly all cases, late-term abortions occur solely because of threats to the health of the mother, severe congenital defects of the fetus, or both. This is common information....

Posted by: blueelm | June 1, 2009 1:51 PM

"Tiller's clinic was one of three (3(!)) in the entire USA who would perform legal abortions after the 21st week."

What makes me sad is to think of the women who have to stay on anti-biotics for a month while carying a glorified corpse in the their body because we have to "give it a chance" to be stillborn naturally.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 1, 2009 1:52 PM

I'd like to see the two of them quit the religion business and open a law firm.

He/she/they would probably suck at that too.

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 1, 2009 1:55 PM

Where do they exist? Where are they written? Without the democratic process, how does one determine what they should be?

Human rights are an inevitable byproduct of the existence of self-aware beings with the capacity for suffering, and the rest of the psychological traits of humans and other sentient beings. They were not initially written but can be determined through reason operating on even a half-assed understanding of the nature of those psychological traits.

Posted by: MrJonno | June 1, 2009 2:00 PM

Human rights are inventions like the car , tv and the space shuttle. They are damnn good ones but they sure arent natural

Posted by: Robert Woerheide | June 1, 2009 2:00 PM

I noticed that Operation Rescue has shut down its website. Those chickenshits don't even have the courage of their convictions, convictions which no doubt give encouragement to doctor-killers.

Here's a cached version of their "letter denouncing the murder." Interesting how they refer to him as "abortionist Tiller" and "Mr." Tiller.

Wichita, KS – It has been learned today that George Tiller was shot and killed while entering his church on Sunday morning, May 31.

Operation Rescue releases the following statement:

We are shocked at this morning’s disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down. Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning. We pray for Mr. Tiller’s family that they will find comfort and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ.

And yes their web site is still hiding in a dark corner somewhere.

Posted by: BigMKnows | June 1, 2009 2:02 PM

there are hateful, callous enablers of death who cross all religious lines.... Focus instead on the root of the problem: Roeder was an amoral, obsessed nut who found support for his delusions among a particularly ugly American subculture

This is what I pointed out in the comments a few days ago: that it's not the religion or a culture of hate (of abortionists) that caused this murder, it was one lone nut who would find an outlet for psychopathology somewhere else if the anti-abortion movement didn't exist. Homophobia, anti-government militias, conspiracy theories, there are any number of outlets.

So, PZ, you can't argue, like you did a few days ago, that the anti-abortion movement is fomenting these people and now say that nuts cross all religious (and political and philosophical) lines. That's a contradiction on your part, PZ.

Posted by: CW | June 1, 2009 2:08 PM

So, PZ, you can't argue, like you did a few days ago, that the anti-abortion movement is fomenting these people and now say that nuts cross all religious (and political and philosophical) lines. That's a contradiction on your part

Posted by: AdamK | June 1, 2009 2:13 PM

Atheismos:

"I also think late term abortions are appalling." You group disparate individual events into a class, and are appalled. Each is the agonized choice of an individual woman. Do you think she chose casually? Do you think she carried a fetus for months, then changed her mind, without compelling reasons? Those reasons are usually part of a medical tragedy. These aren't abstractions, they're actual women you're talking about.

"...the sacredness of human life..." What does that even mean? You claim to be an atheist, and I take you at your word. What does "sacredness" mean? Whose life are you talking about?

"...is separated by mere months and a birth canal..." Those months are actual months in a specific woman's life. That "mere" birth canal is part of the body of a specific woman. I doubt it's "mere" to her. Perhaps some female commenter could let us know if her birth canal is "mere."

Posted by: AVSN | June 1, 2009 2:14 PM

Scott Roeder, the killer of George Tiller...a so-called "Christian Patriot" — a double scoundrel, in other words — who has a history of fringe beliefs, a criminal record of association with violent anti-government groups, and a paper trail in which he wraps himself in religious sanctimony and advocates death for abortionists.

No real Christian would do such a thing. Roeder be damned.

Posted by: Phaedrus | June 1, 2009 2:15 PM

For those curious about Obama's preventative detention proposal:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/22/preventive_detention/

Think of it as incarceration of Japanese during WWII, the idea being that a person (or group) can be detained because of their (supposed) allegiance to a dangerous (terrorist) group.

Using this logic, most any evangelical could now be legitimately and indefinitely incarcerated.

I find this ironic on so many levels. This is the type of power that that demographic has been arguing the President needs, and they could become the first targets. That this could come about due to the proposals of a "Liberal" president elected largely in reaction to conservative overreach.

Ironic and sad.

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 1, 2009 2:16 PM

No real Christian would do such a thing. Roeder be damned.

Roeder was No True Scotsman.

Posted by: Richard Harris | June 1, 2009 2:17 PM

Azkyroth @ # 73 & CW @ # 01 Human rights exist. They are not assigned. Governments either respect them, or don't.

These 'natural rights' are a fiction. Or, as Jeremy Bentham called them, "nonsense upon stilts".

For instance, a lion's concept of 'natural rights' would include the right to commit infanticide. Of course, the lionesses wouldn't be too keen on this, so the lions would have to invent religion.

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 1, 2009 2:18 PM

Do not send him to death row, let him live with his guilt.

There is every reason to believe he feels no guilt. At the point where his guilt is certain, ensuring that he will never harm anyone again is the overriding concern. How to best accomplish this should be determined by the relevant authorities upon review of the relevant facts; if it means euthanizing him like any other rabid animal, so be it.

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 1, 2009 2:20 PM

These 'natural rights' are a fiction. Or, as Jeremy Bentham called them, "nonsense upon stilts".

How do you figure that?

Posted by: raven | June 1, 2009 2:25 PM

BigMknows the Xian Terrorist Supporter:

This is what I pointed out in the comments a few days ago: that it's not the religion or a culture of hate (of abortionists) that caused this murder, it was one lone nut who would find an outlet for psychopathology somewhere else if the anti-abortion movement didn't exist. Homophobia, anti-government militias, conspiracy theories, there are any number of outlets.

Not the first, "Scott Roeder isn't a Real Xian(tm)" wingnut.

The ugly subculture of anti-choice/anti-human spawns monsters like Roeder. They support, enable, and encourage people like him. This is just the classic way terrorists operate. And when it happens they celebrate it in private and lie about that in public.

Roeder is a Xian Terrorist. Operation Rescue, Randall Terry, and you are Xian Terrorist enablers, supporters, and defenders.

Posted by: Joe Bleau | June 1, 2009 2:25 PM

Why does god never tell these people to murder other murders or evil dictators or men who aren't homosexuals? Seems to me that the creator of all life, the guy pulling all the strings, could just strike them dead himself if he wanted it done. Or prevented their births in the first place.

That's easy. Here on earth, God wants us to suffer. If we can manage to endure the suffering - our own as well as others' - with reasonable good grace, and only bother Him with praise for the stuff that's good and/or terrifying, then he'll grant us a bite of the Big Delicious Eternal Cookie, and we won't have to suffer any more. If not - oh well, more suffering. Times infinity.

Because He Loves us.

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 1, 2009 2:27 PM

Yep, that was exactly his reasoning.

No, it wasn't. Even if it was, are you actually vapid enough to believe that an approach which is correct in some instances cannot be misapplied?

Posted by: CW | June 1, 2009 2:31 PM

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, only 2% of late term abortions are due to fetal problems, but liars and morons like Marcotte, Carlie, Cerberus, CW, etc. would have you believe it's 99%.

Posted by: James | June 1, 2009 2:31 PM

@128:

FYI, Gingi Edmonds is going on the radio tonight to talk about the Dr. Tiller murder.

Oops, I guess it's not a "real" radio show, but a streaming media show. Thank goodness.

(I should have learned by now to never take a murder-condoning Godbot at face value.)

Posted by: Steve L | June 1, 2009 2:36 PM

It's not obvious to me from the discussion here -- is there agreement toward whether the killer was amoral or immoral? I would think him immoral, but PZ used amoral.

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 1, 2009 2:39 PM

Azkyroth #25, just the same way that I figure god doesn't exist - there's no evidence for it. Just because you want it to be so, doesn't make it so.

Human rights are an emergent property of the social and psychological characteristics of humans. God is a (fictional) discrete entity with alleged agency and consciousness. How is this similar?

Posted by: Anonymous | June 1, 2009 2:39 PM

Well ... Hitler didn't kill any True(tm) Christians.

Problem solved.

Christ! - the stoopeedity of some people. Makes even me look reasonable at times.

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 1, 2009 2:42 PM

Turnus, you dishonest little cherry picker, Hitler thought he knew better about who Jesus actually was.

Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism the destroyer. Nevertheless, the Galilean, who later was called the Christ, intended something quite different. He must be regarded as a popular leader who took up His position against Jewry. Galilee was a colony where the Romans had probably installed Gallic legionaries, and items certain that Jesus was not a Jew. The Jews, by the way, regarded Him as the son of a whore and a Roman soldier,which in christianity is not a belief. The decisive falsification of Jesus's doctrine was the work of St. Paul. He gave himself to this work with subtlety and for purposes of personal exploitation. For the Galilean's object was to liberate His country from Jewish oppression. He set Himself against Jewish capitalism, and that's why the Jews liquidated Him. Paul of Tarsus (his name was Saul, before the road to Damascus) was one of those who persecuted Jesus most savagely.When he learnt that Jesus's supporters let their throats be cut for His ideas, he realised that, by making intelligent use of the Galilean's teaching, it would be possible to overthrow this Roman State which the Jews hated. It's in this context that we must understand the famous "illumination". Think of it, the Romans were daring to confiscate the most sacred thing the Jews possessed, the gold piled up in their temples! At that time, as now, money was their god. On the road to Damascus, St. Paul discovered that he could succeed in ruining the Roman State by causing the principle to triumph of the equality of all men before a single God and by putting beyond the reach of the laws his private notions, which he alleged to be divinely inspired. If, into the bargain, one succeeded in imposing one man as the representative on earth of the only God, that man would possess boundless power.

