Lonewulf
28th February 2008, 07:56 AM
I just found out that one of the webcomic artists that I was more or less a fan of was a baptist fundamentalist who "knew everything". He knew better than psychiatrist "quacks" in their chosen profession, he knew that people with asperger's really just need a boot to the head and to "get over it", and he knows that people with, say, chronic depression are also diagnosed by said quacks and "need to deal".
But he also knows quite a bit about "evolution", Darwin, and how great Christianity is (the Christianity stuff comes later, if you read into his blog; for instance, it was only thanks to Christian morality that women were protected, and they lived happily once upon a time!)
From this Blog: http://rhjunior.livejournal.com/
2008.02.09 21.28
"But but but Evolution has nothing to do with racism and genocide!"
‘At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropological apes… will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state…even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla’.
---Charles Darwin.
From day one, from the very mouth of Darwin himself, evolution was a nihilistic, racist philosophy that provided a pseudoscientific credibility to the notion that some people were "less evolved" than others.
I did a search on Talk Origins, and this is what it had to say:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part2.html
Here is the quote in context:
The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution. Breaks often occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp and defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest allies -- between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridae -- between the elephant, and in a more striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and all other mammals. But these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. (Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. 2nd edn., London, John Murray, 1882, p. 156, which can be found at The writings of Charles Darwin on the web.)
First of all, Darwin is making a technical argument as to the "reality" of species, particularly Homo sapiens in this case, and why there should still be apparently distinct species, if all the different forms of life are related by common descent through incremental small changes. His answer is that competition against those forms with some, even small, advantage tends to eliminate closely related forms, giving rise to an apparent "gap" between the remaining forms. Whether or not Darwin was right about that is irrelevant to the use of this quote mine, of course, since that is part of the context that the creationists using it have assiduously removed. For those interested in the real issue, a bit more information can be found in the response to Quote #3.1.
Claims based on either of these quotes that Darwin and by extension modern evolutionary theory was or is "racist" or that the theory leads to racism, are less than honest. (Continued)
So, same old story; some person goes on to use dishonest quote mining, or the dishonest quote mining of people that he agrees with, to push his point.
But at the same time, I read his works, and he does come off as at least slightly intelligent; at the very least, intelligent enough to tell an interesting story that at least works to be logically consistent (putting him above Hollywood).
Anyways, some other quotes from this person:
Why.
Someone asked me tonight WHY I keep stirring up the evolutionists out there by arguing with them. Word for word, here is my answer.
RHJunior:The world was as God wanted it. Man fell, and brought death and decay into existence.
And ever since than man has been desperate to believe anything-- -even the most ludicrous lie--- to keep himself from feeling guilty.
RHJunior:every last one of them knows, deep down, the real reason they believe evolution--- regular, theistic, unleaded, whatever---
RHJunior: Because so long as they can pretend that it's true, that death and pain and suffering and corruption are "natural" parts of God's Universe, then the story of Creation, and by extension the whole rest of the bible, can be demoted to a harmless fairy tale. A toothless morality play.
RHJunior: And Man can sit in the dark and go on saying "It's not my fault."
RHJunior: That's why evolutionists respond so quickly and so ANGRILY to Creationists, and even to relatively ambivalent Intelligent Design proponents. Because to admit even the possibility strips away their last withered figleaf and leaves them standing small and naked in the presence of a dread and awesome and holy God.
RHJunior: And that's why I keep prodding them, stirring them up. Because quite frankly noone on earth can repent who is complacent in his own self-righteousness.
RHJunior: Christians who acquiesce to evolutionists, who truckle to the Church of the Labcoat with theistic evolution, and the Gap Theory, and the Day-Age theory, and all the other nonsense used to explain away the Word of God, are cowards.
RHJunior: They're throwing these people a pacifier, because they're too weak-willed to deal with their squalling properly.
RHJunior: Baby doesn't WANT the medicine; give Baby a cookie instead! And fearful of a tantrum, they do just that. And Baby keeps right on dying of the disease inside them.
RHJunior: What good is a religion, a church, a faith that just tells people what they want to hear, and changes its story just to suit the whims of the moment?
RHJunior: The truth isn't a popularity contest. If anything has been demonstrated here, in fact, is that the fastest way to become wildly UNpopular is to stick to a painful and long-neglected Truth.
RHJunior: God doesn't reedit his Bible to pander to the critics. And neither will I.
It takes a profound distortion of logic to imagine that civilization, law, and morality could arise spontaneously from the anarchistic, selfish, and homicidal mosh-pit of a Darwinian cosmos.
I had to air this out, partially because I was so astonished to see this person end up this way... I really didn't see him being like this before. Also, I do want dialogue on the subject, and I'm not exactly willing to start spamming his blog to get into an argument, which seems more like a waste of time. Not to mention it feels like going out of my way to pick a fight.
