phlebas

Well, just to be tiresome, it's libel when it's written, slander when spoken. And I don't think it could be called libel, either.

But maybe I missed it. There shalt be no libel on my watch

Doubting Didymus

Bacause Mike has not named anyone, there is no slander. (I call it 'slander', because for some reason posting on message boards feels more like converstion that publishing a dissertation) However, also because mike has not named anyone, the slur is painted with a broad stroke.

I am not making a request for moderation, but if mike cannot reference any examples of published modern genetic researchers who advocate improving the race by choosing who lives and who dies, then I respectfully request that he withdraw the allegation that such a philosophy is advocated by said professional group.

Out of interest, is there any legal classification for unproven slurs on professions, rather than individuals? Would I be able, for example, to publicly state: 'some doctors advocate breaching the hippocratic oath to rape and murder small children'?. Just interested.

DarkBronzePlant

All points well-taken, although they didn't address the point that I was actually making. If someone such as Hitler thought that natural selection had run its course, then acted a certain way as a result, such action would have nothing to do with Darwin or evolution. I fail to see any connection, aside from the use of the term "natural selection."

Indeed, Christ did not cause the crusades. Organized religion caused the crusades. Few people here, I suspect, have any problem with Jesus himself. After all, from what historical accounts I've read, Jesus was equally a victim of having words and thoughts inserted into his head and mouth hundreds of years after his death.
But there is a broad difference between the assertion that <insert-person-committing-horrible-act-here /> was driven to act by god/religion, and <insert-other-person-committing-horrible-act-here /> was driven by Darwin/evolution. Religion often commands that people live a certain way. Religion often commands that people do certain things. Religion often commands that people reject certain other types of people. Religion often commands that people act out against other people. Darwin/evolution never does. It is simply an explanation for something that has happened. Thus one someone commits an atrocity, they can very well claim that god, or their religion, caused them to do it. IMO, it is only because enough people are wishy-washy enough about their religious convictions that we don't see a country and world that's entirely full of religious crusaders. If someone commits an atrocity in the name of Darwin or evolution, well, they are just flat-out being false, because nowhere does evolution "command" or even suggest that anyone act any particular way.

Myself, I agree with that point, and not to get tied up in the argument-based-on-attrocities-caused-by-religion approach (though I will certainly step in against the agrument-for-religion-based-on-supposed-attrocities-caused-by-atheists. ) You're right, I missed that point the first time, whether due to my mental density or your inarticulateness.

lpetrich

Darwinism is often identified with a "might makes right" ethic, but the might-makes-right sentiment is MUCH older than Darwin; over 2400 years ago, the historian Thucydides recorded that sentiment in describing some negotiations between the leaders of Athens and Melos ("the Melian dialogues.") And this was over 2000 years before Darwin!

Mike

I've got four minutes so this should be short, I can bring more examples later, but to think that you would imply by requesting references that I, a christian, could be capable of an independent thought...

quote:

"the entire field of genetics is acutely aware of the bad associations of genetics wit the eugenics movement so popular in the New World as well as the Old World in the first half of the twentieth century, which culminated in the horrors of the Nazi era, with its racial stereotyping, destruction of "inferior races," and forced breeding of the Lebensborn project, where unmarried women with the "right" Aryan traits were paired with SS officers and the resulting babies given up for adoption to "good" families. A softer version of this concern is expressed as the fear that new genetic technology will encourage parents to view their children as commodoties, as a consumer item that one picks and chooses like a new car. Some parents might want to test not only for lethal genes but also for flat stomachs and straight teeth."

from "Genetic Dilemmas, Reproductive Technology, Parental Choices, and Children's Futures."

Compare these concerns with this excerpt from the web pages of the Human Genome Program (funded by the government):

"Gene testing already has dramatically improved lives. Some tests are used to clarify a diagnosis and direct a physician toward appropriate treatments, while others allow families to avoid having children with devastating diseases or identify people at high risk for conditions that may be preventable."

[ August 28, 2002: Message edited by: Mike ]

[ August 28, 2002: Message edited by: Mike ]</p>

Daggah

The Nazi SS had "God with us" in German on their belt buckles. Furthermore, whether Hitler was a Christian or not, anti-semitism had deep roots in Christianity, particularly in the lutheran protestant variant. Do you think Hitler said the following?

What shall we do with...the Jews?...I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings...are to be taken from them.

What shall we do with...the Jews?...I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews.

What shall we do with...the Jews? I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach on pain of loss of life and limb.

What shall we do with...the Jews?...set fire to their synagogues or schools and bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them.

What shall we do with...the Jews?...their homes also should be razed and destroyed.

It wasn't Hitler at all. It was Luther.

Just remember, even if Hitler wasn't a Christian, the majority of Germany that supported his horrible acts towards the Jews WERE.

Mike

Still missing the point aren't we?

I don't know if you read my last post, but it is common knowledge that genetic experiments were being conducted by Hitler and his, and the historic context was the eugenics movement, and the current objections to genetic research largely center on the fear of slipping back toward a eugenics mentality. And a eugenics mentality is nothing more or less than the idea that selective breeding (which was in fact described by Darwin among others in other contexts) would improve the human stock.

But this is all beside the point.

But you apparently still want to discuss it so I'll give you another quote, lest I be personally accused of slander:

"Genetic engineering is being promoted in North America as the way to cure disease, to understand illness. But whose disease and which illness will be conditioned by prevailing attitudes about individuals, their bodies, and their roles. Developed and practiced in a society that is gendered, racist, classist and systemmatically discriminates against those with disabilities, it would be naive to think that how and for whom genetic engeneering technologies are developed will not reflect these attitudes. Genetic engineering is itself also imbued with values. For example, to add to or subtract genes with the idea of changing an anticipated phenotype is not only too simplistic biologically, but is is necessarily to view the living organism, ourselves included, as open to design, as (re)programmable. It is to view our offspring as objects for us to fashion, our various diseases and maladies as curable with but a biomedical 'fix.'

