History
pharyngula | August 23, 2006Douglas Theobald passed along an interesting collection of quotes from that atheist evolutionist, Adolph Hitler. It's particularly interesting the he outlawed atheist and freethought groups in 1933.
It's a long list of quotes, so I'll tuck it below the fold.
"The anti-Semitism of the new movement (Christian Social movement)
was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge."
[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3]
"I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty
Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work."
[Adolph Hitler, Speech,…
stcynic | August 21, 2006Jon Rowe has another terrific post at Positive Liberty on religion and the founding fathers. This one examines the question of whether the revolutionary war was consistent with Calvinist theology. Based largely on the work of Christian historian Gregg Frazer, he concludes that it was not. I have to agree. And I want to call particular attention to this passage:
Finally, a word on civil liberty and the Bible. As Frazer notes, "the Bible never discusses political freedom. Tory minister Jonathan Boucher correctly noted: 'The word liberty, as meaning civil liberty, does not, I believe, occur in…
oracknows | August 20, 2006...I love it when Nick Terry makes dim Holocaust deniers run away just by asking them to back up their claims.
oracknows | August 20, 2006The latest Carnival of Bad History, the blog carnival dedicated to the discussion of the misuse and misunderstanding of history, has landed over at Liberty and Power.
oracknows | August 16, 2006The latest edition of the History Carnival, a blog carnival of writing about--what else?--history has been posted at Mode for Caleb. Enjoy.
While I'm hawking carnivals, I won't forget hawk my own. Be sure to join Interverbal tomorrow for the Skeptics Circle.
evolvingthoughts | August 15, 2006Occasionally one comes across odd stories in the late medieval literature on natural history, and one is inclined to dismiss them as fablous stories born of credulous superstition. But they illustrate a much more important phenomenon - the shift from seeing nature as a source of moral lessons to seeing nature as something worth studying for its own sake. One such is the tale of the Barnacle Goose.
The Barnacle Goose, Branta leucopsis, is a small (less than 2kg) black and white goose of the order Anseriformes. It lives during the winter months in the Atlantic coasts of Scotland and Ireland,…
pharyngula | August 14, 2006
On this day 172 years ago, Richard Dana set sail. About 35 years ago, I discovered Two Years Before the Mast in my local library, and it turned me into a sea story junkie. I read Forester and Sabatini and Melville (of course!)—fortunately, Melville got me more interested in the biology of those creatures that lived in the sea, so I didn't stow away in the next brigantine that docked in the Seattle harbor.
Two Years Before the Mast is still a great read, but the romance of the sea is sure buried deep beneath the appalling misery and social injustice—the tales of flogging and sudden accidental…
oracknows | August 10, 2006Deep within Yankee Stadium, a timeless evil had arrived (well, an evil around 61 years old, anyway--well, 117 years old if you count its entire existence) shambling through the dark service corridors and halls, on a never-ending quest to satisfy its unquenchable hunger. Why it had come to this place, it did not know. Perhaps it was drawn by the eminations of pure baseball evil that routinely flowed from the so-called House That Ruth Built. Maybe it was because this place was a an icon of its hated enemy from a previous life, representing the national pastime favored by that enemy and…
pharyngula | August 9, 2006Slacktivist reminds us that today is the 61st anniversary of an atrocity:
I think that real patriotism, and the first step to making your country better, is the recognition of evil done in its name.
pharyngula | August 5, 2006Steve Borres sent along a few shots from his Aegean vacation. Something seems to have reminded him of me, and it wasn't bare-breasted Cretan dancers:
Very cool. If I'd been around 2500 years ago, there's something I could have gotten into.
oracknows | August 1, 2006With the appearance of the Hitler Zombie twice in less than a month on this blog, Andrew Mathis was inspired to send me this YouTube video. He's right; it's perhaps the best commentary I've heard about the use of the Hitler analogy or argumentum ad Nazium to demonize one's political opponents.
oracknows | July 30, 2006I've written before about Hutton Gibson (Mel Gibson's father) and serious crank, conspiracy theorist and proud Holocaust denier. I even speculated, based on Mel's cagey answers to direct questions about the Holocaust, speculating about whether he shares some of Hutton's beliefs. I ended up guessing that Mel just didn't want to criticize his father, no matter what a loon he is. I've also pointed out Mel's anti-evolution beliefs.
Well, during an arrest for drunk driving, Mel gave some evidence that perhaps the apple didn't fall too far from the tree after all. During an arrest for drunk driving…
oracknows | July 26, 2006Enjoy, as blog comrade and fellow traveler in the fight against Holocaust denial Andrew Mathis shows us how it's done when Holocaust denier Michael Collins Piper writes to threaten to sue him for libel.
Andrew asks: Michael Collins Piper: Filthy Jew-hater or twisted anti-Semite? You be the judge!
Can I pick "both of the above"?
pharyngula | July 26, 2006John Wilkins has been off visiting the ghosts of Owen, Darwin, Buffon, and Saint Hilaire, while I'm sitting in Morris. Ah, if only I had an excuse (and the means!) to escape…
pharyngula | July 25, 2006This is an excellent short article by Janet Browne (the Janet Browne who wrote the best biography of Darwin I've read, Voyaging(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) and The Power of Place(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), both well worth reading) that discusses the reception of the theory of evolution by his contemporaries, and acknowledges the invaluable assistance of Huxley, Hooker, Gray, and Lyell. One important point is that opposition to his ideas was not driven by the crude Biblical literalism that we encounter so much today, but a more general conflict with a more enlightened religion that found no place for…
oracknows | July 22, 2006The latest Carnival of Bad History has been posted over at Hiram Hover's. If you think the Bush Administration can abuse science, you ain't seen nothin' yet when it comes to how history is abused by various people and groups for ideological purposes!
stcynic | July 19, 2006After getting settled in to his new home in Maryland, Jason Kuznicki has jumped into the exchange I had with Mark Olson about the meaning of 'liberty' in the Declaration of Independence. That's valuable, because it gives us the perspective of a real historian in evaluating the situation. He essentially comes down on my side of the dispute, with a couple small caveats.
terrasig | July 18, 2006Monday's contest to win $50 decoding the chemical and historical nature of the Terra Sigillata banner masthead got such a response that I didn't even expect it. Amazingly, one entrant answered 4 of the 5 questions correctly, with the 5th being closest of anyone.
I'll be contacting the lucky feller forthwith regarding delivery of his fifty American dollars. The answers will follow in subsequent posts, but here are the questions once again of you care to exercise your mind:
1. What is the complete name of the dude on the righthand side of the banner and why do you think I picked him to as the…
razib | July 16, 2006After reading the comment below in response to my post on the Azeris in Iran I responded with some exasperation. Sometimes you have a "Eureka!" moment, and this is one of them. Even if I agree with John that a positivistic project is near impossible in history because of the nature of the topic, I do think that some of the distortions that I see individuals engaging in are egregious. Meta-facts, conclusions which are extracted from the broad trends of history, maybe disputable, but specific facts can be quite solid. I have a passion for various historical topics, most of them rather…