For a more serious question, where did that quote mine at the beginning of this post come from, originally?
But he also knows quite a bit about "evolution", Darwin, and how great Christianity is (the Christianity stuff comes later, if you read into his blog; for instance, it was only thanks to Christian morality that women were protected, and they lived happily once upon a time!)
From this Blog: http://rhjunior.livejournal.com/
2008.02.09 21.28
"But but but Evolution has nothing to do with racism and genocide!"
‘At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropological apes… will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state…even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla’.
---Charles Darwin.
From day one, from the very mouth of Darwin himself, evolution was a nihilistic, racist philosophy that provided a pseudoscientific credibility to the notion that some people were "less evolved" than others.
I did a search on Talk Origins, and this is what it had to say:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part2.html
Here is the quote in context:
The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution. Breaks often occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp and defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest allies -- between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridae -- between the elephant, and in a more striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and all other mammals. But these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. (Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. 2nd edn., London, John Murray, 1882, p. 156, which can be found at The writings of Charles Darwin on the web.)
First of all, Darwin is making a technical argument as to the "reality" of species, particularly Homo sapiens in this case, and why there should still be apparently distinct species, if all the different forms of life are related by common descent through incremental small changes. His answer is that competition against those forms with some, even small, advantage tends to eliminate closely related forms, giving rise to an apparent "gap" between the remaining forms. Whether or not Darwin was right about that is irrelevant to the use of this quote mine, of course, since that is part of the context that the creationists using it have assiduously removed. For those interested in the real issue, a bit more information can be found in the response to Quote #3.1.
Claims based on either of these quotes that Darwin and by extension modern evolutionary theory was or is "racist" or that the theory leads to racism, are less than honest. (Continued)
So, same old story; some person goes on to use dishonest quote mining, or the dishonest quote mining of people that he agrees with, to push his point.
But at the same time, I read his works, and he does come off as at least slightly intelligent; at the very least, intelligent enough to tell an interesting story that at least works to be logically consistent (putting him above Hollywood).
Anyways, some other quotes from this person:
Why.
Someone asked me tonight WHY I keep stirring up the evolutionists out there by arguing with them. Word for word, here is my answer.
RHJunior:The world was as God wanted it. Man fell, and brought death and decay into existence.
And ever since than man has been desperate to believe anything-- -even the most ludicrous lie--- to keep himself from feeling guilty.
RHJunior:every last one of them knows, deep down, the real reason they believe evolution--- regular, theistic, unleaded, whatever---
RHJunior: Because so long as they can pretend that it's true, that death and pain and suffering and corruption are "natural" parts of God's Universe, then the story of Creation, and by extension the whole rest of the bible, can be demoted to a harmless fairy tale. A toothless morality play.
RHJunior: And Man can sit in the dark and go on saying "It's not my fault."
RHJunior: That's why evolutionists respond so quickly and so ANGRILY to Creationists, and even to relatively ambivalent Intelligent Design proponents. Because to admit even the possibility strips away their last withered figleaf and leaves them standing small and naked in the presence of a dread and awesome and holy God.
RHJunior: And that's why I keep prodding them, stirring them up. Because quite frankly noone on earth can repent who is complacent in his own self-righteousness.
RHJunior: Christians who acquiesce to evolutionists, who truckle to the Church of the Labcoat with theistic evolution, and the Gap Theory, and the Day-Age theory, and all the other nonsense used to explain away the Word of God, are cowards.
RHJunior: They're throwing these people a pacifier, because they're too weak-willed to deal with their squalling properly.
RHJunior: Baby doesn't WANT the medicine; give Baby a cookie instead! And fearful of a tantrum, they do just that. And Baby keeps right on dying of the disease inside them.
RHJunior: What good is a religion, a church, a faith that just tells people what they want to hear, and changes its story just to suit the whims of the moment?
RHJunior: The truth isn't a popularity contest. If anything has been demonstrated here, in fact, is that the fastest way to become wildly UNpopular is to stick to a painful and long-neglected Truth.
RHJunior: God doesn't reedit his Bible to pander to the critics. And neither will I.
It takes a profound distortion of logic to imagine that civilization, law, and morality could arise spontaneously from the anarchistic, selfish, and homicidal mosh-pit of a Darwinian cosmos.
I had to air this out, partially because I was so astonished to see this person end up this way... I really didn't see him being like this before. Also, I do want dialogue on the subject, and I'm not exactly willing to start spamming his blog to get into an argument, which seems more like a waste of time. Not to mention it feels like going out of my way to pick a fight.
For a more serious question, where did that quote mine at the beginning of this post come from, originally?