Re: Nancy Pearcey explains her comments about Stalin

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Davis" <tdavis@messiah.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 8:59 PM
Subject: Nancy Pearcey explains her comments about Stalin

Nancy Pearcey asked me to send the following message to this list on her
behalf,

ted
****

To All:

James Mahaffy was kind enough to let me know about the discussion going on
about my book Total Truth. I have enormous respect for the people on this
list, and am honored by your attention to the book. However, it seems that
few, if any, have actually read it. So I have embedded the relevant passage
below. It is a brief quotation from a book on Stalin that, as you will see,
I first read in a (secular) biography for young adults; later I tracked down
the original source. Don Nield has drawn attention to scholarly biographers
who question whether the story is more hagiography than history (thank you,
Don). However, there is also the fact that the author was writing while
Stalin was still alive and could easily have suppressed the book (and the
author!). Back then, a bullet in the back of the head was the ultimate a
negative review, so to speak. So Stalin himself clearly did not object to
the characterization.
..............................

The last 2 sentences quite miss the point. Yaroslavsky was writing an
adulatory bio of Stalin - as Bob S. put it, hagiography. He was an ally of
Stalin (google yaroslavsky + stalin) & of course Stalin approved what he
wrote. That isn't the question. But the fact that Stalin approved it
hardly proves that it was true! For admirers of Stalin (of which there were
plenty when the book was written, & not just in the USSR) such a story would
have enhanced (a) Stalin's intellectual precocity & independence & (b) the
scientific character of Stalinism.

But the main point is still, "Why Stalin?" Of course there have been people
who have been influenced toward materialism & atheism by reading Darwin (or
more likely, about Darwin). Who doubts it? But Pearcey didn't cite Joe
Schmoe or Susie Straw, she chose someone who purportedly read Darwin &
became a mass murderer. Guess why.

"His atheism, when applied consistently, had negative social consequences."
What does this mean? That if you're a consistent Darwinian you'll act like
Stalin? It sure sounds like that.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Fri Jul 29 21:58:25 2005