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JPhillips
Joined: 22 Oct 2009
Posts: 207
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Post: #1  Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2009 1:22 pm Post subject: Link between Darwinism and public school shootings |
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I am posting this is as a counter-argument that Religion is harmful and atheism is harmless.
There are always going to be radicals and extremists on both sides.
http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/must -read-the-link-between-darwinism-nihilism-and-publ ic-school-shootings/
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“Harris wore a ‘Natural Selection’ T-shirt on the day of the killings. They made remarks on video about helping out the process of natural selection by eliminating the weak. They also professed that they had evolved to a higher level than their classmates. I was amazed at the frequent references to evolution, and that the press completely ignored that aspect of the tapes.”
[...]As the attorney for the families of six of the students killed at Columbine, the Denver lawyer Barry Arrington has come across more in a similar vein. “I read through every single page of Eric Harris’s journals; I listened to all of the audio tapes and watched the videotapes? It became evident to me that Harris consciously saw his actions as logically arising from what he had learnt about evolution. Darwinism served as his personal intellectual rationale for what he did. There cannot be the slightest doubt that Harris was a worshipper of Darwin and saw himself as acting on Darwinian principles.”
And Pekka-Eric Auvinen:
Before he embarked on his shooting spree, Auvinen posted a lengthy apologia on the internet. Styling himself a “social Darwinist”, he said that natural selection appeared not to be working any more — had maybe even gone into reverse. He had noticed that “stupid, weak-minded people reproduce faster than intelligent, strong-minded ones”. The gene pool was sure to deteriorate if society continued to guarantee the survival of the second-rate. He had pondered what to do about this problem. He understood that life was just a meaningless coincidence, the outcome of a long series of random mutations, so there might not be much point in doing anything at all. But eventually he had decided he would do his bit by becoming a natural selector, aping the pitiless indifference of nature.
Auvinen left a special plea for his motivation to be taken seriously and for the world not merely to write him off as a psychopath, or to blame cult movies, computer games, television or heavy metal music, before concluding: “No mercy for the scum of the Earth! Humanity is overrated. It’s time to put natural selection and survival of the fittest back on track.”
The article continues:
One conclusion implicit in evolutionary theory is that human existence has no ultimate purpose or special significance. Any psychologically well-adjusted person would regard this as regrettable, if true. But some people get a thrill from peering into the void and acknowledging that life is utterly meaningless.
Darwin also taught that morality has no essential authority, but is something that itself evolved — a set of sentiments or intuitions that developed from adaptive responses to environmental pressures tens of thousands of years ago. This does not merely explain the origin of morals, it totally explains them away. Whether an individual opts to obey a particular ethical precept, or to regard it as a redundant evolutionary carry-over, thus becomes a matter of personal choice. Cheerleaders celebrating Darwin’s 200th birthday in colleges across America last February sang “Randomness is good enough for me, If there’s no design it means I’m free” — lines from a song by the band Scientific Gospel. Clearly they see evolution as something that emancipates them from the strict sexual morality insisted upon by their parents. But wackos such as Harris and Auvinen can just as readily interpret it as a licence to kill.
Darwin himself thought that his theory warranted racism and genocide:
Darwin looked forward to a time when Europeans and Americans would exterminate those he termed “savages”. Many of the anthropomorphous apes would also be wiped out, he predicted, and the break between man and beast would then occur “between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon; instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla”. He took a sanguine view of genocide, believing it to be imminent and inevitable. “Looking to the world at no very distant date,” he wrote to a friend in 1881, “what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.”
Convinced that the various races of mankind had travelled different distances down the evolutionary highway, and that two races could be fairly described as more or less evolved even when both had a track record of cultural achievement, Darwin insisted that natural selection explained why the Europeans had been able to see off serial invasions by the Ottoman Turks. Some of today’s Turks understandably resent being designated as genetically second-rate, which perhaps explains why the editor of Turkey’s most popular science magazine was instructed by his proprietor to cancel a special edition celebrating Darwin’s anniversary.
[...]Nowhere was the toxic doctrine of racial superiority more enthusiastically taken up than in the Third Reich. The Nazis believed that the Aryan race was already the most highly evolved, but could evolve further if defective genes could be eliminated. To purify the German gene pool, they decided to exterminate all the physically and mentally handicapped.
