Dinner Topics for Monday

Movie Reviews, Documentary: What hath Darwin wrought?

Darwin was better than his teachings. Charles Darwin loved his wife and children. He paid his taxes and he never kicked his dog. But Charles Darwin had a big idea, and ideas have consequences.

This documentary is hosted by Todd Friel, who interviews experts Dr. David Berlinsky, Dr. Richard Weikart, and Dr. John West

Ben Stein made a video about how God was expelled from schools. Kirk Cameron made a video connecting Darwin with Nazism. Cameron got a lot of flack on the internet. People were saying how brilliant Darwin was. How does anyone dare argue with Darwin? Todd Friel interviewed the following experts.

Dr. David Berlinsky

The ideology of Nazism and its anti-Semitism—where did it come from? In the mid-nineteenth century the Darwin philosophy began. There is not a direct connection with Nazism. Hitler does not mention Darwin. The Nazis considered themselves exceptionally “scientific”. They believed in following science to its logical conclusion, no matter where it led. They also indulged in vigorous paganism; it was a cult.

Darwin believed humans were not different from animals. Darwin believed there was competition among animals. Nazis believed in competition between the races. Nazis had no morals. Darwin holds a sacred place in scientific philosophy.

Dr. Richard Wiekart

Dr. Wiekart studied eugenics—400,000 were sterilized in Europe 1934-1939. Those who had a hereditary illness, or were deaf, blind, alcoholic, or epileptic were candidates for sterilization. Then Hitler stopped sterilization and went to euthanasia, which was  simply killing of those people.

Adolph Hitler wanted to destroy the weak to make room for the strong. In his book, Mein Kampf, he writes of biological evolution and natural selection.

Fried: Did they pervert Darwin’s philosophy?

Darwin was interested in breeding to promote higher animals. He said that in a primitive society, natural selection resulted in the destruction of savages.

6 Fundamental beliefs of Darwin

1. Humans had animal ancestry

2. Denied the existence of the human soul

3. Biological inequality

4. Struggle for existence

5. Death provided progress for evolution

6. Moral relativism

Friel: There have always been mad-men, but the 20^th century was the bloodiest century in human history. Why was it different?

The tyrants in past eras were indeed mad-men, but in the 20^th century emerged something that wasn’t there before: the ideological worldview. Totalitarianism came from many sources, but no honest man can omit Darwin’s ideas.

Darwin’s contributions to science were actually minimal. But his influence on thought and society was far-reaching.

Adam Sedgewick warning

Adam Sedgewick, mentor of Charles Darwin:

Sedgwick on natural selection :

As to your grand principle—natural selection—what is it but a secondary consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts. Development is a better word because more close to the cause of the fact. For you do not deny causation. I call (in the abstract) causation the will of God: & I can prove that He acts for the good of His creatures. He also acts by laws which we can study & comprehend— Acting by law, & under what is called final cause, comprehends, I think, your whole principle. You write of “natural selection” as if it were done consciously by the selecting agent. ‘Tis but a consequence of the presupposed development, & the subsequent battle for life.—

Tis the crown & glory of organic science that it does thro’ final cause , link material to moral; & yet does not allow us to mingle them in our first conception of laws, & our classification of such laws whether we consider one side of nature or the other— You have ignored this link; &, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have done your best in one or two pregnant cases to break it. Were it possible (which thank God it is not) to break it, humanity in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it—& sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history.

Tyrants and Atheists in History

Various atheists claim that atheism had nothing to do with China, Russia, etc. Voltaire’s ideas were widely influential; he scorned Christianity.

Hitler was a politician; he did not want to alienate Christians. But in reality he was contemptuous of prayer and faith.

Darwinist Richard Dawkins claims that Hitler was not a Darwinist.

Darwin wrote that Nature was in the role of a breeder. He In his book, Origin of the Species, he talks about natural selection. His racism is much more evident in his book, The Descent of Man, where he discussed various challenges.

Economic: He believed there were too many people to feed. The weak must make room for the strong.

Race: He believed the earth was being overwhelmed by inferior races, and that superior races must be preserved and protected. He actually believed that the small pox vaccination was wrong, because it kept alive people who should have died. If left to nature, inferior races would have been naturally weeded out. This led to his belief about death.