* 21 October 1942

Jesus was most certainly not a Jew. The Jews would never have handed one of their own people to the Roman courts; they would have condemned Him themselves. It is quite probable that a large number of the descendants of the Roman legionaries, mostly Gauls, were living in Galilee, and Jesus was probably one of them. His mother may well have been a Jewess. Jesus fought against the materialism of His age, and, therefore, against the Jews. Paul of Tarsus, who was originally one of the most stubborn enemies of the Christians, suddenly realised the immense possibilities of using, intelligently and for other ends, an idea which was exercising such great powers of fascination. He realised that the judicious exploitation of this idea among non-Jews would give him far greater power in the world than would the promise of material profit to the Jews themselves. It was then that the future St. Paul distorted with diabolical cunning the Christian idea. out of this idea, which was a declaration of war on the golden calf, on the egotism and the materialism of the Jews, he created a rallying point for slaves of all kinds against the elite, the masters and those in dominant authority. The religion fabricated by Paul of Tarsus, which was later called Christianity, is nothing but the Communism of to-day.

* night of 29-30 November 1944

Hitler would not see you as a True Christian, you deluded little git.

Posted by: Blue Fielder | June 1, 2009 2:47 PM

Remember, murder is wrong until the state does it. Then it's justice.

Is there any real difference between "kill this man because we trhink he's evil" and "execute this man after his trial because we think he's evil"?

Posted by: Mike K | June 1, 2009 2:51 PM

@ 145
"If there is no rational reason to believe that either of these applies, what good does it do to keep a monster sitting around caged forever?"

What good does it do to kill him?
I just do not want to be the one to convict him to death/the one to kill him, because I find the decision to do so very hard to take.

That is rooted in my inability to be all rational, even when that might be better.

Posted by: CW | June 1, 2009 2:54 PM

what good does it do to keep a monster sitting around caged forever?

Posted by: Holbach | June 1, 2009 2:59 PM

Yup, religion condones the killing of a doctor who kills one of their god's souls. Religion will never be free of the taint of insanity and a non-moralistic conflict when it affects their imaginary god's work.

Posted by: Richard Harris | June 1, 2009 3:03 PM

Azkyroth #40 Human rights are an emergent property of the social and psychological characteristics of humans.

Whoooaaaa! You, & right-thinking people, may want this to be so, but that doesn't make it so.

Human rights, where they exist, are a social construct, or they might even be defined by a dictator. In the old testament of the bible, slavery or even genocide wasn't in conflict with rights.

You recognize above that my reference to putative lion's rights, (as defined by sentient lions), being different to those that humans would want, means that rights are not absolute nor that they have independent existence. The natural instincts of lions to kill cubs when they take over a pride is necessary to their social structure. It follows that for a lion, he would have the right to kill any cubs he'd not fathered. Of course, the lionesses wouldn't be pleased at this, hence the need for male lions to invent religion, to provide a 'moral' framework to justify their instinctive predilections.

At this stage in our democracies, certain rights seem obviously desirable, but they've evolved over the centuries, & I see no reason why they should not continue to evolve.

Posted by: Holbach | June 1, 2009 3:09 PM

I'm willing to bet that the extreme religious scum morons would love to see a return of a form of the Inquisition, to not only deal with the unbelievers, but also those willing to challenge any form of religious insanity, from abortion to making fun and ridicule of their imaginary god. I for one, will never permit them to get away with imposing a pandemic of insanity over the rational.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 1, 2009 3:10 PM

Scott Roeder, the killer of George Tiller...a so-called "Christian Patriot" — a double scoundrel, in other words — who has a history of fringe beliefs, a criminal record of association with violent anti-government groups, and a paper trail in which he wraps himself in religious sanctimony and advocates death for abortionists.

No real Christian would do such a thing. Roeder be damned.

Who decides who is a real Christian AVSN? You?

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 1, 2009 3:13 PM

Holbach, just keep in mind, one of our more prominent trolls, the Piltdown Hoax, would welcome a return of the Inquisition.

Posted by: Anonymous | June 1, 2009 3:15 PM

Is there any real difference between whether a government chooses which natural rights to protect, or which civil rights to grant? In the end, it is the same result, the government either protects that right or not, whether you believe it is a "natural" right or just a result of consensus. The only advantage the concept of "natural rights" has (to me) is that it is useful in categorizing "rights" vs. "privileges", that is, some things that should be more difficult to remove on a "whim".

So whether a right exists and you simply discover it and protect it or you invent it and protect it, it's all the same to the law.

Posted by: Jim | June 1, 2009 3:17 PM

PZ Myers: "We start with the recognition of and respect for the right of every person to live..."

Quite obviously, by supporting abortion "rights," you do no such thing. Your respect for the right to life is contingent upon the human being in question meeting certain conditions set by you to establish his or her personhood (such as having successfully emerged from the womb, or having certain abilities, or being "wanted," and so on). On your view of the right to life, Jefferson was quite mistaken to describe that right as "unalienable." Your view of the right to life is, of course, quite consistent with your materialistic/atheistic worldview, which provides no basis for thinking that either rights or moral principles are absolute.

Posted by: Watchman | June 1, 2009 3:18 PM

Who decides who is a real Christian AVSN? You?

No. Me! Let me! Me me me me me!

All Christians are true Christians until they do something really bad. Then they are not true Christians, and never were.

But they are Forgiven anyway.

Usually.

I guess.

It depends who you talk to.

I hope that's clear.

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 1, 2009 3:20 PM

And in swoops Jim with yet an other fertilized egg equals person argument. Too bad that so many fertilized eggs never get the chance to develop.

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | June 1, 2009 3:20 PM

Posted by: Jim | June 1, 2009 3:17 PM

blah blah blah blah blah

Posted by: Watchman | June 1, 2009 3:24 PM

Paging Owlmirror.

Posted by: Asylum Seeker | June 1, 2009 3:25 PM

How dishonest of you, #123. The "late term abortion" period referred to in that linked article refers to anything beyond 16 weeks (4 months), which is an acceptable use of the term. Unfortunately, it is not the same kind of "late term abortion" we are talking about here, which are abortions past the 21st week. It is for good reason that the survey does not use the latter definition, given the previous information about how few people in our country give late term abortions of the latter kind, which are the ones that are most likely to be done for medical reasons, and most likely done too rarely to have any sizeable sample from which to draw conclusions via survey. In addition, not only is this "late term abortion" referring to different time frames in which the abortions occur, the percentage that you offer is only the reason for "delaying" the abortion up to that point, not getting the abortion in the first place. I am not sure how much of a difference that makes, but perhaps the more relevant omission is the pressing matter of whether the mother herself learned that her own life was at risk in the "late term" as well. Simply put, even if we were to grant that the "late term abortions" referenced in that article are, for all purposes, identical to those that Tiller performed, and that there is no reason to think that there were more people who had these abortions and had a fetus with medical problems that were known earlier than the term in which was aborted, this is still an incomplete rebuttal because you focused only on potential problems with the fetus and not potential health problems on the part of the mother. And those potential health problems for the mother are just as relevant to the comments that you were responding to.

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 1, 2009 3:28 PM

Yes, I have access to the relevant documents in the original languages, as do countless others.

I...can...not...stop...giggling...

Some one best inform Dr Hector Avolos that there are documents that he has yet to see.

'snicker'

Posted by: Keenacat | June 1, 2009 3:31 PM

re Janine @ #175
Haven't you heard of the Jeebus-Video?
"Das Jesus-Video" is a book by the german author Andreas Eschbach. It features some time-traveling and a video-cam found by archeologists (they a being chased by the vatican, of course, since the video reveals Jeebus as being far from holy...).

Posted by: Denis Alexander | June 1, 2009 3:32 PM

Next up we will see the same type of violence against scientists working with animals in research. I hope PZ will take the time to sound the alarm before it happens, instead of lamenting it later in a blog. After all, the animal rights extremist movement has been modeled closely after the anti-abortion movement -- www.raisingvoices.net

Posted by: Don | June 1, 2009 3:35 PM

Azkyroth,

I can see your logic from an accountancy point of view. But any system in which we were allowed to kill people would be fucking insane.

Posted by: Nick Hofstede | June 1, 2009 3:36 PM

If you don't worship his god, do you matter?

Posted by: Patricia, OM | June 1, 2009 3:39 PM

Turnus$2troll - My goodness! You have the documents? Please do name them, this is a Nobel moment.

Posted by: AdamK | June 1, 2009 3:43 PM

But I am still waiting for the relevant documents about Jesus.

How can he be the legitimate savior if he refuses to release his orginal birth certificate?? He says he was born in Bethlehem but there's strong evidence it was really Indonesia!!

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 1, 2009 3:51 PM

But when someone claims to be a Christian but advocates doctrines that and antithetical to almost two millennia of Christianity that's something else entirely.

Which is why all the protestant sects are not christians, they were antithetical to almost one and a half millennia of christianity.

Posted by: AdamK | June 1, 2009 3:54 PM

Turnus, you're an idiot. Hitler's extermination of the Jews was absolutely consistent with centuries of pogroms and vile Christian European persecution of Jews. He wasn't just a Christian, he was a TYPICAL Christian. And death-worship, murder and hatred is typical of Christians to this day.

Also, you're an idiot.

Posted by: raven | June 1, 2009 3:55 PM

Has there been any progress made on pregnancy outcomes among women with pulmonary arterial hypertension? Elisabeth Bédard1,2, Konstantinos Dimopoulos1,2 and Michael A. Gatzoulis1,2,* 1 Adult Congenital Heart Centre and Centre for Pulmonary Hypertension, Royal Brompton Hospital, Sydney Street, London SW3 6NP, UK 2 National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College, London, UK

Received 19 April 2008; revised 13 October 2008; accepted 17 December 2008; online publish-ahead-of-print 15 January 2009.
Pregnancy in women with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is considered to be associated with prohibitive maternal mortality. During the past decade, new advanced therapies for PAH have emerged and progress in high-risk pregnancy management has been made. We examined whether these changes have improved outcomes in parturients with PAH. A systematic review of all cases of parturients with idiopathic pulmonary hypertension (iPAH), congenital heart disease associated with PAH (CHD-PAH), or PAH of other aetiology (oPH) published in the past decade (1997–2007) was performed. Outcome data from this study were then compared with relevant data published between 1978 and 1996. Forty-eight case reports or case series met the inclusion criteria, totalling 73 parturients with PAH. Seventy-two per cent of patients with iPAH were receiving advanced therapies, compared with 52% of CHD-PAH and 47% of oPH. Although a publication bias cannot be excluded, overall maternal mortality was significantly lower compared with previous era (25 vs. 38%, P = 0.047) and was 17% in iPAH, 28% in CHD-PAH, and 33% in oPH. Seventy-eight per cent of deaths occurred within the first month after delivery. Primigravidae and parturients who received general anaesthesia were at higher risk of death (OR 3.70, 95% CI 1.15–12.5, P = 0.03 and OR 4.37, 95% CI 1.28–16.50, P = 0.02, respectively). Maternal mortality in parturients with PAH remains prohibitively high, despite lower death rates than previous decades. Early advice on pregnancy risks, including contraception, remains paramount. Women with PAH who become pregnant warrant a multidisciplinary approach with consideration of advanced therapies.

