Dawkins and Eugenics

This article can be found at: http://www.creationontheweb.org/content/view/4783

A leading high priest of evolution reveals its ugly side. by Carl Wieland 1 December 2006 Photo by: Matti Á Professor Richard Dawkins attacks Christians for ‘atrocities’, but seeks to revive aspects of Hitler’s thinking from which the West has resiled for decades. Fanatically antitheistic Darwinists like the prominent Professor Richard Dawkins of Oxford are busily convincing millions of people that everything made itself. Dawkins needs goo-to-you evolution as a crutch for his atheistic faith, often saying, ‘Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.’ From this, it follows that there can be no such thing as good or bad, no standard outside of human opinion. Dawkins is the author of the recent book ‘The God Delusion’, in which he blames belief in God for all manner of ‘bad things’ (even though his own philosophy says there can be no objective yardstick for calling something ‘bad’) [see our devastating review, Atheist with a Mission]. Those like Dawkins often raise the spectre of religious wars and other ‘fundamentalist atrocities’, implying that if only humanity were to grow up and face life without God, we would finally attain some peaceful utopia. It’s important to note that religion had nothing to do with the vast majority of wars, e.g. Hutu-Tutsi war in Rwanda, Falklands War, Vietnam and Korean Wars, WW2, WW1, Gran Chaco War in South America, Russo-Japanese War, Spanish-American War, Prussian-French War, Crimean War, US Civil War, Napoleonic wars, Wars of the Roses, Mongol wars, Gallic War, Punic wars, Peloponesian War, Assyrian wars … Such critics usually overlook the clear link between Hitler’s genocidal atrocities and the evolutionary (and definitely antibiblical) fervour that drove them, as well as his clear intent to exterminate Christianity. Not to mention the fact that the millions of people killed last century by anti-God régimes are so vast in number as to cause to pale into comparative insignificance the relative handful killed in things like Crusades, Inquisition, etc. (see also Christianity’s Real Record (off-site)). Also, as many others have pointed out, those who engage in atrocities are denying the Lord they claim to serve, whereas regimes like Pol Pot and Stalin exhibit not the slightest inconsistency with their underlying philosophies—the opposite, in fact. See Evolution and Social Evil. ‘I hate to agree with Hitler, but …’ Hitler’s ideas of a ‘master race’ were driven by Darwinian notions of favouring the strong over the weak, and humans as a biological commodity.  Today’s cutting-edge evolutionists are seeking to revive aspects of Nazi thought. Eugenics is the ‘science’ developed by Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton (see Eugenics … death of the defenceless). Based on the principles of controlled selection, it advocates the increase of desirable characteristics in a human population. Extreme applications of this principle, however, have resulted in forced sterilization and culling of the ‘less fit’. This philosophy was prominent and popular prior to WW2, and in the United States it led to the widespread practice of forcibly sterilizing ‘undesirables’. Many in the US even lauded the Nazi government’s public promotion of such principles as ‘progressive’. See: The Lies of Lynchburg, Eugenics in Vermont America’s evolutionists: Hitler’s inspiration? (review of War against the Weak by Edwin Black). Eugenic ideas fuelled the thinking of the Nazis, including their notorious ‘racial hygiene’ and ‘breeding superhumans’ program. It progressively led to worse atrocities, including the pre-war elimination of entire wards full of people who had serious chronic mental handicaps, for example. After the gruesome unveiling of the Nazi death camps following Allied liberation, eugenics and other forms of social Darwinism slunk shamefacedly into the shadows. (Although most modern evolutionists would seek to dissociate themselves from social Darwinism, claiming that it is a misapplication of Darwinian theory, Darwin was definitely a social Darwinist). Yet it is unsurprising that such principles are now under review, as selection of beneficial traits is logically consistent with evolution. Dawkins himself now says that certain ideas of eugenics may not be that bad after all. In a letter to the editor of the Sunday Herald (Scotland), Dawkins says that, while one would not want to be seen agreeing with Hitler, eugenics can be practical and desirable. He writes that, ‘if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?’1 Dawkins and other prominent evolutionists increasingly apply their strongly held worldviews to issues such as the genetic improvement of the human species which, they say, is a logical consequence of wanting to use genetic manipulation to cure diseases. (This is different from genetic repair of harmful mutations, because Christ’s healing example shows that ameliorating effects of the curse is a blessing—see for example: Reshaping people: Interview with plastic surgeon Dr David Pennington Hot Potatoes: Is there a ‘creationist view’ on genetically modified foods? Will scientists create new life forms—and what would it prove?) Breeding and culling humans Dawkins writes: I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler’s death, we might at least venture to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons. Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and high jumpers but not to breed them. I can think of some answers, and they are good ones, which would probably end up persuading me.’ His fellow evolutionist Dr Peter Singer, a bioethicist at Princeton University, would strongly agree. Singer is also a prominent promoter of euthanasia, including as a moral obligation in the case of certain elderly/disabled people (though not, incidentally, his own mother when she had Alzheimer’s). (Groups of the disabled picket his lectures in Germany, since this country knows what eugenics is like in practice). In addition, he regularly promotes the idea of infanticide, the right of parents to dispose of babies, particularly handicapped ones. He readily accepts that babies in the womb are human. Rather than this being a reason not to kill them, he argues in reverse. If it is OK to kill a baby in the womb (abortion) because it has not yet aspired to the full ‘rights’ of ‘personhood’, why cannot one give parents the right to decide, say for a few months of a newborn’s life, whether they want to ‘accept’ the child or dispose of it? The same is illustrated by a New Scientist report on an abortion task force:2 The task force finds that the new recombinant DNA technologies indisputably prove that the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine. But since New Scientist, as an evolutionary magazine, is basically anti-Christian, it added: The point at which life acquires personhood is not something biology can settle …3 As a consequence of this anti-life ethic advocated by Dawkins and Singer, some countries are already well embarked on the eugenic road, permitting genetic screening in IVF clinics, as well as pre-birth screening to permit undesirable traits to be weeded out by abortion. Note that in some countries, one common ‘undesirable trait’ is being female, which makes it bizarre that most of today’s feminists fanatically support abortion for any reason—see China Gender Imbalance Increases as Sex-Selection Abortions Continue. Rights for apes, wrongs for people On what basis, apart from the Bible, would you argue against giving a clever chimp the same ‘rights’ as a severely retarded human being? Another logical outcome of rejecting Genesis is that humans are no longer regarded as uniquely created in the image of God. This inevitably causes pressure in two directions: to demote and devalue humanity, and to promote and elevate the animal kingdom (well beyond its place in God’s created purpose—see The Greenness of God). So it is no coincidence that Singer is perhaps the world’s leading ‘animal rights’ activist, and Dawkins is a leader of the movement to have great apes be awarded the same legal rights as people. Such things may still seem bizarre and unnatural to the reader, but consider how much sense it makes to people steeped in evolutionism. No Creator, no infallible revelation, no rules. No God, no soul. On what basis, apart from the Bible, would you argue against giving a clever chimp the same ‘rights’ as a severely retarded human being? See also A ‘Bill of Rights’ for apes? Evolutionists becoming more vocal with atheism It seems that the Darwinian genie is out of the bottle, thanks in part to the failure of a unified stand against its foundational philosophy, and ‘pro’ Genesis history, by believers en masse.4 Evolution’s promoters are becoming ever bolder in dispensing with the disingenuous claims that evolution is not threatening to Christianity, into which far too many churchians have bought. We see this not only in their increasing frontal attacks on theistic religion (especially Christianity, and particularly, and hysterically, on creationism—or its slightest whiff à la ID)5 but in their social engineering visions. We Christians should have realized that the evolutionary claims of ‘neutrality’ towards Christianity could not last—see this section of The Hypocrisy of Intolerant ‘Tolerance’. Conclusion As generations continue to have all the facts of nature taught in a framework that assumes the truth of the broad evolutionary paradigm, and thus will always ‘reinforce’ it, we can expect society to get more ‘evolutionized’ continually, slowed by the lingering vestiges of the Christian heritage in the West. Now, more than ever, individual believers need to be spreading quality creation information to their friends and neighbours, including showing them the consequences of staying passive on this vital issue. References Cited in Hilary White, Anti-religion extremist Dawkins advocates eugenics: says Nazi regime’s genocidal project ‘may not be bad’, LifeSiteNews.com, 21 November 2006. Return to text Alison Motluk, Science, politics and morality collide, New Scientist 189(2543):8–9, 18 March 2006. Return to text Note that even if that were true that we don’t know when personhood begins, we should give it the benefit of the doubt. If you didn’t know whether a body was dead, you would not bury it; if you didn’t know that a condemned building was empty, you wouldn’t blow it up; if you didn’t know whether a movement in the bush was a deer or a man, you would be culpable of shooting in that direction. I.e. the benefit of the doubt must be given to life; the onus is on the pro-abortionists to prove that the unborn is not a person. Return to text Another one is an American Dawkins clone called Sam Harris, whose shrill attacks and sloppy understanding of the Bible and history are refuted in J.P. Holding, Letter to a Maladjusted Misotheist, November 2006. Return to text See for example the favorable article on a recent conference of antitheistic scientists in La Jolla, CA: Michael Brooks, In place of God: Can secular science ever oust religious belief—and should it even try? New Scientist 192(2578):8–11, 18 November 2006. Return to text

