From today’s Chronicle Telegram‘s opinion page and Elyria resident Bill Hine:

Darwinism is the dominant worldview, despite its scant scientific support. It is the soil from which Nazism and communism sprouted, also the nihilism that shows itself today in senseless mass murders.

If Darwinism is true, there is no God and no judgment after death. Traditional morality is a polite fiction, and there really isn’t any right and wrong. Our young people unconsciously absorb this philosophy and instinctively follow it to its logical conclusion.

Trying to address this modern problem with gun control is merely treating symptoms, not getting at the root problem. What we should do is proclaim the gospel of Christ, which leads to new life and fills the emptiness in human hearts, both our own and our hearers.

We should do that even if Christian teaching is not true (but it is). Would a man decide to “go out in a burst of glory” and take his enemies with him if he knew he would face judgment from God immediately after death?

“It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.”

Some commandments might have come in handy in Newtown, Conn., the other day, such as “Thou shalt not kill” and “Honor thy father and mother.”

To recap, Mr. Hine thinks the school shooting simply wouldn’t have happened if those damned kids just went to church more, and he blames science and critical thinking.  He proves Godwin’s Law in the second sentence of the letter and adds in some Red Scare for good measure.  This letter is a prime example of the use of fear within religion to help in its own perpetuation (or, one might say, perpetration) upon future generations.  Let’s break it down and see a few examples:

Darwinism is the dominant worldview, despite its scant scientific support.

Scant scientific support indeed.  It shouldn’t need to be repeated again that evolution has been widely studied by the scientific community and literal terabytes of evidence exist to prove the theory.  The fact that we’re even having this conversation still in 2012 is proof that religion has stunted the intelligence of its followers.  This conversation should not still be happening.

Instead, we should be committed to finding out further information about the process of natural selection and evolutionary changes; why they happen, when they happen, which observable changes have been documented, and what prevents some potentially helpful evolutionary changes from taking place.

Or, at the very least, we should be telling the creationists that they need more proof than pointing at a book of collected fables if they’re going to call out our massive records of evidence as “scant.”

It is the soil from which Nazism and communism sprouted, also the nihilism that shows itself today in senseless mass murders.

First, equating Nazism and communism with nihilism demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of all three things.  Hitler, as a well-known and active Christian, stood against both communism and nihilism, as well as secularism.  From the man himself:

“For eight months we have been waging a heroic battle against the Communist threat to our Volk, the decomposition of our culture, the subversion of our art, and the poisoning of our public morality. We have put an end to denial of God and abuse of religion.”

Second, communism has literally nothing to do with scientific evolution.  This is just a buzzword thrown in because the reader probably heard it on Fox News enough to think it was the right thing to say.  The works of Marx didn’t cover biology and rarely spoke deeply of religion.  The thought that a classless society is brought about by a belief in biological evolution rings hollow.

Finally, nihilism?  Really?  Extreme skepticism of the existence of anything is caused by deeply held scientific views?  Again, the author knows not of which he speaks.

If Darwinism is true, there is no God and no judgment after death.

Actually, belief in God and evolution at the same time is very common.

Traditional morality is a polite fiction, and there really isn’t any right and wrong. Our young people unconsciously absorb this philosophy and instinctively follow it to its logical conclusion.

The logical conclusion of not believing in God is… shooting six year olds in the head at an elementary school?  The argument here is that without the cult, the individual has no reason to simply be a good person, so everyone should be either forced into the cult, or shunned by the cult.  This is brainwashing behavior and it has no place in a rational society.

You know what makes me not go out and kill people every day?  Not wanting to contribute to the suffering of others, and not wanting to be killed myself.  You know what makes me not steal, or rape, or vandalize, or lie to my partner?  The same as above; I have compassion toward others and I understand the concept of a social contract between myself and others.  I do not need the threat of some cartoonish monster with red horns poking me with a pitchfork to do the right thing… most humans develop that common sense naturally.

What scares me most, though, is when Christians such as the author suggest that the only thing keeping them from harming others is the threat of their punishment after death.  Here’s hoping these folks never stop believing in their God or there could be horrible consequences.

What we should do is proclaim the gospel of Christ, which leads to new life and fills the emptiness in human hearts, both our own and our hearers.

My heart is not empty.  I have friends, family, a loving partner, my health, and my activism on behalf of the less fortunate to fill that void.  It’s not our hearts we need to be focusing on in the wake of Newtown; it’s our brains.  Regardless of our religious beliefs, untreated mental health issues are often precursors of tragedies such as the one in Connecticut, and so instead of shunning science, perhaps the author should be welcoming the opportunity for our nation’s brightest to come together and study the evolution of the human mind and what can be done to sound an early warning when someone needs help instead of simply talking to ourselves in pews and thinking a ghost in the sky will magically solve our problems for us.  It’s called personal responsibility, and our nation could use a dose of it right now as we come to grips with yet another preventable tragedy.

Some commandments might have come in handy in Newtown, Conn., the other day, such as “Thou shalt not kill” and “Honor thy father and mother.”

My guess is that, if the shooter didn’t already know that these were bad ideas, no cooking oil on his forehead or tithe taken from his wallet would have helped him understand.  If we want to prevent tragedies such as this from happening again and again, we need to stop relying on superstition and do something real, here and now.

What do I suggest?  I say we ask the scientists.