God gave you life, so you shoudl be grateful.

As the Buddha said, "Life is suffering." So, why should I be grateful for that?

"One of the main reasons I believe in God is because I believe in Satan."

"God gave us freewill" and then later in the argument they used the phrase we all love to hate "its all gods plan". It was hard not to laugh at the irony in that.

We are all guilty of sin because Adam first sinned. Never seemed fair to me when I was growing up. Also, that sex was the original sin.

Hello, I recently ran across the following article on a site called AllAboutGod.com. The understandably anonymous creationist who wrote it makes the ridiculous argument that Darwin's theory of evolution constitutes a "worldview" that has had a negative "impact on human behavior", even to the point of encouraging Hitler and Stalin to commit their atrocities. I wrote him a polite yet rather unkind reply to point out the numerous flaws in his thinking on this subject. My reply follows immediately after his article.

Creation vs. Evolution - A Question of Origins
The creation vs. evolution debate is a question of origins. How did we get here? Were we created or did we evolve

randomly? Are we the product of purposeful intelligence or are we merely the end result of countless cosmic accidents? Does

it even matter?

Creation vs. Evolution - Reason vs. Religion
The popular media often portrays the creation vs. evolution debate as science vs. religion, with creation being religious

and evolution being scientific. Unfortunately, if you don't agree with this label, you too are labeled. Regardless of

whether you're a creationist or an evolutionist, if you disagree with the stereotype, you're condemned and "exposed" as a

religious fanatic who is secretly trying to pass religion off as science or, even worse, trying to disprove science in

order to redeem a ridiculous, unscientific, religious worldview. The fact is neither model of origins has been established

beyond a reasonable doubt (otherwise, the theory of evolution wouldn't be called the "theory" of evolution). Whether we

like to admit it or not, those of us who subscribe to the theory of evolution do so by faith. And while the recognition of

design in biology may have theological implications, it is not based upon religious premise - it's based upon empirical

observation and logic.

Creation vs. Evolution - Why Does It Matter?
Why do we even squabble over creation vs. evolution? Does it really matter what we believe about where we came from?

Absolutely. Our views on morality, justice, purpose, self-worth, humanity, obligation, and destination are all closely tied

to our views on human origins. For example, without affirming or denying the veracity of evolution theory, let's take a

moment to consider what the theory of evolution teaches about human origins and what impact this teaching has had upon

human behavioral patterns.

Evolution teaches that as species evolve they eventually reach ideal population levels. As species advance, superior

species eliminate inferior species -- "survival of the fittest." Weak and inferior members of a species should be

eliminated for the preservation of superior bloodlines and for the conservation of essential resources. "Nature" doesn't

desire "the mating of weaker with stronger individuals, even less does she desire the blending of a higher with a lower

race, since if she did, her whole work of higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, might be ruined

with one blow." [1] "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of

conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows." [2] And as humans are merely a species of

animal, we have no intrinsic value and are therefore by no means exempt from "the war of nature." Thus, we have Adolf

Hitler (1889-1945) asking the rhetorical question, "should I not also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior

race that multiplies like vermin?" [3] Hitler, of course, is remembered for murdering more than 6,000,000 individual human

beings, all of whom he deemed to be inferior members of the species. Was Hitler wrong? Did he misinterpret and misrepresent

the theory he claimed to cherish so much? Apparently not. Renowned British evolutionary anthropologist and anatomist Sir

Arthur Keith (1866-1955), who was knighted in 1921, came to Hitler's defense, "Hitler is an uncompromising evolutionist,

and we must seek for an evolutionary explanation if we are to understand his actions" [4] Keith reassured us, "The German

F?hrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany

conform to the theory of evolution." [5] Joseph Stalin (1879-1953), another ardent evolutionist, surpassed even Hitler in

zeal, murdering at least ten times as many "inferiors" (estimates range from 60,000,000 to 100,000,000 people). Was Stalin

wrong? What about Pol Pot? Well, not if you subscribe to the evolutionary worldview. In fact, to the philosophically

consistent, uncompromised evolutionist, Hitler and Stalin ought to be considered role models.

And so we see how a worldview can impact human behavior. Here, we see murder, a most disapproved human behavior, not only

condoned, but encouraged. So, does it matter what we believe about where we came from? Absolutely. However, even more

important than what we believe to be true is what actually is true. Someone might not believe in gravity, for example.

Nevertheless, if that person were to step off a tall building, that person would splat on the ground below, regardless of

what they believed. And so, once again, we have the question: are we the product of purposeful intelligence or are we

merely the end result of countless cosmic accidents? Don't rely on hearsay. Investigate the evidences for yourself.

