About James Kennedy, Coulter, and Darwin.
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Crackpot Christianity: Part Two
Posted 28 August 2006
By Walter C. Uhler
During the weekend of August 26-27, 2006, Americans were given another
opportunity to see "Crackpot Christianity" in action. All they had to do
was tune in to The Coral Ridge Hour and watch its presentation of
Darwin's Deadly Legacy. I watched it Saturday evening and was
respectively amused and appalled by the show's infantilism and
dishonesty. Although it would not persuade any educated American, the
show's dishonesty implies a staggering contempt for its intended
audience -- the untaught.
Knowing the audience, I expected such buffoonery and mendacity. As I
demonstrated in an earlier article (Crackpot Christianity and America's
Current Moral Degeneration, at
http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/crackpot.html), the overwhelming
majority of America's Christians know next to nothing about the origins
and actual composition -- let alone the myriad contradictions -- of the
holy book they ostensibly revere. Why would they know anything more
about the evolutionary biology so many of them despise?
In addition, I already had read the asinine assertion made by the
program's foremost crackpot Christian, Dr. D. James Kennedy: "To put it
simply, no Darwin, no Hitler." It prompted an immediate response from
Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League:
"This is an outrageous and shoddy attempt by D. James Kennedy to
trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust...Trivializing the Holocaust
comes from either ignorance at best or, at worst, a mendacious attempt
to score political points in the culture war on the backs of six million
Jewish victims and other who died at the hands of the Nazis."
Moreover, Mr. Foxman noted: "It must be remembered that D. James Kennedy
is a leader among a distinct group of 'Christian Supremacists' who seek
to "reclaim America for Christ" and turn the U.S. into a Christian
nation guided by their strange notions of biblical law." In other words,
a crackpot Christian.
But, when Mr. Foxman observed, "Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his
heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people," he didn't know he was
making a point that already had been conceded by one of the show's few
serious scholars, Richard Weikart. Mr. Foxman didn't know, because
Professor Weikart's concession doesn't appear in Kennedy's sixty-minute
propaganda piece, but in Weikart's own book From Darwin to Hitler.
Granted, Professor Weikart "became convinced that there were significant
historical connections between Darwinism and Hitler's ideology" [From
Darwin to Hitler, p. x]. But he refused to make "the absurd claim that
Darwinism of logical necessity leads (directly or indirectly) to
Nazism." [Ibid. p. 9]
Moreover, in the concluding chapter of his book, Weikart notes: "It
would be foolish to blame Darwinism for the Holocaust, as though
Darwinism leads logically to the Holocaust. No, Darwinism by itself did
not produce Hitler's worldview, and many Darwinists drew quite different
conclusions from Darwinism for ethics and social thought than did
Hitler." [Ibid, p. 232]
Unfortunately, the dishonesty of Darwin's Deadly Legacy extends far
beyond that fact that the show's one serious historian, unbeknownst to
the audience, actually disputes Kennedy's crackpot assertion: "No
Darwin, No Hitler." The show also quotes Darwin out of context, takes
cheap shots at Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, misrepresents the
court's ruling in "Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et
al." and turns to one of its "historians" to inform us that the "Nazis
loved science."
Worse, after showing pictures of the Nazi death camps, viewers hear that
Darwin's ideas made the whole thing possible. Moreover, the show informs
its viewers that the wicked theory of evolution played a major role in
the shootings a Columbine High School. Worse still, it then notes --
presumably with the intention of insinuating a connection -- that there
have been dozens of school shootings since Columbine. Even if such
innuendo had substance, such crimes would pale in significance when
compared with the murderous history of Christianity.
The show also trots out two legitimate scientists who claim to have
found holes in the theory of evolution. One supports microevolution, but
discounts macroevolution. The other supports Intelligent Design,
notwithstanding the fact that his "own department's website disowns his
bizarre ideas." [Jerry Coyne, "Coultergeist,"The New Republic, see link
below].
Unfortunately, the show fails to acknowledge that these two scientists
are members of a small minority. It also fails to acknowledge that the
overwhelming majority of America's scientists find the theory of
evolution convincing, because it works.
Works? Yes, as Jared Diamond has observed: "Without evolution, one has
no chance of understanding the living world around us, human uniqueness,
genetic diseases and their possible cures, and genetically engineered
crops and their possible dangers." [Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is, pp.
ix-x] Or, as the highly esteemed Ernst Mayr observed: "Evolution is the
most important concept in biology. There is not a single Why? question
in biology that can be answered adequately without a consideration of
evolution." [Ibid, xiii]
Dr. Kennedy's failure to disclose the minority position of the show's
two scientists was hardly an accident. He needed to deceive viewers in
order to assure them that that the theory of evolution is "crumbling."
