Damien and Darwin<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Daily Telegraph journalist Damien Thompson doesn't like Evangelical Christians' theory that Darwinism lead to Hitler's death camps. He thinks this is\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Damien and Darwin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Daily Telegraph journalist Damien Thompson doesn't like Evangelical Christians' theory that Darwinism lead to Hitler's death camps. He thinks this is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-09-12T21:38:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html\",\"name\":\"Damien and Darwin\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2007-09-12T21:38:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2007-09-12T21:38:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad\"},\"description\":\"Daily Telegraph journalist Damien Thompson doesn't like Evangelical Christians' theory that Darwinism lead to Hitler's death camps. He thinks this is\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Damien and Darwin\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/\",\"name\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad\",\"name\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/dwightlongenecker.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/author\/frdwight\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Damien and Darwin","description":"Daily Telegraph journalist Damien Thompson doesn't like Evangelical Christians' theory that Darwinism lead to Hitler's death camps. He thinks this is","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Damien and Darwin","og_description":"Daily Telegraph journalist Damien Thompson doesn't like Evangelical Christians' theory that Darwinism lead to Hitler's death camps. He thinks this is","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html","og_site_name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","article_published_time":"2007-09-12T21:38:00+00:00","author":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html","name":"Damien and Darwin","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-09-12T21:38:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-09-12T21:38:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad"},"description":"Daily Telegraph journalist Damien Thompson doesn't like Evangelical Christians' theory that Darwinism lead to Hitler's death camps. He thinks this is","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Damien and Darwin"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/","name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad","name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g","caption":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/dwightlongenecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/author\/frdwight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/557"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":2988,"date":"2007-09-12T21:38:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-12T21:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin\/"},"modified":"2007-09-12T21:38:00","modified_gmt":"2007-09-12T21:38:00","slug":"damien-and-darwin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/09\/damien-and-darwin.html","title":{"rendered":"Damien and Darwin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Daily Telegraph journalist Damien Thompson doesn\u2019t like Evangelical Christians\u2019 theory that Darwinism lead to Hitler\u2019s death camps. <\/a>He thinks this is another example of American religious right wing lunacy.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t dispute with Damien that there are some seriously nutty right wing Evangelical Christians in America, but I don\u2019t think this particular theory of theirs is that<\/span> far fetched. The link isn\u2019t a direct one, (Nietzsche actually criticized Darwin\u2019s scientific theories) but he accepted Darwin\u2019s basic cosmological views that there was no master designer behind nature, and surely the step from Darwinism\u2019s \u201csurvival of the fittest\u201d is only a short hop to Nietzsche\u2019s philosophy of the superman and the super race, which was an inspiration for Hitler.<\/p>\n

You have to ask the question, \u201cCould Hitler have done what he did without Nietzsche and could Nietzsche have written what he wrote without Darwin first preparing the ground?\u201d<\/p>\n

Things that are not connected in directly causal ways are often connected in the long view in more subtle ways. I once argued that the Protestant Reformation led not only to the Thirty Year\u2019s War, but also to the French and Russian Revolutions\u2026but that\u2019s another story.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"