Schaeffer & Koop on moral implications of materialism
david ford
_Whatever Happened to the Human Race?_ (New
Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company), 256pp. Both
Christians, Schaeffer worked in philosophy and
theology, while Koop was a children's surgeon.
A control - f/ "find" will take you quickly to text you
wish to examine.
See the "For Further Reading" section for some of
what I underlined while reading pages 15-31, 73-78,
207-9, 217-18. The balance of what I underlined
appears here, with some section headings:
Those who regard individuals as expendable raw
material-- to be molded, exploited, and then
discarded-- do battle on many fronts with those who
see each person as unique and special, worthwhile,
and irreplaceable.
=
We want to try to help tip the scales on the side of
those who believe that individuals are unique and
special and have great dignity.
=
Those who were murdered were people just like all
of us. More important to realize, is that those who
murdered them were also people just like all of us.
We seem to be in danger of forgetting our seemingly
unlimited capacities for evil, once boundaries to
certain behavior are removed.
=
What boundaries will we uphold to make it possible
for people to say with certainty that moral atrocities
are truly evil?
=
The Thinkable and the Unthinkable
There is a "thinkable" and an "unthinkable" in every
era.
=
On a humanistic base, people drift along from
generation to generation, and the morally
unthinkable becomes the thinkable as the years
move on. By "humanistic base" we mean the
fundamental idea that men and women can begin
from themselves and derive the standards by which
to judge all matters. There are for such people no
fixed standards of behavior, no standards that cannot
be eroded or replaced by what seems necessary,
expedient, or even fashionable.
=
the fully developed concept of the sanctity of human
life that we have known did not come from Greek
thought and culture but from the Judeo-Christian
world view which dominated the West for centuries.
=
in one short generation we have moved from a
generally high view of life to a very low one.
Why has our society changed? The answer is clear:
The consensus of our society no longer rests on a
Judeo-Christian base, but rather on a humanistic one.
Humanism makes man "the measure of all things."
It puts man rather than God at the center of all
things.
=
Flawed and erroneous teachings about mankind,
however, have far more serious effects. After all,
they are talking about _us_.
=
By "chance" is meant that there was no reason for
these things to occur; they just happened that way.
No matter how loftily it is phrased, this view
drastically reduces our view of self-worth as well as
our estimation of the worth of others, for we are
viewing ourselves as mere accidents of the universe.
Sociological Law and Personal Cruelty
Recently a generation has arisen that has taken these
theories out of the lab and classroom and into the
streets. Its members have carried the reduction of
the value of human beings into everyday life.
Suddenly we find ourselves in a more consistent but
uglier world-- more consistent because people are
taking their low view of man to its natural
conclusion, and uglier because humanity is
drastically dehumanized.
=
The Bible teaches that man is made in the image of
God and therefore is unique. Remove that teaching,
as humanism has done on both sides of the Iron
Curtain, and there is no adequate basis for treating
people well.
=
the whole concept of law has changed.
=
increasingly rely on litigation (the courts) rather than
legislation and the election process. They do this
because they can often accomplish through the
courts changes they could not achieve by the will of
the majority, using the more representative
institutions of government.
The Christian consensus held that neither the
majority nor an elite is absolute. God gives the
standards of value, and His absolutes are binding on
both the ordinary person and those in all places of
authority.
=
it has led to the crime and cruelty that now disturb
the very people whose teaching produces the crime
and cruelty in the first place.
=
If man is not made in the image of God, nothing then
stands in the way of inhumanity.
=
Child Abuse
=
When absolute sexual standards are replaced by
relativistic ones, and this is coupled with the
generally low view of people that modern humanists
have been teaching, society is not left with many
barriers against the sexual abuse of children. After
you remove the psychological and moral barriers
imposed by a high and sacred view of human life,
child abuse of all kinds becomes very easy, given
the stresses of child rearing, especially child rearing
in the antifamily climate of today.
=
the liberalization of abortion laws and the resultant
drastic lowering of the value placed on human life in
general and on children's lives in particular.
=
Abortion
=
Advocates of Infanticide
=
become totally accepted and eventually, for
economic reasons, made mandatory by an
increasingly authoritarian government in an
increasingly selfish society.
=
We do not consider this "informed consent."
=
But being able to look on such an occasion in
retrospect as a blessing does not, we believe, entitle
a doctor to distribute "shower of blessings" by
eliminating the problems that families might have to
face in raising a child who is less than perfect-- by
eliminating the baby.
=
the parents responded, "That's what we wanted to
know. We want a boy, so now we want an
abortion."
=
Where the destruction will end depends only on
what a small scientific elite and a generally apathetic
public will advocate and tolerate.
=
Notes
=
"I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked,
nor suggest any such counsel; furthermore, I will not
give to a woman an instrument to produce abortion."
=
13. In the _National Right to Life News_ of January
1977, Jesse L. Jackson had this to say
=
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Fuller Text
Schaeffer, Francis A. and C. Everett Koop. 1979.
_Whatever Happened to the Human Race?_ (New
Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company), 256pp. From
the dust jacket:
Francis A. Schaeffer is one of the foremost Christian
thinkers of today. Recognized and respected for his
work in philosophy and theology, he is, however,
most known for a special ability to communicate
ideas to diverse groups of people. During the past
twenty years, thousands have come to discuss and
benefit from Dr. Schaeffer's study and counsel at his
Europe-based L'Abri Fellowships and through his
many books. _How Should We Then Live_, _The
God Who Is There_, and _Escape From Reason_ are
among his works.
C. Everett Koop, M.D. is Surgeon-in-Chief of the
Children's Hospital in Philadelphia where the entire
Surgical Center is named in his honor. A pacesetter
in the field of pediatric surgery, Dr. Koop has
developed many new and highly successful
procedures in surgery of the newborn. Dr. Koop has
spent a lifetime studying the attitudes and trends of
man's view of man from a medical perspective. He
is well known as an author in the field of medical
ethics and is founder and the Editor-in-Chief of the
_Journal of Pediatric Surgery_.
This book was based on the script for a five-episode
motion picture. Material on 15-31, 73-78, 207-9,
217-18:
Cultures can be judged in many ways, but eventually
every nation in every age must be judged by this
test: _How did it treat people?_ Each generation,
each wave of humanity, evaluates its predecessors
on this basis. The final measure of mankind's
humanity is how humanely people treat one another.
The great dramatic moments of history have left us
with monuments and memories of compassion, love,
and unselfishness, which punctuate the
all-too-pervasive malevolence that dominates so
much human interaction. That there is any respite
from evil is due to some courageous people who, on
the basis of personal philosophies, have led
campaigns against the ill-treatment and misuse of
individuals. Each era faces its own unique blend of
problems. Our own time is no exception. Those
who regard individuals as expendable raw material--
to be molded, exploited, and then discarded-- do
battle on many fronts with those who see each
person as unique and special, worthwhile, and
irreplaceable.
The reason we are writing this book is that we feel
strongly that we stand today on the edge of a great
abyss. At this crucial moment choices are being
made and thrust on us that will for many years to
come affect the way people are treated. We want to
try to help tip the scales on the side of those who
believe that individuals are unique and special and
have great dignity.
Yad Vashem is the monument in Jerusalem to the six
million Jews and others who were killed in the Nazi
Holocaust.1 It is one of the many memorials that are
scattered over the world in tribute to those who have
perished in upheavals of rampant evil-- evil that
swirls in on people when they no longer have a basis
for regarding one another as wonderful creatures
worthy of special care. Yad Vashem is a fitting
place to begin, for it reminds us of what, unhappily,
is possible in human behavior. Those who were
murdered were people just like all of us. More
important to realize, is that those who murdered
them were also people just like all of us. We seem
to be in danger of forgetting our seemingly
unlimited capacities for evil, once boundaries to
certain behavior are removed.
There are choices to be made in every age. And who
we are depends on the choices we make. What will
our choices be? What boundaries will we uphold to
make it possible for people to say with certainty that
moral atrocities are truly evil? Which side will we
be on?
The Thinkable and the Unthinkable
There is a "thinkable" and an "unthinkable" in every
era. One era is quite certain intellectually and
emotionally about what is acceptable. Yet another
era decides that these "certainties" are unacceptable
and puts another set of values into practice. On a
humanistic base, people drift along from generation
to generation, and the morally unthinkable becomes
the thinkable as the years move on. By "humanistic
base" we mean the fundamental idea that men and
women can begin from themselves and derive the
standards by which to judge all matters. There are
for such people no fixed standards of behavior, no
standards that cannot be eroded or replaced by what
seems necessary, expedient, or even fashionable.
Perhaps the most striking and unusual feature of our
moment of history is the speed with which eras
change. Looking back in history, we notice that
cultures such as the Indus River civilization (the
Harappa culture) lasted about a thousand years.
Today the passing of eras is so greatly speeded up
that the 1960s stand in sharp contrast to the 1970s.
The young people of the seventies do not understand
their older brothers and sisters of the sixties. What
was unthinkable in the sixties is unthinkable no
longer.
The ease and speed of communication has been a
factor in this. A protest in South Africa, for
example, can be echoed by sympathizers in New
York in just a few hours. Social conventions appear
and disappear with unprecedented rapidity.
The thinkables of the eighties and nineties will
certainly include things which most people today
find unthinkable and immoral, even unimaginable
and too extreme to suggest. Yet-- since they do not
have some overriding principle that takes them
beyond relativistic thinking-- when these become
thinkable and acceptable in the eighties and nineties,
most people will not even remember that they were
unthinkable in the seventies. They will slide into
each new thinkable without a jolt.
What we regard as thinkable and unthinkable about
how we treat human life has changed drastically in
the West. For centuries Western culture has
regarded human life and the quality of the life of the
individual as special. It has been common to speak
of "the sanctity of human life."