Unfortunately, none of these distortions in Darwin's Deadly Legacy so
clearly demonstrate the contempt with which these crackpot Christians
view their audience as does the very appearance of Ann Coulter. Having
Ann Coulter appear in a show devoted to evolution is like going to the
Governor's Ball and finding a turd in the punch bowl. It's simply
outrageous.
Because I've already done my time in purgatory by reviewing one of Ms.
Coulter's books for the San Francisco Chronicle (see
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/07
/20/RV153961.DTL ), suffice it to say that, except for the 2 million or
so pathetic and witless kool-aid drinkers who mindlessly adore her,
Darwin's Deadly Legacy would have gained greater mass credibility, had
its producers decided to ask Bozo the Clown to pontificate on evolution.
(Note: For an exquisite critique of Coulter's profound ignorance of
biology, I strongly urge the reader to turn to Professor Jerry Coyne's
precious essay "Coultergeist"
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w060731&s=coyne073106 .)
But, before closing the book on Dr. Kennedy's dreadfully dishonest
diversion, a few words about how Hitler actually came to power appear to
be in order. For they help to explain what Dr. Kennedy and Ann Coulter
really are up to.
Readers of the renowned historian Fritz Stern know that one of the
historic developments that "had a special bearing on the vulnerability
of Germans to National Socialism" was the "silent secularization" of
German evangelical Protestantism. [Stern, Dreams and Delusions, p. 135]
According to Professor Stern, throughout the nineteenth century, "the
awe once reserved for the worship of the divine came to be associated
with this world's institutions and practices." Thus, "the Protestant
ministry became the king's spiritual guard; it exalted king, nation,
VolkŠGod was the guarantor of the nation's ever-growing power and
importance. God had given Germany its victory in 1871 and Church and
Monarch routinely implored and expected divine blessings on a Germanic
Christian State." [Ibid, p. 137]
Consequently, German Protestants were devastated by their country's
defeat in World War I. And, to add insult to their post-war personal
hardships, evangelical Protestants had to endure the despicably weak
democratic liberalism of the Weimar Republic, which made a point of
separating church and state. [Ibid, p140]
For Germany's Nazis, as for Dr. Kennedy and especially Ms. Coulter
today, "liberalism was the chief enemy." [Stern, The Politics of
Cultural Despair, p. 295] And like Dr. Kennedy and Ms. Coulter today,
the Nazis emphasized its "cultural rottenness and political
irresponsibility." [Ibid, p. 292]
According to Stern, beyond their mutual disdain for liberalism, "There
were many reason why Protestants in particular were disproportionately
drawn to Hitler, but we know from individual witnesses that his
pseudo-religious, chiliastic promises attracted them far more than any
other part of his rhetoric." [Stern, Dreams and Delusions, p. 145] So
much, then, for Darwin's Deadly Legacy.
Finally, readers of Dr. Gregory A. Boyd's book, The Myth of a Christian
Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church,
might see parallels between Hitler's appeal to secularized German
Protestants and the appeal of Dr. Kennedy and Ms. Coulter to evangelical
Protestants in America today.
According to Dr. Boyd, the senior pastor of the Woodland Hills Church in
St. Paul, Minnesota, "For some evangelicals, the kingdom of God is
largely about, if not centered on, 'taking America back for God,' voting
for the Christian candidate, outlawing abortion, outlawing gay marriage,
winning the culture war, defending political freedom at home and abroad,
keeping the phrase 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance, fighting for
prayer in the public schools and at public events, and fighting to
display the Ten Commandments in government buildings." [p. 11]
Yet, in Boyd's view, "this perspective is misguided" because the "fusing
together [of] the kingdom of God with this or any other version of the
kingdom of the world is idolatrous." Or as Stern might call it, "silent
secularization." Moreover, Pastor Boyd believes that "this fusion is
having serious negative consequences for Christ's church and for the
advancement of God's kingdom." [Ibid]
You might keep both Professor Stern's and Pastor Boyd's warnings in mind
the next time a scapegoating Christian Supremacist teams up with a
horse-faced intellectual ***** to advance their crackpot Christianity and
obnoxious conservatism.
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http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/crackpot2.html
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
Contact - Throw a .net over the .com
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