This is one reason women go for late term abortions. PAH patients who get pregnant have a 25% chance of dying..

Posted by: jrock | June 1, 2009 3:58 PM

Turnus

Perhaps my ignorance is showing, but I thought that all one had to do to be a Christian you had to accept Jesus as your personal savior. Since none of us are mind readers we can only go with what is espoused in public. As for your counterexamples, liberals, as well as conservatives, run the spectrum of belief in what constitutes "right" and "wrong". As for the atheist praying to God, how would we know unless he did it openly? As for Hitler going against doctrine, Crusades, Inquisition, etc. He had plenty of examples of other Christians using violence and murder as some kind of sacrament to God.

Posted by: Holbach | June 1, 2009 4:00 PM

Turdus @ 153

If you were to see the face of your jeebus on a dog turd in the street, would that be documentation of it's existence, and would you exclaim, "Holy Shit", it's the lord himself?" And to really authenticate that this is real jeebus would you be willing to transsubstantiate that turd into a cracker and eat it? "Hey, you're right, it does taste like shit, er, jeebus!"

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 1, 2009 4:04 PM

I didn't figure you as an apologist for popery, Janine.

And the winner of this fine trophy for completely missing the point, the deluded cherry picker!

Posted by: raven | June 1, 2009 4:11 PM

turnus the idiiot:

But when someone claims to be a Christian but advocates doctrines that and antithetical to almost two millennia of Christianity that's something else entirely.

Well that leaves you out. Along with a few million of your fellow Death Cultists.

AFAIK, the Death Cultist inverted the xian religion. They balled up all their hate, fear, paranoia, ignorance, and violence and worship it as god. This god looks a lot like satan. Just a theory but it explains everything evil about the cults.

Posted by: CW | June 1, 2009 4:16 PM

Typical Christians do not believe Jesus Christ was an Aryan warrior.

Posted by: Jim | June 1, 2009 4:20 PM

Nerd of Redhead: "...Hitler referred to himself as  Christian in his speeches. Using parsimony that makes him a Christian until you show complelling (sic) evidence to the contrary."

It's true that Hitler was raised in a nominally Catholic family (his mother, at any rate, was said to be a devout Catholic) and that he often made public pronouncements that could be taken to mean that he remained a Catholic in his adult life. However, given that he was a master propagandist and liar, and given the pagan overtones of Nazism and its genocidal project aimed at creating a super race of Aryans (Aryans, not Christians), there's no good reason to think that Hitler actually was a practicing Catholic who regarded himself as answerable to God. Indeed, Hitler himself wrote: "With the appearance of Christianity the first spiritual terror has been brought into the much freer world." He also said: "The Catholic church is corrupt through and through and must vanish."

Nazism made the elimination of Christianity one of its goals, although Hitler and his underlings differed on the timing for achieving this goal. Goebbels, Rosenberg, and others thought that the destruction of Christianity should be a part of the war effort; Hitler thought it shouldwait until after the war. Hitler also thought that the Christian clergymen and their flocks should be enlisted as allies in the war effort. Hence, he frequently made disingenuous public statements about his faith in "the Lord" and about Christianity being the basis of Nazi morality. We now know that it was all a lie. Support for my claims follows, taken from:

1) "The Hitler Myth," by Ian Kershaw, professor of modern history, Univ. of Nottingham
2) "Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis," by Kershaw
3) "Inside the Third Reich," by Albert Speer (himself a Nazi and one of Hitler's confidants)
4) "A History of Modern Germany," by Hajo Holborn, professor of history, Yale
5) "Hitler and Nazi Germany," by Frank McDonough, historian
6) "From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany," by Richard Weikart, historian, Cal State Stanislaus

1) On the opposition of the Christian churches to Nazism...

- "The Christian churches (Protestant and Catholic) expressed opposition to the attempts of the Nazis to undermine long-standing Christian doctrines and practices....In the long term, Nazism and Christianity were incompatible. After all, the Nazis were educating theGerman people to see Nazism as the 'National Religion.'" (McDonough, HNG)
- "The strength of the Catholic opposition to the (Nazi) regime is emphasized by the fact that a total of 400 Catholic priests were incarcerated in the Dachau concentration camp alone." (McDonough, HNG)
- "The most obvious example of the bitter ideological dispute in the Third Reich is provided by the confrontation of the Nazi regime with the major Christian denominations." (Kershaw, THM)

2) On Hitler's ability to mesmerize many of the people and some Christian leaders into thinking he was a defender of Christianity...

- "The 'Church struggle' stirred up animosity against the Nazis, but had a far less negative impact on Hitler's popularity. In escaping much of the odium the bitter conflict produced, in fact, Hitler was frequently viewed - remarkably, it seems, also by some Church leaders - as thedefender of the religious values of Christianity against the ideological fanatics of the Nazi movement." (Kershaw, THM)
- "Far more remarkable than Goebbels swallowing the religious nimbus of the Fuhrer which his own propaganda had helped to manufacture is the fact that even prominent churchmen - some of them hardly won over to National Socialism - appear to have convinced themselves that Hitler was deeply religious in character. No less a figure than Cardinal Faulhaber...wrote '(Hitler) recognizes Christianity as the builder of Western Culture.'" (Kershaw, THM)

3) On the Nazis' efforts to destroy Christianity...

- "Hitler's impatience with the churches prompted frequent outbursts of hostility. In early 1937, he was declaring that 'Christianity was ripe for destruction,' and that the churches must yield to the 'primacy of the state,' railing against any compromise with 'the most horribleinstitution imaginable.'" (Kershaw, H:N)
- "...in Berlin...surrounded by male cohorts, (Hitler) spoke more coarsely and bluntly....'Once I have settled other problems,' he occasionally declared, 'I'll have my reckoning with the Church. I'll have it reeling on the ropes.'" (Speer, ITR)
- "...however much Hitler on some occasions claimed to want a respite in the conflict (with the churches), his own inflammatory comments gave his immediate underlings all the license they needed to turn up the heat in the 'Church struggle,' confident that they were 'working towardsthe Fuhrer.'" (Kershaw, H:N)
- "The continuing conflict with both the Catholic and Protestant churches...amounted to a recurring irritation...rather than a priority concern as it was with Goebbels, Rosenberg, and many of the Party rank-and-file." (Kershaw, H:N)
- "In February 1937 Hitler made it plain to his innercircle...(that) calm should be restored for the time being in relations with the churches. Instead, the conflict with the Christian churches intensified." (Kershaw, H:N)
- "The assault on the practices and institutions of the Christian churches was deeply embedded in the psyche of National Socialism." (Kershaw: H:N)
- "Despite Hitler's own repeated expressed wish for calm inrelations with the churches as long as the war lasted - the reckoning with Christianity, in his view, had to wait for the final victory - a wave of anti-church agitation...had taken place during the first half of 1941. The activism appears to have come from below...but it certainly hadencouragement from above, particularly through Bormann and the Party Chancellary....Bormann had expressly declared that Christianity and National Socialism were incompatible." (Kershaw, H:N)
- "(Hitler) realized that it was not necessary to win full control of the churches by the Trojan horse of German Christianity but rather that in order to achieve his ultimate goal, namely the destruction of Christianbeliefs and their replacement by some kind of racist German philosophy, the Party should display open hostility to all churches and keep away from all church parties, including the German Christians." (Holborn, HMG)
- "...(Nazi) harrassment of the churches by the imposition of penalties on those opposing paganism or racism continued. The intention was to isolate the churches and undermine their influence on the people's thoughts and manners." (Holborn, HMG)

4) On Hitler's scorn for Christian morality...

- "(Hitler) scorned humaneness and Christian morality, which would promote weakness, thereby producing decline, degradation, and ultimately the demise of the human species. In a 1923 speech Hitler explained therelationship between struggle and right: 'Decisive (in history) is the power that the peoples (Volker) have within them; it turns out that the stronger before God and the world has the right to impose its will. From history one sees that the right by itself is completely useless, if amighty power does not stand behind it. Right alone is of no use to whomever does not have the power to impose his right. The strong has always triumphed...All of nature is a constant struggle between power and weakness, a constant triumph of the strong over the weak.'" (Weikart, FDH)
- "...in 'Mein Kampf' Hitler clearly denied that morality has any objective, permanent existence. He argued that all ethical and aesthetic ideas - indeed all ideas except those that are purely logical deductions - are dependent on the human mind and have no existence apart from humans....Hitler's view that morality is purely a human construction undermines any system of ethics claiming transcendence, such as Judeo-Christian ethics or Kantian ethics." (Weikart, FDH)
- "Hitler...redefined humaneness by stripping individuals of any rights and by arguing that the destruction of the weak by the strong is humane. He thus stood traditional morality on its head." (Weikart, FDH)
- "Hitler derided any morality inimical to the increased vitality of the 'Aryan' race, especially traditional Christian values of humility, pity, and sympathy. He considered these unnatural, contrary to reason, andthus detrimental and destructive for the healthy progress of the human species. He spurned the idea of human rights, calling it a product of weaklings. 'No,' he explained, 'there is only one most holy human right,and this right is at the same time the most holy duty, namely, to take care to keep one's blood pure,' in order to promote 'a more noble evolution' of humanity." (Weikart, FDH)

If Hitler was acting on Christian principles, it's hard to account for his intention and efforts to destroy Christianity. Also, the things he had to say against both Christianity and Catholicism belie the claim that he was a Bible-believing Catholic. As his words and actions clearly show, he wasn't on a fanatical, Christianity-inspired crusade to rid the world of "Christ-killers," rather his mission was to promote "a more noble evolution" of humanity. He was just giving natural selection a helping hand by eliminating what he saw as inferior human beings. On Darwinian grounds, who could object?

Posted by: Brownian, OM | June 1, 2009 4:25 PM

Yes, I have access to the relevant documents in the original languages, as do countless others.

Oh fuck, one of these!

That's it; I'm summoning the Heddle.

