Criticizing Christianity is a lost cause

[john.livingstone@lr]

The best thing about Christianity is that even though it attempts to explain certain events and the beginning of the world, the good book does not attempt to disprove others and their beliefs. The Christian religion is a big group of loving friends, we support God and his message and in the end we are all looking to better our lives through Christ. It makes very little sense to me as to why folks seem to get a kick out of trying to discredit Christianity. The Church is about self improvement, positive self-reflection and love of one another. And with a message this positive, why would an individual attempt to discredit the Bible on the basis of the creation or Noah's Ark or Adam and Eve. These are merely stories with the intent of explaining the progression of man and the Earth. The purpose of Christianity is to improve a person's life through God, not to explain the wonders of the world. And all of the people out there spewing hate about Christianity simply because they heard about why Christianity is unbelievable or how evolution better explains the origins of the world are simply wasting their time because Christians don't care what you have to say if the message isn't positive.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 25:

We can create a "master race" through evolutionary principles.

I'm not certain I agree that we could create a master race through guided evolution. what is a master race? people who are smarter, faster, stronger?

Pick a trait, and consider that the trait required to be a master race. I agree it is more likely a subjective measure, but it could produce objective results. Of course I'm not considering the morality, just the mechanics.
--------------------------------

From Post 27:

I said I'm not sure I agree. The problem with breeding a master race is that breeding people to be smarter, faster, and stronger just makes people who excel at what we have - it doesn't really lead us anywhere.

Actually it does lead somewhere, whether one considers that the proper way or not. I'm only referencing the ability, and not whether it is wise to do so.

Think of it this way, if a congress of gorillas* get together and decide to breed a super-gorilla, how could they ever choose to disregard the development of greater muscles, larger size, etc, to choose to develop the intelligence in a new way to create something like a human, which would eventually dominate the planet like we have?

I was talking about humans, who have an understanding of evolution. I don't doubt gorillas would find their attempts stymied by a lack of understanding, though a conscious decision to try indicates at least a rudimentary understanding.

One need not just develop muscles in isolation. You could take one group and breed them for muscles, another group bred for intelligence, and combine those into a third group. As you add traits you add groups and sub-groups (edit in that these groups would eventually be discontinued once a viable group of the "master race" were attained.)

if you want a master race, you first have to figure out what better is.

I think you're missing my point. It doesn't really even matter if it actually produces something better, only that particular traits are the goal. If we say blue eyes are what constitutes a master race, then we allow only those with blue eyes to breed. Eventually everyone's gonna have blue eyes.

(edit for clarity)

[FinalEnigma]

From Post 25:

We can create a "master race" through evolutionary principles.

I'm not certain I agree that we could create a master race through guided evolution. what is a master race? people who are smarter, faster, stronger?

Pick a trait, and consider that the trait required to be a master race. I agree it is more likely a subjective measure, but it could produce objective results. Of course I'm not considering the morality, just the mechanics.
--------------------------------

From Post 27:

I said I'm not sure I agree. The problem with breeding a master race is that breeding people to be smarter, faster, and stronger just makes people who excel at what we have - it doesn't really lead us anywhere.

Actually it does lead somewhere, whether one considers that the proper way or not. I'm only referencing the ability, and not whether it is wise to do so.

Think of it this way, if a congress of gorillas* get together and decide to breed a super-gorilla, how could they ever choose to disregard the development of greater muscles, larger size, etc, to choose to develop the intelligence in a new way to create something like a human, which would eventually dominate the planet like we have?

I was talking about humans, who have an understanding of evolution. I don't doubt gorillas would find their attempts stymied by a lack of understanding, though a conscious decision to try indicates at least a rudimentary understanding.

One need not just develop muscles in isolation. You could take one group and breed them for muscles, another group bred for intelligence, and combine those into a third group. As you add traits you add groups and sub-groups (edit in that these groups would eventually be discontinued once a viable group of the "master race" were attained.)

if you want a master race, you first have to figure out what better is.

