OFFICIAL: Biblical/Theology Discussion thread

[billmac91]

billmac, you are the one who opened the door to my commentary with this comment. Are you backing off that now? Because the fact is, whoever claims that such a "correlation" exists speaks nonsense.

How is there not a correlation? Hitler and German scientists used Darwins' theory in exterminating people b/c they thought they could create a superior race.

That is a correlation. Point blank.

Not Darwins fault though. He didn't intend for some German asshole to try and exterminate people. Ben Stein doesn't imply Darwin is responsible for the extermination of people. The FACT that German scientists and Hitler thought they could create a superior race through extermination of handicapped, less civilized, and "inferior" races because of Darwinism is an interesting tidbit.

I'm not backing off anything, and I strongly believe there is a correlation between Darwinism and Nazi Germany.

 

[Gatorubet]

billmac, you are the one who opened the door to my commentary with this comment. Are you backing off that now? Because the fact is, whoever claims that such a "correlation" exists speaks nonsense.

Not to speak for Bill, but using at least one definition of the term you could say that absent Darwin, the Nazis would have had no reason to use Darwinian theory to justify its eugenics programs. Not saying that one caused the other, but that there was a relation between survival of the fittest and the Nazi program. Tangential - yes, but arguably a proper term.

correlation
noun

1.mutual relation of two or more things, parts, etc.

 

[MaxBuck]

OK, then I guess there is a "correlation" between Jesus Christ and drowning.

What a bizarre premise.

 

[billmac91]

OK, then I guess there is a "correlation" between Jesus Christ and drowning.

What a bizarre premise.

What is bizarre about it? Hitler/Germans exterminated people in an attempt to make a superior race. They believed in Darwins theory and based their actions on it.

Superior people breeding with superior people would generate an even superior person. Handicapped, less-civilized, and inferior races poluted the gene pool. Germans thought only the strong should survive. People on the border of being normal/superior, including Germans, would go before a committee who would decide who lived and died.

It's sickening, and they took Darwins theory to the extreme. I guess I just don't see what is so hard to correlate about it. Maybe I'm doing a bad job of defending my point.... I think it would perfect sense if you saw the movie.

 

[Gatorubet]

OK, then I guess there is a "correlation" between Jesus Christ and drowning.

What a bizarre premise.

So you're saying God did not create the oceans or Jesus turn water into wine?

Heathen. Heretic. Ginger over Mary Ann preferrer!

 

[muffler dragon]

So you're saying God did not create the oceans

Drowning as in death versus...

or Jesus turn water into wine?

Drowning as in sorrows?

Heathen. Heretic. Ginger over Mary Ann preferrer!

Consider me a part of the Heathentard Express 'cause I never liked Gilligan nor his show.

 

[kinch]

What is bizarre about it? Hitler/Germans exterminated people in an attempt to make a superior race. They believed in Darwins theory and based their actions on it.

Superior people breeding with superior people would generate an even superior person. Handicapped, less-civilized, and inferior races poluted the gene pool. Germans thought only the strong should survive. People on the border of being normal/superior, including Germans, would go before a committee who would decide who lived and died.

It's sickening, and they took Darwins theory to the extreme. I guess I just don't see what is so hard to correlate about it. Maybe I'm doing a bad job of defending my point.... I think it would perfect sense if you saw the movie.

Just as an FYI, Mr. Stein misrepresented Darwin when quoting Darwin. Here is the quote from the movie, where Stein says he is quoting what Darwin says on this subject. However, everything in bold & italics below is what Stein omitted:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

This is how the original passage in The Descent of Man reads:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.

Pretty important stuff he accidentally left out there, eh?

 

[muffler dragon]

Just as an FYI, Mr. Stein misrepresented Darwin when quoting Darwin. Here is the quote from the movie, where Stein says he is quoting what Darwin says on this subject. However, everything in bold & italics below is what Stein omitted:

Pretty important stuff he accidentally left out there, eh?

Thanks for presenting that.

Btw, how is The Descent of Man as a read?

 

[AKAK]

If Stein is portraying evolutionary theory and its practitioners as sharing responsibility for the Holocaust, he is making a monstrous mistake. If he is, as you suggest, portraying evolutionary theory (metaphorically) simply as a tool, such as a hammer that Nazis used to crush the skulls of their victims, I have no problem with that.

My point simply was that if Stein or anyone else wants to know why Hitler behaved as he did, the story of Cain and Abel is pretty sufficient IMO.

I don't know what this has to do with anything? Ben Stein isn't holding Darwin personally responsible for the Holocaust. He traveled to Germany to see how irrational people used Darwin's theory to try and create a superior race.

To answer your question, no-the guy who created concrete is not responsiple for Jimmy Hoffa's murder.