For instance, the Hippocratic Oath, which goes back
more than two thousand years, has traditionally been
taken by the graduates of American medical schools-
at the time of their commencement.2 The
Declaration of Geneva (adopted in September 1948
by the General Assembly of the World Medical
Organization and modeled closely on the
Hippocratic Oath) became used as the graduation
oath by more and more medical schools. It includes:
"I will maintain the utmost respect for human life
from the time of conception." This concept of the
preservation of human life has been the basis of the
medical profession and society in general. It is
significant that when the University of Pittsburgh
changed from the Hippocratic Oath to the
Declaration of Geneva in 1971, the students deleted
"from the time of conception" from the clause
beginning: "I will maintain the utmost respect for
human life." The University of Toronto School of
Medicine has also removed the phrase "from the
time of conception" from the form of the oath it now
uses.3
Of course, the Hippocratic Oath takes us back to the
time of the Greeks. But the fully developed concept
of the sanctity of human life that we have known did
not come from Greek thought and culture but from
the Judeo-Christian world view which dominated the
West for centuries. This view did _not_ come from
_nowhere_. Biblical doctrine was preached not as
_a_ truth but as _the_ truth. This teaching formed
not only the religious base of society but the
cultural, legal, and governmental bases as well. As a
total world view it answered the major questions
people have always asked. It dealt not only with the
questions _Who is God? What is He like?_ It also
gave answers to the questions of _Who are we as
people? How ought we to live together? What
meaning does human life have?_ In this way,
Judeo-Christianity formed a general cultural
consensus. That is, it provided the basic moral and
social values by which things are judged.
Judeo-Christian teaching was never perfectly
applied, but it did lay a foundation for a high view of
human life in concept and practice. Knowing
biblical values, people viewed human life as
unique-- to be protected and loved-- because each
individual is created in the image of God. This
stands in great contrast, for example, to Roman
culture. The Roman world practiced both abortion
and infanticide, while Christian societies have
considered abortion and infanticide to be murder.
Until recently in our own century, with some notable
and sorry exceptions, human beings have generally
been regarded as special, unique, and
nonexpendable. But in one short generation we have
moved from a generally high view of life to a very
low one.
Why has our society changed? The answer is clear:
The consensus of our society no longer rests on a
Judeo-Christian base, but rather on a humanistic one.
Humanism makes man "the measure of all things."
It puts man rather than God at the center of all
things.
Today the view that man is a product of chance in an
impersonal universe dominates both sides of the Iron
Curtain. This has resulted in a secularized society
and in a liberal theology in much of the church; that
is, the Bible is set aside and humanism in some form
(man starting from himself) is put in the Bible's
place. Much of the church no longer holds that the
Bible is God's Word in all it teaches. It simply
blends with the current thought forms rather than
being the "salt" that judges and preserves the life of
its culture. Unhappily, this portion of the church
simply changes its standards as the secular, humanist
standards sweep on from one loss of humanness to
the next. What we are watching is the natural result
of humanism in its secular and theological forms,
and the human race is being increasingly devalued.
In our time, humanism has replaced Christianity as
the consensus of the West. This has had many
results, not the least of which is to change people's
view of themselves and their attitudes toward other
human beings. Here is how the change came about.
Having rejected God, humanistic scientists began to
teach that only what can be mathematically
measured is real and that all reality is like a machine.
Man is only one part of the larger cosmic machine.
Man is more complicated than the machines people
make, but is still a machine, nevertheless.
As an example, in 1968 Dr. Edmund R. Leach,
Provost of Kings College, Cambridge, wrote in the
_London Times_:
Today when the molecular biologists are rapidly
unravelling the genetic chemistry of all living
things-- while the radio astronomers are
deciphering the programme of an evolving
cosmos-- all the marvels of creation are seen to
be mechanisms rather than mysteries. Since
even the human brain is nothing more than an
immensely complicated computer, it is no longer
necessary to invoke metaphysics to explain how
it works. In the resulting mechanistic universe
all that remains of the divine will is the moral
consciousness of man himself.
How unsatisfactory this evaluation is can be seen in
the fact that a decade later every point Edmund
Leach made is still in question.
Nonetheless, even though the years pass and men
like Leach do not prove their points, the idea of a
purely mechanistic universe with people as only
complicated machines infiltrates the thinking of
many. By constant repetition, the idea that man is
nothing more than a machine has captured the
popular mind. This idea keeps being presented year
after year in the schools and in the media, however
unfounded and unproven the hypothesis. Gradually,
after being generally unquestioned, it is blindly
accepted just as, after many years of teaching that
the earth was flat, the notion was believed because
of its sheer pervasiveness. Flawed and erroneous
teachings about mankind, however, have far more
serious effects. After all, they are talking about
_us_.
For a while, Western culture-- from sheer inertia--
continued to live by the old Christian ethics while
increasingly embracing the mechanistic,
time-plus-chance view of people. People came more
and more to hold that the universe is intrinsically
and originally impersonal-- as a stone is impersonal.
Thus, _by chance_, life began on the earth and then,
through long, long periods of time, _by chance_, life
became more complex, until man with his special
brain came into existence. By "chance" is meant
that there was no reason for these things to occur;
they just happened that way. No matter how loftily
it is phrased, this view drastically reduces our view
of self-worth as well as our estimation of the worth
of others, for we are viewing ourselves as mere
accidents of the universe.
Sociological Law and Personal Cruelty
Recently a generation has arisen that has taken these
theories out of the lab and classroom and into the
streets. Its members have carried the reduction of
the value of human beings into everyday life.
Suddenly we find ourselves in a more consistent but
uglier world-- more consistent because people are
taking their low view of man to its natural
conclusion, and uglier because humanity is
drastically dehumanized.
To illustrate what it means to practice this low view
of man, let us consider some present realities that
only a few years ago would have been unthinkable--
even on the base provided by a memory of the
Christian consensus, let alone within the Christian
consensus itself. The Christian consensus gave a
basis and a framework for our society to have
freedoms without those freedoms leading to chaos.
There was an emphasis on the value of the
individual person-- whose moral choices proceed
from judgments about man and society on the basis
of the existence of the infinite-personal God and His
teaching in the Bible.
The Bible teaches that man is made in the image of
God and therefore is unique. Remove that teaching,
as humanism has done
on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and there is no
adequate basis for treating people well. Let us now
look at some of those related unthinkable realities.
The loss of the Christian consensus has led to a long
list of inhuman actions and attitudes which may
seem unrelated but actually are not. They are the
direct result of the loss of the Christian consensus.
First, the whole concept of law has changed. When
a Christian consensus existed, it gave a base for law.
Instead of this, we now live under arbitrary, or
sociological, law. Supreme Court Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes took a big step in the change
toward sociological law. Holmes said, "Truth is the
majority vote of that nation that could lick all
others." In other words, law is only what most of
the people think at that moment of history, and there
is no higher law. It follows, of course, that the law
can be changed at any moment to reflect what the
majority currently thinks.
More accurately, the law becomes what a few people
in some branch of the government think will
promote the present sociological and economic
good. In reality the will and moral judgments of the
majority are now influenced by or even overruled by
the opinions of a small group of men and women.
This means that vast changes can be made in the
whole concept of what should and what should not
be done. Values can be altered overnight and at
almost unbelievable speed.
Consider the influence of the United States Supreme
Court. Ralph Winter, reviewing _The Memoirs of
Earl Warren_, said in the _Wall Street Journal_ of
July 27, 1977, that a large body of academic
criticism has argued that the Warren Court was
essentially antidemocratic because it paid little heed
to traditional legal criteria and procedures and
rewrote law according to the personal values of its
members. Winter summed up Supreme Court
Justice Douglas's concept as, "If the Supreme Court
does it, it's all right." The late Alexander M. Bickel
of Yale said that the Supreme Court was undertaking
"to bespeak the people's general will when the vote
comes out wrong." And Bickel caustically summed
the matter up by saying, "In effect, we must now
amend the Constitution to make it mean what the
Supreme Court says it means."4
The shift to _sociological law_ can affect everything
in life, including who should live and who should
die.
Those taking the lead in the changes involving who
should live and who should die increasingly rely on
litigation (the courts) rather than legislation and the
election process. They do this because they can
often accomplish through the courts changes they
could not achieve by the will of the majority, using
the more representative institutions of government.
The Christian consensus held that neither the
majority nor an elite is absolute. God gives the
standards of value, and His absolutes are binding on
both the ordinary person and those in all places of
authority.
Second, because the Christian consensus has been
put aside, we are faced today with a flood of
personal cruelty. As we have noted, the Christian
consensus gave great freedoms without leading to
chaos-- because society in general functioned within
the values given in the Bible, especially the unique
value of human life. Now that humanism has taken
over, the former freedoms run riot, and individuals,
acting on what they are taught, increasingly practice
their cruelties without restraint. And why shouldn't
they? If the modern humanistic view of man is
correct and man is only a product of chance in a
universe that has no ultimate values, why should an
individual refrain from being cruel to another
person, if that person seems to be standing in his or
her way?
Abusing Genetic Knowledge
Beyond the individual's cruelty to other individuals,
why should society not make over humanity into
something different if it can do so-- even if it results
in the loss of those factors which make human life
worth living? New genetic knowledge could be
used in a helpful way and undoubtedly will bring
forth many things which are beneficial, but-- once
the uniqueness of people as created by God is
removed and mankind is viewed as only one of the
gene patterns which came forth on the earth by
chance-- there is no reason not to treat people as
things to be experimented on and to make over the
whole of humanity according to the decisions of a
relatively few individuals. If people are not unique,
as made in the image of God, the barrier is gone.
Once this barrier is gone there is no reason not to
experiment genetically with humanity to make it into
what someone thinks to be an improvement socially
and economically. The cost here is overwhelming.
Should the genetic changes once be made in the
individual, these changes will be passed down to his
or her children, and they cannot ever [too strong
-df] be reversed.
Modern humanism has an inherent need to
manipulate and tinker with the natural processes,
including human nature, because humanism:
1. Rejects the doctrine of Creation.
2. Therefore rejects the idea that there is anything
stable or "given" about human nature.
3. Sees human nature as part of a long, unfolding
process of development in which everything is
changing.
4. Casts around for some solution to the problem of
despair that this determinist-evolutionist vision
induces.
5. Can only find a solution in the activity of the
human will, which-- in opposition to its own
system-- it hopes can transcend the inexorable flow
of nature and act upon nature.
6. Therefore encourages manipulation of nature,
including tinkering with people, as the only way of
escaping from nature's bondage. But this
manipulation cannot have any certain criteria to
guide it because, with God abolished, the only
remaining criterion is Nature (which is precisely
what humanist man wants to escape from) and
Nature is both noncruel and cruel.