"To 'do' genetic engineering, then, is to express values that lead to certain ways of thinking about subjects, objects and the relationships between them.

"If we acknowledge, then, that genetic engineering is more than a biomedical/technical activity, that it is not neutral and that it necessarily influences how we think about and experience ourselves, our children and others, how we devise plans for healing and curing, how we define and deal with what we shall call 'different,' how we interrelate with our surrounding worlds, are we not led to think that it cannot but alter us as humans?"

Abby Lippman, epidemiologist at McGill as quoted in "On the New Frontiers of Genetics and Religion."

Genetic counseling which has in recent years attempted to maintain neutrality by only providing information and allowing parents to make decisions is more and more being challenged on whether they can ethically remain neutral as technology advances. For example, if a counselor suggests that a certain course of action should not be taken (eg. deaf parents wanting to genetically engineer a deaf baby because they believe there is a certain deaf culture to be celebrated), then the counselor is assuming the role of a superior person who influences who does or does not be born. But if the counselor, doctor, genetic researcher does not take a stand, then they are forced to participate in the decision about what embryos live and what embryos die (by either providing information or services) in order to allow parents the right to choose. If on the other hand they simply withold information or services, they are again making decisions about who lives and who is never born. Genetic engineering is not a neutral technology because it is applied, and any application is subject to subjective decision making--genetic engineering is particularly problematic, because it not only is dependent on subjective decisions by the more powerful (doctors, researchers, technicians, counselors, and yes, parents), but it by nature fundamentally alters a human being. We're back to eugenics whether we want to be or not (And this is on the point of examining a philosophy itself).

That's where the philosophy of "selection" has taken us, and may be taking us again. And Darwin (and this is beside the point) thought we would forget the little contradiction in the term "natural selection."

P.S. Luther was not Christ (who was, of course, a Jew himself) and by attacking the Jews Luther was certainly not advocating christianity (the path of Christ) any more than other self-proclaimed christians (Hitler) who advocated the destruction of Christ's race. So if someone says he is a christian and advocates a philosophy opposed to Christ's teachings, what does that make him? A liar.

sighhswolf

"So they set themselves up as intellectual critics while offering no alternative in return. While promoting the bleakest philosophy imaginable they feel no compulsion to offer any evidence of its truth. Many feel that merely disparaging theism is sufficient to justify themselves."

Who says an alternative must be given?
An alternative to what?
Explain how an alternative is relevent to non-belief?
Either you believe or you dont.
We are not running a 12 step detox progam from religion to atheism here are we?
Atheism is not the methodone clinic for religionists....is it?

As a non-believer I dont really care to offer a
convert from the idiocy of religion an alternative.
There is no alternative.

Oh....I know....this is where we are supposed to offer the new and improved "Religion Light" ......kinda like cigarettes with lower tar and nicotene?

I chose not to swallow the bullshit of men who wrote some idiotic document in which they (the MEN WHO WROTE IT) claim some kind of divine assistance from some supernatural being in getting it down on paper because it had been passed down by word of mouth for so long and embellished by each and every one who told the same stupid story time after time that they HAD to enlist some divine guidence to remember all the bull in the first place.
And besides that has this god ever in the entire history of man ever said this is my book, I gave it to you (mankind) for your own good.
Has this god ever taken credit for the bible in any way? Is his name one the dedication page?
Did he sign it?
Does the bible have a copyright date with reference to god as the author?
And of course no one ever questions all the money
that is collected for this "god" day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, billions and billions....it would seem that the amount of compensation this "god" is getting world wide would be enough to feed all the starving children on this earth, but alas it is extremely expensive to keep up all these huge monuments and the pomp and circumstance that is a "must have" for any self respecting god figure, huh?

Oh yes and I am sure that all those bible's being shipped all over the world takes the place of food
right?
Hey send a few missionaries and a couple of hundred bibles for all those starving kids and your good deed is done right?

The alternative?

The alternative for me was a total break from superstition, mythology, bigotry, and the mental slavery of organized religion.
And now when I contribute to a cause I know that money is not being used to build more of the lavish expensive and truely extravagant buildings
they absolutely have to have in order to properly
thank their chosen creator.......what a waste.

Sorry.....no alternatives offered, only reality.
The reality of billions of dollars that are frettered away in the building of more and more temples and buildings to glorify some invisable sky daddy.
The reality of the organized religions of the world that hold land wealth and political power because humans GAVE it to them after forced conversions and the threat of torture and death for failure to do so.
The reality of the worst atrocities ever perpetrated upon mankind being a direct result of religious zeal and intolerance.

No I'm sorry I cant offer an alternative........ either you condone this madness, or you dont, simple.

Wolf

Doubting Didymus

Mike,

Genetic engineering and counciling are nothing to do with eugenics, darwin, or natural selection.

You specifically stated that some genetic reserchers advocate the murder of weaker peoples.

You are attemting to back this up with quotes from genetic researchers who have concerns about genetic engineering?

Genetic engineering is about altering a child for a variety of resons.
Eugenics is about mass murder and rape.

Please retract your comment about the modern advocation of eugenics.

Mark_Chid

Eugenics was advocated and widely practiced in the USA in the early 20th century - not with mass murder, or with rape, but definitely with forcible sterilisation of the 'subnormal'.