Monday, March 31, 2008

Answers to my Quiz

Okay, I just read Ray Comfort's review of "Expelled", and apparently, he believes that this celluloid travesty was moving. Well, what do you want -- half the people who are "moved" by such films are equally likely to be "moved" by Tim Lahaye's "Left Behind" films, which are pathetic excuses for films, much less pathetic excuses for drama or science fiction.

People who are moved by "Expelled", and who do not think it's propaganda, are just dumb, Period. I mean that with all sincerity. If you saw Expelled, and you thought that it made a "powerful" case for Intelligent Design, or that it revealed any kind secret conspiracy against poor, persecuted minority groups, then you have to either be incredibly stupid, or your standards of proof are so weak that you probably believe that Pro Wrestling on TV is real, too. I'm not going to be goaded into guilt from people who complain that I'm being impolite or rude. I'm stating a fact that I can prove with objectivity. Quite simply, the film is terrible -- badly made, obviously contrived in places, and just goes way too far with it's Nazi analogies.

So I put the following quiz on Ray Comfort's blog, to see if people would bite. The answers to the questions follow the quiz.

I have a quiz to emphasize just how little actual fact is in the film. If you saw the film, and actually have graduated High school, you should be able to easily answer (or google) the answers to these questions.

(1) How many times did Hitler (or Nazis in general) speak or write favorably of Darwin? Never, or frequently? If you say anything other than never, please provide at leastone quote from WW2 era Nazis to back up your answer.

(2) What did Hitler and the Nazis do with Darwin's book, "On the Origin Of Species"?
(a) BURN IT
(b) Make every school child memorize it
(c) Re-printed it and distributed it in churches.
(d) make sure it was included with every Bible

(3) Hitler's speeches made frequent use of Christ, God, and Christianity, such as stating that it was every German's duty to Christ and God to rid the nation of Jewish Influences, or that Jews were enemies of Christ, because they crucified him. (TRUE or FALSE)

(4) How many specific facts were presented in the movie "Expelled", which were specific proofs of intelligent design? If your answer is "at least one fact", please summarize the "fact".

(5) Hitler and the Nazis did what with martin Luther's book, "On the Jews and their Lies"?
(a) BURNED IT
(b) Made every school child memorize it.
(c) Re-printed it and distributed it in churches.
(d) make sure it was included with every Bible

Now I think you all know what the answers are. If anyone has any doubts, or suspects that I have no proof, I'll gladly provide it to those who ask. It is made up of links, but I'll post the answers, complete with copious links, on my own Blog.

And now... THE ANSWERS with documentation.

(1) Hitler and the Nazis never invoked the name of Darwin or spoke favorably of the theory of evolution in any of their public speeches or writings. In fact, the only connection between Darwin and the Nazis is the Eugenics link -- but Darwin never wrote about EUgenics. Eugenics came following the realization that traits are inherited, as well as genetic disorders. Humanity was well aware that traits were inherited, and that genetic disorders were, long before Darwin wrote about it. In fact, it was the work of Gregor Mendel, a Catholic Priest and botanist, who gave us the ground work for genetics. People have been cross-breeding animals to get specific traits for centuries. We certainly didn't need Darwin to give us the notion that maybe we could do that with people, too.

Hitler and Darwin
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA006_1.html

Mendel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendel

(2) The Nazis BURNED Darwin's book, or course, and an exhibit of banned books at the University of Arizona has a section dedicated to the official campaign of Nazi Book burning and banning. Here si a link which lists all the banned books of Nazi Germany, and which has the complete text of the official library instructions on which books to burn.

http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/burnedbooks/documents.htm

In particular, you will note that among the rules, it specifically says "6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel)."

If Hitler and Nazism was based in any part on Darwin's books, then burning and banning Darwin's books was a counter-intuitive way of demonstrating it.

(3) It is very true that Hitler and the Nazis frequently framed their beliefs as Christian. Here are some quotes:

"As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice." (Mein Kampf)

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator - by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." (Mein Kampf)

"“My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only 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 us 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 against the Jewish poison. Today, 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 allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. And as a man I have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient world some two thousand years ago — a civilization which was driven to its ruin through this same Jewish people." (From a 1922 speech in Munich)

Now the links:

The religious Views of Adolph Hitler
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/quotes_hitler.html

Wiki Quotes
http://equotes.wetpaint.com/page/Adolf+Hitler+Quotes?t=anon

(4) ZERO. Not a single fact to back up the claims of ID was presented. If they just had one scientific fact, and explained it a little, it would have at been something.