This explains why humanism is fascinated with the
manipulation of human nature.
It is not only Christians who are opposed to the
forms of genetic engineering which tinker with the
structure of humanity. Others such as Theodore
Roszak and Jeremy Rifkin of the People's Business
Commission rightly see this genetic engineering as
incompatible with democracy. Christians and other
such people can raise their voices together against
this threat. That does not, however, change the
realization that the democracy such people are trying
to save is a product of Reformation Christianity, and
without Reformation Christianity the base for that
democracy and its freedom is gone.
In sociological law, with the Christian consensus
gone, the courts or some other part of government
arbitrarily make the law. In the concept of genetic
engineering, with the uniqueness of people as made
in the image of God thrown away, mankind itself is
in danger of being made over arbitrarily into the
image of what some people think mankind ought to
be. This will overwhelmingly be the case if such
concepts as what has been called "sociobiology" are
widely accepted.
According to these concepts, people do what they do
because of the makeup of the genes, and the genes
(in some mysterious way) know what is best for
keeping the gene pool of the species flourishing.
Regardless of what you think your reasons are for
unselfishness, say the sociobiologists, in reality you
are only doing what your genes know is best to keep
your gene configuration alive and flourishing into
the future. This happens because evolution has
produced organisms that automatically follow a
mathematical logic: they calculate the genetic costs
or benefits of helping those who bear many of the
same genes and act to preserve their own image.
Thus, the reason why parents help their children live
is that the genes of the parents make them act to
preserve the future existence of like genetic forms.5
No one tells us how the genes got started doing this.
The how is not known. And even if the _how_ were
demonstrated, the _why_ would still be in total
darkness. Yet with neither the _how_ nor the _why_
known, everything human is abandoned. Maternal
love, friendships, law, and morals are all explained
away. Those who hold the sociobiological view
believe that conflict both in the family and with
outsiders is the essence of life. This serves as a
chilling reminder of Hitler's Germany, which was
built on the social conclusions logically drawn from
the Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest.
Harvard zoologist Edward O. Wilson, who wrote
_Sociobiology: The New Synthesis_, says on page
562: "We may find that there is an overestimation
of the nature of our deepest yearnings." He calls for
"ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of
the philosophers and biologized."6
The humanistic philosophers tried to make ethics
independent of biblical teaching; the present tragic
result is the loss of humanness on every level. Now,
Wilson argues, ethics and behavior patterns should
be made independent of these humanistic
philosophers and put into the realm of the purely
mechanical, where ethics reflect only genes fighting
for survival. This makes ethics equal no ethics.
Time said of sociobiology, "Indeed, few academic
theories have spread so fast with so little hard
proof." Why has it spread so fast with no hard
proof? That is easy to explain: We have been
prepared for it by all the humanistic materialism of
past years. A constant barrage of authoritative,
though unproven, statements comes from every side,
and gradually people accept themselves and others
as only machinelike things. If man is only a product
of chance in an impersonal universe, and that is all
there is, this teaching is a logical extension of that
fact.7
To summarize: On the one hand, the idea that
mankind is only a collection of the genes which
make up the DNA patterns has naturally led to the
concept of remaking all of humanity with the use of
genetic engineering. On the other hand, it has led to
the crime and cruelty that now disturb the very
people whose teaching produces the crime and
cruelty in the first place. Many of these people do
not face the conclusion of their own teaching. With
nothing higher than human opinion upon which to
base judgments and with ethics equaling no ethics,
the justification for seeing crime and cruelty as
disturbing is destroyed. The very word _crime_ and
even the word _cruelty_ lose meaning. There is no
final reason on which to forbid anything-- "If
nothing is forbidden, then anything is possible."
If man is not made in the image of God, nothing then
stands in the way of inhumanity. There is no good
reason why mankind should be perceived as special.
Human life is cheapened. We can see this in many
of the major issues being debated in our society
today: abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, the increase
of child abuse and violence of all kinds,
pornography (and its particular kinds of violence as
evidenced in sadomasochism), the routine torture of
political prisoners in many parts of the world, the
crime explosion, and the random violence which
surrounds us.
In Communist countries, where materialism and
humanistic thinking have been dominant for over
several generations, a low view of people has been
standard for years. This is apparent not only in the
early legislation about abortion but also in the
thousands of political prisoners who have been
systematically oppressed, tortured, and killed as part
of the very fabric of Communism. Now, however,
as humanism dominates the West, we have a low
view of mankind in the West as well. Let us
consider some more of the direct and indirect results
that this low view of people has brought into our
society in the non-Communist world.
Child Abuse
Dr. C. Henry Kempe, a pediatrician at the University
of Colorado School of Medicine, first used the term
_battered-child syndrome_. The term _child abuse_
covers at least three separate entities: physical
assault, physical neglect, and emotional abuse and
neglect. In the first of these the child is a victim of
an act of aggression.8 These case histories are
typical of thousands:
_Case 1:_ Police found a nine-year-old girl in a
closet measuring twenty-three by fifty-two
inches, where she had been locked for half of
her life. She weighed only twenty pounds and
stood less than three feet tall. Smeared with filth
and scarred from parental beatings, this child
had become irrevocably mentally damaged.
_Case 2:_ An eleven-year-old boy was brought
to a San Francisco hospital suffering from severe
malnutrition. He weighed forty-four pounds,
had a body temperature of eighty-four degrees
and was in a coma. The suspicious marks on his
wrists and ankles were related to his mother's
and her boyfriend's immobilization of the boy
for hours on end by means of handcuffs, chains
and locks.
The second variety of child abuse, physical neglect,
is probably many times more frequent than either the
medical profession or the police can document. The
third form, emotional abuse, is not only difficult to
define but more difficult to detect and prove-- after
which comes the very difficult task of rehabilitative
therapy.
So far it is children who have suffered the most from
dehumanization. Nothing could illustrate better the
dehumanization and exploitation of children than
child pornography. Why doesn't public outcry
demand that films depicting child pornography be
withdrawn? Because the producers know that they
will not be box-office failures. Dehumanization of
both adults and children is taking quantum leaps.
The unthinkable rapidly becomes not only thinkable
but even welcome as entertainment-- and being
accepted as entertainment, it becomes powerful
propaganda for ongoing personal and social practice,
further dehumanizing young and old alike.
To begin to grasp the enormity of the problem,
consider that in 1972 there were 60,000 child-abuse
incidents which were brought to official attention in
the United States. Just four years later, in 1976, the
number that received official attention passed the
half-million mark. _Reported_ cases of child abuse
probably represent only about half of what really
occurs.
Child abuse is the fifth most frequent cause of death
among children. In _U.S. News and World Report_
(May 3, 1976) it was reported that Dr. Irwin
Hedlener, investigating child abuse at Jackson
Memorial Hospital in Miami, said: "If child abuse
were polio, the whole country would be up in arms
looking for a solution."
An especially alarming form of dehumanization is
the apparent increase of incest. Dr. Harry Giarretto,
director of the pioneering Child Sexual Abuse
Treatment Center in San Jose, California, says that
incest is an epidemic in America.9 Dr. Amanat, who
heads up the Sexual Abuse Committee in Saint
Louis, believes that 40,000 of the 1,000,000 victims
of sexual abuse a year are victims of incest. Some
say that incest is the most frequent unrecorded crime
in this country and much more common than general
child abuse or child neglect).10
We believe that the increased use of children in sex
films has been responsible for much of the sexual
abuse of children. When absolute sexual standards
are replaced by relativistic ones, and this is coupled
with the generally low view of people that modern
humanists have been teaching, society is not left
with many barriers against the sexual abuse of
children. After you remove the psychological and
moral barriers imposed by a high and sacred view of
human life, child abuse of all kinds becomes very
easy, given the stresses of child rearing, especially
child rearing in the antifamily climate of today.11
The Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion
and the arbitrariness of that decision regarding who
is or is not a "person" have broken down barriers.
There has been a drastic rise of crimes against
children since abortion-on-demand became legal in
the United States. We are convinced that this
increase is caused in part by the liberalization of
abortion laws and the resultant drastic lowering of
the value placed on human life in general and on
children's lives in particular.12
The forces of humanism have scoffed at Christian
morality and ethics as well as at the Christian view
of man. These theories of so-called liberation from
the biblical absolutes are bearing their fruit. But
humanists, far from reexamining the basis of their
position now that the situation is souring, stubbornly
propose (on the same old base) remedial action to
the problems that humanist philosophy itself has
created. This action is even more dehumanizing in
its results, as we shall see later in this book.
Abortion
Of all the subjects relating to the erosion of the
sanctity of human life, abortion is the keystone.
....
Advocates of Infanticide
It frightens us when we see the medical profession
acquiesce to, if not lead in, a trend which in our
judgment will carry us to destruction. The loss of
humanness shown in allowing malformed babies to
starve to death is not a thing of the future. It is being
put forward as the accepted thing right now in many
quarters. All that is left is for it to become totally
accepted and eventually, for economic reasons,
made mandatory by an increasingly authoritarian
government in an increasingly selfish society.
In May 1973, James D. Watson, the Nobel Prize
laureate who discovered the double helix of DNA,
granted an interview to _Prism_ magazine, then a
publication of the American Medical Association.
_Time_ later reported the interview to the general
public, quoting Watson as having said,
If a child were not declared alive until three days
after birth, then all parents could be allowed the
choice only a few are given under the present
system. The doctor could allow the child to die
if the parents so choose and save a lot of misery
and suffering. I believe this view is the only
rational, compassionate attitude to have.
In January 1978, Francis Crick, also a Nobel
laureate, was quoted in the _Pacific News Service_
as saying,
. . . no newborn infant should be declared human
until it has passed certain tests regarding its
genetic endowment and that if it fails these tests
it forfeits the right to live.
In _Ideals of Life_, Millard S. Everett, who was
professor of philosophy and humanities at Oklahoma
A&M, writes,
My personal feeling-- and I don't ask anyone to
agree with me-- is that eventually, when public
opinion is prepared for it, no child should be
admitted into the society of the living who
would be certain to suffer any social handicap--
for example, any physical or mental defect that
would prevent marriage or would make others
tolerate his company only from the sense of
mercy.