Darwin summed up his moral philosophy by saying that a man could “only follow those ideas and impulses that seem best to him”. Darwinian ideas, eugenics and its ugly sister, eugenic euthanasia, were accepted by the mainstream of the German scientific and medical professions. Indeed, so convinced were the staff of the clinic at Kaufbeuren-Irsee in Bavaria that they were acting rationally that, even after Germany’s surrender in 1945, they carried on killing handicapped people under the American occupation, until a US officer led a squad of GIs to the hospital and ordered them to desist.
The modern pro-abortion movement is rooted in the thought of Darwinian eugenicists like Margaret Sanger, who was quite explicit about weeding out the poor, the “unfit” and “inferior” races. Many people on the secular left believe that some people are not fit to live, and that these people should be weeded out by force. For example, Obama’s science czar advocates controlling the reproduction of undesirable people and that born babies are not human beings.
After you finish reading the UK Times article, check out this post over at Uncommon Descent. (H/T ECM)
Excerpt:
When we teach our children that their existence is an ultimately meaningless accident and that morals are arbitrary byproducts of random genetic fluctuations and mechanical necessity, should we be surprised that they place a lower value on human life than someone who is taught that all humans have inherent dignity and worth because they are made in the image of God?
[...]There are three and only three options.
1. We can continue to fill our children’s heads with standard Darwinian theory (which Dennett rightly calls “universal acid”), understanding that at least some of them are going to put two and two together and realize that the acid has eaten through all ethical principles – and act accordingly.
2. We can try to come up with a secular noble lie. “OK kids. You might have noticed that one of the implications of what I just taught you is that your lives are ultimately meaningless and all morals are arbitrary, but you must never act as if that is true because [fill in the noble lie of your choice, such as “morality is firmly grounded on societal norms or our ability to empathize with others”].
3. We can teach our children the truth – that the universe reveals a wondrous ordered complexity that can only be accounted for by the existence of a super-intelligence acting purposefully. And one of the implications of that conclusion is that God exists, and, reasoning further, He has established an objective system of morality that binds us all, and therefore the moral imperatives you feel so strongly are not just an epiphenomenon of the electro-chemical states of your brain.
This reminds me of the essay “Men Without Chests” in C.S. Lewis’ “The Abolition of Man”. Lewis writes that moral relativists undermine objective morality, which cannot be grounded rationally by atheism, and yet they are surprised when people actually act as though moral relativism is true.
The good news is that Darwinism is false. The bad news is taxpayer money from working parents is funneled into politicized government-run schools that teach children that Darwinism is true. High taxes ensure that parents are kept away from their children, since they must both work to pay for the government-run schools. The left’s opposition to stay-at-home mothers and fathers, (e.g., sex education, abortion, unilateral divorce, same-sex marriage, subsidies for single motherhood, etc.), ensures that the government-run schools have more influence on children than the parents do.
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ape
Joined: 06 Apr 2009
Posts: 3324
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| Post: #2 Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2009 5:24 pm Post subject: Re: Link between Darwinism and public school shootings |
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| JPhillips wrote: |
I am posting this is as a counter-argument that Religion is harmful and atheism is harmless.
There are always going to be radicals and extremists on both sides.
http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/must -read-the-link-between-darwinism-nihilism-and-publ ic-school-shootings/
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Thanx for that, JP!
But it is NOT the religion of darwinism nor of God but the Hatred it allows or foments for meaninglessness that is the root and core problem.
How many Xtians love meaninglessness and so can realise that there is meaning in no meaning?
So that Love is how we can prevent the Hate in any ism from affecting us and our kids.
Example: Our kids can only be re-influenced by evolution in schools if we also already teach them to hate self as meaningless or as apes or as baboons or as inferior or as negro or as white or female or as male or as fools or as any word! See?
So when a bad apple spoils the bunch, the bunch was already also going bad!
When the bunch is good, no bad apple can affect the bunch!
Question: Do you love and respect yourself as inferior and superior and equal?
If not, The Hate in Darwinisn has already got to you.
