Dear Josephus,

Hitler was influenced by Social Darwinism. This was a particular interpretation of Darwin’s works that Darwin himself didn’t hold.

Social Darwinism - Wikipedia

“Social Darwinism refers to various societal practices around the worldand defined by scholars in Western Europe and North America in the 1870s that applied biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics.[1][2] Social Darwinism posits that the strong see their wealth and power increase while the weak see their wealth and power decrease. Various social Darwinist schools of thought differ on which groups of people are the strong and which are the weak, and also differ on the precise mechanisms that reward strength and punish weakness.[clarification needed] Many such views stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism, while others, emphasizing struggle between national or racial groups, support nationalism, authoritarianism, eugenics, racism, imperialism, communism and/or fascism.[3][4][5] The ideology of social Darwinism inspired the perpetrators of genocides including the Armenian genocide.

Social Darwinism declined in popularity as a purportedly scientific concept following the First World War, and was largely discredited by the end of the Second World War—partially due to its association with Nazism and partially due to a growing scientific consensus that it was scientifically groundless.[6][7] Later hypotheses that were categorized as social Darwinism were generally described as such as a critique by their opponents; their proponents did not identify themselves by such a label.[8][7] Creationists have frequently maintained that social Darwinism—leading to policies designed to reward the most competitive—is a logical consequence of "Darwinism" (the theory of natural selection in biology).[9] Biologists and historians have stated that this is a fallacy of appeal to nature, since the theory of natural selection is merely intended as a description of a biological phenomenon and should not be taken to imply that this phenomenon is good or that it ought to be used as a moral guide in human society.

In reply to David F's comments- My understanding it was Homo Erectus at the 3 million year mark rather than "Australopithecus" which was 160K years but I won't argue that point. I'm sure "human's" were coming down from the trees before this but they still needed the trees. I can't remember the year when humans separated from Chimps and Bonobo's. There is some contention as to the dates and whether the researchers follows the "Out of Africa" or "Multi-origin" theories. Neanderthal and Cromagnon man could be also be considered as related to modern humans more or less with each ethnic group.

There are sign posts in history that point to certain states of existence of humanity.

It's interesting that some want to attribute everything to Hitler. There is the public perception of Hitler, the private perception of Hitler, and a few other "archetypes". There seem to be many Hitler's. I'd have to check David F's assertions about Darwinism and Hitler- certainly as David F has said he wasn't the only one that the Social Darwinism Scientism can be attributed to- in a sense Social Darwinism may be partially true. Reality is complex- Jung's- Man And His Symbols discusses the holistic principle of reality and truth.

Dear David F.,

Thanks for adding your comments to the subject
of "Can Religion and Science co-exist?"
This debate will probably continue for
sometime yet.

cont'd ...

Dear David F.,

The following link may be of interest:

http://abc.net.au/news/science/2018-05-24/three-scientists-talk-about-how-their-faith-fits-with-their-work/9543772

Dear Foxy,

Although I posted that science and religion cannot reasonably coexist the fact is that they do coexist. We live with paradox. Bertrand Russell had an example. Think of a box with the statement in it, "All statements in this box are false." If the statement is true all statements in the box are not false. If the statement is true there is an unresolvable contradiction.

Science and religion can coexist, not only in society, but in the same person. If one googles 'religious scientists' there are many examples. My statement stated that science and religion cannot reasonably coexist. The fact is that science and religion unreasonably coexist.