He adds, "This would imply not only eugenic
sterilization but also euthanasia due to accidents of
birth which cannot be foreseen."44
Perhaps the paper most outspokenly advocating
infanticide was published in the prestigious
167-year-old _New England Journal of Medicine_.
In October 1973, Dr. Raymond S. Duff and Dr.
A.G.M. Campbell of the department of pediatrics at
Yale University School of Medicine wrote, "Moral
and Ethical Dilemmas in the Special-Care
Nursery."45
Very few parents come of their own volition to a
physician and say, "My baby has a life not worthy to
be lived." Duff and Campbell say that the parents in
such a case are not in a condition to give "informed
consent" by themselves. But any physician in the
emotional circumstances surrounding the birth of a
baby with any kind of a defect can, by innuendo if
not advice, prepare the family to make the decision
the physician wants them to make. We do not
consider this "informed consent."
Duff and Campbell acknowledge that the parents'
and siblings' rights to relief from "seemingly
pointless, crushing burdens were important
considerations" in letting children die. Even Duff
and Campbell use the word _seemingly_ to modify
_pointless_, and we are sure the burden would not
be nearly as _crushing_ as the guilt many of these
parents will eventually feel.46
As partial justification for their point of view, Duff
and Campbell say that
although some parents have exhibited doubts
that the choices were correct, all appear to be as
effective in their lives as they were before this
experience. Some claim that their profoundly
moving experience has provided a deeper
meaning in life, and from this they have become
more effective people.
Some of the parents, the two doctors admit, had
doubts that their choice to let the child die was
correct. If these parents were seeking deeper
meaning in life-- and if Duff and Campbell were
indeed interested in providing deeper meaning in life
for the parents of their deformed patients-- why not
let the family find that deep meaning by providing
the love and attention necessary to take care of an
infant who has been given to them? We suspect that
the deeper meaning would then be deeper still, that
their effectiveness would be still more effective, and
that they would be examples of courage and
determination to others less courageous. Duff and
Campbell say, "It seems appropriate that the
profession be held accountable for presenting fully
all management options and their expected
consequences." We wonder how commonly
physicians are willing to be held accountable for the
consequences that may not be apparent in a family
until years later?
The Slaughter of the Innocents
There have been many times when one of us [i.e.
Koop], having operated on a newborn youngster
who has subsequently died, has been inwardly
relieved and has expressed honestly to the family
that the tragic turn of events was indeed a blessing in
disguise. But being able to look on such an occasion
in retrospect as a blessing does not, we believe,
entitle a doctor to distribute "shower of blessings"
by eliminating the problems that families might have
to face in raising a child who is less than perfect-- by
eliminating the baby.
On the basis of interviews he has given and comments
we have read in the press, we believe that Professor
Duff is perfectly sincere in believing that he is
moving in an ethical and moral direction when he
advocates death as one of the options in the
treatment of a defective newborn. It should not be
thought that we are singling out Duff and Campbell.
There are growing numbers of other physicians and
surgeons who unfortunately, we believe, are
advocating the same course of action. Anthony
Shaw, a pediatric surgeon, has been in the forefront
of these discussions from a neonatal surgeon's point
of view. He says:
My ethic holds that all rights are not absolute all
the time. As Fletcher points out, '. . . all rights
are imperfect and may be set aside if human
need requires it.' My ethic further considers
quality of life as a value that must be balanced
against the belief in the sanctity of life.47
We are moving from the state of mind in which
destruction of life is advocated for children who are
considered to be socially useless or deemed to have
nonmeaningful lives to the stance that we should
perhaps destroy a child because he is socially
disturbing. One wonders if the advocates of such a
philosophy would espouse a total blockade and
"starving out" of urban slums as a solution to
poverty-- considering all the social and economic
problems this would solve all at once!
The twentieth century has produced many monsters.
One has been the idea of "built-in obsolescence," not
only in material things but also in human matters
such as marriage and the responsibilities of
parenthood. One can picture a parent picking up one
baby and, not being quite satisfied with it, trading it
in for another one.
Medical science can now make a prenatal diagnosis
of the sex of the expected offspring. In spite of the
depravity of our society regarding
abortion-on-demand, even abortionists recoil a little
from eliminating an unborn child just because it is
not the sex the family wants. There was a recent
example involving a couple who wanted a boy but
not a girl. Rather than make this crass request of
their obstetrician, they claimed to be concerned
about hemophilia in the wife's family.
Amniocentesis was therefore undertaken to
determine the sex of the baby, because only males
are affected. When the obstetrician reported that
there was no need for concern because the unborn
child was a girl and could not have hemophilia, the
parents responded, "That's what we wanted to know.
We want a boy, so now we want an abortion."
One wonders what the chances are for someone who
becomes a burden in a society that practices the
concept of the survival of the fittest and has begun
this practice by starting to eliminate its children.
Most societies, recognizing the total dependency of
children, have given their young a place of special
protection. Since our society has begun by abusing
and then killing children, we feel that for us the
worst has come first. Where the destruction will end
depends only on what a small scientific elite and a
generally apathetic public will advocate and tolerate.
Any hope of a comprehensive standard for human
rights has already been lost.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Notes
1. The barbarism of the holocaust was not limited to
European Jewry. Gypsies, Slays, Russians, German
dissidents for political and religious reasons,
resistance leaders from occupied European
countries, ordinary captives in the course of war, and
even children of some of these former categories
were eliminated. However, the Jews were especially
slated for total elimination. Heinrich Himmler
delivered an address on October 10, 1943, to an
assembly of SS generals at Poznan. By this time
both Himmler and his audience must have known
that Germany could not win the war. Himmler
stated:
Among ourselves it should be mentioned quite
frankly, and yet we will never speak of it
publicly . . . I mean . . . the extirpation of the
Jewish race . . . this is a page of glory in our
history which has never been written and is
never to be written.
2. The following is the standard form of the Oath of
Hippocrates taken by those current medical students
who take an oath. This so-called "original" form of
the oath is the most widely used, although frequently
the reference to Apollo, the Physician, and the other
gods is omitted:
I swear by Apollo, the Physician, and
Aesculapius and health and all-heal and all the
gods and goddesses that, according to my ability
and judgment, I will keep this oath and
stipulation:
To reckon him who taught me this art equally
dear to me as my parents, to share my substance
with him and relieve his necessities if required:
to regard his offspring as on the same footing
with my own brothers, and to teach them this art
if they should wish to learn it, without fee or
stipulation, and that by precept, lecture and
every other mode of instruction, I will impart a
knowledge of the art to my own sons and to
those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by
a stipulation and oath, according to the law of
medicine, but to none others.
I will follow that method of treatment which,
according to my ability and judgment, I consider
for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from
whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will
give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor
suggest any such counsel; furthermore, I will not
give to a woman an instrument to produce
abortion.
With Purity and with Holiness I will pass my
life and practice my art. I will not cut a person
who is suffering with a stone, but will leave this
to be done by practitioners of this work.
Into whatever houses I enter I will go into them
for the benefit of the sick and will abstain from
every voluntary act of mischief and corruption;
and further from the seduction of females or
males, bond or free.
Whatever, in connection with my professional
practice, or not in connection with it, I may see
or hear in the lives of men which ought not to be
spoken abroad I will not divulge, as reckoning
that all such should be kept secret.
While I continue to keep this oath unviolated
may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the
practice of the art, respected by all men at all
times but should I trespass and violate this oath,
may the reverse be my lot.
3. Jaan Kangilaski writing in _Medical Forum_ in
May 1978 reported on an informal survey of 1977
commencement practices in reference to the
Hippocratic Oath. One hundred and thirty-two
medical schools were queried; ninety-two
responded. Fifty-three schools used the "original"
form of the Hippocratic Oath, twenty-six used the
Declaration of Geneva, thirteen used the prayer of
Maimonides, and seven others used various other
pledges, sometimes student written. Sometimes the
oath is administered to the class; sometimes one
student or one faculty member recites the pledge and
others follow; sometimes the pledge is said by one
person while the others stand silent; and at Yale the
1977 program allowed time so that those who
wished to take the oath could do so in silence.
4. George F. Will, _Newsweek_, April 4, 1977, p.
96.
5. _Time_, August 1, 1977, p. 54.
6. Edward O. Wilson wrote _Sociobiology: The
New Synthesis_ in 1975 (Belknap Press of Harvard
University). His more recent book (1978)-- _On
Human Nature_ (Harvard University Press)-- applies
his ideas specifically to human behavior.
7. _Time_, August 1, 1977, p. 54.
8. Joan Hutchison, writing in _Challenge_ for
May/June 1976, started her essay dealing with the
history of child abuse in the following way:
Burned, bashed, beaten, stomped, suffocated,
strangled, poisoned, choked, ripped, steamed,
boiled, dismembered, bitten, raped, clubbed,
banged, torn. Ignored, starved, abandoned,
exploited, demeaned, ridiculed, treated with
coldness and indifference or unreasonable
demands.
9. Gay Pauley, "Of Cries, Whispers, and Incest,"
_Philadelphia Evening Bulletin_, October 3, 1977.
10. Gay Pauley, "Incest: Healing Taboos, Harsh
Wounds," _Philadelphia Evening Bulletin_, October
4, 1977.
11. A number of forces at work in America are
antifamily. Among these are the constantly climbing
divorce rate, the gay-liberation movement, extreme
forms of women's lib, and abortion-on-demand. One
child in six now lives in a single-parent family. Of
every eight women giving birth to a child, one is not
married (compared to one in twenty in 1960). More
than half of American married women with children
of ages six through seventeen are now in the labor
force (double the 1948 rate). A third of unmarried
women with children under three are in the work
force.
12. Mothers who have had several abortions are
more likely than others to beat their children,
according to a study conducted by Dr. Burton G.
Schoenfeld, a child psychiatrist of Prince Georges
County General Hospital in Maryland.
13. In the _National Right to Life News_ of January
1977, Jesse L. Jackson had this to say on the right of
privacy:
There are those who argue that the right to
privacy is of higher order than the right to life. . .
that was the premise of slavery. You could not
protest the existence or treatment of slaves on
the plantation because that was private and
therefore outside your right to be concerned. . . .