Death: He believed that evolutionary progress came from the death of the masses.

Those who championed eugenics did draw on Darwinian precepts.

Eugenics in the United States

Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin, was considered the father of eugenics. Like his colleagues, he believed that man was the cause of the problem, and the inferior races needed to be weeded out.

By the 1890s, eugenics was really catching on. This was applied Darwinism. Darwin did not believe in compulsory sterilization. He promoted voluntary eugenics. There was a lab in the United States that was doing experimental evolution. It was not secret. People knew about what was going on in California. Of the 60,000 sterilizations in the United States  during 1909-1960, 20,000 of those were in California.

Dr. John West

American Museum of Natural History promoted eugenics.  There, Frances Galton, founder of eugenics, and his cousin Charles Darwin, hold places of honor.

Friel: Was American eugenics racist? Was it a “fringe” movement?

Eugenics  was not a fringe movement. The Progressives were racist and they, including Theodore Roosevelt, championed it. From 1852-1996, “social reformers” were highly involved in it. In North Carolina, 1929-1975, 7600 people were sterilized.

Blacks and Hispanics were considered a lesser stage of evolution. Eugenicists wanted to breed human beings according to Darwinian principles. They thought it was good if the “scum” were forcibly sterilized. They promoted lobotomies as well.

Clarence Darrow, a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, clearly stated that he wanted to “kill the unfit.”

Margaret Sanger

She founded Planned Parenthood, of which there are 800,000 in the United States. She believed in weeding out the unfit. Even after the Nazi era, when eugenics became a bad word, Sanger was a eugenics zealot, and proud of it. She was opposed to large families, and had no qualms about killing. She was influenced by Darwinian thought. She thought the poor were unfit and inferior. Her candidates for sterilization were immigrants, the lower class, the poor, the mentally unfit, all of whom she considered to be human waste. Seventy percent of her clinics are in minority neighborhoods. She was inspired by Darwinian evolution and the survival of the fittest.

More about Margaret Sanger: http://epicworlddinnertopics.com/2012/11/26/abortion-eugenics-and-genocide/

George Bernard Shaw

February 7, 1934, said he hoped someone would invent a painless, humane gas to get rid of the unfit. This gas was invented in Nazi Germany by Adolph Eichmann, to the sorrow of more than 6 million Jews.

“Three generations of imbeciles is enough. “~Oliver Wendell Holmes, a Chief Justice on the Supreme Court, strong Darwinist

Theodore Roosevelt was in favor of “controlling the unfit.”

Julian Huxley, author of “Brave New World”, was an avid eugenicist.

1957-1990 The term “eugenics” was negative in the past, because of Darwinian scientists, evolutionary psychology.

Modern Eugenics

Now it is coming back. It is in the form of individuals doing it, under a new language, such as selective abortion, designer babies, etc.

Peter Singer

Professor at Princeton Peter Sanger wrote of the de-sanctifying of human life. On the basis of Darwinism, he said a human life is of less value than a pig or other animal.

This undermines Judeo-Christian ethics, which can’t use eugenics for population control.

Alexander Sanger, grandson of Margaret claims that abortion promotes the fit individual. To him, abortion is good, grounded in Darwinian biology.

Animal Rights: Humans are not different from animals.

Eric Pianka—the sanctity of life is not important; should get rid of 90% of population.

Columbine Shooting

Murderers Harris and Clibold worshipped Charles Darwin. They played electronic games, killing off the unfit. The day of the shooting they wore T shirts with “Natural Selection” on them.

Charles Darwin was a racist. He thought blacks were closest to apes. He was against slavery, but used science to justify his racism. (Many liberal abortionists manifest the same contradiction when they say, “I don’t believe in abortion myself, but others should have the right to do it.”)

In chapter 5 of his “Descent of Man”, he writes that the small pox vaccination was wrong, that it would destroy the human race, by not allowing the weaker of the species to die out.

His sons were leaders in eugenics. They want to go back to the law of the jungle.

Darwin was better than his teachings. Charles Darwin loved his wife and children. He paid his taxes and he never kicked his dog. But Charles Darwin had a big idea, and ideas have consequences.

This DVD can be obtained at American Family Association Online Store. Search for: DVD, What Hath Darwin Wrought

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