I must lead a sheltered life, at least when it comes to the creationism-evolution wars.
Sure, I’m more than aware about how much creationists and their more common (these days, at least) bastard offspring “intelligent design” creationists like to cherry pick, twist, and mangle data to make it seem to support their case, or, when all else fails, just lie outright about it. That’s no surprise to me. Neither is the mendacious manner in which creationists try to blame Darwin and evolutionary theory for Hitler and the Nazis, as well as the horrors of Stalin and Mao, and just about every other evil in the world.
I never knew, however, that Darwin was responsible for deranged serial killers. Thanks to Amy, I do now. I apologize in advance if this is really old news, but a search of my fellow ScienceBloggers and Panda’s Thumb didn’t turn up much about this revelation. What revelation am I talking about?
That Darwin made serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer do it:
Between 1978 and 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer murdered at least 17 men and boys. His murders included gruesome acts and he was sentenced to a lifetime in prison.
But during his sentence something changed, and before his death, Dahmer went on MSNBC with his father. When asked what contributed to his new accountability, he told his father, “Thanks to you for sending that creation science material.”
In the interview Dahmer acknowledges that he once believed in the evolution theory which “cheapens life”. He went on to testify to the Lord Jesus Christ being the true Creator and accepting Him as his Savior.
Like Dahmer, many today are being influenced by the cheapening of life promoted by the evolution theory. Racism, communism, nazism and anarchy are all affects of this dangerous theory. Even the killers in the Columbine school massacre wore shirts that blared, “Natural Selection”. Evolution is a perilous religion with fatal societal consequences. For more on the affects of evolution view our Dangers of Evolution DVD.
They helpfully include a video of what Dahmer says about evolution:
Yes, my friends, that has to be the absolute dumbest, most idiotic attack on evolution that I’ve ever seen. Somehow, I managed never to see it, which is odd, given that there do seem to be a fair number of places where this ignorance-based lie seems to crop up, such as here, here, here, and here (the last of which is truly a tour de force of extreme stupidity so bad that Ed Brayton rightly wondered if it was the dumbest anti-evolution screed ever).
I’m guessing that it never occurred to the creationists pointing to Jeffrey Dahmer as an example of the “effects” of “Darwinism,” that his post-conviction conversion to Christianity and his parroting of the common claim that there is no morality without his religion are almost certainly nothing more than convenient post hoc rationalizations for his crimes. One can’t help but note that Dahmer didn’t find Jesus until after he had been caught. His story might have been somewhat more convincing if he had found religion and stopped killing young men before he had been caught and thrown in jail. It’s also very ironic how Dahmer steadfastly says that it’s wrong to blame anything but oneself for such crimes and then goes on to blame Darwinism and his falling away from his religion for his crimes.
The Cincinnati Skeptics have a good response to this nonsense:
What if he [Dahmer] had used the ideas of “no salvation without shedding of blood” (Hebrews 9:22) and “eating of flesh and blood” (Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, 1 Corinthians 10:16) very literally? David Koresh and Charles Manson found in the Bible justification for what they did. Would all this prove the justification for what they did? Would all this prove that the Bible causes crimes? Or would it prove, as I said about evolution and atheism, that people choose what to do and then find whatever justification they can think of as excuses. If you are charitable toward the Bible and give it the benefit of doubt over its misuse, why not be charitable toward evolution and atheism and give them benefit of the doubt over misuse. If you don’t – and excuse the Bible all the time, and always blame evolution and atheism – then that is a double standard that renders your opinions irrelevant.
Creationists of the ilk who blame Darwin for Nazi-ism, Communism, and crime such as serial killing always give the Bible a pass when religious nuts like Charles Manson or David Koresh use it as a justification for their crimes. Obviously, they will say, such crimes were based on a misreading or abuse of the holy scriptures. Yet, somehow they find it impossible to understand the same principle when a killer like Jeffrey Dahmer blames the theory of evolution for his crimes because it suits their purpose to link criminality with the object of their hatred, Charles Darwin.
