StrongMan

In a letter to the editor in my hometown's paper, a person from Kansas wrote a wonderful little letter. Here in central Wisconsin, if a letter from Kansas gets in, it must be something important. I'll only give the relevant part as it relates to this forum:

"We are horrified at the lives of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao TseTung, Pol Pot, whose belief in the false religion of evolution led them to torment and murder millions of their own countrymen. Yet, we permit our tax dollars to be used to support his religion in our public schools; brainwashing our young people into denying the god-given purpose for their lives and into believing the false idea that they can "evolve" into a god, deciding their own right and wrong."

Mods - Move this where you may.

JC

Blinn

You will respond accordingly with you own letter, won't you?

StrongMan

We get crap like this all the time. I've written about 6 letters and none of them get put in the paper. I could use some pointers. I think I may come off as too harsh.

Orpheous99

You could point out that Hitler was a Christian.

Grumpy

Actually, going down the Hitler tangent is probably a bad move. To wit, he probably was not a Christian, at least not a very committed one. But that is a different discussion.

My one and only letter to the editor was on this very subject. I used a very middle-of-the-road appeal: Evolution works, so it should be taught in schools. As an example, I mentioned Lysenko's denial of Mendelian heredity, which set Soviet biological research back decades, and led to famines. The point being that you can deny evolution if you must, but recognize that science/nature doesn't care what you believe. Our nation's future is at stake! (All letters must end with such a sentiment.)

But probably the best reply to letters like these is to ignore them. They're not worth responding to.

Daggah

Don't expect to be printed in Kansas...

Mecha_Dude

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's never to underestimate the power, of human stupidity...

calvaryson

What do you mean Hitler was a Christian? That he was raised as a Christian? So because he chose to go against Christian principles doesn't mean Christianity is wrong. Put the blame where it belongs, with the man not the ideology he was raised under.

theyeti

I don't think too many of us would blame Christianity for Hitler's atrocities, no matter how devout of a believer he might have been. It is clearly falacious to do so. But if you're paying attention you'll notice that the author of that letter is blaming evolution for Hitler's atrocities! It's the same fallacy.

If you want to know the evidence of Hitler's belief, see <a href="http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhitlerchristian.html" target="_blank">Was Hitler a Christian?</a>.

The edivence is mixed, but it leans strinly towards his being a believer. But the most important point of the article is this:

"In other words, atheists looking for a quick cheap-shot may claim Hitler was a Christian; similarly, Christians looking for a quick shot may claim he was an atheist. Know what? Hitler was a vegetarian! Oooh, those evil vegetarians! He also recommended that parents give their children milk to drink instead of beer and started the first anti-smoking campaign. (So by the "reasoning" used in these types of arguments, if you are truly anti-Hitler, you should smoke heavily and only give your baby beer!) Better watch out, though he was an oxygen-breather, too! In other words, does it really matter whether Hitler was an atheist or a Christian or whatever? Just because somebody may hold a particular worldview (along with other views) doesn't make him a spokesman for that view, or even remotely representative of others who hold that view."

So now do you see the fallacy? The person writing that hateful letter quoted in the OP is just a guilty as if one of us claimed that Christianity was wrong because of Hitler.

theyeti

[edited to add: This is an E/C related topic, but I also think it's related to C/S separation, so I'm going to put a copy in that forum. If the C/S mods feel the need to close it, my feeling won't be hurt.]

[ December 15, 2001: Message edited by: theyeti ]</p>

Euromutt

I suspect "Ignorant in Kansas" heard that genocidal types sometimes base their policies on the concept of "social Darwinism"; of course "social Darwinism" has about as much to do with Darwin as the economic crisis in Argentina has to do with Adam Smith.