Explore More Now!

Footnotes: 1. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1924, p. 286.
2. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the

Struggle for Life, 1859, p. 400.
3. Adolf Hitler, quoted in Joachim Fest's, Hitler, 1974, p. 679-680.
4. Sir Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics, 1947, p. 14.
5. Ibid., p. 230.

My reply to the above paper follows:

In the paper "Creation vs. Evolution -- A Question of Origins", a case is made that we should prefer creationism to

Darwinian evolution. Why? Apparently, in part, because the process of natural selection and the consequent
"survival of the fittest", discovered by Darwin, constitutes a "worldview" that can [negatively] impact human behavior."

As examples of this, the author (who is anonymous) cites Hitler's holocaust and similar atrocities commited by the likes of

Stalin, Pol Pot, et al. All of these despots, we are told, were "ardent evolutionists", and Adolf Hitler is quoted as

justifying the holocaust by invoking the "survival of the fittest" phenomenon in which "stronger", "superior" animals

eliminate "weaker" and "inferior" ones, so that the superior "races" will remain untainted by interbreeding with the

inferior: "Nature doesn't want the mating of weaker with stronger individuals, even less does she desire the blending of a

higher with a lower race, since if she did, her whole work of higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years,

might be ruined with one blow."1 "...Should I not also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that

multiplies like vermin?"2 This is followed by the rather careless remark (made by the author of the paper under

discussion --not Hitler -- that anyone who subscribes to the "evolutionary worldview", in order to be consistent, should

regard Hitler and Stalin as "role models". He concludes: "And so we see how a worldview can impact human behavior. Here,

we see murder, a most disapproved human behavior, not only condoned, but encouraged. So does it matter what we believe

about where we came from? Absolutely. Our views on morality, justice, purpose, self-worth, humanity, obligation, and

destination are all closely tied to our views on human origins."

The upshot of all this -- that Darwinian evolution isn't just a false theory, but somehow also an insidious, ungodly, and

morally corrupting influence -- displays the author's use of drama, rather than reason, to attack a proven scientific

theory that he obviously regards as a threat to his own "worldview". I shall answer this point, as well as some other,

more general points he raises. First, however, I would suggest that, if he really wants to impugn a particular worldview

as a negative influence on humanity -- one that has condoned and even encouraged such crimes as mass killings and

persecutions, instead of setting his sights on Darwinian evolution, he might do better to target his own holy book, the

Bible. Not only did the Judeo-Christian God condone and encourage genocide and religious persecutions, he actually at

times commanded them to be carried out. Consider the story in 1 Sam 15 -- when God ordered King Saul to kill all the

Amalekites -- the men, the women, and even the infants -- is this any better than what Hitler did to the Jews? The

slaughter of the people of Ai was similarly ordered by Yahweh and carried out by the Israelites under Joshua. (Jos.8:1-29)

Many other peoples and towns were conquered and sacked by this "servant of God": the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites,

Girgashites, et al. (Jos.24:11-13) And David, a man "after God's own heart" (1 Sam. 13:14-15) killed two hundred

Philistines as the bride-price for King Saul's daughter Michal, when Saul had only called for one hundred (how merciful of

him!)(1 Sam. 18:22-27). Later, after David became King, he carried out his own campaigns against his "pagan" enemies,

slaughtering the majority of them and exacting tribute from the survivors. (2 Sam 8:1-18) As if this were not enough, the

God of the ancient Hebrews permitted them to buy slaves from the foreign nations around them (Lv. 25:44-46) So it seems to

me more than a little hypocritical that a Christian should throw stones at Darwinism for its alleged "encouragement" of the

genocidal actions and human rights abuses of some of history's most notorious tyrants.

Concerning the "encouragement" from reading Darwin that supposedly emboldened Hitler to undertake his program of

annihilating Jews, it could similarly be argued (also from passages in Hitler's own writings and speeches) that his

encouragement came from the religious influences in his life instead. Though branded an atheist by many Christian

apologists, Hitler's own words, if sincere, often paint him as a believing Christian (however "twisted" his Christianity

may seem to other Christians): "My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to

the man who 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 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. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that

it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to be cheated, but I have the

duty to be a fighter for truth and justice ... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly

it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people."3 Hitler was born to

Catholic parents and attended Catholic schools and churches. The Church's teaching that the Jew was God's killer no doubt

made an early and lasting impact on Hitler's thinking. In this connection, Martin Luther's opinion that "All Jews should be

driven from Germany" and his book ON THE JEWS AND THEIR LIES may also have influenced Hitler. At all events, he became

convinced that persecution of the Jews was a part of God's will and plan. At a Munich speech in 1923 Hitler remarked: "The

first thing to do is to rescue [Germany] from the Jew who is ruining our country ... We want to prevent our Germany from

suffering, as Another did, the death upon the Cross."4 In light of these and other remarks by the dictator, his motives

and justification for persecuting the Jews would appear to have been much more religious and political than "evolutionist".