Posted by: Holbach | June 1, 2009 4:27 PM

Turdus @ 210

If you show me your jeebus, I'll turn to insanity, er, religion. How's that? I hate religion with a passion, but if you can prove your imaginary god exists then I'll keep my part of the bargain and embrace religion, er insanity, no, religion, ah fuck, my mind is deadening already just thinking of religion. Seriously, you are unfortunately real, but your god is not. Easy to understand, eh?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 1, 2009 4:30 PM

Jim, anything short of Hitler attending a mosque for year or something similar, is just circumstancial evidence. So Hitler is still a Christian. Whether he lived by your idea of Christian beliefs (which of the 30,000+ are absolutely right?) is irrelevent. He considered himself a christian.

Posted by: Patricia, OM | June 1, 2009 4:32 PM

AdamK - HA! Beat ya, I got vapid piece of shit in my bag of Troll Taffy. :p

Looky Janine! I got my 'V' word first. *twirl*

Posted by: AdamK | June 1, 2009 4:35 PM

I wish I was vapid.

*pouts*

Posted by: Holbach | June 1, 2009 4:36 PM

Watchman @ 219

So it was his christ that made Hitler wage war?

Posted by: raven | June 1, 2009 4:38 PM

This Hitler wasn't a Xian is a well known fundie cultists lie and isn't worth pursuing with thexian terrorist crowd. They are immune to reality. For supporters of assassins, lying is automatic and they never give it a thought.

What shows it best. Mein Kampf, Hitler's book on his philosophy, mentions god and jesus 32 times. Darwin and evolution are mentioned 0 times.

Posted by: Homesick Alien | June 1, 2009 4:42 PM

What does your partner Rev. Swallows have to say about it?

I don't often laugh out loud at this blog, and I sometimes find the humour a little irritating, but after reading this I had to give my housemate an explanation for the sudden alarming noise.

Posted by: Patricia, OM | June 1, 2009 4:48 PM

Pilty, you behave yourself in the presence of our Holy Pappist, OM

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 1, 2009 4:57 PM

I ask him what he thinks about the idea that the Constitution is a "living breathing document" that can be shaped by activist judges to suit their policy preferences.

Regurgitating this idiocy? Really?

Posted by: Stu | June 1, 2009 5:05 PM

Jim, was Luther a Christian?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 1, 2009 5:06 PM

Jim, what you think of Hitler is irrelevant, since you haven't shown your credentials to for you to be able to make that decision for us. Hitler was a Christian. Maybe not your brand of Christian, but still a self-professed Christian. Nothing you have presented has changed that. Get the hint? And why is your brand, out of the 32,000 or so, the absolutely correct one? Especially since you can't even show physical evidence for your imaginary deity.

Posted by: mas528 | June 1, 2009 5:13 PM

Jim @235,

Hitler murdered people

That proves he is a christian.

Posted by: Coenocyte | June 1, 2009 5:16 PM

Link to interesting and thoughtful article on "When Does Human Life Begin?" at companion site to Gilbert's Developmental Biology text: http://8e.devbio.com/article.php?id=162

Posted by: akshelby | June 1, 2009 5:21 PM

Ah, it's not popery. It's pappery. I'll hold my tongue, then.

Posted by: CJO | June 1, 2009 5:25 PM

There is plenty of ex post facto history that is reliable. In fact, it is the norm in Antiquity.

Hi, Turnus! How's Hades treatin' ya?

The differences that you're leaving out, of course, are that ex post facto history written in antiquity that is considerd reliable was not written anonymously, and does not read like cobbled together proof-texts from scripture in support of an eschatological theology. You can't claim the gospels were intended as history unless you can show some affinity with anything else written in antiquity intended to be read as history.

Posted by: AdamK | June 1, 2009 5:33 PM

CJO -- Moreover, other ancient history doesn't report magical people rising from the dead, walking on water, magical stars, holy ghosts, transfigurations, appearances, etc. and expect to be believed and followed. That's reserved for myths, legends, superstitions, fictions, and the bizarre religious beliefs of the scientifically illiterate.

Posted by: Holbach | June 1, 2009 5:34 PM

Watchman @ 241

You mean Hitler had jeebus, er hemorrhids? So he was receiving messages through his jeebus to exterminate his own creations? Wow, it is a wonder he could sit down after all that divine slaughter! Death by way of rectal input!

Posted by: AdamK | June 1, 2009 5:40 PM

Patricia -- I'm hoping for a venomous or a vituperative.

Posted by: Watchman | June 1, 2009 5:44 PM

AdamK, I feel your paint. We can be vacuous together, mkay?

That was obviuosly a typo.

It should have read, "AdamK, I peel your paint."

Posted by: akshelby | June 1, 2009 5:54 PM

Patricia,

Well, it is well known that you and Janine are slutty vermin.

Posted by: dreikin | June 1, 2009 6:05 PM

Someone should really make a daily digest of the threads here. Make it easier to catch up..

Posted by: Crudely Wrott | June 1, 2009 6:11 PM

As a non-scientist I apply the scientific method only in a merely instinctive manner. My instincts led me to an article on MSNBC. Find it there under the headline, "Religious school grads likelier to have abortions."

The killing of an abortion provider on Sunday raises again the extreme potential consequences of the nation's schism on this topic. It's a tough issue to reconcile on a personal level too, and a new study on the effects of religiosity on the decision to have an abortion reveals more inconsistencies.
Unwed pregnant teens and 20-somethings who attend or have graduated from private religious schools are more likely to obtain abortions than their peers from public schools, according to research in the June issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Appropriate possibly to discussions of religion, morality, value of life and the vagaries of human nature?

I thought so.

Oh, yes, the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31048153/

*i love evidence*

Posted by: akshelby | June 1, 2009 6:13 PM

It's because the red pappist jackboots are Pradas and match the red Prada cape. It's obvious that you are vengefully vindictive.

Posted by: AdamK | June 1, 2009 6:27 PM

*takes an envious sidelong glance at Patricia's pappist jackboots and begins to pout again, just a little*

Posted by: CW | June 1, 2009 6:28 PM

By definition bald assertion these asserted moral rights exist regardless of any specific legal or authoritarian structure.

There. Fixed that for ya.

Posted by: AdamK | June 1, 2009 6:31 PM

Watchman, I'm already at work on the accompanying jig. I'll need to find just the right boots to dance it in, of course.

Posted by: red rabbit | June 1, 2009 6:39 PM

@shamar #52: Fully functioning brain and nervous system? Odd question.

Answer: males, about 25 years, females, a little sooner, usually around age 22. It's when the frontal lobes mature and the personality can be said to have formed.

Relevance to this argument?

Posted by: Crudely Wrott | June 1, 2009 6:41 PM

Well, Rev @271, you're normally here. You're normally succinct and you're normally contentious.

Readers either get a good chuckle, or your point or go ballistic.

Hey. Comes with the territory.

Posted by: red rabbit | June 1, 2009 7:04 PM

@Azkyroth #145: Personally, I prefer to see him locked away in solitary for the rest of his life. Call him a "dangerous offender" and leave him in a hole until he dies of boredom.

And I do feel like this is the moral high ground, because even a lowlife scum is a fully formed human whose life has more value than he thinks. Maybe he'll "find" humanism.

Posted by: raven | June 1, 2009 7:05 PM

Crudely Wrott:

The killing of an abortion provider on Sunday raises again the extreme potential consequences of the nation's schism on this topic. It's a tough issue to reconcile on a personal level too, and a new study on the effects of religiosity on the decision to have an abortion reveals more inconsistencies.
Unwed pregnant teens and 20-somethings who attend or have graduated from private religious schools are more likely to obtain abortions than their peers from public schools, according to research in the June issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Appropriate possibly to discussions of religion, morality, value of life and the vagaries of human nature?

I thought so.

Oh, yes, the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31048153/

Excellent fine, Mr. Wrott!!! You should email that to PZ Myers as cannon fodder.

Hypocrisy and fundie Xians do go together well. I suspect all but the most twisted would hate the world they want to bring about.

I could speculate that it is due to less realistic sex ed (like Bristol Palin) and more stigma. Or maybe they are just as stupid and ignorant as they appear online.

Posted by: AdamK | June 1, 2009 7:19 PM

This is only true for the evangelical varieties, Catholics and others believe in the "works" definition, it's your deeds not your words that make the difference.

There's the orphan-buggering quota to be met, for one.

Posted by: Nils Ross | June 1, 2009 7:56 PM

I love it when religious conservatives use the "Morality requires a deity," argument. It's so nice to point out the number of ways that it not only doesn't, but to show that adherence to a set of absolutist (largely arbitrary) moral rules can lead to amorality fairly quickly. Like, for example, shooting doctors because they perform abortions.

Of course, the religious conservative never listens, but anyone listening to the argument does.

Posted by: jrock | June 1, 2009 8:31 PM

@279

Thank you for clearing that up. There's so many sects it would be hard to keep up even if I wanted to. Just so I have it straight, evangelicals(Protestants)believe you have to accept Jesus and Catholics(among others)believe you must do good works to get into Heaven. Of course accepting Jesus pretty much means you don't have to do anything else, and if you sin while doing good works all you have to do is confess and you're in.

So this Roeder douche gets a pass into Heaven even though he violated one of the Ten Commandments(Suggestions)because he was doing "God's work". Or if he was Catholic all he would have to do would confess and he would be forgiven. Wow.

Well, let's see if prayer works:
Dear Jesus, Mithras, Zeus, Odin, Allah, Zoroaster, etc.(You know who you are).

Please tell your people to stop fucking it up for the rest of us. Tell them to keep their religion to themselves and quit forcing it on the rest of us. Tell them that "Thou shall not kill(murder)" was not a suggestion. Please tell them that since you are unknowable that they do not speak for you. Please tell them that hatred and bigotry are not okay. If you cannot tell them for some reason(since you are supposed to be omnipotent and omnipresent I don't know what that reason would be) please send down a plague that would strike those other presumptuos assholes mute(excepting me of course, I don't feel the overwhelming desire to martyr myself that some do). Barring that, please begin this Rapture thing they so eagerly await and take them away so the rest of us can go about fixing a world they have broken.

Amen

*waits*

Damn

Posted by: DLC | June 1, 2009 10:14 PM

"No one in the pro-life movement is responsible for this" -- Randal Terry.