 

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Unborn is Baby Fully Human

The task force finds that the new recombinant DNA technologies indisputably prove that the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine.

 

Alison Motluk, Science, politics and morality collide, New Scientist 189(2543):8–9, 18 March 2006

 

http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/4783/#_ftn2

Teens: They’re Having Babies. Are We Helping?

By Patrick Welsh
Sunday, December 14, 2008; B01

 

The girls gather in small groups outside Alexandria’s T.C. Williams High School most mornings, standing with their babies on their hips, talking and giggling like sorority sisters. Sometimes their mothers drop the kids (and their kids) off with a carefree smile and a wave. As I watch the girls carry their children into the Tiny Titans day-care center in our new $100 million building, I can’t help wondering what Sister Mary Avelina, my 11th-grade English teacher, would have thought.

Okay, I’m an old guy from the 1950s, an era light-years from today. But even in these less censorious times, I’m amazed — and concerned — by the apparently nonchalant attitude both these girls and their mothers exhibit in front of teachers, administrators and hundreds of students each day. Last I heard, teen pregnancy is still a major concern in this country — teenage mothers are less likely to finish school and more likely to live in poverty; their children are more likely to have difficulties in school and with the law; and on and on.

But none of that seems to register with these young women. In fact, “some girls seem to be really into it,” says T.C. senior Mary Ball. “They are embracing their pregnancies.” Nor is the sight of a pregnant classmate much of a surprise to the students at T.C. anymore. “When I was in middle school, I’d be shocked to see a pregnant eighth-grader,” says Ball. “Now it seems so ordinary that we don’t even talk about it.”

Teenage pregnancy has been bright on American radar screens for the past year: TV teen starlet Jamie Lynn Spears‘s pregnancy caused a minor media storm last December. The pregnant-teen movie “Juno” won Oscar nods. And there was Bristol Palin, daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, bringing the issue front and center during the recent presidential campaign. But I’ve been observing the phenomenon up close for a couple of years now, and the picture I see is more troubling than any of those high-profile pregnancies make it seem.

The somber statistics about teen motherhood are the reason the day-care center, run by the local nonprofit Campagna Center, was opened in T.C. Williams two years ago. The idea is to keep the girls in school, let them get their diplomas and help them avoid the kind of fate described earlier. I’ve been a teacher for more than 30 years, and I want the best for my students and to help them succeed in every way possible. I know that these girls need support. But I can’t help thinking we’re going at this all wrong.

On the surface, Alexandria seems to be striving to stem teen pregnancy. Every high school student is required to take a “family life” course that teaches about birth control, sexually transmitted disease and teen pregnancy. The Adolescent Health Center, a clinic providing birth control, was built a few blocks from the school. The city-run Campaign on Adolescent Pregnancy sponsors workshops for parents and teens. But none of this coalesces to hit the teens with the message that getting pregnant is a disaster. And within the school, apart from the family life class, the attitude is laissez-faire, as if teachers and administrators are afraid to address the issue for fear of offending the students who have children.

Once a girl gets pregnant, though, the school leaps in to do everything for her. But I wonder: Is it possible that all this assistance — with little or no comment about the kids’ actions — has the unintended effect of actually encouraging them to get pregnant? Are we making it easier for girls to make a bad choice and helping them avoid the truth about the consequences?

And for many, it does seem to be a choice. “There’s a myth that these pregnancies are accidental,” says school nurse Nancy Runton. “But many of them aren’t. I’ve known girls who’ve made ‘I’ll get pregnant if you get pregnant’ pacts. It’s a status thing. These girls go around school telling each other how beautiful they look pregnant, how cute their tummies look.”