The Constitution called us three-fifths human
and the whites further dehumanized us by
calling us 'niggers.' It was part of the
dehumanizing process. . . . These advocates
taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or
murder, they call it abortion. They further never
talk about aborting a baby because that would
imply something human. . . . Fetus sounds less
than human and therefore can be justified. . . .
What happens to the mind of a person, and the
moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the
aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of
conscience? What kind of a person and what
kind of a society will we have twenty years
hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that
question, the question of our attitude, our value
system, and our mind set with regard to the
nature and worth of life itself that is the central
question confronting mankind. Failure to
answer that question affirmatively may leave us
with a hell right here on earth.
....
44. Millard Everett, _Ideals of Life: An Introduction
to Ethics and the Humanities, With Readings_ (New
York: Wiley, 1954). Note: This was quoted in _The
Way We Die_ by David Dempsey.
45. In response to the publication of "Moral and
Ethical Dilemmas in the Special-Care Nursery" in
the _New England Journal of Medicine_ by Duff
and Campbell in October of 1973, there appeared
among other letters to the editor in the same journal
(February 28, 1974) one by Joan L. Venes, M.D.,
and Peter R. Huttenlocher, M.D., of the Yale
University School of Medicine. They described
themselves as some of the "specialists based in the
medical center" referred to by Duff and Campbell.
This is the final paragraph of that letter:
As consultants to the Newborn Special Care
Unit, we wish to dissociate ourselves from the
opinions expressed by the authors. The 'growing
tendency to seek early death as a management
option' that the authors referred to has been
repeatedly called to the attention of those
involved and has caused us deep concern. It is
troubling to us to hear young pediatric interns
ask first, 'Should we treat?' rather than 'How do
we treat?': we are fearful that this feeling of
nihilism may not remain restricted to the
Newborn Special Care Unit. To suggest that the
financial and psychological stresses imposed
upon a family with the birth of a handicapped
child constitutes sufficient justification for such
a therapy of nihilism is untenable and allows us
to escape what perhaps after all are the real
issues-- i.e., the obligation of an affluent society
to provide financial support and the opportunity
for a gainful life to its less fortunate citizens.
46. Here is a quotation from a pediatric surgeon,
appended to a questionnaire on his attitude toward
patients with Down's syndrome:
I have a 53-year-old cousin with Down's
syndrome. His father is a 93-year-old
arteriosclerotic, incontinent at night of urine and
stool. He refuses to go to a nursing home. They
live alone and the son with Down's syndrome
provides most of the care.
47. Anthony Shaw, "Dilemmas of Informed
Consent in Children," _New England Journal of
Medicine_, October 25, 1973, pp. 885-890.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////
For Further Reading
"In Communist countries, where materialism and
humanistic thinking have been dominant for over
several generations, a low view of people has been
standard for years. This is apparent not only in the
early legislation about abortion but also in the
thousands of political prisoners who have been
systematically oppressed, tortured, and killed as part
of the very fabric of Communism."
2004 R.J. Rummel's "The killing machine that is
Marxism"
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-32gfjsF3l6o15U1%40individual.net
Lenin actions compared with Russell remarks
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-35nbd1F4pm3jiU1%40individual.net
"Edward O. Wilson"
Darwinists downgrading the value of human life
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-399aluF5uql89U1%40individual.net
"On a humanistic base, people drift along from
generation to generation, and the morally
unthinkable becomes the thinkable as the years
move on. By 'humanistic base' we mean the
fundamental idea that men and women can begin
from themselves and derive the standards by which
to judge all matters. There are for such people no
fixed standards of behavior, no standards that cannot
be eroded or replaced by what seems necessary,
expedient, or even fashionable."
Humanist Manifesto II, at
<http://www.americanhumanist.org/about/manifesto2.html>:
"THIRD: We affirm that moral values derive their
source from human experience. Ethics is
autonomous and situational needing no theological
or ideological sanction. Ethics stems from human
need and interest."
Humanist Manifesto III, at
<http://www.americanhumanist.org/3/HumandItsAspirations.htm>:
"The lifestance of Humanism-- guided by reason,
inspired by compassion, and informed by
experience-- encourages us to live life well and
fully. It evolved through the ages and continues to
develop through the efforts of thoughtful people
who recognize that values and ideals, however
carefully wrought, are subject to change as our
knowledge and understandings advance."
1922 Nordau
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3abe1cF6ac7t2U1%40individual.net
1998 Morain & Morain: "humanism.... frees one
from guilt," 1989 Frederick Edwords, 1976 "A New
Bill of Sexual Rights and Responsibilities"
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-b1c67abe.0409201821.588252b6%40posting.google.com
"Edmund R. Leach"
Edmund Leach
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990108222710.16677D-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
"Jeremy Rifkin"
1983 Jeremy Rifkin: "Darwin's theory of
evolution... has enjoyed a rather privileged position
within the academic community"
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407260734.14893b70%40posting.google.com
1983 Jeremy Rifkin, 1939 Luther Burbank, 2002
Judith Hooper, Darwin Autobiography; 1921 George
Bernard Shaw
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0404070956.1db2b888%40posting.google.com
"Bickel of Yale said that the Supreme Court was
undertaking 'to bespeak the people's general will
when the vote comes out wrong.' And Bickel
caustically summed the matter up by saying, 'In
effect, we must now amend the Constitution to make
it mean what the Supreme Court says it means.'"
Elected state and national legislatures are
superfluous
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3aenpiF69fl4rU1%40individual.net
"The Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion"
Critique of Roe v. Wade
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.95.961103170616.15767C-100000%40umbc10.umbc.edu
"Advocates of Infanticide.... Watson.... Crick"
any atheists against Terri Schindler Schiavo's being
starved to death?
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3adrlvF69l60hU1%40individual.net
"The very word _crime_ and even the word
_cruelty_ lose meaning."
Justifications for taking of human life?
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3aj33dF67kgcuU2%40individual.net
"Biblical doctrine was preached not as _a_ truth but
as _the_ truth." Dawkins in
replies to Larry Moran posts
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-39lhabF61ut8sU1%40individual.net
"Thus, _by chance_, life began on the earth and
then, through long, long periods of time, _by
chance_, life became more complex, until man with
his special brain came into existence."
Tomlin in
highly-advanced 'computer' found in nature; Benyus
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-b1c67abe.0411131155.3c571bd5%40posting.google.com
On the Origin of Life
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-39oh33F63riraU1%40individual.net
concept of "blindwatchmaking"
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0401101006.38dc8f17%40posting.google.com
Timeline of Materialism, Spontaneous Generation,
and Blindwatchmaking Views
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-348jecF47mfcjU1%40individual.net
"Where the destruction will end depends only on
what a small scientific elite and a generally apathetic
public will advocate and tolerate."
2004 Richard Weikart: "physicians... were
committed to a racist eugenics ideology that the
Nazis favored"
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407120310.7d3f3929%40posting.google.com
1997 Wesley Smith on Germany's slippery slope
slide from devaluing some human life to a little
euthanasia/ killing to mass killings
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3abe1cF6ac7t2U1%40individual.net
"Those who hold the sociobiological view believe that conflict both in
the family and with outsiders is the essence of life. This
serves as a chilling reminder of Hitler's Germany, which was built on
the social conclusions logically drawn from the Darwinian
concept of the survival of the fittest."
1983 Daniel Brooks
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990628151138.260287C-100000%40umbc8.umbc.edu
Darwin's bible; Hsu
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3a18k3F66sgjpU1%40individual.net
1940 Nazi film "All Life is Struggle" embraced
Darwinian natural selection
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407042043.1c2ccf1f%40posting.google.com
excerpts from a 1942 Nazi biology textbook for the
middle school
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/textbk01.htm
1942 Heydrich: "The Jews... no doubt a large part
of them will be eliminated by natural diminution.
The survivors, the hardiest among them, must be
given an appropriate treatment, because they
represent a natural selection...."
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407032023.243f5883%40posting.google.com
1991 Paul Johnson: Hitler practiced social
engineering
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407070355.27039a45%40posting.google.com
In post-Darwin pre-Holocaust Germany, abortion
was promoted as being a tool in the service of
eugenics. The majority of the prominent advocates
of abortion were fervent Darwinist adherents of
materialism, and they viewed the use of abortion as a
method of helping 'evolution' advance and
improving humanity.
Ref:
Weikart, Richard. 2004. _From Darwin to Hitler:
Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in
Germany_ (USA: Palgrave Macmillan), 312pp., 157.
About Weikart's book:
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407030531.19253d93%40posting.google.com
Reality vs. worldview philosophy of materialism/ atheism
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3813ksF5ggkc3U1%40individual.net
maff
david ford wrote:
[...]
So how do account for Christian fascist/ fundamentalist murderers?
Bobby D. Bryant
--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
unrestra...@hotmail.com
david ford wrote:
> Schaeffer, Francis A. and C. Everett Koop. 1979.
> _Whatever Happened to the Human Race?_ (New
> Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company), 256pp. Both
<snip>
> On a humanistic base, people drift along from
> generation to generation, and the morally
> unthinkable becomes the thinkable as the years
> move on. By "humanistic base" we mean the
> fundamental idea that men and women can begin
> from themselves and derive the standards by which
> to judge all matters. There are for such people no
> fixed standards of behavior, no standards that cannot
> be eroded or replaced by what seems necessary,
> expedient, or even fashionable.
> =
What of those who think that God speaks to them, and asks them to do
the unthinkable? Those who rant along the path of True Believer base
are capable of doing anything, for they have no human standard of right
and wrong, nor (sometimes) any fear of death, believing they are immune
to such. By "True Believer" base I mean those who thinks that God speak
to individuals, and sometimes gives them commands, and such commands
are not bound by universal standards of right and wrong, but are
themselves the source of such standards. These True Believers are
incapable of self-assessment, and so are utterly lacking in the ability
to even consider if they may be insane, or simply projecting their own
desires onto the voice of God, or even led astray by the demons they
think exist (but would never, ever, speak to *them). For these people
there is no predictable behavior, no threats of shame or guilt or legal
punishment, no standard of behavior which cannot be broached by what
they imagine is a whisper from God. For recent examples, see our local
terrorist, Eric Robert Rudolph, who bombed not only family planning
clinics but also the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, or the Muslim fanatics
who killed three thousand people on September 11.