Bullshit. you own this, motherfucker.
You, Randal Fucking Terry own this. This man murdered a fellow human in one of your own fucking holy places.
If you were here I would personally kick the living hell out of you, you lying sack of shit.

Posted by: Drosophila | June 1, 2009 10:29 PM

Gingi "Blood Queen" Edmonds has now chimed in with her heartfelt screed on this situation. It's full of nazism, serial killer comparisons, and she even chides other "pro-lifers" for being too appeasing.

A real winner:

There is no doubt that Tiller deserved to be executed for his crimes. I just would have preferred a state sanctioned lethal injection, hanging, firing squad, electric chair, good old fashioned stoning, what have you.

Because everybody loves a good old fashioned stoning!

Posted by: Rorschach | June 1, 2009 10:52 PM

Turnus,

Hitler and the RCC,please see here:

http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm

This how it always works isnt it.
We have a country full of deluded fundamentalist wannabe terrorist zombies,in a Bell curve-like spectrum from killer to tolerater,and whenever they kill someone,what happens is that that particular person gets turned into a mentally ill serial killer/rapist who never saw achurch in his life,and the xtian fundie organisations that actively encouraged these atrocities before,"do not condone" and take their websites offline,its truly disgusting.

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | June 1, 2009 11:27 PM

If Hitler wasn't a Christian, why didn't any of the millions of Christians in Germany - both Catholic and Protestant - notice and refuse to do his bidding early on?

Even if he truly wasn't a Christian, why did all the aforementioned Christian Germans perform all those supposedly 'un-Christian' acts if it was so against the beliefs that 'real' Christians hold?

Could it be that the entire Nazi experience is a perfect illustration of how weak Christianity is as a moral philosophy - since a nation strongly steeped in Christianity, and peopled almost exclusively by Christians was so easily subverted to a position where great atrocities were considered righteous once the people were convinced they were acting in the best interests of their god?

Because all one needs do is open the bible to Numbers in order to cite precedent for the Christian god's approval of murder and genocide.

Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | June 1, 2009 11:40 PM

It's slightly surprising that no one here seems to have spotted that "Rev Spitz" @ # 27 is almost certainly a hoaxer.

There is an actual Army o' God leader in Virginia named Donald Spitz, well-known to abortion rights activists as a vocal defender of "pro-life" murderer Paul Hill, and who claims the title of "Rev", but # 27 is just not in his style.

Posted by: tinker thinker | June 2, 2009 12:00 AM

I needed some comic relief. The post is great (not funny), but the comments--LOL! I love it the way the anti-choice folks are showing the world what they believe and what they think is justifiable. I don't even have to try to tell people about them anymore. I have to do is link to their own hateful, ignorant, and outrageous words. Of course they believe they are justified. They think God is talking to them. I dunno, could be wrong, but isn't that a symptom of a psychosis, especially when accompanied by the paranoia increasingly in evidence?

Posted by: Kagehi | June 2, 2009 1:23 AM

He was just giving natural selection a helping hand by eliminating what he saw as inferior human beings. On Darwinian grounds, who could object?

Except for the tiny, insignificant, fact that Darwin's version of evolution says nothing of the sort, Hitler rejected it, because it completely contradicted the idea of superior races, and preferred Lemarkian evolution, because it proposed the idea that all species had a "final destiny" that they evolved towards, which made it "possible" to claim that aryans where at all superior in the first place.

It should be noted however that the wackos here are right about one thing, his version of "Christianity" was warped by the ideas in a science fiction novel, called "The Coming Man", or some such. Having, at the time, been a new concept, some of the wackos around him took it seriously, imagined that some magic energy really did exist, and that you could get it through a) various sex acts, b) complicated rituals, including human sacrifice, and c) especially if the sacrifice was a "child", since in the book, children had so much of this "power" that they could destroy worlds with it. None of this had jack to do with paganism, other than that Christian gibberish doesn't include any of the right "rituals" to conjure up fake bullshit magic, while, on the other hand, the "left hand path", and the reason for all the reversed, left hand, swastikas, could (and, according to the **Christian** church, paganism was in the service of the devil, and therefor the proper place to look for such rituals).

Here is a hint. You can't be a Satanist, without believing in Christianity, its god, its devil, its myths, and its claims as to what is light and dark, so you are "still" a Christian, if you chose to follow that idiot BS. To claim that he was a pagan means proving he didn't believe in any of the "religion" from which both the Christian god and devil originate. But, and this is the important point, all of his inner circle seemed to believe that the Bible had it all wrong, the "true" god wanted one master race to control things, and, likely, that the church's views on what "god" was, and wanted where a Jewish distortion of the one true faith. So, he was still a "Christian", as far as he was concerned, it was all the rest of the world that had it "wrong", due to the lies spread by Jews.

The equivalent would have been if some group like the Branch Dividian had swallowed Scientology whole, and based a new "Christian" church around the idea that Jesus was the first "clear" person, and that everything in the Bible had to be seen through the workings of e-meters and Dianetics. Most Christians would have reacted quite badly to this, but you can see how well Scientology has done "without" Christianity glued onto it. Imagine a new Hitler coming along and inventing something that "did" join them together, and presented an argument that a lot of the less sane "True Christians", found compelling.

But, its hardly the point. Someone either claims they are Christian, or they claim to be something else. There hasn't been anyone alive since the time of Pope Clement I, who claimed to have been "vested" with the position by one of Jesus' disciples, also, conveniently a relative to Titus Flavius, whose "family" where the first to "officially accept" Christianity in Rome, where oddly enough major figures in the events of the period, including Josephus' work, which was "funded" by them, and all of this pretty much happening between 67CE and 79CE. The NT of the Bible is written, or at least every single bit ever found was, between 71CE and 79CE, and Josephus, which someone here thinks is such a wonderful "source" of proof, wrote the history, "War of the Jews" in 79CE, then later, doesn't write his other work, "Jewish Antiquities", in which the actual "supposed" independent testimony to Christ's existence is found, until 94CE, 13 years after Titus dies, and 14 years after Titus convinces the Romans that he is the second coming of some ancient legend, and his father should be worshiped as a god. In fact, in 81CE, when Titus takes the throne, he even has this declaration "carved" into the Arch of Titus, as further evidence of the "fact" that he is this "second coming".

Sounds a hell of a lot like people making BS up to promote their own dictatorial rule, as living gods. And I wonder where they could have gotten that idea from? Its not like some other culture they had contact with worshiped "living gods" and had silly legends, like say, Osiris, which existed "centuries" before 79CE, and which the NT copies "almost entirely" when talking about virgin births, rising from the dead three days later, healing the blind and diseased, driving out demons... Nah.. It all has to be a total coincidence, even the fact that the NT, Josephus' first work, and the rise of the Flavians as living Roman gods all "somehow" happened in the ***same*** few decades, with their rise to power "somehow" following precisely after someone announcing that he would return to a world of strife, to be the worlds new leader, and all "within" the life span (20-30 years) of the people that followed him.

Yeah. Would love to see "real" evidence, which, taken chronologically, and without, "making up", claims that it happened way earlier, without any proof of that, doesn't just as easily prove the exact opposite of Jesus being real.

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | June 2, 2009 2:33 AM

It is certain that Hitler viewed Jesus as an "Aryan warrior." It is also certain that his "Christianity" does not accord with historic Christianity.

This may well be true - but why, exactly, couldn't Jesus have been an Aryan warrior? By what means do you ascertain that his version of Christianity is any less (or more) valid than anyone else's? Every one of the thousands of sects of Christianity believes itself to be the one correct one; which one is right? Catholicism? Russian Orthodox? Calvinism? Mormonism? Christian Science? Seventh-Day Adventists? Jehovah's Witnesses? Baptists? Quakers?

More importantly, how do you reach the conclusion as to which one is correct? They all draw on the same source.

You can take any part of the bible to mean whatever you want it to mean - just like how modern 'intelligent, sophisticated' Christians palm off what was considered fact for the vast majority of Christian history as metaphor because it doesn't fit their beliefs of what Christianity should be and feel the need to distance themselves from it.

Posted by: Endor | June 2, 2009 9:54 AM

"Gingi "Blood Queen" Edmonds has now chimed in with her heartfelt screed on this situation. "

I've said it before and I will say it again. Gingi Edwards is the kind of woman who screams at others going in the front door of a clinic, and then sneaks in the back door. I don't trust her one bit. She'll have one the moment it becomes necessary.

Posted by: miriam | June 2, 2009 10:59 AM

since this is where this discussion is going,
here's a link to a page with sources that confirm Hitlers christianity.
There are many more.
http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm

Posted by: llewelly | June 3, 2009 2:35 AM

bezoar | June 2, 2009 9:54 AM:

I say abort every christian’s pregnancy.

Posted by: Jim | June 3, 2009 3:14 PM

Kagehi: "...Hitler rejected (Darwin's version of evolution), because it completely contradicted the idea of superior races..."

Huh? With his theory, Darwin explicitly endorsed the idea that some races are superior to others. Recall that the full title of his book was: "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." What are "favoured races" if not superior races?

With regard to the species Homo sapiens, Darwin quite openly expressed his view that some races of the species were superior to other races. In "The Descent of Man," he wrote:

"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races."

How would this replacement of the "savage" (or inferior) races by the "civilised" (or superior) races occur? Natural selection, of course.

Hitler echoed Darwin's thoughts about the competition between unequal human races in "Mein Kampf," writing that his worldview...

"...by no means believes in the equality of races, but recognizes along with their differences their higher or lower value, and through this knowledge feels obliged...to promote the victory of the better, the stronger, and to demand the submission of the worse and weaker. It embraces thereby in principle the aristocratic law of nature and believes in the validity of this law down to the last individual being. It recognizes not only the different value of races, but also the different value of individuals."

Hitler saw the elimination of human beings (such as Jews) that were, in his view, "worse and weaker" as simply the application of "the aristocratic law of nature," that is to say, natural selection.

Posted by: Jim | June 3, 2009 3:30 PM

MAJeff: "So, Hitler was fulfilling Darwin's purpose in perfecting the racial hierarchy of cabbages?"

Surely you don't expect an answer to such a silly and irrelevant question.

Posted by: Carlie | June 3, 2009 9:55 PM

Surely you don't expect an answer to such a silly and irrelevant question.

Obviously, you haven't read the book. It was completely relevant.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 3, 2009 10:44 PM

Darwin didn't make it his purpose to give natural selection a hand in eliminating an "inferior" race, but Hitler did.