Pregnancy pacts, too, were in the news earlier this year when a group of girls in a Massachusetts high school reportedly made one (though some denied it). But that’s only one way the situation at T.C. reflects what’s happening across the country. The birth rate among teens, after falling 36 percent since 1990, went up 3 percent in 2006, the first increase in 15 years. And most of the rise is due to pregnancies among Hispanic girls.

Lots of white teens nationally have babies, but that’s not really the case at T.C. Teen motherhood here is mostly a class issue — and given Alexandria’s demographics, that means the teen mothers are virtually all lower-income blacks and Hispanics with few financial or other resources. Moreover, the number of Hispanic girls with babies is double the number of black girls, which also reflects a national trend. According to Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, Hispanics now have the highest rate of teen pregnancy and births of any racial or ethnic group in the country.

In our school of 2,211 students, we now have at least 70 girls who are soon-to-be or already mothers. Many T.C. teachers and administrators have decidedly mixed emotions about the situation. Social worker Terri Wright says that for many girls, getting pregnant before they turn 18 is a rite of passage. “They don’t wear sweatshirts or baggy dresses to conceal their pregnancies,” says Wright. “I get invitations to baby showers. Girls bring me pictures of their kids dressed up like little dolls.”

“There is zero shame,” agrees school nurse Runton. One girl walked into a colleague’s class last month, announced that she was pregnant and began showing her sonogram around. Another 16-year-old proudly proclaimed that she was “going on maternity leave.” The teacher tried to explain that maternity leave is a job benefit that doesn’t apply to high school students.

“I don’t personally accept it, but once a girl is pregnant, I have to be all open arms,” Wright says.

The pregnant teens’ classmates don’t necessarily applaud the phenomenon, either. “These girls having babies are living in a dream world,” says Lauren Heming, a senior in my AP English class. “They think that because the school is giving them all this help now, things will be easy for them when they graduate.”

Kayla Tall, another senior, sees lots of girls as under “great pressure to grow up fast by having sex.” And, she says, “A lot of girls think that if they have the baby, they can keep hanging on to the boyfriend. In fact, these guys are little boys who have used the girls to prove themselves to each other.”

I’d be less than honest if I didn’t admit that I’m torn about T.C’s teen moms and the Tiny Titans center. As upset as I get at the recklessness I see in some of the girls and their boyfriends, I can’t begrudge someone like Cynthia Quinteros the help she needs to raise her one-year-old son. “If it wasn’t for the day-care center, I would have to quit school to take care of Angel,” says the 16-year-old. “My mother is a single mom, and my brother is 11. My mom has to work.”

Cynthia’s days are grueling. She gets up at 6 a.m., feeds and dresses Angel and is at school by 7:50. She drops Angel off at the center, eats breakfast in the cafeteria and heads for class. Her mom picks her and the baby up at 3:15 p.m. At home, Cynthia eats, plays with Angel, starts homework and then leaves at 4:50 for her supermarket cashier’s job. She gets home at 10:10, does a little homework and goes to bed.

Cynthia says that lots of her friends actively tried to get pregnant, but she didn’t. Like many girls she knows, she was getting a shot of the contraceptive DMPA/Depo-Provera every three months at the teen health clinic starting when she was 13. (Which evokes further conflicting emotions on my part and surely must do the same to health-care providers called upon to provide birth-control shots to 13-year-old girls.)

Cynthia would tell her mom that she had to stay after school and then go to the clinic, but when her mother insisted that she come home right away, she missed her shots and got pregnant at 15 by an 18-year-old guy. She says that all her friends who have babies wish they had waited. “They’ve learned the hard way,” she says. “None of them want to have another baby now. Most of them are getting their Depo shots regularly.”

Angel’s father isn’t involved with the baby, but not all the guys who father children by teenage girls are AWOL. Every morning, 19-year-old Gustavo Martinez drives 16-year-old Karla Becerra to school and carries their 3-month-old son into day care before going to work for a local contractor. He’s at school by 4 every day to pick them up. “My father was never around, and I don’t want to have that happen to my son,” Gustavo told me. He says he’s saving money so that he and Karla can have their own place and get married.

But they are very much the exception. The fact is, says Robert Wolverton, medical director of the teen health clinic, most of these girls and their families see no problem with being unmarried and having a child at 16 or 17.

According to the Virginia Department of Health, there were 204 pregnancies among Alexandria teens in 2006, resulting in 102 births and 99 abortions. Pregnancy rates among Latinas were the highest of any group.