But you now have the cure: simply love you as all words and their opposites as JC commands so that if and when you see me as inferior, you'd be fine since you wd be seeing me as inferior with the same superior Love you have for you as superior, and I'd be fine since I also love me as inferior and as superior and as equal and so wd agree with you that I am inferior! 
So? So here is me, an inferior man, agreeing with you, a superior man, that I am inferior! Hmmmm So I must also be superior and you must also be inferior!  See? No problema! So the real inferiority is HATRED for the inferior---which is what the Inferiority and Superiority Complexes are all about, and the real superiority and equality is the 100% Love we have for all no matter if they are inferior or equal or superior, or darwinnian or mosaic or xtian or atheistic or whatever! qed.
Then we can easily handle evolutionists et alia who hate meaninglessness and creationsism, and also handle creationists who hate meaninglessness and evolutionists whom God loves!
qed. |
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Researcher44
Joined: 09 Dec 2009
Posts: 2
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| Post: #3 Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 6:36 pm Post subject: Cause of school shootings |
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From time to time I find forum posts espousing an argument about school shootings. None of the posters is aware of a simple problem that played a part in these mass murders, Subliminal Distraction exposure.
Never heard of it? I am not surprised. SD is unknown by most of the public. It is explained briefly in first semester psychology under the physiology of sight, subliminal sight, and peripheral vision reflexes.
In the early 1960's SD was found to cause mental breaks for office workers. The cubicle was created to deal with it there. Those working with Systems Furniture, Cubicles, believe it can only cause a harmless temporary episode of confusion. But there are other possible outcomes depending on the length and intensity of exposure and the personality of the victim.
The Finnish National Police published a picture of Auvinen's bedroom computer. He placed it beside a closet door mirror. That created the "special circumstances" for SD exposure. When he surfed the Internet every move he made was reflected in that mirror and detected by his brain to attempt a "startle reflex." Since he was in a safe location he automatically ignored the movement in the mirror so the startle could not happen but he could not prevent his brain subliminally detecting it and attempting a startle.
Over time the subliminal appreciation of threat (from movement in peripheral vision) colors thought and reason. It took beliefs he had and raised them to psychotic levels. While experiencing the "harmless temporary episode" he acted out the delusions by shooting his classmates at school.
Any evaluation of his reasoning should include the mental break he experienced.
There is circumstantial evidence that the Atlanta Day Trader, Barton, did the same thing by placing his computer in the apartment living room. His wife and two children supplied threat-movement in peripheral vision.
Two roommates of the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho, gave interviews describing Subliminal Distraction exposure behavior. They did not understand what they had seen but described how Cho ignored them, using his computer, while they walked by him entering and leaving the suite. One of them mentioned he increased the behavior in the month before the shooting.
Weise, the Redlake school shooter, described putting a movie monitor close to his computer so he could watch movies by slightly shifting hie eyes. That would cause SD exposure.
The Columbine case has been sealed by the judge. But one of the shooters had psychiatric symptoms that could have been SD exposure. Both were heavy computer users.
In each case the shooter had a previously existing reason to complain about how others treated him. But SD exposure was the proximate cause of the shooting.
SD exposure is examined only one place on the Internet. Google <Subliminal Distraction>. |
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Softarget
Joined: 09 Dec 2009
Posts: 32
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| Post: #4 Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 1:35 am Post subject: |
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What in the world?
Social Darwinism is a debunked excuse for violence in the same way that religious hatred is an excuse for extremism.
I am disappointed that you do not recognize this. I mean, plenty of religious extremists use the argument of moral superiority to justify their crimes... consider 9/11.
Anyone can find justification for their hatred, if they dig deep enough, and often that hatred comes in the form of what ever voice speaks most persuasively to them.
I would not inflict violence upon you because of my belief in evolution, and I hope you would return the favor to me in spite of our differences. Are we no less than these, in spite of extreme circumstances?
Or are you telling me that I am filled with hate because of where I stand on evolution? Should I say the same about you because of your position? I don't, by the way.
But it seems like you're here drawing lines in the sand. I mean, even the Catholic Church claims that Truth is Truth, and Evolution bares the burden of truth, and should be accepted. Last time I checked, the Catholic's weren't affraid that this acceptance of scientific reality were not affraid of creating social-Darwinistic mass murders. |
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JPhillips
Joined: 22 Oct 2009
Posts: 207
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| Post: #5 Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 1:40 pm Post subject: School Shootings |
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Softarget
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Social Darwinism is a debunked excuse for violence in the same way that religious hatred is an excuse for extremism.
