The BOBA Digest, Part 4: The Reductio ad Hitlerum Awards

Certainly not due to lack of material, we have not had an entry in the BOBA Digest for some time; do acquaint yourself: The BOBA Digest
In keeping with the intended purpose of the BOBA Digest it seemed appropriate to consider who the winner is of the award for ubiquitously committing the fallacy of the reductio ad Hitlerum-aka argumentum ad Hitlerum, reductio ad Nazium or argumentum ad Nazium (not to be confused with ad nauseum).

This basically refers to equating or boiling down one's opponent's views to that of Adolf Hitler's or the Nazis in general. It is a desperate emotive attempt to appeal to your audience's sense of outrage and belittling one's opponents whilst leaving their arguments unscathed.

Having considered the field of polemics in which, perhaps by necessity, controversies and contrivances are commonly concocted a clear winner of the reductio ad Hitlerum Awards has emerged.

And the winner is…

Drum roll please…

In one of his top indiscretions with regards to the reductio ad Hitlerum Richard Dawkins compared Rabbi Shmuley Boteach to Adolf Hitler-and threw in Dinesh D'Souza for bad measure:

…people like Boteach and D'Souza may be honestly unaware that they shriek and yell in such an unbecoming way…that the resemblance to Hitler passes them by…they don't hear, and literally and honestly don't understand, the strong resemblance to the hideous vocal style of Hitler…the comparison with Hitler is limited to vocal style. Of course nobody is suggesting that either Boteach or D'Souza have similar opinions to Hitler, or resemble him in any other way at all.
But imagine listening to a Boteach speech or a D'Souza speech or a Hitler speech with no knowledge of English or German. I suspect that you'd hardly notice the difference. Contrast it with a speech by Christopher Hitchens. The voice is strong, even a little thrilling. But there's no hysteria there. The words match the content: measured, thoughtful, strong and powerful but never hysterical.1

What would you prefer: someone who yells "Love your neighbor" or someone who calmly likens to virtually everyone with whom he disagrees, including a Rabbi, to Hitler?

Of course, this presents yet another example of Richard Dawkins utterly failing as a scientist as he merely supposes why they "shriek and yell." Which, by the way, Dinesh D'Souza does not do. D'Souza points this out in responding to Dawkins and offers a guess as to why he would be likened to Hitler,

I suspect that Dawkins has come up with this pathetic reductio ad Hitlerum in order to justify his cowardice in not debating me.2

Needless to say that Rabbi Shmuley Boteach took offense yet, Richard Dawkins was kind enough to alleviate any misunderstandings:

I did not say you think like Hitler, or hold the same opinions as Hitler, or do terrible things to people like Hitler. Obviously and most emphatically you don't. I said you shriek like Hitler. That is the only point of resemblance, and it is true.
You shriek and yell and rant like Hitler. Not all the time, of course. You also tell very good jokes, and tell them brilliantly. You deservedly get lots of laughs, as a good comedian should. But throughout your speeches you periodically rise to climaxes of shrieking rant, and that is just like Hitler.

That certainly clarified matters: Rabbi Boteach is only somewhat like Hitler yet, more like a clown. Such, apparently, is the stunningly shallow level of Dawkins' empathy, sympathy and repentance.

Within his film "The Root of All Evil?" Richard Dawkins inter­viewed a Muslim and described himself to the Muslim as "a gentle atheist." In the same series, while interviewing American Pastor Ted Haggard, Dawkins likened Haggard's church service to a Nazi rally-perhaps he will likewise liken Nazi rallies to football games, the Michael Jackson memorial, Jonas Brothers concerts, American Atheists conferences, etc.

Ted Haggard being nice to Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins correlated creationism with Nazism and deems any evolutionist who is not as fundamentalistic as himself as an appeaser of creationists, whom he correlates with Hitler ("the Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists" as he terms these evolutionists3).

More recently, Richard Dawkins has stated that if you doubt, even dare to doubt, that humans are related to "bananas and turnips" you are to be likened to a Holocaust denier (see here.

Shockingly, when it actually comes to considering Adolf Hitler, Dawkins states, "What's to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn't right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question."
About parents who raise their children according to the "religion" he states, "It is evil to describe a child as a Muslim child or a Christian child. I think labelling children is child abuse and I think there is a very heavy issue."
Hitler; who knows?
"Religious" parents; pure evil, no question about it!

Proof that Richard Dawkins is a militant atheist :o)

Just kidding; the proof that he is militant comes in the form of his statements of his view.

But why be a constant committer of the reductio ad Hitlerum? Who knows: it may be a display of his obvious lack of ability to meet arguments on the arguments own terms. It may be that they are attention begging ploys. It may be appeals to his foaming at the mouth emotionally driven hordes of adherents.4

It may be many things of which we have no knowledge. Yet, this morning I was reading the Gospel of Mark in which Jesus states:

And He said, "What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man" (7:20-23)

This is reminiscent to another of Jesus' statements,

out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34; Luke 6:45).

It is that with which he is saturated which compels Richard Dawkins to make the above noted and very many other malicious statements and for this; he ought be loved, pitied and prayed for.

1. 1. Dinesh D'Souza, "Richard Dawkins Compares Me to Hitler," AOL, July 7, 2008
2. 2. Ibid.
3. 3. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006), p. beginning at 66
4. 4. Just check his website where his hordes virtually "Ya vol!" anything he states particularly the more preposterous, unscientific statements.