The Tiny Titans center is at maximum capacity and has a long waiting list. It currently cares for eight babies ranging from 6 weeks to 24 months, eight toddlers from 24 months to 36 months and 18 children from 3 to 5 years of age.

Most of the mothers are in free and reduced school-lunch programs, and few have insurance. So when they get pregnant, a whole tax-supported industry kicks into action: The Health Department assigns a nurse to the girl, a group called Resource Mothers is notified to pick girls up at school or home and drive them to doctor’s appointments, and the Campagna Center plans day care for the child. The school dietitian plans nutritious meals for the mothers. The federally funded WIC program provides free formula, milk, cheese, peanut butter and the like to the teens and their babies. In Virginia, girls from 13 on up are eligible for free reproductive services — prenatal care, hospital visits and delivery.

According to a study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, teen childbearing nationwide cost taxpayers $9.1 billion in 2004. Teens 17 and under — the ages of most of the girls at T.C. — account for $8.6 billion of that total, or an average of $4,080 per teen mother annually.

School social worker David Wynne states the obvious: “Whatever we’re doing, it’s not working.” It’s hard to say whether other school districts do any better than Alexandria at discouraging teen pregnancy. According to Brown, school sex-ed programs nationwide are a patchwork that includes everything from required HIV/AIDS education to using students as peer counselors to abstinence-only programs. No one really knows what’s working where. But at T.C., I know that almost every adult involved in helping our girls seems to be at a loss, especially in the face of the rising birth rate among Hispanics.

Cynthia Quinteros, however, has a theory. “I feel that the community is afraid to talk about all the girls who are getting pregnant,” she says. “Once you get pregnant, they do everything for you, but they ought to be doing all they can do to show girls how difficult their lives will be if they have a baby. I love Angel, but if I didn’t have him I wouldn’t have to work after school, I could study more, I could be a normal teenager.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

 

patrwelsh@gmail.com

 

 

Patrick Welsh teaches English at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria.

Prophetic Corner – by Jehu

From http://gideon300.blogspot.com/

Woe to you liberals and socialists you love the honor of men and make the law a heavy burden on others while you exempt yourself from those laws.

Woe to you liberals and socialists you proclaim your compassion yet all your websites are places of intolerance and hatred. Your schools are re-education camps of politically correct intolerance and cesspools of moral relativity.

Woe to you professors and teachers you proclaim free speech as your highest precept yet you ridicule and persecute any that do not agree with your utopian ideals, hypocrits and liars!

Woe to you feminists and progressives, you kill the unborn yet mourn the murderer with candlelight vigils for rapists and murderers.

Woe to you secular humanists, even though history damns all your ideas with the graves of millions you persist in creating new utopian hells, convinced you are the generation that will finally pull this off. You witness against yourself in that your spiritual fathers failed, you even admit they have failed, yet you think you are greater than your fathers?

Woe to you Hollywood produces and whores who lecture to others about right and wrong when you cannot be faithful to your own mates, nor raise your own children, instead they are fodder to every whim, drug and sexual perversion.

Woe to you Democrat leaders who pretend you care for minorities, especially black Americans, but since you have touched them they have no fathers, their bastard sons die by each other’s hand by the thousands in the ghettos you have ruled for decades. Your sons and daughters therefore have become tattooed whores and pimps, they very thing you have created among black Americans…you deserve the cup you are drinking.

Woe to you who proclaim children and the lone women are yours in care and concern, yet their fate becomes worse each generation you rule. Your teachings have driven the men from the families and placed an intolerable burden upon the women. Why does your vaunted compassion become bondage and slavery for others?

Woe to black Americans that thoughtlessly vote for the very same people that have enslaved them for 50 years, woe to black (and all) men that father children and walk away from them like rutting dogs or thoughtless animals. Your hatred for your women is noted in song and deed. You will answer to the father above for your deeds, and for the murder of your sons.

Woe to the narcissistic thoughtless youth of America who care nothing for others, whose only goal in life is to party and live a riotous life, while billions suffer starvation, deprivation, and tyranny the world over…your judgment is coming and well deserved.

Woe to you that demean freedom and argue about YOUR exacting and pharisiac reasons for war, yet you care nothing for the freedom of others, even when you are not the ones fighting for that freedom, you hate those that do. Since you hate freedom for others…yours will be taken from you.