(5) Hitler had "On the Jews and their Lies" reprinted and redistributed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_jews_and_their_lies

"Four hundred years after it was written, the National Socialists displayed On the Jews and Their Lies during Nuremberg rallies, and the city of Nuremberg presented a first edition to Julius Streicher, editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer, the newspaper describing it as the most radically antisemitic tract ever published.[9] Against this view, theologian Johannes Wallmann writes that the treatise had no continuity of influence in Germany, and was in fact largely ignored during the 18th and 19th centuries.[10] Hans Hillerbrand argues that to focus on Luther's role in the development of German antisemitism is to underestimate the "larger peculiarities of German history."[Hillerbrand, Hans J. "Martin Luther," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007]

16 comments:

GamingAsshole said...

Has Expelled been released yet? If not, how did you see it?

David W. Irish said...

I downloaded a copy of it from a bit-torrent. It took me a couple of tries, cause the first one was porno! (typical of bit-torrents).

TiradeFaction said...

You always have to watch out with P2P dave ;-).

Why is Stein doing this movie, is he really that desperate for some kind of new attention?cm

David W. Irish said...

I think that might be the reason. He's looking for a cash injection, and for support from religious whack-jobs, who can always be counted on to obey the republican party.

Stein has always been with the wrong crowd (well, wrong, philosophically... obviously they were the right crowd for making him a lot of money, whoreing his talents as a writer and a policy wonk), ever since he was writing speeches and papers for Nixon. I've read this asshole's columns for years, and he essentially totes the party line to the extent that whatever come out of the mouths of Bush, ROve, or other GOP media people at the beginning of the week, you can guarantee that Stein will repeat their words, almost verbatum, in his Sunday column.

TiradeFaction said...

Where can I find his Sunday Column?

Pvblivs said...

     Okay, slightly disappointed. I was expecting to see clickable links (e.g. Hitler quotes.) The information itself is impressive, though.
     In case you are interested: Since you have more than one blog, it might be useful to identify the blog by name ("Psycho Dave's Commentary") when you tell people you are posting something on your blog. It took me 3 tries to find the answers to your quiz.

David W. Irish said...

His column is syndicated -- it comes right off of his website most of the time. He even has been on CBS Sunday Morning, basically reading his comments on camera. Different newspapers around the country carry it.

GamingAsshole said...

>>>I downloaded a copy of it from a bit-torrent. It took me a couple of tries, cause the first one was porno! (typical of bit-torrents).

Yeah, I run into those troll uploads all the time ;)

GamingAsshole said...

What site did you find the torrent, Dave? I can't seem to find it at any of my torrent sites.

David W. Irish said...

Try Mininova.org, weefind.org, onebigtorrent.org, torrentreactor.net, or do a google search for "expelled+torrents".

There are about 5 or 6 different ones on torrentreactor.net, but I don't know which ones are porn :)

Hmmm. I just checked, and it looks like the one I got from mininova is gone now -- who knows, copyright police? Anyway, if you're quick, and you don't get "porn-again", the ones on torrentreactor.net are there. Get em while they're up!

Reynold said...

Thanks for you help on Ray's blog...it's nice to have a decent number of rational people there.

I swear to god, those people make Rapture Ready look reasonable.

I can't believe verandoug's rationalizations about anti-semitism. I'm hoping what you and others say will help a bit. Even if it's only the fence-sitters that are persuaded.

Mind you, I don't think many "fence-sitters" go there anyway.

David W. Irish said...

BTW, I fully encourage the practice of getting free crap from evangelicals. Let them waste their money on you by sending you stuff that they have to print or have manufactured (like videos). If they want to offer shit for free, you're doing us all a favor by making them waste their money on you. If enough people play this game, we can make evangelists go broke!

So steal their crap from bit torrents whenever possible!

Unknown said...

>>>

Hmmm. I just checked, and it looks like the one I got from mininova is gone now -- who knows, copyright police? Anyway, if you're quick, and you don't get "porn-again", the ones on torrentreactor.net are there. Get em while they're up!

They are gone from torrentreacter too, however it has six links to warez sites, which are just scams and filled with spam. Damn, I'll just wait until it gets released and then it will be all over torrents.

Unknown said...

I'm DaVuxOrz by the way. Hi.

David W. Irish said...

Well, if you look at my Fundamentalist Deceit blog, you will see that Antisemitism and Christian Fundamentalism go hand in hand, and that it's sort of traditional, since nearly all of the people involved in so-called "traditional values" have strong tendencies to either be suspicious of all Jews, or make contradictory statements that both condemn and simultaneously admire Jews.

This is how some Christians have explained it:

* "UNconverted Jews who don't get born again and become "true Christians" are all going to hell.

* Israel is God's chosen land, and it's not chosen for the non-Christian Jews, but for Christians.

* After the end-times, all the unconverted Jews will be wiped out from the battle of Armageddon, and Christians will inherit Israel.

* Jews who are unconverted are in the same league as atheists, pagans, and others who reject Christ, and are thus going to be on the side of Satan during the end times, therefore, they should be treated with suspicion.

Pocket Nerd said...

Love the quiz. May I steal it and use it on my LiveJournal? (With attribution, of course.)