<snip>
Isn't this off-topic for talk.origins?
Kermit
Secular Fundamentalist
bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu (Bobby D. Bryant),who intoned thus:
>So, you're against atomic theory?
David Silverman F.L.A.H.N.
aa #2208
Mistabit doesn't work in mysterious ways, people just don't pay attention.
Glenn
<unrestra...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1112825351....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Scooter the Mighty
is lacking. Religion has not traditionally restrained people from
committing horrible crimes against humanity. Secular Humanists have
not especially been shown to be anti-social criminals with no sense of
morality. In fact, atheists in general are greatly under represented
in prison; mostly it's religious folk in there.
Thought experiments are OK as a starting place, but at some point you
have to examine the evidence.
Denis Loubet
"david ford" <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote in message
news:dford3-b1c67abe.0...@posting.google.com...
> Schaeffer, Francis A. and C. Everett Koop. 1979.
> _Whatever Happened to the Human Race?_ (New
> Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company), 256pp. Both
> Christians, Schaeffer worked in philosophy and
> theology, while Koop was a children's surgeon.
>
> A control - f/ "find" will take you quickly to text you
> wish to examine.
> See the "For Further Reading" section for some of
> what I underlined while reading pages 15-31, 73-78,
> 207-9, 217-18. The balance of what I underlined
> appears here, with some section headings:
>
> Those who regard individuals as expendable raw
> material-- to be molded, exploited, and then
> discarded-- do battle on many fronts with those who
> see each person as unique and special, worthwhile,
> and irreplaceable.
This is SO disingenuous. If these authors are suggesting that religion
offers the unique, special, worthwhile, and irreplaceable viewpoint, then
why am I in a discussion with a Christian who's insisting that we all are
worthless scum and deserve nothing better than eternal torture?
It's the humanistic viewpoint that espouses that we are unique, special,
worthwhile, and irreplaceable.
It's religion that espouses the viewpoint that we are barely worthy to
prostrate ourselves on our bellies to beg not to be fed into the furnace.
--
Denis Loubet
dlo...@io.com
http:/www.io.com/~dloubet
Geoff
news:glennsheldon-OsZ4e.35$cA5...@news.uswest.net...
The premise/conclusion being what? That they are indeed "true
believers" (your quotes) or that they heard Godly whispers?
If they are not true believers, then neither do they hear whispers.
Who would obey whispers of something they do not believe?
If they are true believers, do you doubt that some people actually
do hear voices. This is well-established fact and can be due to
neurological, physiological, and psychological reasons.
> I doubt you would claim to believe anything they said.
And if someone said they heard jolly ol' St. Nick talking to
them, would you believe anything they said?
> Just curious to see your evidence. Did Rudolph suffer from
> psychosis?
Maybe, maybe not. But he's definitely not all there. (Neither
is his brother who videotaped himself cutting off his own hand
with a chainsaw.)
Rudolph himself was an adherent to Christian Identity which
espouses that Jews are the children of Satan and that whites
are made in the image of God and thus superior to nonwhites.
Rudolph once wrote a paper denying the Holocaust and was
believed that Social Security numbers were a Federal tracking
scheme.
Rudolph exhibited much of the lack of ability for rational
thought and reasoning as well as paranoia, delusions, and
violent behavior that are hallmarks of psychosis.
rjk...@gmail.com
in their minds that they attribute to God, or is that both your premise
and conclusion? I doubt you would claim to believe anything they said.
Just curious to see your evidence. Did Rudolph suffer from psychosis?
My question: How would you know the difference?
Rodjk #613
(Sorry about the format. I am trying to make sure the attributes are
correct)
blazing laser
>My question: How would you know the difference?
When you talk to God, that's called prayer. When God talks to you,
that's called schizophrenia.
david ford
> So, you're against atomic theory?
What is "atomic theory"?
david ford
> david ford wrote:
> [...]
>
> So how do account for Christian fascist/ fundamentalist murderers?
Meaning of "fascist"?
Meaning of "fundamentalist"?
"murderers" Is murder: 'evil'? 'bad'? 'wrong'?
have maff, Humphrey, Dwyer, Dennett, and Dawkins gone around
[LM]"behaving like idiots"?
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-36ptr0F53hkerU1%40individual.net
Einstein: physics was designed
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-37f67dF59po8jU1%40individual.net
TomS
<d31koo$kps$3...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, Bobby D. Bryant stated..."
>
>So, you're against atomic theory?
>
>
I prefer to ask whether the anti-evolutionists are against
*micro*evolution because of the moral implications of that
"materialistic" theory.
Keeping in mind that no one has ever imagined that any of
the major *macro*evolutionary events would lead someone into
immorality:
* The materialistic origins of the bacterial flagellum.
* The materialistic origins of birds from dinosaurs.
* The materialistic origins of the Cambrian Explosion.
* The materialistic origins of the vertebrate eye/immune system/
blood clotting system.
And keeping in mind that most of the creationists/advocates
of "intelligent design" freely accept evolutionary biology at
the "micro"evolutionary level.
--
---Tom S. <http://talkreason.org/articles/chickegg.cfm>
"It being as impossible that the Organized Body of a Chicken should by the Power
of any Mechanical Motions be formed out of the unorganized Matter of an Egg; as
that the Sun, Moon and Stars, should by mere Mechanism arise out of a Chaos."
Samuel Clarke (1675-1729) Second Defense...Immortality of the Soul
david ford
> Honestly, I didn't read the whole diatribe,
How far did you get?
> but I think your evidence
> is lacking. Religion has not traditionally restrained people from
> committing horrible crimes against humanity.
There are many religions.
Which of the following do you consider a religion?:
Buddhism
atheism
Christianity
Communism
Marxism
secular humanism
Islam
Judaism
Which religion has best "restrained" its adherents "from committing
horrible crimes against humanity"?
Which religion has most egregiously failed to restrain its adherents
"from committing horrible crimes against humanity"?
Do you think that the more one looks at atheists, particularly
hard-core militantly-godless types:
the better atheism looks?
the worse atheism looks?
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3a19amF65ij6fU2%40individual.net
> Secular Humanists have
> not especially been shown to be anti-social criminals with no sense of
> morality.
What "sense of morality" do "Secular Humanists have"?
> In fact, atheists in general are greatly under represented
> in prison; mostly it's religious folk in there.
Which prisons-- those in the U.S.? in atheocratic China? in the
(now-defunct) Soviet Union? in atheocratic Vietnam?
> Thought experiments are OK as a starting place, but at some point you
> have to examine the evidence.
What "evidence" would you like me to "examine"?
david ford
> "david ford" <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote in message news:dford3-b1c67abe.0...@posting.google.com...
> > Schaeffer, Francis A. and C. Everett Koop. 1979.
> > _Whatever Happened to the Human Race?_ (New
> > Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company), 256pp. Both
> > Christians, Schaeffer worked in philosophy and
> > theology, while Koop was a children's surgeon.
> >
> > A control - f/ "find" will take you quickly to text you
> > wish to examine.
> > See the "For Further Reading" section for some of
> > what I underlined while reading pages 15-31, 73-78,
> > 207-9, 217-18. The balance of what I underlined
> > appears here, with some section headings:
> >
> > Those who regard individuals as expendable raw
> > material-- to be molded, exploited, and then
> > discarded-- do battle on many fronts with those who
> > see each person as unique and special, worthwhile,
> > and irreplaceable.
>
> This is SO disingenuous. If these authors are suggesting that religion
> offers the unique, special, worthwhile, and irreplaceable viewpoint, then
> why am I in a discussion with a Christian who's insisting that we all are
> worthless scum and deserve nothing better than eternal torture?
"If these authors are suggesting that religion"
How much of the Schaeffer & Koop did you read?
What exactly does "religion" refer to-- a particular religion, perhaps
Judaism or Christianity or Islam, or maybe the Judeo-Christian
tradition?
Who exactly is it that you think "insist[s] that we all are worthless
scum and deserve nothing better than eternal torture"-- me?
Schaeffer & Koop?
the Koran on hell; link to
"Christianity" is not monolithic when it comes to the nature of hell.
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3720ncF56q00hU1%40individual.net
> It's the humanistic viewpoint that espouses that we are unique, special,
> worthwhile, and irreplaceable.
What is "the humanistic viewpoint" on the following issues?:
partial-birth abortion
saline abortions
child abuse
infanticide
infanticide of babies born with spina bifida or lacking a limb
rape
bestiality
homosexuality
sexual relations with an individual not your spouse
cannibalism
child sacrifice to appease the gods
killing parents that are a financial burden hindering one's pursuit of
possessions and wealth
> It's religion that espouses the viewpoint that we are barely worthy to
> prostrate ourselves on our bellies to beg not to be fed into the furnace.
Is Buddhism a religion "that espouses the viewpoint that we are barely
worthy to prostrate ourselves on our bellies to beg not to be fed into
the furnace"? Is Shinto?
er...@swva.net
is the Devil's phone booth.
Eric Root
er...@swva.net
> "Scooter the Mighty" <Grey...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<1112826949....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>...
> > Honestly, I didn't read the whole diatribe,
>
> How far did you get?
>
> > but I think your evidence
> > is lacking. Religion has not traditionally restrained people from
> > committing horrible crimes against humanity.
>
> There are many religions.
> Which of the following do you consider a religion?:
> Buddhism
> atheism
Not a religion, except perhaps in the case of a few individuals who
gather on Sundays and praise "Godless."
> Christianity
Duh, yes.
> Communism
Maybe for some.
> Marxism
How is this different than "Communism? Okay, if it means the same as
Communism, the answer is "maybe for some." If you mean Marxism as a
tool for political analysis, the the answer is "of course not."
> secular humanism
Not a religion, except perhaps in the case of a few individuals who
gather on Sundays and praise studying humans to find out what is
important to hmans.
> Islam
You ask some pretty lamebrain question. You are familiar with the word
"Duh?"
> Judaism
Ho hum
>
> Which religion has best "restrained" its adherents "from committing
> horrible crimes against humanity"?
>
name-calling.