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Exactly. No difference. You have helped me refute the argument that religion causes more harm to Society than do atheism or Darwinism. This just isn't true.
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I am disappointed that you do not recognize this. I mean, plenty of religious extremists use the argument of moral superiority to justify their crimes... consider 9/11.
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Again, I agree. Crimes have been committed against mankind both by theists and non-theists.
The only thing I would argue is that those of us who believe in God and an afterlife, and who see God as a forgiving, loving God that hates violence, are more strongly motivated to help fellow mankind and see life as more meaningful than those who don't believe in God or an afterlife. I can point to religious people in history, such as Buddha, Christ, Mother Theresa, and Gandi as proof of how those who have faith are more likely to do great things than those who do not.
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| But it seems like you're here drawing lines in the sand. I mean, even the Catholic Church claims that Truth is Truth, and Evolution bares the burden of truth, and should be accepted. |
Darwinism has not been proven any more than the existence of God has been proven. In fact, I believe there is more proof that God exists than that Darwinism's version of evolution is a true account of how life was created. I don't need to discuss this here because these topics have been discussed at great length elsewhere in this forum. |
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Kzirb
Joined: 03 Nov 2009
Posts: 9
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| Post: #6 Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 7:44 pm Post subject: Re: School Shootings |
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| JPhillips wrote: |
Exactly. No difference. You have helped me refute the argument that religion causes more harm to Society than do atheism or Darwinism. This just isn't true. |
It's the fact that religion is open to interpretation that makes it so dangerous. Idea's are powerful. The concept of religion itself may not be responsible for great amounts of harm, but particular religions, when interpreted a certain way and used as a means for gaining power and wealth, have certainly caused many of the worlds most harmful events. Religion to some is simply a tool for manipulation. The fact that it has been shown to work as such is what makes it dangerous. In my opinion, religion would be in a bit more healthy a state if it were less secular. People too often give their faith to "holy" men who may not have "Gods" best intentions in mind.
| JPhillips wrote: |
The only thing I would argue is that those of us who believe in God and an afterlife, and who see God as a forgiving, loving God that hates violence, are more strongly motivated to help fellow mankind and see life as more meaningful than those who don't believe in God or an afterlife. I can point to religious people in history, such as Buddha, Christ, Mother Theresa, and Gandi as proof of how those who have faith are more likely to do great things than those who do not.
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You speak of proof? I don't see any. A few "great" people hardly make up any means of proof. Besides, Gandhi was a racist bigot and Mother Teresa's saintliness is very much open to interpretation. I could throw a few names of atheists who have done good in here, but what would that prove?
Edit: I have more to add and will do so some time after work! |
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NameRemoved
Joined: 28 Dec 2009
Posts: 642
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| Post: #7 Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 3:20 am Post subject: |
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JPhillips wrote:
quote
"I am posting this is as a counter-argument that Religion is harmful and atheism is harmless.
There are always going to be radicals and extremists on both sides. "
exactly what I was debating in the natural law thread recently..it is extreme humans not their particular faiths or non faith that cause the harm..and if you want to compare those of atheism as being harmful look at...
Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Soviet Union following the Russian Revolution until his death after World War II. Between 10 and 20 million Soviets and German prisoners of war died under his regime, depending on how many famine victims you count, from Gulags, execution, and forced resettlement. Mao tse tung, who led China for more than a quarter of a century following World War II, created the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution programs which collectively killed unknown tens of millions of Chinese, most of them in public executions and violent clashes. Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during the 1970's, when as many as 2 million Cambodians, or as much as 20% of the population, died from execution, disease and starvation. Today it is Tamil Tigers are the most active terrorist organisation in the world they are ex hindu atheists.
but then they are still people..its good press to have religion and atheism against each other..people sell books off it..JPhillips think about it? if someone writes a book about the evils of christianity they are going to get getting a best seller..if a christian writes a book about demonic atheism it is going to be a best seller..if they actually just wrote a sensible book..its not going to sell.