I think you're missing my point. It doesn't really even matter if it actually produces something better, only that particular traits are the goal. If we say blue eyes are what constitutes a master race, then we allow only those with blue eyes to breed. Eventually everyone's gonna have blue eyes.

(edit for clarity)

of course, I concede your point. if you are not trying to breed something explicitly better, then that's easy enough.

[Scotracer]

I'm not certain I agree that we could create a master race through guided evolution. what is a master race? people who are smarter, faster, stronger?

Yes. Smarter, faster, stronger, naturally more disciplined... the list could go on and on.

Why do you disagree that one could pick the traits for a "master race" and not if given for the sake of discussion unlimited control of the actions of the breeding population create this race over a long period through guided evolution from selective breeding?

I said I'm not sure I agree. The problem with breeding a master race is that breeding people to be smarter, faster, and stronger just makes people who excel at what we have - it doesn't really lead us anywhere.

Think of it this way, if a congress of gorillas* get together and decide to breed a super-gorilla, how could they ever choose to disregard the development of greater muscles, larger size, etc, to choose to develop the intelligence in a new way to create something like a human, which would eventually dominate the planet like we have?

it wouldn't happen. they would choose to breed bigger gorillas with stronger muscles, and generally greater physical ability. Then this new gorilla - it would have been better, in a way, but would it really have been a master race of gorilla? bigger, stronger - its just more gorilla.

if you want a master race, you first have to figure out what better is.




*I know we aren't descended from gorillas, I used the word for rhetorical purposes.

A great place to start would be a race/breed that doesn't hiccup.

I hate hiccups.

I think the most important thing would be intelligence. Given that the human gene pool has varied by virtually nothing over the last 150 years yet our knowledge and technology has improved 100-fold shows the power it has over biological changes.

okay, but again, that's just more gorilla.

You're not even concerned with strength and speed, so say you start breeding us for higher intelligence - what if some new trait comes along that we cannot currently conceive, in the same way that gorillas couldn't conceive of the type and use of intelligence we have now?
so we're breeding higher I.Q.s, and someone comes along with this new trait, but, since we are selecting for intelligence, this trait is ignored and gets wiped out before we even have time to recognize its potential.

Further, breeding for higher IQs could be a serious mistake - raw intelligence is not necessarily a good thing. Have you noticed the extremely high percentage of abnormally intelligent people with depressive disorders? What if we breed a bunch of super intelligent suicidal people? would that help us?
and further again, pure intelligence is not a measure of success in the world. Sure it helps, but there are plenty of intelligent people that get irrelevant dead end jobs and don't really contribute anything.

as well, I don't think we have enough of an understanding of intelligence and the way the brain works to select properly - there are different kinds of intelligence. Which one do you want? pure logical ability? great, we're now a race of mathematicians and programmers - if it works out. How about wisdom? okay, now we're a race of writers, anthropologists, and sociologists - again, if we're lucky. and how about this? who's smarter, Mark Twain, Isaac Asimov, or Einstein? or maybe Shakespeare? which one do we breed for?

Since we aren't actually proposing such an event yet, I'll leave it up to the powers that be to properly research the positions before taking any steps.

What's stopping us from breeding for multiple traits? For instance we could actively select for high IQ whilst at the same time choosing those with a lower disposition for mental instability. Not everyone that's highly intelligent suffers from depressive conditions therefore it should at least be possible, in theory, to select for it.

Of course I agree we need to do more research in to this before we actually do it (if at all) but I am just shooting **** at the moment.

[East of Eden]

I don't recall MLK trying to make Christian doctrine the law.

The Golden Rule and the fact man is made in the image of God come to mind.

Who said anything about envangelicals? More than just they are voting against it for religious reasons

So what? Only atheist thinking is OK?

No, because they linked their religious opinions to policy decisions,

As I said before, so did MLK as well as Wm. Wilberforce who helped end the slave trade and many other social ills.

Yes, a number. The number happens to be roughly the same as can be stuffed in a clown car, but a number there is.

The majority is right, huh?