> Which religion has most egregiously failed to restrain its adherents
> "from committing horrible crimes against humanity"?
some actual analyses?
>
> Do you think that the more one looks at atheists, particularly
> hard-core militantly-godless types:
> the better atheism looks?
> the worse atheism looks?
>
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3a19amF65ij6fU2%40individual.net
>
> > Secular Humanists have
> > not especially been shown to be anti-social criminals with no sense
of
> > morality.
>
> What "sense of morality" do "Secular Humanists have"?
You don't anwer his objection and then snidely imply that secular
humanists don't have a sense of morality
>
> > In fact, atheists in general are greatly under represented
> > in prison; mostly it's religious folk in there.
>
> Which prisons-- those in the U.S.? in atheocratic China? in the
> (now-defunct) Soviet Union? in atheocratic Vietnam?
There is no such word as "atheocratic." Does it refer to something
that actually exists?
>
>
Why did you leave the following off your list of religions:
Religious humanism
Bibliodatrous pseudo-Christian fundamentalism
david ford
> > Schaeffer, Francis A. and C. Everett Koop. 1979.
> > _Whatever Happened to the Human Race?_ (New
> > Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company), 256pp. Both
>
> <snip>
>
> > On a humanistic base, people drift along from
> > generation to generation, and the morally
> > unthinkable becomes the thinkable as the years
> > move on. By "humanistic base" we mean the
> > fundamental idea that men and women can begin
> > from themselves and derive the standards by which
> > to judge all matters. There are for such people no
> > fixed standards of behavior, no standards that cannot
> > be eroded or replaced by what seems necessary,
> > expedient, or even fashionable.
> > =
>
> What of those who think that God speaks to them, and asks them to do
> the unthinkable?
Which of the following do you consider "the unthinkable"?:
partial-birth abortion
saline abortions
child abuse
infanticide
infanticide of babies born with spina bifida or lacking a limb
rape
bestiality
homosexuality
sex with a person not your spouse while: married. not-married.
cannibalism
child sacrifice to appease the gods
killing parents that are a financial burden hindering one's pursuit of
possessions and wealth
parents teaching their child a religion
(compare Humphrey and Dennett in
Have Humphrey, Dwyer, Dennett, and Dawkins gone around [LM]"behaving
> Those who rant along the path of True Believer base
> are capable of doing anything, for they have no human standard of right
> and wrong, nor (sometimes) any fear of death, believing they are immune
> to such.
Do you think atheists are "capable of doing anything"?
If "no," what actions do you think atheists aren't "capable of doing"?
Do you think that the more one looks at atheists, particularly
hard-core militantly-godless types:
the better atheism looks?
the worse atheism looks?
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3a19amF65ij6fU2%40individual.net
> By "True Believer" base I mean those who thinks that God speak
> to individuals, and sometimes gives them commands, and such commands
> are not bound by universal standards of right and wrong, but are
> themselves the source of such standards. These True Believers are
> incapable of self-assessment, and so are utterly lacking in the ability
> to even consider if they may be insane, or simply projecting their own
> desires onto the voice of God, or even led astray by the demons they
> think exist (but would never, ever, speak to *them). For these people
> there is no predictable behavior, no threats of shame or guilt or legal
> punishment, no standard of behavior which cannot be broached by what
> they imagine is a whisper from God.
Do you think secular humanists experience "threats of shame or guilt"?
convert to secular humanism to enjoy guiltless sexual activity of many
varieties
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-b1c67abe.0409241109.17e2611d%40posting.google.com
> For recent examples, see our local
> terrorist, Eric Robert Rudolph, who bombed not only family planning
> clinics but also the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, or the Muslim fanatics
> who killed three thousand people on September 11.
>
> <snip>
>
> Isn't this off-topic for talk.origins?
Not IMO.
Dana Tweedy
> news:dford3-b1c67abe.0...@posting.google.com...
>> Schaeffer, Francis A. and C. Everett Koop. 1979.
>> _Whatever Happened to the Human Race?_ (New
>> Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company), 256pp. Both
>> Christians, Schaeffer worked in philosophy and
>> theology, while Koop was a children's surgeon.
>>
Piggybacking:
Re. Dr C. Everett Koop's apparent reliance on "materialism".
Back in November of 2001, I was standing in line behind C. Everett Koop
at the airport in Minneapolis MN. He was berating a gate agent because he
had missed a flight to Washington DC (this was shortly after they re-opened
Reagan National, and anyone on a flight to National had to be locked in the
gate area until the flight was called. From what I overheard, Koop was in
the 1st class lounge and didn't hear the flight being called).
From what I could tell, Dr Koop was just as interested in a material seat
on a material airplane, going to a material airport as any other passenger
that day.
DJT
TomS
<dford3-b1c67abe.0...@posting.google.com>, david ford stated..."
OK, let's see a correlation between these 12 items and my list
of 6 scientific/naturalistic/materialistic ideas:
a. Macroevolutionary events of more than 300 million years ago
b. Macroevolution above the level of a taxonomic family
c. Naturalistic explanations for the appearance of new species
d. Microevolution within a species (such as within Homo sapiens)
e. Developmental biology/embryology
f. Genetics
As I understand creationism, "intelligent design", "teach the
controversy", or whatever the latest fad is, generally accepts the
last three or four ideas on my list.
I would be interested to find out how the first two or three
ideas on my list are *more* closely connected with the 12 items on
your list -- more closely connected than are the last three or four
ideas.
Perhaps someone could make a case that the last three would
have some consequences of the sort that you mention.
But I cannot conceive of any such consequences for the first
three.
So, the question, as I see it is this:
Is creationism (or whatever the latest fad expression is)
immune to the evil consequences that you suggest?
Is macro-evolution at least as innocent as creationism?
AC
Yes, religious people have done these to. Religion is no guarantee of moral
behavior. I'm afraid having a moral system that amounts to "You'll roast in
hell if you don't do <x>" hasn't been shown to be terribly effective.
(Oh, and what's your obsession with sex, David?)
>
> parents teaching their child a religion
> (compare Humphrey and Dennett in
> Have Humphrey, Dwyer, Dennett, and Dawkins gone around [LM]"behaving
> like idiots"?
> http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-36ptr0F53hkerU1%40individual.net
>
>> Those who rant along the path of True Believer base
>> are capable of doing anything, for they have no human standard of right
>> and wrong, nor (sometimes) any fear of death, believing they are immune
>> to such.
>
> Do you think atheists are "capable of doing anything"?
> If "no," what actions do you think atheists aren't "capable of doing"?
>
> Do you think that the more one looks at atheists, particularly
> hard-core militantly-godless types:
> the better atheism looks?
> the worse atheism looks?
> http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3a19amF65ij6fU2%40individual.net
There's all kinds of atheists. There's all kinds of Christians. There's
all kinds of... well, I'm sure you get the point, but your point is to
slander and distort the views of other people. It's unfortunate that you
seem to feel this some mission, but I suppose it keeps you from doing some
of the worse things that the rigidly self-righteous are known to do.
>
>> By "True Believer" base I mean those who thinks that God speak
>> to individuals, and sometimes gives them commands, and such commands
>> are not bound by universal standards of right and wrong, but are
>> themselves the source of such standards. These True Believers are
>> incapable of self-assessment, and so are utterly lacking in the ability
>> to even consider if they may be insane, or simply projecting their own
>> desires onto the voice of God, or even led astray by the demons they
>> think exist (but would never, ever, speak to *them). For these people
>> there is no predictable behavior, no threats of shame or guilt or legal
>> punishment, no standard of behavior which cannot be broached by what
>> they imagine is a whisper from God.
>
> Do you think secular humanists experience "threats of shame or guilt"?
>
> convert to secular humanism to enjoy guiltless sexual activity of many
> varieties
> http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-b1c67abe.0409241109.17e2611d%40posting.google.com
How odd, I wasn't aware that that was a plank of secular humanism. Of
course, I happen to be of the opinion that as long as the people involved
are of the age of majority, it isn't any of my business, or yours. Why
would you be concerned about what other people do in their bedrooms? Do you
suffer some strange fetish, David?
maff
david ford wrote:
> "maff" <maf...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<1112822128....@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>...
> > david ford wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > So how do account for Christian fascist/ fundamentalist murderers?
>
You're still evading, Christian fascist scum.
David Ford
http://snipurl.com/d6r4
Secular Fundamentalist
>"Scooter the Mighty" <Grey...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<1112826949....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>...
>> Honestly, I didn't read the whole diatribe,
>
>How far did you get?
>
>> but I think your evidence
>> is lacking. Religion has not traditionally restrained people from
>> committing horrible crimes against humanity.
>
>There are many religions.
>Which of the following do you consider a religion?:
>Buddhism
>atheism
No
>Christianity
Yes
>Communism
No
>Marxism
No
>secular humanism
Not really
>Islam
Yes
>Judaism
Yes
>
>Which religion has best "restrained" its adherents "from committing
>horrible crimes against humanity"?
>
>Which religion has most egregiously failed to restrain its adherents
>"from committing horrible crimes against humanity"?
>
>Do you think that the more one looks at atheists, particularly
>hard-core militantly-godless types:
>the better atheism looks?
>
>> Secular Humanists have
>> not especially been shown to be anti-social criminals with no sense of
>> morality.
>
>What "sense of morality" do "Secular Humanists have"?
>
caring adult human being has.
Tell me, how does religion deal with psychopathic personality
disorders, such as that suffered by Myra Hindley?.
>> In fact, atheists in general are greatly under represented
>> in prison; mostly it's religious folk in there.
>
>Which prisons-- those in the U.S.? in atheocratic China? in the
>(now-defunct) Soviet Union? in atheocratic Vietnam?
>
Yes.
rj
@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:
>
> david ford wrote:
>> "maff" <maf...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:<1112822128....@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>...
>> > david ford wrote:
>> > [...]
>> >
>> > So how do account for Christian fascist/ fundamentalist murderers?
>>
> [...]
>
> You're still evading, Christian fascist scum.