And? So?

Appeal to consequences?

Does that make the ToE any less Correct?

Huh? With his theory, Darwin explicitly endorsed the idea that some races are superior to others. Recall that the full title of his book was: "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." What are "favoured races" if not superior races?

Jim do yourself a favor and do just a tiny bit of research on what Darwin meant by races.

Posted by: Jim | June 4, 2009 12:00 AM

Rev. BigDumbChimp: "Does that make the ToE any less Correct?"

No. This is not to concede that ToE is the correct explanation of mankind's origin; it is simply to say that the moral/social/political/cultural uses that have been made of Darwin's theory have nothing to do with how correct the theory might or might not be.

Rev. BigDumbChimp: "Jim do yourself a favor and do just a tiny bit of research on what Darwin meant by races."

In "The Descent of Man," Darwin spoke of the "Negro, Hottentot, Australian, and Mongolian" races of man. Whether Darwin would have regarded the Jews as a race is of no relevance to the point at hand. What is relevant is that Hitler regarded Jews as an inferior race that stood in the way of his efforts to bring about (in his own words) a "more noble evolution of humanity."

Nerd of Redhead: "Jim, you are operating under naivety in thinking that trashing Darwin trashes his idea of evolution."

I haven't been "trashing Darwin," and I've explicitly said that the Nazis' use of his theory to provide scientific "justification" for their genocidal project has no bearing on the scientific legitimacy or the theoretical merits of the theory. What you call a "stupid idea" is a stupid idea by virtue of its illogic, but it's not an idea that I've either expressed or defended. It would be helpful if critics of the things I write would make at least a token effort to understand the things I write.

Posted by: strange gods before me | June 4, 2009 12:32 AM

Huh? With his theory, Darwin explicitly endorsed the idea that some races are superior to others. Recall that the full title of his book was: "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." What are "favoured races" if not superior races?

1 You don't understand anything and you don't care to.

2 What Darwin called races and what you call races are completely different things.

3 Even if you were right about Darwin's meaning of races -- and you're not -- then that would mean that all the different races of people alive today were "Favoured" by natural selection, as evidenced by the fact that they are alive.

I suspect this last point to be entirely lost upon you, but it might be funny to watch you twist in the wind.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 4, 2009 12:44 AM

I suspect this last point to be entirely lost upon you, but it might be funny to watch you twist in the wind.

one can hope

Posted by: Jim | June 4, 2009 7:49 AM

strange gods before me: "What Darwin called races and what you call races are completely different things."

In "The Descent of Man," Darwin spoke of "the civilised races" of man and the "savage races" of man. He spoke of the "Negro," the "Australian," the "Mongolian," and the "Hottentot" races. Please explain how his use of the word "race" differs from my use of the word. Please explain how Darwin's theory "completely contradicted the idea of superior races" (which was the claim to which I was responding), when he explicitly spoke of some races being "favoured" (or superior) over other races.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 4, 2009 8:26 AM

Jim who cares?

Do you think the ToE has remained stagnant since 1859?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 4, 2009 8:35 AM

Bernard, why confuse him with facts.

Posted by: Jim | June 4, 2009 1:14 PM

phantomreader42: "If you weren't an illiterate lying sack of shit, you'd know your laughable excuse for an argument falls apart at the slightest look."

It may surprise you to learn that belittling me doesn't constitute an actual argument. Assinine argumentation of that kind is the standard set by the choirmaster of Pharyngula (PZ Myers), and it's popular among the members of the Pharyngula choir, but it's not the kind of argumentation that actually wins debates.

In any event, you're wrong that the Nazis banned Darwin's works. Some time ago I googled "Hitler's list of banned books" and got 376,000 hits. None of the sites I examined
actually listed any of the books banned by Hitler, but one site listed authors banned during the Third Reich.

http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-authors-banned-during-the-third-reich

Tellingly, Darwin was not among the banned authors.

While trying to verify the (false) claim that Darwin's books were banned in Nazi Germany, I did find that the Nazis had an official journal (Die Bucherei) that established guidelines for lending libraries.

(http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/burnedbooks/documents.htm#guidelines

According to the guidelines in Die Bucherei, "(w)ritings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism" were unacceptable. It's not altogether clear what is meant by "primitive Darwinism." Rather than banning Darwinism as elucidated by Darwin, the guidelines may have banned ill-informed (or "primitive") presentations of
Darwinism because such presentations provided "false scientific enlightenment." In any event, the guidelines didn't specifically ban "The Origin of Species" (or any of Darwin's works) and it's speculative to presume that they did.

Also, it's quite true that Hitler used Christianity as a recruiting tool, although he himself had no use for the faith, referring to Christianity as "the first spiritual terror...brought into the much freer world." But I've never argued that Hitler used Darwinism as a recruiting tool. I've instead argued that he used Darwinian principles to provide scientific justification for his genocidal project. Hitler may have learned his anti-Semitism from Luther (although it's probable that he acquired it elsewhere), but Darwin gave him a scientific rationale for exterminating the people he hated.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 4, 2009 1:23 PM

Still trying to understand Jim's point here.

Jim, instead of beating around the proverbial burning bush, can you just spit it out?

Posted by: Jim | June 4, 2009 1:33 PM

Josh A: "..what about the Bible that gives people the rationale for all kinds of prejudice, hatred and bigotry?"

The Bible teaches love, not hate. The people who use the Bible as a rationale for hatred don't follow the teachings of the Bible, they betray them.

Rev. BigDumbChimp: "Still trying to understand Jim's point here."

I think the point I've been making is easily understood by those who make a good-faith effort to understand it. But I can't be held reponsible for misunderstanding on the part of those who don't.

By the way, I botched giving the URL for Die Bucherie, so here it is again:

http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/burnedbooks/documents.htm#guidelines

Posted by: Jim | June 4, 2009 1:39 PM

Rev. BigDumbChimp: "No I'm really curious what the actual point you are trying to make is? How about you just plainly state it?"

I already have, in messages 295 and 296. Read them again, this time for understanding.

Posted by: Watchman | June 4, 2009 1:47 PM

Jim

Your complain against a straw-man argument is, itself, a straw man.

Bullshit. Get over yourself. Did you even read what I wrote?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 4, 2009 1:54 PM

I already have, in messages 295 and 296. Read them again, this time for understanding.

Posted by: Watchman | June 4, 2009 2:02 PM

Rev, Jim, et al.

Did Darwin harbor some of the cultural racism of his day? Yes.

Did Hitler co-opt and bastardize Evolution for his own evil desires? Yes.

the question is

And so?

I agree - "yes, and yes" - and I think that may be all Jim is saying. There is no "and so?"

I could be wrong. Jim?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 4, 2009 2:23 PM

Jim, you are avoiding the question. If the answer to both your items is yes, what is the conclusions we should draw?

Posted by: Jim | June 4, 2009 2:34 PM

Watchman: "...I think that may be all Jim is saying. There is no 'and so?' I could be wrong. Jim?"

No, you've pretty much got it right. The points I was making were limited to what I actually said; they did not extend to things I didn't say.

Posted by: Jim | June 4, 2009 3:37 PM

phantomreader42: "If the best you can bring to the table is 'Teh Darwinismus causded teh Holocaust!111' you don't deserve any more response than ridicule."

I've never argued that Darwinism caused the Holocaust. Neither has Richard Weikart. Neither has Ben Stein.

phantomreader42: "Evolution has been observed countless times in countless places. We have the fossils. We have the DNA. We win. You lose. And no amount of jerking off to 'From Darwin To Hitler' and 'Expelled' will ever, ever change that."

I've never argued that Hitler's use of Darwinian principles to "justify" his genocidal project entails that Darwinism is false. Neither has Weikart. Neither has Stein. Your vitriol is apparently inspired by your delusional grasp of the arguments actually made by me, or by Weikart, or by Stein. Your vulgar outbursts don't reflect well on you, but if you want to discredit yourself by making them, far be it from me to discourage you from making a shameful spectacle of yourself. I am curious, though: do your parents know that you're using their computer to post to this blog?

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 4, 2009 3:45 PM

I've never argued that Darwinism caused the Holocaust. Neither has Richard Weikart. Neither has Ben Stein.

It is official. Jim's logic does not resemble our Earth logic.

Jim, it is alright. We now realize that you are denying that Expelled exists. We now know what worth we can now give to your words.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 4, 2009 4:01 PM

AND?

Posted by: Watchman | June 4, 2009 4:17 PM

Jim:

No, you've pretty much got it right.

Good.

The points I was making were limited to what I actually said; they did not extend to things I didn't say.

Fair enough. I will say the same for myself, and proceed to wonder why you went off on a paragraphs-long presentation and defense of Richard Weikart's argument, and characterized my alleged complaint against it as a strawman, when I hadn't mentioned Weikart at all!

Here's what I wrote:

Ok, scratch that.

It's just that the whole "Darwinism implies genocide" thing is false, a straw argument from consequences made against the theory (and one which often manifests as an ad hom against Darwin himself) has, to coin a phrase, been done to death.

A simple statement of fact. It has been done to death, by countless commentators here and elsewhere. The statment you made that promted my initial response was ambiguous. When you wrote "On Darwinian grounds, who could object [to Hitler's genocidal goals]?" were you expressing Hitler's point of view, or your own? It wasn't clear. If that had been an expression of your point of view, then my complaint wouldn't have had a whiff of straw about it.

Even so, I gave us both an out:

If that's not where you were going with that, then please ignore my remark. Cheers.

You apparently ignored this completely in your mad rush to defend yourself (and Weikart) against what had essentially become a question about your meaning, not a continuation of an argument over the "who could object?" remark.

We seem to be in agreement on that. I just want you to know where I was coming from, as it seems I wasn't perfectly clear the first time around.

One thing:

Neither has Ben Stein.

Sure he has, if only by implication.

When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed ... that was horrifying beyond words, and that's where science -- in my opinion, this is just an opinion -- that's where science leads you... Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

Those are Stein's words, from the "documentary" film Expelled!, which was nothing if not an attack on "Darwinism" and its proponents. Stein, the media whore, a Jew who has thh gall to exploit the Holocaust in the service of the subversion of knowledge and rationality.

Posted by: phantomreader42 | June 4, 2009 5:08 PM

Jim @ #334:

I've never argued that Darwinism caused the Holocaust. Neither has Richard Weikart. Neither has Ben Stein.

