Thursday, April 4, 2013

Abortion Isn't Eugenics

I recently had a pretty annoying conversation on twitter (surprise surprise). It started with @bidenshairplugs who wrote to #atheism saying that if you are really an atheist it isn't rational to waste time arguing about it. I said that even though God isn't real belief in him causes real harm. Then @Jennyruskie decided to jump into the conversation to say that not believing in God causes worse harms and cites eugenics as evidence. I pretty much face palmed at this point, my guess actually is that she heard someone associating the Nazis with both atheism and eugenics and made the connection, of course we all know that this is ridiculous as hitler was most certainly not atheist. Anyway, I decided to simply point out that basically no one is in favor of eugenics. So she hits me with this gem.
I must say I was pretty shocked at how terrible this reply was. First of all, lets start with the fact that atheists are not getting all of the abortions. I don't have any statistics at my fingertips, but I'd be willing to bet that abortion rates are fairly constant across religious lines. But more importantly, abortion and eugenics are not the same thing. Granted, a eugenics program could include forced abortions, but those are clearly not the abortions that we are talking about here.

So what does eugenics mean? It's basically the manipulation of the gene pool in an attempt to make a better human. Usually it involves not allowing a perceived lesser group of people to breed, this could mean sterilization, forced birth control, or forced abortion. These are the kinds of actions taken by a madman trying to create a master race, not a scared teenager who doesn't want to screw up her life by having a kid that she isn't prepared to take care of. Forced is the operative word here.

pic from wikipedia
Equating eugenics and abortion is ridiculous, and connecting them to atheism shows just how dishonest these people are. But what really bothers me here is that I'm sure @Jennyruskie didn't just come up with this argument on her own, someone out there must be promoting this faulty logic. I guess when you have no logically sound argument you have to just make crap up about the other side.

13 comments:

  1. First of all, all indications are that Hitler was a Christian, but a bit obsessed with ancient Norse gods.

    Second, I have ran across fundies that think that since regimes like the Soviet Union were "atheist", that it's OK to associate atheism with such atrocities.

    My feeling is that old style communism practically made government and support for it a religion. Look at North Korea today, and how Kim Jong Il and his father are well.... worshiped.

    That's not atheism, I don't know what you could call it...

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    1. Totally agree. I would definitely call what is going on in north korea religion, they are certainly worshiping their leader as you would worship a god.

      And even if they were right, pointing out that someone is an atheist and they do horrible things doesn't necessarily connect the 2 things. We are all complex creatures. To really make their point they would have to find a causal connection between being an atheist and doing those things, which of course they can not do.

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    2. Yes, Hitler was absolutely a Christian, he stated so directly. The fact that he also held other beliefs no more disproves his Christianity than the fact that Ronald Reagan believed in psychics disproved his Christianity. The Catholic Church also supported and defended the Nazi regime, except for the time when it was too hot to openly help them, but they still came back after the war and smuggled Nazi war criminals out of Germany and away from prosecution under Catholic Red Cross Visas.

      Secondly, it isn't the label that you hold that matters, it's what you attribute your actions to that counts. Hitler specifically stated that he was killing the Jews because he thought God told him to. On the other hand, there isn't any record that Mao or Stalin ever said that their atheism caused them to perform mass murders, in fact, they do say why they did it and it had nothing to do with atheism.

      Third, where does this person get the crazy idea that Christians don't support abortions? It sure isn't only the atheists that are getting them.

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    3. "Hitler specifically stated that he was killing the Jews because he thought God told him to"

      do you have a source for that? I'd love to be able to reference this later

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    4. German POW's who picked cotton on my grandparent's farm told them Hitler was killing the Jews primarily because they had dark skin and hair and he was trying to "perfect" the human race by designing all humanity to eventually have blond hair and blue eyes...his idea of a "master race."

      I was seven years old at the time my grandma interpreted that for me and it scared the crap out of me because I had dark hair and so did my whole family. I never forgot that summer of 1944...but later, after I saw pictures of Hitler, I realized he had dark hair also and I never could figure out if those POW's told Grandma the truth. They seemed quite nice and friendly.

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    5. Anna, I never really thought of that. I've always heard that he wanted to create the "blond hair, blue eye master race". Never thought of the fact that he has dark hair.

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    6. I lived with my grandparents during 1944/45 and Grandma spoke both German and Polish fluently. She served the POW's crock style sauerkraut and Polish sausage on her back porch for lunch, and they really appreciated that. I would peel their oranges for them and they would smile and pat my head, so I really thought they were honest with her.

      Makes you wonder what there was in Hitler's Catholic background that made him think blond hair and blue eyes would make the "perfect" race and God would forgive him for slaying so many who didn't "qualify".

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  2. Couldn't respond directly, but in Mein Kampf, Hitler says:

    "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

    He also made a speech in 1922 in which he said:

    "My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter."

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    1. Thanks Cephus,

      I think I'm going to dig into that and make a post about it later. Mostly so I have a good reference to cite later when this crap invariably comes up again.

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  3. Its amazing how religious people can get words that have no meaning to mean the same thing. Abortion and Eugenics must be the best attempt at creating a synonym I have ever seen though. Keep up the good work.

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    1. I think they are just used to having a captive audience where they can get away with saying pretty much anything. The problem of course comes when they take those same arguments to outsiders.

      thanks for stopping by Christian :)

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  4. Oh, the anti-abortion voices try to connect abortion to eugenics all the time. If you want to see them in rare form, just bring up race and abortion.

    It's all nonsense, of course, but the anti-abortion movement was never known for being rational anyway.

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    1. It's too bad people don't learn what words really mean. If I were anti-abortion and I realized that people on my side were incorrectly comparing it to eugenics it would make me pause and reevaluate. If they are full of crap about that, what else is nonsense. Unfortunately most people don't seem to think that way

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