RoR: Forum

Well done by both in the interview. Thanks for the link.

Post 1

Sunday, September 13, 2009 - 11:42am

The pastor at the beginning of the video, the guy blaming Darwin (of all things!) for the erosion of liberty in America is just incredibly sad to me. Blaming science is just the saddest kind of ignorance I can think of. It's so pathetic. Scholars like Brook terrify these people, even though his voice is exactly what they need to maintain the liberties necessary to practice their silly religions!

Thankfully, Beck understands this.

Post 2

Sunday, September 13, 2009 - 1:57pm

You can see Yaron Brook speaking at the event about 6:45 into this video.

Post 3

Sunday, September 13, 2009 - 2:18pm

The pastor is blaming "Darwinism" by which he means Social Darwinism, the idea that dog eat dog competition is the driving force of society. Social Darwinism has been used to justify both capitalism and socialism. Wikipedia:

As Social Darwinism has many definitions, it is hard for some to be either for or against it; some of the definitions oppose the others. John Halliday & Iain McLean state that "Part of the difficulty in establishing sensible and consistent usage is that commitment to the biology of natural selection and to �survival of the fittest� entailed nothing uniform either for sociological method or for political doctrine. A �social Darwinist� could just as well be a defender of laissez-faire as a defender of state socialism, just as much an imperialist as a domestic eugenist."

Social Darwinism was mostly used to justify such things as promoting contraception, eugenics and euthanasia. Social Darwinism is largely out of fashion, and the pastor's attacking it is largely an attack on a straw man. It sounds more like he is repeating what have sounded like convincing arguments to him than as if he could actually explain these notions himself.

Of course Objectivism simply rejects the dog eat dog view of societal relations.

Post 4

Sunday, September 13, 2009 - 4:57pm

"They [he is referring to the 'secular left'] will replace our Judeo-Christian heritage with a socialistic doctrine, an atheistic doctrine that is founded in a Darwinistic frame that does not consider the Divine."

He goes on to say that he thinks there is "an elite who are Darwinistic in their frame, trying to prescibe a solution that does not condsider God's evaluation as to who we are. We as Christians believe that we are made in the image of God. Theologians call it the Imago Dei."

He appears to be taking the position that man has an inherent value because he was made in God's image - and the position of human rights being inalienable because they given to man by the creator. He seems to take these defenses in opposition to a view of man as evolved from the monkey - and therefore, in his view, having no rights. He is holding forth his concepts of Divine rights versus secular evolution, as a defense againt social darwinism in the form of government sponsored euthanasia and abortion, whose defenders he sees as pretending man has no inalienable rights because we just came from monkeys. I'm not sure the pastor is real clear on Darwinism - social or biological.

Post 5

Sunday, September 13, 2009 - 4:59pm

Oh, I so don't think the good pastor has ever heard of Social Darwinism, but I agree that's probably what he's repeating, without having a clue what he's actually talking about.

Being so uninformed is still sad and pathetic.

Post 6

Sunday, September 13, 2009 - 5:29pm

The 'dog eat dog' notion is posited from the zero-sum mindset of worldview, not from the sum-plus worldview - whereas capitalism came from the sum-plus worldview via first barter: the trader syndrome, not via the taking syndrome: the one of taking, of theft, where one's gain is another's loss [but which became the dominant social construct worldwide for the longest of time]...

Post 7

Sunday, September 13, 2009 - 6:46pm