Blue Collar Scientist

I have posted previously that the creationists’ minions have been advancing the myth of Hitler’s atheistic motivations at the science presentations I’ve been giving, and I’ve documented some of Hitler’s own remarks that show he was a Christian and demonstrate that his inspiration for eugenics came from ancient Greece.

Now Skeptico, one of my favorite bloggers, has pointed out several passages from Mein Kampf that further illustrate how Hitler was influenced by Christianity. Take note, all who are in the same boat with me.

From Mein Kampf:

The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took to the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-and this against their own nation.

It is not plausible to believe that Hitler, if he were an atheist, would have problems with a Christian political party trying to get votes from Jews for theological reasons.

But there’s more.

Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: ‘by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.

This is simply not something an atheist would say.

Skeptico provides the only necessary commentary:

There’s a lot more of the same in Mein Kampf, and in other speeches Hitler gave, if you can stomach reading any more. It doesn’t sound to me as though Charles Darwin was much of an influence. In fact, I haven’t been able to find even one mention of Darwin or the theory of evolution in Mein Kampf. Not one. Now, isn’t that strange? Don’t you think that if Hitler had been influenced by Darwin that he would have mentioned it somewhere in his book? Why wouldn’t he? But not even once.

Skeptico also provides a good set of links to other resources on the subject.

The Panda’s Thumb has helpfully posted several examples of Christian churches and clergy members making statements in favor of evolution. This sort of thing helps to make clear that among the religious, only religious extremists, and those deceived by them, have a problem with evolution.

Currently in Florida, extremists are telling county school boards that teaching evolution violates the Establishment Clause of the constitution. How does that work? They say that teaching evolution demands and establishes an atheistic mindset:

It will demand that the concept of “God” be banished from the mind and replaced by atheism; It will displace any idea that there is purpose for man except to discover what it means to be human; It will demonstrate that other species of animal life have as much value and right as man; and it will require a mind devoid of biblical theism—devoid of any concept of God.

(I suppose that to find this line of argument at all compelling, you’d have to be aware of the extremists’ assertion that atheism is a religion. I guess you’d also have to believe it.) If this is all so, however, how is it that so many Christian churches and clergy accept evolution?

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church says:

“[T]here is no contradiction between an evolutionary theory of human origins and the doctrine of God as Creator.”

Pope John Paul II, in a message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on October 22, 1996, said:

“In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation…. Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies — which was neither planned nor sought — constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.”

Note well - the Catholics have understood for fifty-eight years that evolution in no way contradicts the faith. That’s almost three generations.

The Clergy Letter Project has gathered over 10,000 signatures from Christian ministers, pastors, and priests who agree with this statement:

“We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as ’one theory among others’ is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator…. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.”

Although it would not do to confuse Judaism with Christianity, it is well to note, given that many extremists loosely couple “Judeo” with “Christian” as a way of co-opting a different tradition to support their own, that the Central Conference of American Rabbis has said:

“[S]tudents’ ignorance about evolution will seriously undermine their understanding of the world and the natural laws governing it, and their introduction to other explanations described as ‘scientific’ will give them false ideas about scientific methods and criteria.”

I’m not apologizing for Christians here. I believe that, too often, mainline churches sit idly by while extremists of their own faith carry on in outrageous ways. By ignoring this, allowing it to go on without comment, they provide the cover of legitimacy to those who lack it. Still - here are some exceptions to this general trend. Some Christians whine and carry on in an attempt to get special rights for their beliefs, government subsidies for religious educational materials, and forced religious education in public schools, but most Christians are against this kind of excess.

A few weeks ago I had a student confront me with the “Hitler was an atheist therefore atheism causes evil” meme. It happens periodically - these kids pay real close attention in Sunday school, and don’t dare ever think that what they are taught there might be wrong….

Anyway, I’m feeling a need to put some of the standard quotations on the topic here so that I can access them more quickly and easily when they are needed.

My feelings as a Christian point me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. (Hitler, Munich, April 12, 1922.)

The creationists sometimes charge that Hitler claimed to be Christian, but was soft on atheism and maybe even a closet atheist. Hitler didn’t agree:

We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out. (Hitler, Berlin, October 24, 1933.)

I occasionally get the “Hitler said he was Christian, but really he was a paganist” meme. So:

National Socialism is not a cult-movement– a movement for worship; it is exclusively a ‘volkic’ political doctrine based upon racial principles. In its purpose there is no mystic cult, only the care and leadership of a people defined by a common blood-relationship…. We will not allow mystically-minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else– in any case something which has nothing to do with us. At the head of our programme there stand no secret surmisings but clear-cut perception and straightforward profession of belief. But since we set as the central point of this perception and of this profession of belief the maintenance and hence the security for the future of a being formed by God, we thus serve the maintenance of a divine work and fulfill a divine will– not in the secret twilight of a new house of worship, but openly before the face of the Lord…. Our worship is exclusively the cultivation of the natural, and for that reason, because natural, therefore God-willed. Our humility is the unconditional submission before the divine laws of existence so far as they are known to us men. (Hitler, Nuremberg, September 6, 1938.)