History
stcynic | April 24, 2006Jon Rowe has been having an exchange on the WorldMag blog with a guy named Joel Mark on the subject of unitarianism and some of the leading founding fathers. In particular, he has argued that John Adams was a Unitarian who rejected the trinity, the divinity of Jesus and the notion of hell and the need for salvation, among other things. He has presented much evidence for that claim, directly from Adams himself in his letters, but Mark still refuses to accept it. Indeed, he has become quite obstinate, writing:
You are flat out wrong....John Adams was NOT a Unitarian. That was never how he…
oracknows | April 24, 2006Sometimes people come up with ideas that are just so mind-bogglingly inappropriate that I have a hard time grasping them. Case in point, recently Polish authorities granted permission by a local theater group to perform Jesus Christ Superstar at an old Nazi death camp:
POLISH authorities have withdrawn permission for the musical Jesus Christ Superstar to be performed at Majdanek, the former Nazi concentration camp, after protests by Jewish groups.
The Culture Ministry and the camp's management today said the performance by a local Polish theatre group could not go ahead.
"The play was to…
razib | April 19, 2006The late 4th century witnessed the death of the pagan world and the rise of the early medieval era. Today, our culture focuses on the here & now and we neglect the past. But the past is important because we can learn from the rivers explored by our ancestors. In our modern age of religious pluralism, poised between the past and the future, I am often struck by how apropos the dispute between the pagan Prefect of Rome, Symmachus, and the great Christian cleric Ambrose, seems.
Here is Symmachus:
The divine Mind has distributed different guardians and different cults to different cities…
oracknows | April 17, 2006In 1907, Adolf Hitler's mother Klara died of breast cancer at age 47, when Hitler was only 18. The young Hitler was devastated by her death. Indeed, in Mein Kampf, Hitler described her death thusly:
These were the happiest days of my life and seemed to me almost a dream; and a mere dream it was to remain. Two years later, the death of my mother put a sudden end to all my highflown plans.
It was the conclusion of a long and painful illness which from the beginning left little hope of recovery. Yet it was a dreadful blow, particularly for me. I had honored my father, but my mother I had loved.…
oracknows | April 13, 2006For the first time ever, a head of state of Austria has admitted that a large proportion of Austrian citizens openly welcomed the Nazis when Hitler annexed Austria:
The president of Austria has become the country's first head of state to admit that a large number of its citizens welcomed Adolf Hitler with open arms when the dictator annexed the country.
Heinz Fischer said that a "not inconsiderable portion of the population" greeted the Anschluss or annexation in 1938 with "euphoria", despite knowing that "Hitler meant war".
In addition many had celebrated Hitler's initial military successes…
stcynic | April 11, 2006Jon Rowe has a post linking to this article by Dave Daubenmire, a guy whose sole credentials are that he once coached high school football. Now, I remember taking classes from the coaches in high school. I remember having to explain econometric formulas to the baseball coach who taught economics, one of the two required classes for seniors at my high school. I remember the basketball coach, who taught the other required class for seniors (government), telling me to go find the latest Time magazine and write about whatever was on the cover after I turned in a paper about the voting patterns of…
stcynic | March 23, 2006Joseph Farah, grand poobah of the Worldnutdaily, is once again peddling the "evolution leads to Hitler" nonsense. I know this has all been said before, but let's say it all again just to make sure no one misses it. Farah is making a big deal out of an article that shows that German archaeologists, no doubt under pressure from Hitler's regime, often distorted the evidence to try and show that the Germans were the Master Race:
It demonstrates the way Adolf Hitler's SS not only embraced evolutionary theory, but sought to manipulate fossil discoveries to bolster its case for a master race.
While…
stcynic | March 17, 2006Jon Rowe has another post up about the Founding Fathers and theistic rationalism, a subject on which he and I have both written a good deal. It includes a long quote from Gregg Frazer, a historian who did his dissertation on that subject and is the man who invented the term as a description of the views of 8 leading framers of the Declaration and the Constitution (Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Adams, Washington, Hamilton, Morris and Wilson).
It is interesting to note that Frazer himself is a theologically conservative Christian, so much so that he believes in a literal 6 day creation. All…
oracknows | March 13, 2006The Carnival of Bad History #5 has been hosted at Ahistoricality.
Of course, the carnival features a number of posts about ultimate in bad history, Holocaust denial. How could it not, with the recent trial of Holocaust denier David Irving in Austria?
oracknows | March 9, 2006An update to the story of arson at the Holocaust History Project that I first discussed on Wednesday.