The fact that you said this proves that you are either so delusional as to be unreachable from the real world, or a baldfaced liar.

And on the slight chance that you're not a liar, if you really aren't trying to argue that "Darwinism" caused the Holocaust, and you aren't hoping that a few comparisons to Nazis will make science go away, WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE POINT OF ALL THOSE POSTS? If you're not even trying to argue against evolution, why go to such lengths to slander a dead man? Why set up one of the lamest, most throughly shredded creationist strawmen if you're not even interested in it? Are you just a masochistic troll looking for someone to tell you what a pathetic sack of shit you are?

Posted by: Jim | June 4, 2009 10:46 PM

Janine: "Alright Jim, please explain this."

"When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you."

The claim that science - all by itself - leads to killing is a stupid claim, and Stein is not a stupid man (a person doesn't become as accomplished as Stein by being stupid). So what could he have meant by his remarks? Perhaps an interview discussing his movie sheds some light on his thinking. In that interview, Stein said something that has been widely quoted to "prove" that he thinks science is inherently evil. As you may know, what he said was this:

"Love of God, compassion, and empathy lead you to a glorious place. Science leads you to killing people."

Is Stein really so witless that he actually thinks that "science leads you to killing people," all by itself? Of course not; he is an intelligent man who has spoken repeatedly of his respect for science. Given the context of the above remarks (i.e., a discussion of his movie), a fair-minded interpretation of them would suggest that he meant that evil men can use science to "justify" their evil goals, thus science - stripped of any compassion and empathy - can, in a sense, lead to killing. It's not science that produces the killing. Instead it's evil men using (or, more aptly, misusing) science to "justify" their killing. Rather than making a good-faith effort to understand Stein's views, his critics have instead made the worst possible interpretations of the things he said in "Expelled" (and elsewhere) to justify their slanderous attacks on him.

-----------------------------------------------------------

phantomreader42: "...if you really aren't trying to argue that 'Darwinism' caused the Holocaust, and you aren't hoping that a few comparisons to Nazis will make science go away, WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE POINT OF ALL THOSE POSTS?"

Had you read my posts for understanding, you'd know. But since you didn't, it becomes necessary to repeat (yet again) what I've already clearly said, namely, that Hitler used Darwinian principles to "justify" his genocidal project. That claim is quite different from saying that Darwinism caused the Holocaust.

Phantomreader42: "If you're not even trying to argue against evolution, why go to such lengths to slander a dead man?"

Oh, good grief. I've said nothing slanderous about Darwin. To the extent that I've said anything at all about him, I've simply said that he believed that some races are superior to others (a belief shared by most of his contemporaries). I also quoted a passage from Weikart's "From Darwin to Hitler" that highlighted the sharp contrast between Darwin's essentially decent character and Hitler's essentially evil character. There is no question that Darwin would have opposed Hitler's genocidal project. As English historian Paul Johnson wrote (in "Modern Times"):

"Darwin himself always stressed the limits of his discoveries. He discouraged those who sought to build ambitious projections on them. That is why he gave no licence to the theories of the 'Social Darwinists', which terminated in Hitler's holocaust, and why he likewise brushed off Marx's attempts to appropriate Darwinism for his own theories of social determinism, which eventually produced the mass-murders of Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and Pol Pot."

Darwin knew that his theory could have far-reaching effects on the thinking and actions of men, but he was helpless to contain them.

If you're not going to try to understand the things I write, then please quit responding to them.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 4, 2009 10:53 PM

If you're not going to try to understand the things I write, then please quit responding to them.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 4, 2009 11:00 PM

I am, however, curious: why do you object to "smear campaigns," given that Pharyngula amounts to little else?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 4, 2009 11:15 PM

Had you read my posts for understanding, you'd know. But since you didn't, it becomes necessary to repeat (yet again) what I've already clearly said, namely, that Hitler used Darwinian principles to "justify" his genocidal project.

And so what?

Do you think this is some new astonishing information presented here?

Good grief you are boring.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 4, 2009 11:23 PM

Bah, I'm not even close to clear my self. Bed time. Night all.

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 4, 2009 11:32 PM

Cutting the man the slack that one ought to grant...

I will not cut any slack to a hack who made a dishonest hit piece. I will not cut any slack to a hack who pandered to people who believe that Darwin and his ideas brought evil into the world.

And I will not cut you any slack. What do you know of the idea of "Blood And Soil"?

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 5, 2009 12:00 AM

I have seen enough. And I have seen the dishonest ways they dealt with scientists. And I have seen the ad campaign that they directed to the conservative religions.

But do you know of "Blood And Soil"?

Posted by: Kseniya | June 5, 2009 12:29 AM

That should be "getting paid to try to sell arguments...".

Posted by: Drosera | June 5, 2009 5:20 AM

By the way, Jim, if you are not a creationist, then what is your position with respect to the Theory of Evolution? Given your admiration for Expelled I suspect that you are at least an Intelligent Design zealot. That is close enough for me to call you a creationist anyway.

Posted by: Bernard Bumner | June 5, 2009 7:01 AM

Jim,

...how does the sense of "race" Darwin used in this passage from "Origin" differ from the sense he used in "Descent"?

It doesn't. I was specifically, and quite explicitly, refering to the title, in which the sense of the word race is different.

Darwin was a racist, insofar as he accepted much of the normal racism prevalent in the culture in which he was born, raised, and lived.

It is quite possible to observe similar cultural attitudes to those expressed by Darwin in the writings of people like Wilberforce. Wilberforce saw his role as liberator, so that he might improve the lot of slaves, not only by granting their freedom, but also instiuting the cultural standards of europe. That europeans were superior was fixed in their minds. Do you want to agrue that Wilderforce was a racist in the worst sense?

Darwin never used his own theories to underpin racism - the racist statements in his work clearly amount to an attempt to reconcile two sets of facts. The first set of facts were those received facts, delivered by cultural socialisation; that europeans are superior to "savages". The second set of facts, arrived at via careful scientific study, constitute the basis for the theory of evolution; his observations of the evolutionary process. We now know that the first set of facts is wrong.

In no small part, we know this because evolutionary science did much to demolish the idea of biological hierarchy or the idea of priviledged creation. We know this also because the newer scientific field of genetics has demonstrated conclusively that the civilised and savages of 19th century culture are one and the same. I'm sure that Darwin would have been delighted by this evidence.

It is notable that, despite the cultural prejudices of the time, Darwin was a social progressive who argued against slavery, and against the exploitation and maltreatment of the supposedly inferior races. It is also notable that he explicitly rejects the practical consequences of natural selection as a pretext to allow neglect or to justify conquest and extermination.

Jim, if you have a more sophisiticated point to make than that Darwin was a racist, then please share it.

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 5, 2009 8:51 AM

Jim, it is not a book. And you are a tired, disingenuous and one note dumb ass.

Posted by: Kseniya | June 5, 2009 9:17 AM

Silly Jim! "Blood and Soil" is a '70s Saturday-morning sci-fi show for kids, starring James Underwood Crockett as "Admiral MacDonald", Spade Steele as "Captain Burpee", Deirdre Dugbean as "Lt. Lena Tiller", and Vanessa Plowd as the android "HOE-7".

Janine can provide a link.

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 5, 2009 9:23 AM

Kseniya, that is funny as hell but I am afraid this will go past Jim's very narrow focus. But I do thank you for making me laugh out loud.

Posted by: Drosera | June 5, 2009 9:36 AM

Nerd of Redhead @365,

Seeing expelled three times is not a good sign of mental stability.

Seeing Expelled three times causes irreversible brain damage.

Jim, since you didn't answer #365 I will just assume that I was right, OK?

Posted by: Drosera | June 5, 2009 9:40 AM

That should have been #360.

Posted by: Thoughtful Guy | June 5, 2009 9:44 AM

I have read all of the post so I'm not sure if this has been mentioned or not. There is an important read in the NY Times regarding this matter.

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/george-tiller/

So you might also want to read stories on the web site it links to.

http://www.aheartbreakingchoice.com/index.html

Posted by: phantomreader42 | June 5, 2009 10:25 AM

What, Jim read? Where would you get a crazy idea like that? Why would he want to spoil his beautiful, holy ignorance by exposing himself to icky icky facts?

Besides, it seems he's already had a close enough encounter with Hitler.

Posted by: Jim | June 5, 2009 3:10 PM

Kseniya: "Is it possible for an intelligent person to say a stupid thing?"

Sure it is. But it doesn't follow that what Stein intended by his remark about science leading to killing is stupid. In context, and in light of his publicly expressed respect for science, the most reasonable intepretation of what Stein said is that science - in the hands of evil men - can be used to "justify" evil ends. It is quite unreasonable to think Stein meant that science - all by itself - leads to killing, which is the interpretation given to his remarks by critics who are so eager to be offended by them.

Kseniya: "(Stein) chose to become a paid spokesperson for the intellectually bankrupt Intelligent Design movement..."

I'd say that Darwin's theory (as updated) is intellectually bankrupt as an explanation for life's diversity and complexity, which no doubt explains (at least in part) the desperation seen in the rhetoric of the theory's defenders.

Kseniya: "...you persist in apologizing for (Stein). Why?"

Because his critics routinely distort the things he said in "Expelled." Like any documentary, Stein's movie contained minor errors, such as his claim that Richard Sternberg "lost his job" at the Smithsonian for publishing ID theorist Stephen C. Meyers' peer-reviewed essay titled "Intelligent Design: The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories." Sternberg worked at the Smithsonian as a research associate, but he wasn't actually employed by the museum, so he didn't actually lose his job there. He did, however, suffer ostracism (and worse) for committing the "thought crime" of publishing Meyers' essay. The abuses dealt out to Sternberg by the Darwinian establishment - such as the violation of his privacy and his First Amendment rights by Smithsonian officials who attempted to pry into his religious and political views - were confirmed by two federal investigations.

Stein's movie was a plea for academic freedom and for freedom of scientific inquiry. Like any person with a respect for science, he is appalled by the intellectual tyranny - the demand for conformity of thought within the Darwinian paradigm - that characterizes the Darwinian establishment (and is displayed with great regularity by this blog). The ways the Darwinian establishment has reacted to Stein's movie - such as the successful attempt (cheered on if not led by PZ Myers) to get Stein "uninvited" as commencement speaker at the University of Vermont - helpfully confirm the thesis of Stein's movie.

Ben Stein: "When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed..."