Our creationist only cites one short quote from Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES in support of his contention that Hitler was

motivated solely by Darwin's theory to commit his heinous crimes: "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the

most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows."5

Darwin here only seems to be making the point that the environmental/survival pressures on wild animals is what, with the

operation of natural selection, and with the passage of much time, has produced, in incremental fashion, complex and

elegant creatures, splendidly adapted to their habitats. And, while many individuals that are less fit,less well adapted

will die out, leaving the better adapted and more resilient to carry on, there is nothing in this process analogous to a

human holocaust, an "ethnic cleansing", a pogrom, or a massacre. Killing with deliberate cruelty, with motives of hatred,

wantonly wasteful killing, and killing for sport seem to be peculiarily human practises. Most of the violence one sees in

nature is simply predation, which even non-evolutionists are compelled to recognize as a reality of life. Some animal

species, e.g. lions, do practise a crude form of eugenics, in which a new male lion, upon taking over a pride after

vanquishing the former leader, will kill the cubs sired by the deposed animal before siring its own young. Healthy lions

have also been known to attack and kill lions sick with distemper, as the illness causes the affected lions to suffer

seizures and to exhibit strange behavior. Doubtless, however, even though these killings appear cruel, they are meant to

protect the pride as a whole, by eliminating diseased or weak individuals. To equate this situation with Hitler's

holocaust would, of course, be ridiculous.

Another point raised that merits an explanation is the following:

"The fact is neither model of origins [Darwinian evolution vs. creation or "intelligent design"] has been established

beyond a reasonable doubt (otherwise, the theory of evolution wouldn't be called the "theory" of evolution). Whether we

like to admit it or not, those of us who subscribe to the theory of evolution do so by faith. And while the recognition of

design in biology may have theological implications, it is not based upon religious premise - it's based upon empirical

observation and logic."

For those who aren't biased against it, there is a great abundance of scientific evidence for evolution. The evidence for

Darwin's theory has steadily accumulated since he first introduced his ideas in 1859 and the body of evidence includes

findings from multiple scientific fields -- comparative anatomy, paleontology, embryology, genetics, etc. To give a few

recent examples: TIKTAALIK, a 375 million year old fossil creature discovered in arctic Canada. What is of particular

interest here is the fact that while it was plainly a fish -- with scales and fins -- it also had a flat amphibian-like

head with a well-defined neck, and the bones of its fins corresponded to the upper and lower arm bones and even the wrists

of land animals. Very much the sort of features you would expect to see in a species intermediate between fish and land

animals. Although there was no surviving DNA, scientists were able to use the DNA of living paddlefish as a proxy for

TIKTAALIK DNA. They found that the pattern of gene expression that forms the bones in its fins is very similar to the one

that guides the limb structure in the embryos of birds, mammals, and all land-living animals. The difference is only that

the gene is "switched on" for a shorter time in fish. This discovery is significant in that it refutes "a long-held view

that the acquisition of limbs required a radical evolutionary event".6 There are other intermediate species or "missing

links" such as ARCHAEOPTERYX, which bridges the gap between reptiles and birds. In Lake Victoria, in Africa, live species

of cichlid fish with heavy, powerful jaws for cracking the shells of snails, their primary food. The gene that formed those

jaws -- the gene for the BMP4 protein -- is the same gene that is responsible for the thick wide bill of the Galapagos

gound finch. " Says the author: "What better evidence for Darwin's belief in the commonality of all species than to find

the same gene doing the same job in birds and fish, continents apart?"7 Also posing an inconveniance for creationists are

VESTIGIAL ORGANS, which make perfect sense in an evolutionary context, but really have no logical explanation on the

creationist model. The OLm is a salamander that has adapted to life deep in caves and caverns. It has small, non-

functional, partially degenerated eyes. An evolutionist can account for this on the ECONOMY of nature and natural

selection. If having eyes in a certain environment is not helpful for survival, selection will favor the development of

other organs/senses that are more suited to the new environment. But this, of course is a gradual, incremental process.

On the other hand, if creationism is true, and the olm was specially created for life in the permanent darkness of caves,

where eyes are useless anyway, why then would God have bothered to create them with any sort of eyes at all? There are

multitudes of other examples that confirm and strengthen the case for evolution.

