The Bible has been used to justify antisemitism for CENTURIES. It is only in later times that emphasis shifted to the scientific justification for antisemitism. The religious basis for antisemitism never completely went away.
it isn’t in the bible for sure
it is at least a very strong correlation between death on a scale and brutality never before seen in history and a scientific theory that proposes survival of the fittest is the engine of progress
I would agree with you, but some would say that it’s in the NT, where the Jews (mainly those of Jewish faith) are condemned for killing Jesus (it’s Jewish people who make these pronouncements, so it’s obviously not related to Jewish identity). However, Jesus’ own words, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” would seem to rule that out as a reason. In addition, most realize that in a way, we are all those who are responsible for Christ dying, in reality.
Thanks.
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Also Paul says Gentiles are grafted onto the Jewish tree. If the Jewish tree is condemned, then sucks for the Gentiles!
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Truish.
25:46 And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.
It is at least not the chattel slavery practiced in America, which is essentially a Darwinian view that Africans were a form of animal lower than Europeans, and could be thus treated like animals for breeding.
Additionally, the OT has a lot of admonitions to treat the foreigner well. And I believe there is the possibility for the foreigner to become a part of the Israelites, which for a foreign slave would be a path to freedom.
So, while on the surface American slavers could probably cherry pick OT verses to support their practice, a careful reading does not. Which is why slaves who learned to read the Bible rebelled, such as Nat Turner and Frederick Douglass, and why the slave owners outlawed reading.
On the other hand, no such cherry picking is necessary to use Darwinism to dehumanize others and support slavery. Darwinism is at least indifferent to slavery, if not supportive of it in terms of making all humans animals, and thus available to be treated like animals.
Well, evolution might be construed to be more likely to show that it’s appropriate to treat each other humanely, as that has shown better survival 
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So if slavery promotes survival, then evolution entails slavery?
Oh, also it is hard to have a religious justification for anti-semitism when your religion is founded by a fully observant Jew:
Matthew 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
I’m not going to follow there–I just wanted to point out that evolution is as likely to promote good care of your fellow man as not. History is littered with mistakes of double guessing on morality. The '60s thought that it was “natural” to have free “love”–turns out the Oneida experiment proved that wrong even earlier, and it makes perfect sense in biologics to have familial stability with a father, mother and child, unchanging unit with faithfulness from both parents. Thanks. I would not base my morality on conjecture there, either-what is that quote about scientists finally finding that theologians already figured out a lot of that on morality?
Great! I agree.
I’m pointing out evolution at best tells us nothing about what promotes survival, and at worst promotes immorality on the pretext of survival.
Plus, evolution itself is amoral, and does not even say that survival is itself desirable. All it claims, dubiously and ambiguously, is that whatever is fit will survive. Which also does not entail that what survives is fit, as that is the fallacy of affirming the consequent. An extremely common fallacy I see in the context of evolution theory.
I’ve gone far enough afield on this subject form the OP–sorry! I’ll either PM you or start a new thread. GKChesterton’s book “The Ball and the Cross” seems relevant, but I’ll post elsewhere. Thanks.
I disagree. I don’t actually think many of these genocidal dictators had the scientific theory of evolution in mind or shaping their values as they pursued their agendas any more than Christian leaders of Europe had biblical teaching in mind as they pursued their agendas. Nothing about WW1 trench warfare has to do with Darwin. The whole concept of Aryanism is not scientific and many of the most brilliant scientists in Germany and Russia were Jews who were persecuted and exiled by these dictators you claim were so sensitive to the science in the air. I’m not buying it any more than I buy the narrative that Christian belief is directly responsible for the brutality of the Crusades.
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I suppose that is why slavery did not exist before Darwin’s publishing his theory in 1859.
Interesting that as far as know, the year of Jubilee was never observed. Anyone with any evidence to the contrary? Of course, that tells you more about man than about God.
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Again, someone twisting something for evil purpose does not make that thing evil. Evolutionary Theory says absolutely nothing about one race being better than another. Evolutionary Theory says nothing about killing anyone being a good thing. It’s simply talking about change over time, with no purpose or superiority implied. You’re adding in any kind of evil intent. It’s just not there.
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I’m not sure about that. If one race is fitter than another, doesn’t that make it superior in evolutionary terms? That seems the implication of the title of Darwin’s book:
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
Note, ‘race’ in this context is another word for ‘varieties’ of animals in general, not specifically humans. But, it applies to humans as well, insofar as humans are also animals.
“Race” has no biological basis. It’s a social construct. There are no different species of humans, there is a single human race.
In the title of Darwin’s book, race was synonymous at the time with species. That is how the word is used in the context of the book.
Humans are a single species or “race” of animal. Darwin was not saying anything about some ancestry of human being superior to another ancestry of human.
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So which is more superior, an octopus or a cow? Evolution doesn’t tell us, does it? Even looking at “beneficial mutations” and “survival of the fittest”, it’s in reference to how that organism handles its current environment. A cow in the ocean wouldn’t do very well. An octopus in a field of grass wouldn’t do very well. Neither animal is superior to the other. The have different niches where they survive well.