A local news report showing the extent of the damage to the offices of the Holocaust History Project and including an interview with Harry Mazal can be found here.
Not unexpectedly, the cockroaches are crawling out of the woodwork on some discussion boards. A Holocaust denier under the 'nym of "Lurkerthe" (you'll need to scroll down a bit). I knew it wouldn't be long before deniers tried this gambit, or some variation thereof:
Hats off to Mazal. He is smarter than I thought.
A nice little…
oracknows | March 8, 2006Yesterday, after writing about the arson at the offices of the Holocaust History Project (THHP) earlier this week, I made an appeal to the blogosphere to link to THHP. My concept was thus: Since the arsonists appear to have wanted to silence THHP, I thought that it would be a fine "screw you!" to them to get as many bloggers as I could to link to THHP and increase its readership and exposure as far above what it was before as my humble efforts could produce.
And boy, did you come through! From fellow ScienceBloggers to fellow RINOs to a variety of others, lots of you have linked to THHP and…
pharyngula | March 8, 2006Orac has the details, but the basic story is that someone tried to burn down the offices of the The Holocaust History Project (THHP). Spread the word: the only thing this contemptible act should accomplish is to make THHP better known.
oracknows | March 8, 2006Today's regularly scheduled post has been delayed due to an important and tragic development.
Something bad happened a couple of days ago, something that cuts rather close to home.
Arsonists targeted the offices used as a mailing address for the Holocaust History Project (THHP). (Video here, but only if you have IE and Active X installed, unfortunately.) The fire caused considerable damage to a warehouse complex and caused smoke damage to nearby businesses. Although the perpetrators have not been identified, there is good reason to suspect that it was not the business that was targeted, but…
oracknows | March 7, 2006I'm a bit late on this one, but Deborah Lipstadt won the National Jewish Book Award for best book about the Holocaust for her book History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving.
I started reading the book a couple of months ago, but got sidetracked. Last weekend, I picked it up again and plowed through nearly half of it in one sitting. It's that compelling, and it reveals much about David Irving that I didn't already know, particularly his anti-Semitism. For anyone interested in the Holocaust and Holocaust denial, it's well worth reading.
Note: Due to a comment and TrackBack spam attack…
oracknows | February 16, 2006In a continuing series of posts, for the benefit of new readers (and a trip down memory lane for old readers), I now present:
Orac knows World War II and Holocaust history:
60 years ago today: The evacuation of Auschwitz and start of the death march
The 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz: How I discovered Holocaust denial
60 years ago tonight: The Dresden firestorm
60 years ago today: The flag-raising at Iwo Jima
60 years ago tonight: The firebombing of Tokyo
60 years ago today: The liberation of Buchenwald
Sunday afternoon history lesson
60 years ago today: The liberation of…
razib | February 12, 2006Anyone who has long read my other weblog knows I have a strong interest in several historical questions. With John Emerson I share a deep interest in Central Asian history, so with that in mind, I point you to the refurbished essay (it has maps!) 2000 years of barbarians in 50 minutes.
pharyngula | February 12, 2006On this fine Darwin Day, I thought I'd just include an excerpt from Janet Browne's excellent biography of the man, Voyaging(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). It does a fine job of telling us a little bit about the human being behind the famous and infamous scientist.
Charles and his sister Catherine Darwin, 1816
Charles Robert Darwin was born on 12 February 1809, the fifth child of Susanna and Robert Waring Darwin of The Mount, a large Georgian house overlooking the bend in the river with gardens running down to water meadows and the town beyond. In one of those odd coincidences of history, Abraham…
stcynic | January 31, 2006Robert Kagan, co-founder of the Project for a New American Century, has a fascinating article in the Weekly Standard called I am Not a Straussian. Jon Rowe cited it at Positive Liberty and I had to read it. It's quite amusing to read, but I think he has a serious point to make about how much of what passes for learned academic criticism of the neo-conservative movement relies upon shallow analysis and guilt by association. I've read a thousand articles, or so it seems, that equate neo-conservatism with Straussianism and Kagan is correct to point out that the two terms are not synonomous. I…
stcynic | January 31, 2006Jason Kuznicki reminds us yet again why he is one of the clearest thinkers and best writers in the blogosphere with this post using Akhil Amar's book as a jumping off point to discuss Whiggism vs cynicism in historical analysis, particularly as it concerns the U.S. Constitution.