Kseniya: "A contemptible lie."

What do you gain by denying the historical reality that Nazi scientists experimented on Holocaust victims? Are you joining forces with Holocaust deniers like Ahmadinejad?
You may regard Stein's choice of words to express that reality as provocative, but given the enormity of the suffering endured by his family at the hands of the Nazis, I think his word choice was rather restrained. It's certainly mild compared to the venomous utterances made with great regularity by the Pharyngula choirmaster and his choir against Christians, ID proponents, creationists, or anyone who is not convinced that Darwin's theory (as updated) has solved the mystery of life's diversity and complexity.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 5, 2009 3:24 PM

It's certainly mild compared to the venomous utterances made with great regularity by the Pharyngula choirmaster and his choir against Christians, ID proponents, creationists, or anyone who is not convinced that Darwin's theory (as updated) has solved the mystery of life's diversity and complexity.

Posted by: CJO | June 5, 2009 3:41 PM

He did, however, suffer ostracism (and worse) for committing the "thought crime" of publishing Meyers' essay.

LOL. It was an unethical act; a "thought crime" would be, if anything, his motivation for doing so. But it doesn't matter. The act was committed, and motivations are irrelevant. He could have sneaked the essay into publication because he had a crush on Meyer, and the act itself would be no less unscrupulous or deserving of censure. You fuckers are so eager to ape Stein's Orwellian rhetoric, you become blind to the fact that it's creationists who partake of the authoritarian mindset Orwell so expertly skewered.

Like any person with a respect for science, he is appalled by the intellectual tyranny - the demand for conformity of thought within the Darwinian paradigm - that characterizes the Darwinian establishment (and is displayed with great regularity by this blog).

The demand that religiously motivated attacks on consensus science not be wedged into secondary-level curricula, in accordance with the law as interpreted by the federal judiciary, you mean? Yeah, what a bunch of tyrants.

Posted by: Jim | June 5, 2009 3:44 PM

Janine: "Jim, 'Blood and Soil' is not a book."

"Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur," by Yale professor of history Ben Kiernan, was published in 2009. Since the title indicates that the book is apt to our "conversation," I thought you were referring to it. Apparently I was mistaken, but you can chalk that up to the fact that I don't pay close attention to the things you write. You've given me no reason to.

Janine: "...you are a tired, disingenuous and one note dumb ass."

Well, I am tired of all the childish name-calling that goes on here, so I bid you farewell. I encourage the lot of you to keep writing in ways that ensure that no one outside the circle of the Pharyngula choir will take you seriously. It is somewhat gratifying to me to see defenders of Darwinism marginalize themselves by writing as adolescent brats rather than as thoughtful adults.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 5, 2009 3:56 PM

It is somewhat gratifying to me to see defenders of Darwinism marginalize themselves by writing as adolescent brats rather than as thoughtful adults.

Posted by: Iris | June 5, 2009 4:36 PM

Smug, ignorant little man Jim:

[I]t becomes necessary to repeat (yet again) what I've already clearly said, namely, that Hitler ussd Darwinian principles to "justify" his genocidal project.

Even if we granted this, so what? Hitler was a deranged narcissist, and could just as well have used a pimple on my ass to "justify" his genocidal project. But Jim makes a good point, though. Because it's not like anyone has ever used Chistianityto justfy genocide.

Idiot.

(And just for the record, my ass is flawless.)

Posted by: SC, OM | June 5, 2009 4:59 PM

I see Jim left while I was running, but in any event:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/03/a_question_for_ben_stein_why_are_you_sin.php

Posted by: Watchman | June 5, 2009 5:11 PM

I'd say that Darwin's theory (as updated) is intellectually bankrupt as an explanation for life's diversity and complexity, which no doubt explains (at least in part) the desperation seen in the rhetoric of the theory's defenders.

Ok, Jim has taken off the mask now, but it was pretty obvious where he was headed.

You mistake the frustration born from years of dealing with the willfully ignorant for desperation. Have fun with your intellectual delusions, Jim.

Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 5, 2009 8:20 PM

The howling of a whipped dog.

Kseniya: "Is it possible for an intelligent person to say a stupid thing?"

Sure it is. But it doesn't follow that what Stein intended by his remark about science leading to killing is stupid. In context, and in light of his publicly expressed respect for science, the most reasonable intepretation of what Stein said is that science - in the hands of evil men - can be used to "justify" evil ends. It is quite unreasonable to think Stein meant that science - all by itself - leads to killing, which is the interpretation given to his remarks by critics who are so eager to be offended by them.

Stein has no respect for science. He was part of a project that lied to scientists about what they were a part of. He dismisses evolution because it cannot explain gravity and the big bang. So what if he was speaking off the top of his head, he is clearly showing his ignorance of elementary facts here. And this ignorance is the result of his lack of respect.

As for his remark about science leads to killing people. Who was the audience for this? Viewers of a conservative christian show. These are people who already think that the theory of evolution is one of the modern roots of evil. Stein is feeding red meat to his audience.

Kseniya: "(Stein) chose to become a paid spokesperson for the intellectually bankrupt Intelligent Design movement..."

I'd say that Darwin's theory (as updated) is intellectually bankrupt as an explanation for life's diversity and complexity, which no doubt explains (at least in part) the desperation seen in the rhetoric of the theory's defenders.

Translation; I do not understand it and I do not like it so I will remain ignorant of all the facts I will instead pretend that all of the thousands of scientists are not actually doing research but are merely playing rhetorical games.

Kseniya: "...you persist in apologizing for (Stein). Why?"

Because his critics routinely distort the things he said in "Expelled." Like any documentary, Stein's movie contained minor errors, such as his claim that Richard Sternberg "lost his job" at the Smithsonian for publishing ID theorist Stephen C. Meyers' peer-reviewed essay titled "Intelligent Design: The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories." Sternberg worked at the Smithsonian as a research associate, but he wasn't actually employed by the museum, so he didn't actually lose his job there. He did, however, suffer ostracism (and worse) for committing the "thought crime" of publishing Meyers' essay. The abuses dealt out to Sternberg by the Darwinian establishment - such as the violation of his privacy and his First Amendment rights by Smithsonian officials who attempted to pry into his religious and political views - were confirmed by two federal investigations.

Translation; you are all ignoring the charges of the Darwinian conspiracy. Meyers' religious views became fair game when he tried to inject it into a journal of science.

Stein's movie was a plea for academic freedom and for freedom of scientific inquiry. Like any person with a respect for science, he is appalled by the intellectual tyranny - the demand for conformity of thought within the Darwinian paradigm - that characterizes the Darwinian establishment (and is displayed with great regularity by this blog). The ways the Darwinian establishment has reacted to Stein's movie - such as the successful attempt (cheered on if not led by PZ Myers) to get Stein "uninvited" as commencement speaker at the University of Vermont - helpfully confirm the thesis of Stein's movie.

Jim, you are, yet again, showing that you have no idea what you are talking about. Biologists are hardly in lockstep about how they are interpreting their evidences. But the only thing that is not debated is that evolution happened and continues to happen. If you paid any attention at all, there in conflict and debate over everything. That is how science is done.

Science is not a monolith that remains static. And it is not a conspiracy out to keep the brave and truthful defenders of creationism out. They are left out because they do not engage in science. But you, Jim, simply have to believe that there is evil afoot, out to get the righteous.

If you actually paid any attention to what was said on this blog, you would see lots of disagreements between the scientists who do post here. Just witness what Glen Davidson sometimes has to say about what PZ writes. But they are scientists and are able to handle disagreements.

Ben Stein: "When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed..."

Kseniya: "A contemptible lie."

What do you gain by denying the historical reality that Nazi scientists experimented on Holocaust victims? Are you joining forces with Holocaust deniers like Ahmadinejad?
You may regard Stein's choice of words to express that reality as provocative, but given the enormity of the suffering endured by his family at the hands of the Nazis, I think his word choice was rather restrained. It's certainly mild compared to the venomous utterances made with great regularity by the Pharyngula choirmaster and his choir against Christians, ID proponents, creationists, or anyone who is not convinced that Darwin's theory (as updated) has solved the mystery of life's diversity and complexity.

Jim, at this point, you have crossed the line from being a disingenuous fool to being a contemptible asshole. How fucking dare you compare any of us to a Holocaust denier?

Were there scientists involved with the Third Reich and involved with the Holocaust. Yes. But guess what, most of the top flight German scientists were chased out of Germany. The Nazis valued loyalty to Hitler over knowledge. Most of the good and honest scientists could abide with the regime. The Nazi scientists and doctors involved with the slaughter were the hacks that were left behind.

None of us here deny that they Holocaust happened. You should see it when a denier shows up here. The asshole gets blown up.

But you Jim, being a cowardly asshole, compare us with Holocaust deniers. How fucking mature of you. How fucking honest of you. You, Jim, have just shown your true colors, you are a hateful and fearful bigot. You cower before honest arguments.

"Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur," by Yale professor of history Ben Kiernan, was published in 2009. Since the title indicates that the book is apt to our "conversation," I thought you were referring to it. Apparently I was mistaken, but you can chalk that up to the fact that I don't pay close attention to the things you write. You've given me no reason to.

Seeing that I never said anything about a book with that title, I was talking about a concept. Not that you would address anything I said. You never addressed anything anyone else said either. You would only address anyone who conceded to your badly thought out points.

Well, I am tired of all the childish name-calling that goes on here, so I bid you farewell. I encourage the lot of you to keep writing in ways that ensure that no one outside the circle of the Pharyngula choir will take you seriously. It is somewhat gratifying to me to see defenders of Darwinism marginalize themselves by writing as adolescent brats rather than as thoughtful adults.

Because there is nothing childish about calling a group of people Holocaust deniers.

I stand by my assessment that ...you are a tired, disingenuous and one note dumb ass. It is not childish name calling. It is an accurate description of the character you have shown.

As for this blog, that is all it is, a blog. If all of us were to go silent, the truth about evolution would remain unchanged. And you, Jim, would remain a self censored shithead.

As for you not coming back, you are a liar. I have seen too many creationist trolls like you claim that they are gone but come back again.

Posted by: Kseniya | June 6, 2009 1:13 AM

Watchman:

I humbly suggest renaming Deirdre Dugbean's character to "Lt. Rhoda Tiller".

OMG... Rhoda Tiller! You are so right! Oh, why didn't I think of that this morning? :-D