I can name a number of non-religious organizations that do a lot more than that.

Go ahead, I'm waiting.

[East of Eden]

I've also seen many, many Afrikaners support their racist ideologies through use of the bible. The dominant Christian church during apartheid even used the bible to justify their hatred of other races.

And Hitler used Darwin to justify genocide.
So what? You don't judge a philosophy by its misuse.

The book you reference says no such thing.

Did you read it?

The author is obviously trying to make that very connection between Darwin and Hitler but nowhere is it said that Hitler referred to Darwin to justify genocide. Since you made the claim can you show a quote by Hitler where he states what you claim he stated?

Darwinism wasn't a sufficient cause of Naziism, but it was a necessary one.


See below:

"Sir Arthur Keith wrote: The leader of Germany is an evolutionist, not only in theory, but, as millions know to their cost, in the rigor of its practice. For him, the national front of Europe is also the evolutionary front; he regards himself, and is regarded, as the incarnation of the will of Germany, the purpose of that will being to guide the evolutionary destiny of its people.59 and Christianity makes no distinction of race or of color; it seeks to break down all racial barriers. In this respect the hand of Christianity is against that of Nature, for are not the races of mankind the evolutionary harvest which Nature has toiled through long ages to produce?19

In Mein Kampf, Hitler used the German word for evolution (Entwicklung) many times, citing lower human types. He criticized the Jews for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland with the aim of ruining the white race by the necessarily resulting ization. He spoke of Monstrosities halfway between man and ape and lamented the fact of Christians going to Central Africa to set up Negro missions, resulting in the turning of healthy . . . human beings into a rotten brood of s. In his chapter entitled Nation and Race, he said, The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he, after all, is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development (Hoherentwicklung) of organic living beings would be unthinkable. A few pages later, he said, Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.59

The success in breeding cattle, dogs and other animals with certain desired characteristics gave empirical support to the concept of racial breeding as advocated by eugenicists and later Hitler and others.19

Hitler exterminated over 273,000 people even before the Holocaust! The first to be killed were the aged [those who are an economic burden, who detract from the happiness of society as a whole], the infirm, the senile, the mentally retarded, and defective children [that included epileptics]. Then there were WW I veterans " amputees " still in hospitals. Their reward for giving an arm or leg for Germany was extermination as undesirable. Even bed wetters and children with badly modeled ears were put to death " all part of the euthanasia project of Germany.33

Instead of letting chance factors dominate reproduction decisions, Hitler proposed that the scientists use the power of the state to influence these decisions so that the gene pool would shift to what informed conclusions concluded was the desired direction. Consequently, Hitler encouraged those individuals that he perceived as having Aryan traits to mate, and discouraged interbreeding, supposing that this policy would gradually cause the Aryan race to evolve upward. He believed that the Nazi race programs would further evolution by intelligently deciding which traits were not beneficial, and preventing those with them from reproducing.19

An important argument that Hitler used to support his programs of racial genocide of the Jews, Blacks and other groups was that they were genetically inferior and that their interbreeding with the superior Aryan race would adversely affect the latters gene pool, polluting it, and lowering the overall quality of the pure race.19

From the Preservation of favored races in the struggle for life [that is, Darwin 's subtitle to Origin of Species] it was a short step to the preservation of favored individuals, classes or nations " and from their preservation to their glorification . . . Thus, it has become a portmunteau of nationalism, imperialism, militarism, and dictatorship, of the cults of the hero, the superman, and the master race . . . recent expressions of this philosophy, such as Mein Kampf are, unhappily, too familiar to require exposition here. " Gertrude Himmelfarb, Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1962"

[Tired of the Nonsense]

1"When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,
2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal, his days will be a hundred and twenty years."
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days"and also afterward"when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown." Genesis Chapter 6, NIV

Darwinism wasn't a sufficient cause of Naziism, but it was a necessary one.

