There is a relentless battle being waged in the 21st century for who can rightly claim the crown as the most outrageous abusers of reality for petty personal agenda – between the new breed of gender feminists and old school evangelical demagogues. And in fact, if you take god out of the equation there is bugger all difference in style, substance or methodology.
While the new kids on the block may have the element of surprise and roulette wheel style irrationality, they lose out by chasing trivia. On the other hand, seasoned dinosaurs like Fred Nile have no lack of either ambition or confidence in the selection of their targets. That’s why they still reign supreme. And you can see why, courtesy of Fred Nile’s latest contribution in our national newspapers –
Godless ethics led to Nazism: Nile
August 5, 2011 – 1:32PM
Conservative crossbench MP Fred Nile has introduced his private member’s bill to abolish school ethics classes, arguing the course is based on a philosophy linked to Nazism and communism. […]
“It’s relative ethics, which is the basis of secular humanism and I believe … this is the philosophy we saw during World War II with the Nazis and with the communists,” Mr Nile told the Legislative Council today.
“Situation ethics, as I see it, was followed by other regimes such as the Nazis and communists.
“Situation ethics means nothing is right and nothing is wrong … Therefore, you can kill human beings without any embarrassment and any reservations.
“It’s a very dangerous philosophy.” [full article]
It’s an oldie but a goodie, and there’s still enough of a mass of cretins that can read and digest it without so much as a “please explain your reasoning”. Forget the bogus twaddle that Hitler was an atheist. Forget the fact that there is no substantive difference between personality cults and most religions. None of that is relevant. This nonsense is not designed for the ordinary reader that has enough integrity to refuse to accept gibberish without substance. This has only one purpose to – reinforce and amplify the fears of the already stupid. As such, it doesn’t merit any effort at all to refute it. Instead, it is more useful to point Nile at real examples of modern day, homicidal fascism, like the current political climate in Uganda –
Homosexuals face death penalty
Aggravated homosexuality will be punished by death, according to a new bill tabled in Parliament yesterday.
The private member’s bill was tabled by Ndorwa West MP David Bahati (NRM).
A person commits aggravated homosexuality when the victim is a person with disability or below the age of 18, or when the offender is HIV-positive.
The bill thus equates aggravated homosexuality to aggravated defilement among people of different sexes, which also carries the death sentence.
The Bill, entitled the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, also states that anyone who commits the offence of homosexuality will be liable to life imprisonment.
This was already the case under the current Penal Code Act.
An agenda long pushed by US evangelicals, primarily by Exodus International, which is a creature spawned by the Assemblies of God, who are locally called Australian Christian Churches1, and who’s members, if they live in New South Wales, vote for the Christian Democratic Party, i.e. – you Fred.
So do you still want to talk about fascists Fred?
And a special thank you needs to go out the GetUp! – without who’s invaluable help via a spam sent out before the last NSW election to whip up irrational fears and totally confuse people about the upper house preference system, the Christian Democratic Party winning a second seat probably would not have been possible.
There is also a part 2 to Nile’s article for those that are gibberish gluttons. It has gems like this –
This course does not teach ethics as most parents understand the term. It does not teach children any definitive sense of right from wrong, but promotes the secular humanist relativist philosophy that there are no absolutes, such as ”You shall not murder, lie or steal”.
1 – Coincidentally, Australian Christian Churches are also one of the biggest supporters of Access Ministries.
August 6, 2011 at 12:10 am
Do you have any info on the actual curriculum he (Fred) is talking about? I’m inclined towards relativism, only because I don’t see the evidence for moral realism, but I’m unsure of whether such nuances are appropriate for high school classes. It seems like the kids would be better served with a comprehensive critical thinking class, instead of jumping into ethics.
” It does not teach children any definitive sense of right from wrong, but promotes the secular humanist relativist philosophy that there are no absolutes, such as ”You shall not murder, lie or steal”.”
That may be true (that there are no absolutes in the moral sphere), but that’s not to say there aren’t reasons to avoid such behavior. The denial of ultimate right and wrong doesn’t entail the denial of any compelling ethical obligations, and this is why I think a critical thinking class should come before any class on ethics!
August 6, 2011 at 12:28 am
Fred, as per usual, is catastrophising and speaking from a position of absolute ignorance. Here is an informational resource, including a brief video, on the subject –
http://www.ethics.org.au/content/ethics-based-complement-to-scripture
Concepts such as “relativism” and “absolutism” are somewhat beyond the scope of what can (or should) be taught to primary school kids to begin with. From this it is a leap of faith by Nile to imply murder and stealing are OK by the evil secularists that support the program. This is standard christian apologist deception – it is nonsense designed to confuse the unwary. The argument used in his article runs as follows –
* Hitler was an atheist (so folks like Nile falsely claim).
* Atheists are secularists.
* Ethics is a secular program.
* Therefore, parents that want ethics classes are Nazis.
* And they think murder is OK.
It is ridiculous sophist stage trick designed not to inform, but to instill fear.
There is even more info, and contact details for queries on the program, here – http://www.primaryethics.com.au/
August 6, 2011 at 1:50 am
First, no, not in Australia.
After watching the video, I want to withdraw my previous post. The man talking 5 minutes into the video outlines far more lucidly the point I was (badly) getting at. The difference between ethical inquiry and moral instruction spells all the difference, and I think the program is obviously a positive one. It seems the only reason to reject it is because certain people (Fred?) would prefer moral instruction over ethical inquiry.
The more I read from these apologists, the harder it is to fight my own presuppositions that they’re all cynically manipulating their listeners with the philosophy ‘the end justifies the means’. It brings to mind Robert Price’s opening speech in his debate with William Lane Craig, in which he points this out quite clearly (“They think they have the truth in their back pocket, so they can’t be searching for something they think they already have”).
Sam Harris once said that getting atheists to agree is like herding cats. I think that getting apologists to be openly honest about their knowledge and their intentions is probably harder.
Thanks for the post, regular reader since elevatorgate, and I’m more than impressed with your insight thus far.
Lee.
August 6, 2011 at 11:36 am
It is even simpler than that – it is the difference between cultivating a critical and a submissive intellect. Large numbers of the latter is what allows buffoons like Nile to have a public voice, so of course they want to advocate it in schools.
August 6, 2011 at 12:37 am
And just FYI Lee, noticed you’re not in Australia. “Primary” school here is I guess like junior grade school there, ages ~5 to 12.
August 7, 2011 at 12:19 pm
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