HOW DID DARWIN AFFECT NAZI THINKING, AND HOW WILL EVOLUTION IMPACT TODAY’S MORALITY?

The SS representative at the “Final Solution” meeting (Wannsee Conference, 1942) was General Reinhard Heydrich, one of Himmler's top deputies.  Although genocide was already underway in the occupied portions of the Soviet Union and in Serbia, Nazi officials discussed the need for a more comprehensive program to exterminate European Jews. From the article published by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum:

·       Heydrich announced that "during the course of the Final Solution, the Jews will be deployed under appropriate supervision at a suitable form of labor deployment in the East. In large labor columns, separated by gender, able-bodied Jews will be brought to those regions to build roads, whereby a large number will doubtlessly be lost through natural reduction. Any final remnant that survives will doubtless consist of the elements most capable of resistance. They must be dealt with appropriately, since, representing the FRUIT OF NATURAL SELECTION. 

It is inevitable that evolution devalues humanity, a mere animal, albeit talented, and will continue to do so. We kill and eat animals. Why make any exception for humanity!

In contrast, the biblical revelation sets humanity apart from the animal kingdom as God’s special creation, each created in his image, not just those esteemed more highly by society.

Consequently, our Declaration of Independence asserted that we are all endowed with certain unalienable rights, something evolution is not capable of endowing.

Proof of God’s Existence Based on Human Exceptionalism

If we want to affirm the human values, rights, dignity, and equality that we in the West so esteem, we must also affirm the existence of God. Consequently, if we reject God, we also reject these values. Here’s why:

1. Each human has dignity, equality, and unalienable value.

2. Without God, there can be no human dignity, equality, or unalienable value.

3. God exists. 

Premise #1:  This is a premise almost universally accepted in the West. We believe that all should have equal protections under the law, despite the surpassing wealth and influence of some. The Bill of Rights had been based upon this assumption of equality. Our Declaration of Independence provided this assumption - that all are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights.  We also intuitively believe that humans deserve to be treated with respect and accorded rights consistent with our humanity. The denial of these truths leads to regarding and treating our fellow humans as animals.

Premise #2:  This Declaration emphasized the fact that these unalienable rights find their basis in a God who had created humanity to be like Him. Therefore, are value is somewhat commensurate with God’s, and we must treat each other accordingly!  Instead, if government granted our unalienable rights, government could easily terminate them.

Our human dignity is based upon the fact that we are god-like even if we have corrupted ourselves. We therefore have an obligation to treat our fellow humans with dignity, even if they have acted in undignified ways. Consistent with this, psychotherapeutic practice requires that we treat the clients with unconditional-positive-regard, as if they possess an unalienable dignity. If they don't, they will lose their client, since they too have an intuition that they must be treated with dignity.

Pragmatic concerns alone cannot suffice to retain these concepts of dignity and equality:

• When we regard our fellow humans materially (rather than god-like), we cannot perceive any equality or even dignity. Instead, we observe differences - that some are better, nicer, more educated, and contribute to our welfare. Meanwhile, others present society with a high cost. Therefore, from a materialistic point of view, there can be no equality. Instead, some deserve respect and others do not.

• It is not enough to treat others with respect and equality for merely pragmatic reasons. It will make us schizoid. Imagine the therapist who knows he must treat his client with dignity, while he doesn’t believe that client has any dignity. It would therefore be nothing less than manipulative and hypocritical to treat him with respect.

• Human history provides overwhelming testimony that pragmatism alone will not create the better society. Instead, self-interest will reign.

Besides, if we are just another member of the animal kingdom, albeit advanced, any belief in human exceptionalism will eventually erode. Can we raid our neighbors frig at will as we pluck an apple from a tree or extract milk from a cow? Of course not! Should eating other life forms – lettuce and radishes - be criminalized? If so, it would lead to the death of humanity. Must we maintain human exceptionalism? If not, we cannot maintain humanity.

There is only one way to preserve the dignity, equality and unalienable value of all humanity - by recognizing that we are the special creation and the children of God! If human exceptionalism exists, so too must God!

P.Z. Myers, Human Life, and Bodily Fluids

Where our thinking goes – especially our thinking about who we are as humans - so too will go society.

• Last week the Telegraph reported that the remains of over 15,000 aborted babies have been incinerated as clinical waste over the past two years in the UK, with some of them having been used in “waste-to-energy” plants that produce power for heat:

In response to this news, evolutionist P.Z. Myers wrote:

• I’m not in the least disturbed by the fact that patients were not consulted on how their dead fetus was disposed. When you go in for an operation, are you concerned about what is done with the bloody towels afterwards, or how your appendix or tonsils or excised cyst are treated? Did you think there was some special room deep in the bowels of the institution where they were reverently interred, attended by a weeping chaplain who said a few kind words over your precious bodily fluids? Nope. They’re sealed up in a bag, dealt with according to appropriate protocols for medical waste, and incinerated. Get over it.

Myers refuses to acknowledge that there is a profound distinction between human life and body tissue, and this confusion will inevitably lead to profound moral and legal changes. It already has.

If there is nothing sacred about the pre-born, then there is nothing sacred about the post-born. As a result, certain lives are now considered expendable – the elderly, the mentally or physically impaired, and other social undesirables, mere “bodily fluids.” After all, if the pre-born are mere “bodily fluids,” why should these others be anything more than that!

And do not think that this slow erosion of human dignity will stop at voluntary euthanasia. If the elderly are nothing more than a sack of bodily fluids, how long will this society justify designating valuable resources for their care? Not long!

We are entering into a fearful new world in which our value is socially – not divinely – constructed, resting upon the whim or good favor of the social moment to determine our value. This value might rest upon some consideration of our intelligence, productivity, sexual vitality or even our party affiliation.

However, value can no longer rest upon the notion that we are all created in the image of God and consequently possess certain unalienable rights. Instead, secular materialism will find that it cannot sustain such a notion of equality. Why not? Materialism cannot provide a basis for equality. From a physical point of view, we are not equal. Some are educated and productive; others are not. Some are healthy and strong; others are not. Some are regarded as a credit to society; others are seen as an unwanted cost. What then becomes of our notion of “equal rights” if there is no true equality? Why should they remain equal? Perhaps those deemed with greater value should have more rights?

We may superficially affirm equality or something akin to “unconditional positive regard” (UPR), but it will become no more than a manipulative and disingenuous tool without the necessary rational and divine underpinning. The psychologist might continue to treat her client with UPR, but as a product of her society, she will increasingly see UPR as an insincere attempt at psychological manipulation. Eventually, cynicism will eat away at its core.

If human life is no more than bodily tissue, then it is just a matter of time until our morals and laws reflect this belief. Our hospital incinerators are just the beginning.