And I’ll ditto Christy’s point that there is only one species of human. You have to twist words to get racism from evolutionary theory.
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The idea that humans came in different species predated Darwin, and he actually tried to oppose it with science. He probably did view Europeans as superior, like most Europeans of his time. But let’s not pretend that Darwin invented racism. Race as a societal construct developed in the sixteenth century to serve the interest of colonizing European powers in the New World.
(From a review of a 1991 biography)
During his vision-shaping voyage on the Beagle, he was able to consult an encyclopedia which arranged humankind into 15 separate species, each of a separate origin. (…)
For those who feel that there is more to science than nature, however, Adrian Desmond and James Moore offer a bold new account of what drove Darwin on. His opposition to slavery in principle is well known, as are his appalled reactions to the evidence of its brutality he encountered on his Beagle voyage, such as the use of thumbscrews to punish slaves, or the man who cowered at his harmless gesture, reflexively anticipating a blow. What’s new in Desmond and Moore’s interpretation is the idea that this humanitarian concern motivated Darwin’s science and guided it on its unique course. Evolutionary thinking enabled him to rescue the idea of human unity, taking it over from a religion that no longer provided it with adequate support, and put the idea of common descent on a rational foundation.
Darwin thus emphasised human unity and dwelt upon superficial differences, while acquiescing in the contemporary assumption that some races were superior to others. At the time that Josiah Wedgwood’s “A Man and a Brother” cameos were being fired in his kilns, three great principles were firing up on the other side of the Channel. Each was subsequently at stake in the interlinked questions of slavery and race. Liberty was the simplest. Darwin held to the conviction he grew up with, that human beings must not be bought, sold or owned. Fraternity was the principle that, in Desmond and Moore’s reading, he worked to establish by building a theory of common descent. But equality was a different matter. Equality so often is.
Creationists of various stripes have seized the opportunity to include racism in their indictments of Darwin. From their point of view, it is one more wicked consequence of teaching that people are animals. Considering the comfort slave-owners in the American South drew from scripture, a selective biblical quotation comes to mind: the one about beholding the mote in thy brother’s eye without perceiving the beam in thine own. On the other side, those who argue that some peoples are cleverer than others insist that theirs are scientific claims, to be judged by their content rather than their context, according to facts rather than values. Here modern idiom springs to mind: “Bring it on.”
Desmond and Moore observe that their Darwin is “a man more sympathetic than creationists find acceptable, more morally committed than scientists would allow”. Whether or not his sacred cause was what made him so special, their Darwin is a character that will speak eloquently to many people who have reached their middle years: somebody who strove to work the ideals of his youth into the fabric of a world that exalted some kinds of change, but had turned its face against others.
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His other book “The Descent of Man” is clearer on his views. For example, he has a chapter titled “On the Races of Man” where he discusses the debate whether the races of man are various species or the same species.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2300/2300-h/2300-h.htm#link2HCH0007
CHAPTER VII. — ON THE RACES OF MAN.
The nature and value of specific characters—Application to the races of man—Arguments in favour of, and opposed to, ranking the so-called races of man as distinct species—Sub-species—Monogenists and polygenists—Convergence of character—Numerous points of resemblance in body and mind between the most distinct races of man—The state of man when he first spread over the earth—Each race not descended from a single pair—The extinction of races—The formation of races—The effects of crossing—Slight influence of the direct action of the conditions of life—Slight or no influence of natural selection—Sexual selection.
Also, search for “lower races of man” to see how he thought about human evolutionary progress. E.g.
In the case of corporeal structures, it is the selection of the slightly better-endowed and the elimination of the slightly less well-endowed individuals, and not the preservation of strongly-marked and rare anomalies, that leads to the advancement of a species. (16. ‘Origin of Species’ (fifth edition, 1869), p. 104.) So it will be with the intellectual faculties, since the somewhat abler men in each grade of society succeed rather better than the less able, and consequently increase in number, if not otherwise prevented. When in any nation the standard of intellect and the number of intellectual men have increased, we may expect from the law of the deviation from an average, that prodigies of genius will, as shewn by Mr. Galton, appear somewhat more frequently than before.
or
A most important obstacle in civilised countries to an increase in the number of men of a superior class has been strongly insisted on by Mr. Greg and Mr. Galton (19. ‘Fraser’s Magazine,’ Sept. 1868, p. 353. ‘Macmillan’s Magazine,’ Aug. 1865, p. 318. The Rev. F.W. Farrar (‘Fraser’s Magazine,’ Aug. 1870, p. 264) takes a different view.), namely, the fact that the very poor and reckless, who are often degraded by vice, almost invariably marry early, whilst the careful and frugal, who are generally otherwise virtuous, marry late in life, so that they may be able to support themselves and their children in comfort.
It seems pretty clear that Darwin’s views are not too different than the racists and eugenicists of the past and today. I.e. he thinks there are distinct races, some are superior, superior races come about through superior breeding practice, and there is a threat to the superior races from the inferior races if they are not kept in check. Textbook racism as far as I can tell. It also seems pretty clear that he supports his views with his theory of evolution. It is unclear how his theory would eliminate support for his racism.