>
I have come to expect lies, dishonesty and bigotry from most Xtians these
days. I expect it from *every* self proclaimed "Born again" or "Good
Christian". If Jesus were alive he would curse them like he did the fig
tree and then their 'nads would shrivel up and fall off.
rj
--
"I'm an atheist, thank God." - Dave Allen
rj
news:dford3-b1c67abe.0...@posting.google.com:
Do your parents know your are on the internet? Shouldn't you be in bed
getting ready for another day at school?
Danny Kodicek
They're a popular all-girl pop band. Any other questions?
Danny
rjk...@gmail.com
There are many religions.
Which of the following do you consider a religion?:
Buddhism
atheism
Christianity
Communism
Marxism
secular humanism
Islam
Judaism
My Response:
Buddhism (somewhat of a religion)
Christianity
Islam
Judaism
Ford asks:
Which religion has best "restrained" its adherents "from committing
horrible crimes against humanity"?
My Answer:
None of them.
Which religion has most egregiously failed to restrain its adherents
"from committing horrible crimes against humanity"?
My answer:
All of them.
Rodjk #613
Wakboth
You've really become a parody of yourself.
-- Wakboth
Danny Kodicek
<rjk...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1112962049.6...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Buddhism (somewhat of a religion)
> Christianity
> Islam
> Judaism
>
> Ford asks:
> Which religion has best "restrained" its adherents "from committing
> horrible crimes against humanity"?
>
> My Answer:
> None of them.
>
> Which religion has most egregiously failed to restrain its adherents
> "from committing horrible crimes against humanity"?
>
> My answer:
> All of them.
I'm trying to think of any notable Buddhist mass-murderers but none spring
to mind. I'm sure there must be some, but I suspect that it probably fits
the bill for the fewest crimes against humanity. Secular humanism, which
probably comes the closest to being an 'atheist religion' - at the very
least it has some semblance of a set of shared moral values - probably runs
it pretty close, but of course it has a lower sample size. Both of them also
'suffer' in discussions like this from being rather blurry about whether or
not any particular person is a member, since neither of them has much in the
way of organized attendance or other badges of belief.
Of course, the whole discussion is stupid, since any purported member of
*any* of these religions who commits mass-murder is not following the
teachings of their religion and therefore is not really a member. But
certainly by far the majority of crimes against humanity were committed in
the name of some God, whether supported by the teachings of that faith or
not. I think we can be fairly sure that Jesus was not in favour of capital
punishment, and yet David Ford is - go figure.
Danny
Ron Peterson
Danny Kodicek wrote:
> <rjk...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1112962049.6...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> > Ford asks:
> > Which religion has best "restrained" its adherents "from committing
> > horrible crimes against humanity"?
> > My Answer:
> > None of them.
> > Which religion has most egregiously failed to restrain its
adherents
> > "from committing horrible crimes against humanity"?
> > My answer:
> > All of them.
> I'm trying to think of any notable Buddhist mass-murderers but none
spring
> to mind. I'm sure there must be some, but I suspect that it probably
fits
> the bill for the fewest crimes against humanity. ...
See http://www.tamilnation.org for an example.
> Of course, the whole discussion is stupid, since any purported member
of
> *any* of these religions who commits mass-murder is not following the
> teachings of their religion and therefore is not really a member. But
> certainly by far the majority of crimes against humanity were
committed in
> the name of some God, whether supported by the teachings of that
faith or
> not. ...
Society is complex and religion is only part of it. Religions aren't
the sole factor in any mass injustice, but they are frequently an
enabling component by allowing normal sensibilities and reason to be
suppressed.
--
Ron
Ron Peterson
Danny Kodicek wrote:
> <rjk...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1112962049.6...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> > Ford asks:
> > Which religion has best "restrained" its adherents "from committing
> > horrible crimes against humanity"?
> > My Answer:
> > None of them.
> > Which religion has most egregiously failed to restrain its
adherents
> > "from committing horrible crimes against humanity"?
> > My answer:
> > All of them.
> I'm trying to think of any notable Buddhist mass-murderers but none
spring
> to mind. I'm sure there must be some, but I suspect that it probably
fits
> the bill for the fewest crimes against humanity. ...
See http://www.tamilnation.org for an example.
> Of course, the whole discussion is stupid, since any purported member
of
> *any* of these religions who commits mass-murder is not following the
> teachings of their religion and therefore is not really a member. But
> certainly by far the majority of crimes against humanity were
committed in
> the name of some God, whether supported by the teachings of that
faith or
Danny Kodicek
"Ron Peterson" <r...@shell.core.com> wrote in message
news:1112966452.6...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> Danny Kodicek wrote:
> > <rjk...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:1112962049.6...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> > > Ford asks:
> > > Which religion has best "restrained" its adherents "from committing
> > > horrible crimes against humanity"?
>
> > > My Answer:
> > > None of them.
>
> > > Which religion has most egregiously failed to restrain its
> adherents
> > > "from committing horrible crimes against humanity"?
>
> > > My answer:
> > > All of them.
>
> > I'm trying to think of any notable Buddhist mass-murderers but none
> spring
> > to mind. I'm sure there must be some, but I suspect that it probably
> fits
> > the bill for the fewest crimes against humanity. ...
>
> See http://www.tamilnation.org for an example.
Good point. I knew there must be some...
Danny
pan
<glenns...@SPAMqwest.net> wrote:
>
><unrestra...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1112825351....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> david ford wrote:
>> > Schaeffer, Francis A. and C. Everett Koop. 1979.
>> > _Whatever Happened to the Human Race?_ (New
>> > Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company), 256pp. Both
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> > On a humanistic base, people drift along from
>> > generation to generation, and the morally
>> > unthinkable becomes the thinkable as the years
>> > move on. By "humanistic base" we mean the
>> > fundamental idea that men and women can begin
>> > from themselves and derive the standards by which
>> > to judge all matters. There are for such people no
>> > fixed standards of behavior, no standards that cannot
>> > be eroded or replaced by what seems necessary,
>> > expedient, or even fashionable.
>> > =
>>
>> What of those who think that God speaks to them, and asks them to do
>> the unthinkable? Those who rant along the path of True Believer base
>> are capable of doing anything, for they have no human standard of right
>> and wrong, nor (sometimes) any fear of death, believing they are immune
>> to such. By "True Believer" base I mean those who thinks that God speak
>> to individuals, and sometimes gives them commands, and such commands
>> are not bound by universal standards of right and wrong, but are
>> themselves the source of such standards. These True Believers are
>> incapable of self-assessment, and so are utterly lacking in the ability
>> to even consider if they may be insane, or simply projecting their own
>> desires onto the voice of God, or even led astray by the demons they
>> think exist (but would never, ever, speak to *them). For these people
>> there is no predictable behavior, no threats of shame or guilt or legal
>> punishment, no standard of behavior which cannot be broached by what
>> they imagine is a whisper from God. For recent examples, see our local
>> terrorist, Eric Robert Rudolph, who bombed not only family planning
>> clinics but also the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, or the Muslim fanatics
>> who killed three thousand people on September 11.
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> Isn't this off-topic for talk.origins?
>>
>Any evidence that these "true believers" really do hear whispers in their minds that they attribute to God, or is that both your premise and conclusion? I doubt you would claim to believe anything they said. Just curious to see your evidence. Did Rudolph suffer from psychosis?
Back when I was a Charismatic Christian, some 25 years ago:
One time, when I was deep in silent prayer, I distinctly heard god's
voice answer my prayer/question with a: "Yes!".
The sensation of 'hearing' God's voice was so real that I had to look
around at other people to see if they had heard it too (I couldn't
tell if I had just heard it in my head, or if God had answered me
out-loud).
Ironically this incident ended up being one of the things that
persuaded me to reject Christianity. As it turned out: a "Yes"
answer to the prayer would have meant that I was to put all my trust
in a Jim Jones/David Koresh type character.
Luckily, I had a seeking suspicion that this "character" was a
con-artist (or that he was just a little crazy), but I felt compelled
to listen to him, since Christians whom I respected seemed to believe
he was the real thing. After I got the "Yes!" answer: I
dragged my feet, while a few 'Charismatic' friends of mine began to
follow this guy. Later it became apparent, even to them, that this
guy was a flake.
The conclusion I came to, about hearing God's voice, was that one of
several things had to be true:
1.) God is an unreliable trickster.
2.) That there is no true way to tell if it's God's or Satan's
voice you're hearing, until some time later (hind-site).
In which case, why do anything a supernatural voice tells you to do?
-or-
3.) Under times of high stress people can hallucinate that they
actually hear answers from 'God'.
Eventually, I chose #3.
pan
BTW I haven't "heard voices" before or since then, and I've never
suffered from any sort of psychological illness.... at least
that I know of. =-P
pan
<couchslothsnake-...@netzero.com> wrote:
(snip)
> Luckily, I had a seeking suspicion
Opps! Make that "sneaking suspicion", not "seeking suspicion". =-)
pan
Robert Kolker
> -or-
>
> 3.) Under times of high stress people can hallucinate that they
> actually hear answers from 'God'.
>
> Eventually, I chose #3.
A very sensible choice.
Bob Kolker
Ken Shaw
believe in transubstantion of the eucharist?
Ken
TomS
stated..."
I notice that no anti-evolutionary poster was willing or
able to answer my question about the relationship between
*macro*evolution and any of the consequences that david ford
listed.
It is strange that the advocates of creationism/whatever-
it's-called-lately who insist on making a distinction between
"micro"evolution and "macro"evolution, and who worry about the
consequences of "evolution", aren't able to see this:
*If* there are bad consequences of evolution, it most
surely applies mainly, if not exclusively, to evolution as
it is closest to us.
*If* there are bad consequences to evolution, these
consequences apply to *micro*evolution -- evolution within
human"kind".
*If* any of the vile social-political movements of the
early 20th century made any reference to evolution, this was
most surely only *micro*evolution. Yet it is the anti-
evolutionists who make so much of the big difference between
"micro" and "macro" ... when it suits their fancy. They
forget about it ... when it suits their fancy to forget
about it.
*If* there are bad consequences to evolution, these
have nothing to do with any of the standard examples of
"major distinctions in bodily parts". It doesn't make a
bit of difference whether or not the bacterial flagellum
was designed, as far as morality is concerned.
If the anti-evolutionists accept micro-evolution, and
if they point to supposed immoral consequences of accepting
micro-evolution, then they have some answering to do.