And no, Darwin is not responsible for the killing of millions of people because an irrational man thought he could create a superior race.

The trip to Germany was a side-bar in the movie, more of a learning experience for Ben Stein. Afterall, it is his movie and he is Jewish.

Seems a bit over the top to me... this Darwin/Eugenics thing... I mean, this Nazi Master Race thing is its own topic... and... if you want to blame ideas... then we can point fingers at Neitzche, Malthus, even Wagner...(and a bunch of others I can't remember off the top of my head) as much as Darwin.

Side-bar or not... I'm troubled by it. I don't seem to remember Darwin asserting the most important problem in this whole deal, and that is that the Aryan race is the archetype.

I doubt you need get much past Mendel to figure out that if you want yellow flowers you should get rid of the white ones.

 

[scooter1369]

Something I was thinking about while working outside today.

Many people are in agreement, but not all, the creationsim/ID should not be taught in Science classrooms in Public Schools. Which had me thinking. What if, like foreign languages and Music Theory, Theology was offered as a graduated elective in public schools?

Theology 1: In the Beginning
Theology 2: Religion and Natural History
Theology 3: Theory vs Theology; Science and Religion

Opinions?

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

My High School (Which was public) offered a course called "Bible as Literature" (Bible lit for short) and no one seemed to have a problem with it. Of course, that was 20 years ago, so....

 

[mercer_buckeye]

My High School (Which was public) offered a course called "Bible as Literature" (Bible lit for short) and no one seemed to have a problem with it. Of course, that was 20 years ago, so....

You sad old SOB

 

[AKAK]

Something I was thinking about while working outside today.

Many people are in agreement, but not all, the creationsim/ID should not be taught in Science classrooms in Public Schools. Which had me thinking. What if, like foreign languages and Music Theory, Theology was offered as a graduated elective in public schools?

Theology 1: In the Beginning
Theology 2: Religion and Natural History
Theology 3: Theory vs Theology; Science and Religion

Opinions?

I think we had a some sort of comparative religion class stuck somewhere in the social science department.... I think, Scooter, you have about one class there in 3x 6 week segmeants or something like that. I mean, really how long does it take to explain 6 days vs. 6 million years.

And I don't think this is a bad idea per se... but, there are people around here who are (I presume) over the age of 18 who can't detach themselves from what they percieve as absolute truth and accept mlutiple/alternate philosophical viewpoints.

When you're 15, an acceptable way to win a debate a can be, "Well, well... you're going to hell, then"

I shudder to think what such a class would have been like with a lot of the douchebags I went to HS with.

 

[scooter1369]

I think we had a some sort of comparative religion class stuck somewhere in the social science department.... I think, Scooter, you have about one class there in 3x 6 week segmeants or something like that. I mean, really how long does it take to explain 6 days vs. 6 million years.

And I don't think this is a bad idea per se... but, there are people around here who are (I presume) over the age of 18 who can't detach themselves from what they percieve as absolute truth and accept mlutiple/alternate philosophical viewpoints.

When you're 15, an acceptable way to win a debate a can be, "Well, well... you're going to hell, then"

I shudder to think what such a class would have been like with a lot of the douchebags I went to HS with.

Just trying to open up dialog on the subject. It seems as if some people are so anti religion, that even allowing a student to attend an elective covering religious doctrine would cause a major firestorm.

Parochial schools teach science and religion. Public schools seem banned from even acknowledging that there is such a thing as religion.

The constitution states that the government will not promote or endorse any one religion. It does not say, that kids cannot be taught religion. But it would require that all religions get equal time and equal attention.

 

[Brewtus]

Just trying to open up dialog on the subject. It seems as if some people are so anti religion, that even allowing a student to attend an elective covering religious doctrine would cause a major firestorm.

Parochial schools teach science and religion. Public schools seem banned from even acknowledging that there is such a thing as religion.

The constitution states that the government will not promote or endorse any one religion. It does not say, that kids cannot be taught religion. But it would require that all religions get equal time and equal attention.

I went to a public high school and remember taking a "Comparative Religions" class as an elective. It was an objectively taught, fact-based class that gave a thorough overview of each of the major Abrahamic religions of the world (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) and the Eastern religions/philosophies (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc.).

I don't remember any controversy surrounding the class and I think most of the students were generally interested in learning about other religions around the world. The teacher didn't present any religion as superior over another and there was certainly no indoctrination bias attempting to covert the class over to any particular belief.

It was one of the most interesting classes I took in high school and if it was combined with a philosophy class, probably should have been a required course. A proper education should consist of being exposed to new ideas and information. I don't think any non-religious person (such as myself) would oppose the teaching of an objective religious class in public schools.