Re: [Phys-l] Another alternative theory horror

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

But of course religion can be subverted so that anyone who does not believe
in your ideas can be considered as a heretic and undeserving of life or
heaven.  In the end any idea can be twisted to suit what you want to
achieve.

Actually Darwin was not as big a factor, as racism.  The commandant of
Auschwitz wrote how he was relieved because he had solved the problem of the
Jew, Gypsies, and Poles.  Apparently all deserved to be exterminated because
they were inferior peoples.  Is this much different from the "Christians" in
the US who killed blacks.  Every group can find a pretext to kill them and
promote us.

BTW the Modeling people at AZ State have some Mormon physicists who are
gurus on their program.  They went around to various schools and explained
how evolution was not in conflict with Mormonism.  But practically all of
the mainline Christian groups are in agreement.  I would name Catholics,
Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and many other smaller
groups such as the Disciples of Christ.  The Baptists are split, and there
are some Lutherans such as the Missouri synod who are antievolution.  But of
course politicians will say whatever sells, so antievolution talk is very
popular among Republicans.

Incidentally the Book of Mormon was used in the past to justify racism and
keep both native Americans and Blacks from attaining high posts in the
church.  But now this has been changed officially.  But I was told 30 years
ago by an Episcopalian that virtually all native Americans in Utah were
Episcopalians, for obvious reasons.

And of course the antievolutionists ignore the recent evidence that
cooperation is built into humans.  Many of the antievolutionists are also
conservative capitalists.  I would see capitalism as essentially a
Darwinistic philosophy.

And of course Hitler did not have any knowledge of the modern ideas about
race.  Within a given race there is more variation than between races.
Racism is a very convenient way to blame problems on them rather than on us.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> LEADING CANDIDATE FOR FLORIDA MAYOR THINKS EVOLUTION IS NAZI IDEA
>
> ST PETERSBURG TIMES - Darwin's theory of evolution helped fuel the
> rise of Hitler and contributed to the school-shooting massacre at
> Columbine, a former St. Petersburg City Council member wrote in a
> letter urging the Pinellas County School Board to expose students to
> alternative theories.
>
> "Evolution gives our kids an excuse to believe in natural selection
> and survival of the fittest, which leads to a belief that they are
> superior over the weak," Bill Foster wrote board members in a letter
> received this week. "This is a slippery slope."
>
> He continued: "One of the Columbine shooters wrote on his Web site,
> 'You know what I love? Natural selection! It's the best thing that
> ever happened to the Earth. Getting rid of all the stupid and weak
> organisms.'"
>
> Foster, who recently stepped down after being term-limited from
> office, is widely considered to be a leading contender to be St.
> Petersburg's next mayor in 2009. He said Friday he wrote the letter,
> which appears on his law firm's stationery, as the concerned parent
> of a high school student. . .
>
> Foster isn't the first Darwin critic to attempt to link evolutionary
> theory to violence and racism, but he is the first public figure in
> the Florida debate to do so.
>
> After the Columbine shooting in 1999, then-U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay cited
> Darwin's theory as a contributing factor, reading a letter into the
> Congressional Record that said public schools "teach the children
> that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out
> of some primordial soup of mud." This summer, Fort Lauderdale's Coral
> Ridge Ministries aired a TV special on Christian cable called
> Darwin's Deadly Legacy. "To put it simply, no Darwin, no Hitler,"
> said the group's late founder, D. James Kennedy.
>
> Foster echoed those words in his letter: "Adolf Hitler duped an
> entire generation using Darwin's evolution," he wrote. "He sought to
> preserve the 'favored' race in the struggle for survival."
>
> http://www.sptimes.com/2008/01/12/Southpinellas/
> Foster_links_Darwin__.shtml
>
> from UnderNews
>
> more:
>
> In his letter, Foster said he learned about Darwin in a class at
> Northeast High School, where a teacher told him, "There is really no
> scientific evidence to support this theory, but if you want to
> believe that you descended from monkeys, then feel free to do so."
>
> Becky Steele, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of
> Florida, called those statements embarrassing.
>
>
>
> bc the article confirms we are a polarized society.
>
> p.s. this is interesting:
>
>
> Mr. Romney said he was asked about his belief in evolution when he
> was interviewed by faculty members for highest honors designations
> before his graduation from Brigham Young University.
>
> He told his interviewers that he did not believe there was a
> "conflict between true science and true religion," he said.
>
> "True science and true religion are on exactly the same page," he
> said. "they may come from different angles, but they reach the same
> conclusion. I've never found a conflict between the science of
> evolution and the belief that God created the universe. He uses
> scientific tools to do his work."
>
> The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints has no definitive
> position on evolution, and church leaders have disagreed on the issue
> over the years.
>
> Mr. Romney said his answer was satisfactory to faculty members. "They
> teach evolution at B.Y.U.," he said.
>
>
>
> http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/romney-elaborates-on-
> evolution/