HORSE SPIT! Hitler was raised a catholic and he believed that the Germans were the pure race, the "master race," which traced it's origins directly back to Adam and Eve themselves. True humans designed and created directly by God, as opposed to the lesser inferior races, the "Nephilim," literally the "abortions," which were the corruptions of true humans that represented all modern non-Germanic races. None of this is science of course which classifies ALL modern humans as one single species, Homo Sapiens, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Darwin except as another of Hitler's twisted perversions.

[Abraxas]

I don't recall MLK trying to make Christian doctrine the law.

The Golden Rule and the fact man is made in the image of God come to mind.

The former is not an inherently religious concept and the latter is not something MLK tried to legislate. Again, red herring.

Who said anything about envangelicals? More than just they are voting against it for religious reasons

So what? Only atheist thinking is OK?

I'd say more that if a law has no basis except in religious thinking, it is not okay. Religion is a personal belief, it is not to be something enforced on everyone else.

No, because they linked their religious opinions to policy decisions,

As I said before, so did MLK as well as Wm. Wilberforce who helped end the slave trade and many other social ills.

Again, equivocation. Firstly, MLK was not a lawmaker. Secondly, while his causes were intermixed with religion, they were not inherently religious. That point mostly applies to Wilberforce, save for his religious belief in gender inequality and desire to push his religion, legally, on others.

Yes, a number. The number happens to be roughly the same as can be stuffed in a clown car, but a number there is.

The majority is right, huh?

In this case. However, that is not the point I was making. The point is that almost no scientists and even fewer in any related field believe the universe points to design. Of those, I suspect you would be hard pressed to find even a dozen who come from an accredited university who are not there for religious reasons.

I can name a number of non-religious organizations that do a lot more than that.

Go ahead, I'm waiting.

The US government. The Red Cross. Doctors Without Borders.

If you are trying to claim only religious organizations participate in charity and humanitarian efforts to a significant degree, you are very mistaken.

[Scotracer]

1"When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,
2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal, his days will be a hundred and twenty years."
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days"and also afterward"when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown." Genesis Chapter 6, NIV

Darwinism wasn't a sufficient cause of Naziism, but it was a necessary one.

HORSE SPIT! Hitler was raised a catholic and he believed that the Germans were the pure race, the "master race," which traced it's origins directly back to Adam and Eve themselves. True humans designed and created directly by God, as opposed to the lesser inferior races, the "Nephilim," literally the "abortions," which were the corruptions of true humans that represented all modern non-Germanic races. None of this is science of course which classifies ALL modern humans as one single species, Homo Sapiens, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Darwin except as another of Hitler's twisted perversions.

Also Hitler promoted "Lamarckism" rather than "Darwinism" - he believed in acquired characteristics rather than inherited traits due to genetics.

[Goat]

1"When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,
2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal, his days will be a hundred and twenty years."
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days"and also afterward"when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown." Genesis Chapter 6, NIV

Darwinism wasn't a sufficient cause of Naziism, but it was a necessary one.

HORSE SPIT! Hitler was raised a catholic and he believed that the Germans were the pure race, the "master race," which traced it's origins directly back to Adam and Eve themselves. True humans designed and created directly by God, as opposed to the lesser inferior races, the "Nephilim," literally the "abortions," which were the corruptions of true humans that represented all modern non-Germanic races. None of this is science of course which classifies ALL modern humans as one single species, Homo Sapiens, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Darwin except as another of Hitler's twisted perversions.

Also Hitler promoted "Lamarckism" rather than "Darwinism" - he believed in acquired characteristics rather than inherited traits due to genetics.

That is true of the Soviet Union, with their 5 year plans. The misunderstanding
of evolution , and growing hardier wheat is what caused a lot of famine and many deaths in the Stalin years. They misapplied science, because they disputed the role of random mutation/natural selection vs acquired traits. This misunderstanding and incompetence is one of the triggers of 'Stalin killed millions of people'. It wasn't because of intent, but incompetence. The people are still dead, but the motivation to have them 'eliminated' is not there.

[East of Eden]

HORSE SPIT! Hitler was raised a catholic

So what? I suspect many atheists here were raised in a religion.