Its more hype than anything |
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athena
Contributor
Joined: 11 Jun 2009
Posts: 861
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| Post: #8 Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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You are blaming the problem created by replacing liberal education with education for technology on the teaching of evolution? There is nothing about Darwin's theory of evolution that elements a belief in God. However, it does oppose the literal interpretation of the bible, and this is a problem only for fundamentalist.
The Catholic Priest Chardin wrote evolution is God's plan, and although the church said his work was full of flaws and refused to let him publish, it has come around to accepting evolution.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19956961/
July 25, 2007
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LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy - Pope Benedict XVI said the debate raging in some countries — particularly the United States and his native Germany — between creationism and evolution was an “absurdity,” saying that evolution can coexist with faith.
The pontiff, speaking as he was concluding his holiday in northern Italy, also said that while there is much scientific proof to support evolution, the theory could not exclude a role by God.
“They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,” the pope said. “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.” |
Bottom line, believing that life evolved has nothing to do with feelings of meaninglessness. What makes humans the fittest is their cooperative nature, not their fangs and claws.
However, what is happening in our schools is tragic. I did google <Subliminal Distraction> and think this is worth our consideration, as children must try to learn while dealing distractions all day. It is a terrible learning environment, and extremely hard on children who are easily distracted. I am volunteering in a grade school, and myself and another volunteer, are very distressed by what is happening in the school.
 But hey, we wouldn't have any of these problems if it weren't for Satan and his demons, so let's stop arguing and start praying. The bible tells us things will get worse and Jesus will rescue us, so relax, and help Jesus do his thing by praying a lot. |
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Keith Russell
Joined: 06 Jan 2010
Posts: 602
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| Post: #9 Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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I am completely confused about the intent of the initial post in this thread.
Even if the Columbine killers thought that murdering their classmates was going to advance evolution, they were wrong. Even if they honestly believed that they had evolved beyond their classmates, they were wrong.
They may have been taught about evolution and Darwin in school, but their actions demonstrated--quite clearly--how little they understood what they had been taught. |
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NameRemoved
Joined: 28 Dec 2009
Posts: 642
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| Post: #10 Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 3:29 am Post subject: |
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Keith Russell wrote;
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I am completely confused about the intent of the initial post in this thread.
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I can`t see why you are confused Keith.. when JPhillips explained his intention is to counterbalance those blaming everything bad that happens on the Christian religion which is of course complete trumped up tripe  |
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Keith Russell
Joined: 06 Jan 2010
Posts: 602
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| Post: #11 Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 10:50 pm Post subject: |
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| *Izzy* wrote: |
Keith Russell wrote;
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I am completely confused about the intent of the initial post in this thread.
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I can`t see why you are confused Keith.. when JPhillips explained his intention is to counterbalance those blaming everything bad that happens on the Christian religion which is of course complete trumped up tripe |
Well, now I'm even more confused. Are you saying that the Christian religion is "complet trumped up tripe"? Or are you saying that the tripe is "those blaming everything bad that happens"? Or, is the tripe "everything bad that happens on the Christian religion"? |
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Simon says...
Joined: 10 Jul 2009
Posts: 627
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| Post: #12 Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 12:14 pm Post subject: |
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| If there are extremists on both side anyway, that suggests that the reasons these people are aggressive or suicidal is not because of what they believe. However, does this not destroy the point of religion? If how you act has nothing to do with what you believe, then what on earth makes you think that believing something will make you a better person? In short, why bother being religious if it changes absolutely NOTHING... |
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Researcher44
Joined: 09 Dec 2009
Posts: 2
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| Post: #13 Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 1:11 pm Post subject: Mass murder has a very simple explanation |
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There is little evidence that either religion or Social Darwinism caused mass shootings.
They actually are a Culture Bound Syndrome. These attacks happen around the world.
In 2008 a video game playing temporary worker in Japan rented a two ton truck, drove it into a crowd, jumped out and stabbed seventeen killing seven.
A CBS of Malaysia, Amok, is a sudden violent attack where the person must often be killed to stop the attack.
The Navajo called these attacks iich'aa. There are other names for them in countries around the world.
None of these people are or were Christian, Protestant, or would have ever heard of Darwin.
The correct term for these attacks in the United States is Going Postal. That name is not just a slang invention. |
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