The same cannot be said for creationism. The idea that some intelligent Designer must be responsible for the order seen in

nature and, especially, the organized complexity seen in living things -- plants, animals, and that apex of creation --

human beings, is based on statistical improbability. What are the chances that such intricate, specialized, and complex

beings could arise from the blind forces of nature, operating randomly? Doesn't this mean that our existence is proof of a

creator, since no other explanation seems possible? Well, there is an alternative explanation, and it makes much more

sense than invoking a deity. It is natural selection. This is the driving force behind evolution. Simply put, the

genetic variability of a species occasionally gives rise to mutations which, upon the whole, are harmful to the recipients
but which, under certain conditions, can actually help by enhancing the animal's chances to survive and successfully breed.

This mutated gene thus unwittingly increases its own chances of being passed on to succeeding generations. This process is

actually non-random, in the sense that only mutations that are useful to the animal in some way tend to get perpetuated.

The harmful mutations tend to be self-eliminating, for the simple reason that the changes they engender work against an

animals abilty to survive and reproduce. Thus natural selection acts a sort of filter for the genes, sorting out the "good"

and doing away with the "bad". It is also the case that new beneficial mutations can build on the older ones and so work

toward "perfecting" the animal's "design" This explains the often amazing adaptations to their environment displayed by the

more "highly evolved" creatures as well as how very complex organisms could have evolved from much simpler ones. Moreover,

natural selection can be observed and understood without reference to supernatural causes or explanations. The "intelligent

design" model, on the other hand, presents several problems. Instead of solving the "riddle of the universe", creationism

only walks it back a step with its proposed solution of a superhuman creative intelligence (i.e."God" ). The problem is we

were seeking an answer to the mystery of how organized complexity, especially in life forms, originated in a universe which

seems to be governed by blind forces and random events. God is thought to provide the intelligence and power necessary to

bring "order out of chaos". However this may be, there remains the difficulty that any GOd who possesses the intelligence

and power to build and govern a universe, over and above creating life, must himself be an extremely complex and organized

being. So if God is going to be our answer, we might as well declare that the cause of organized complexity is more

organized complexity and be done with it. Not very intellectually satisying, however, and really not an answer. If

consistency means anything, if we are going to hold that an animal's complexity demands a designer or engineer, then why

isn't God's complexity subject to the same rule? Where did God's complexity come from? As Clarence Darrow succinctly and

humorously put it, "we could say that some Super-God made God, but this would lead to questions about who then made the

Super-God ... but we have to stop somewhere!" The point here is that this approach leads us into an infinite regression and

circular reasoning... Again, even if nature revealed unequivocal and cogent evidence of design by a higher being of some

sort, this would be a non-specific creator. I take it that Christians would declare it to be the Biblical God. But all

that would have been established is design and not the identity of the Designer. For aught we know it could be a

superhuman Being or a God other than Yahweh. And why should we assume the universe to be the work of a single Designer

only? Why not a commitee? Most human building projects involve multiple people afer all.

A final thought. The main theme of the paper here examined is that evolutionary theory is somehow a "bad influence" on

those who acqaint themselves with it. Even, apparently, to the point of turning some people into despots and causing them

to commit mass killings (e.g. Hitler and Stalin). One might suppose, if this were true, that Darwin himself, who first

studied and decribed evolution and "survival of the fittest", would have gone mad and committed some sort of violent crimes

himself. That never happened. NOr is there any evidence that Darwin's early advocates and defenders or his later followers

-- Thomas Henry Huxley, Herbert Spencer, Ernst Haeckel, et al. ever behaved in a violent or criminal fashion. I would also

venture to guess that the vast majority of violent criminals in American and European prisons were Christians of some

stripe at the time they committed their offences, and not atheistic Darwinian evolutionists!

Paul Quandt

Footnotes

1. (cited as: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1924, p. 286)

2. (cited as: Adolf Hitler, quoted in Joachim Fest's Hitler, 1974, p.679 - 680.)

3. (cit. Adolf Hitler, "Speech of 12 April 1922" In Baynes, N.H. ed. (1942) THE SPEECHES OF ADOLf HITLER, Vol .1: p. 19-

   20).

4. (cit. Adolf Hitler, Munich speech, 1923 in Bullock, A (2005) HITLER:A STUDY IN TYRANNY, p.96 London: Penguin).

5. (Cited as: Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured

   Races in the Struggle for Life, 1859, p. 400.)

6. National Geographic, Feb. 2009, vol. 215, No. 2 "Modern Darwins" by Matt Ridley, p.56, 71.

7. Ibid., p.64

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