What did Hitler really believe? Hitler’s mother was a devout Catholic, but his father considered religion a scam. Hitler called himself a Christian and venerated Jesus as an anti-Jewish fighter. German churches replaced bibles on altars with copies of Mein Kampf and services were held in Hitler’s honour. He worked hard to harness the power of religion for his own ends, but was the heart of his ideology really Christian?

According to Baldur von Schirach, head of the Hitler Youth movement, “the destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognised as a purpose of the National Socialist movement.”¹ Rejecting Christianity outright, the Nazis changed the Bible to fit their ends. First, Jesus was rebranded as Aryan. While the New Testament is emphatic about Jesus’ Jewish identity, Hitler declared, “I can imagine Christ as nothing other than blond and with blue eyes, the Devil however only with a Jewish grimace.”²

Nazi-era Bibles removed chunks of the Old Testament and edited the Gospels to eliminate references to Jesus’ Jewish heritage, his missional prioritisation of the Israelites, and his fulfilment of Hebrew scripture. Nazis edited New Testament texts to align with their militaristic mindset.

Perhaps most stunningly, the Nazis sought to replace Jesus with Hitler himself. Joseph Goebbels, the Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, proclaimed, “We are witnessing the greatest miracle in history. A genius is building a new world!” Baldur Benedikt von Schirach, who was the head of the Hitler Youth, taught German children a prayer resembling the Lord’s prayer, but addressed to Führer:

“Adolf Hitler, you are our great Führer.
Thy name makes the enemy tremble.
Thy Third Reich comes, thy will alone is law upon the earth.
Let us hear daily thy voice and order us by thy leadership,
For we will obey to the end and even with our lives.
We praise thee! Heil Hitler!”

So Nazi Germany was founded on a new religion, with a new messiah and an ideology that could not have been further from Christianity. The Nazis mangled Christianity beyond recognition. Thousands of Protestants protested Nazi tactics and as a result seven hundred pastors were arrested. Many were executed or sent to concentration camps.

In reality, Hitler loathed Christianity and hated Judaism. In Hitler’s view, the Aryan race was simply superior, and maintaining racial purity was an evolutionary ethic: “The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature.”³ This belief in racial superiority and the survival of the fittest was the cornerstone of his entire ideology.

If we consider naturalistic evolution as the ultimate benchmark for valuing things, then, in Hitler’s perspective, since evolution hinges on the survival of the fittest, one race could claim superiority and out-compete others. By this logic, virtue could mean “sacrifices that benefit one’s own group in competition with other groups,” making Hitler’s fascism appear as “the ultimate virtuous ideology.”

Rather than framing Hitler as a Christian and blaming Christianity for his atrocities—a sloppy argument I hear from militant atheists today—we will explore history, examine his key influences, and ask: What ideas shaped a man like Hitler?

Nietzsche: Hitler’s Intellectual Hero

One of Hitler’s strongest intellectual influences was nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche was a fascinating man—honest and uncompromising. A philosopher, philologist, poet, cultural critic, and composer, he emerged as one of the most influential thinkers of the modern era. Yet, throughout much of his life, Nietzsche battled depression and later endured a progressive cognitive decline that plunged him into madness. Tragically, he spent his final days lost to dementia following a stroke, dying at just 55 years old.

Hitler was such a fan of Nietzsche’s writings that he personally presented a copy of Nietzsche’s works to Benito Mussolini. Historian William Shirer wrote that “Hitler often visited the Nietzsche museum in Weimer and published his veneration for the philosopher by posing for photographs of himself staring in rapture at the bust of the great man.”⁴

Nietzsche despised religion, especially Christianity. He found it absurd for a person of strength to suppress desires, strive for humility, or show compassion for the weak. To Nietzsche, these “monkish” values—such as humility and the belief in human equality—were impediments to the strong, thwarting their potential.

Consider Nietzsche’s perspective on the Beatitudes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He perceived these teachings, which emphasise compassion and responsibility towards the weak and impoverished, as a detrimental approach to life. In his view, a society guided by such an ethic was essentially controlled by the “losers.” Nietzsche believed that the values esteemed by Christianity were precisely the elements that obstructed his vision of the ideal human. In his vehement critique, “The Antichrist” (1895), Nietzsche declared: 

“I call Christianity the one great curse, the one enormous and innermost perversion, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are too venomous, too underhand, too underground, and too petty.” 

Interestingly, while Nietzsche openly criticised Christianity, he also feared what the world might become without it. Although he did not believe in the Christian understanding of God and is famous for his statement, “God is dead,” Nietzsche did not make this claim with triumph. Instead, he expressed it with a tone of despair. By denying God, the Judeo-Christian morals and values that formed the foundation of Western civilisation might no longer be regarded as true. While the rejection of religious dogmas and “Thou shalt nots” might seem liberating, Nietzsche warned that what replaces them could be even more daunting. He wanted to confront life directly, without God clouding his vision, and what he saw was agonising. Nietzsche perceived no grand mind behind the world’s design, no transcendent voice offering guidance, and no light at the end of the tunnel. He felt the desolation and loneliness of existence in its rawest form.

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” (Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882), s.125)

You could say that Nietzsche was one of the first Western philosophers to fully grapple with the loss of faith in religion. He articulated what many around him sensed but were unwilling to acknowledge: the death of God would have profound consequences. This could lead to everything falling apart, both psychologically and socially, in a potentially catastrophic manner, unless humanity rose up to take charge.

In his seminal work, The Will to Power, Nietzsche predicted two major consequences of rejecting God’s existence. First, he foresaw a rapid growth of atheistic nihilism, which denies any inherent meaning, value, or purpose in life. All notions of meaning and purpose are groundless. Second, he anticipated a shift from religion to rigid, totalitarian ideologies, where divine wisdom would be replaced by human politics. Nietzsche envisioned the twentieth century as not only the bloodiest in history, but also an era dominated by universal madness. The grim record of ideological conflicts and geopolitical struggles, resulting in a death toll surpassing that of the previous nineteen centuries combined, affirmed Nietzsche’s forewarning. His prophecy has been fulfilled.

To steer clear of the abyss of nihilism and totalitarianism, Nietzsche proposed the emergence of an exceptional individual capable of creating and imposing their own values on an indifferent reality. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he introduced the concept of the Übermensch, a being who transcends the Judeo-Christian dualities of good and evil, shaping a unique moral compass. The Übermensch (Overman or Superman), serves as an ideal for individuals to aspire to, transcending traditional moral constraints. Nietzsche saw this as a necessary evolution to overcome nihilism and affirm life.

Nietzsche’s solution raises thorny questions. Without the grounding of a transcendent, purposeful intelligence, a Creator—commonly understood as God—how can we combat existential nihilism in a logically coherent manner? Nihilism, as the inevitable conclusion of strict naturalism and materialism, asserts that life has no inherent meaning or value. Creating personal values, then, becomes an act of self-invention, a projection of subjective meanings onto an indifferent reality. While this may offer a sense of purpose, isn’t it also, at some level, a form of self-deception? It’s akin to saying, “Life has no intrinsic meaning, but I’ll invent some anyway and pretend it does.”

This dilemma parallels psychological coping mechanisms, where people cling to beliefs despite contrary evidence to impose order on their experiences. Sure, self-created meanings might help individuals find drive, but they remain fundamentally arbitrary and lack universal applicability. Here lies the critical issue: when personal moral systems clash, what adjudicates between them? What happens when your values contradict mine? Logically speaking, neither of us holds the “truth” if our values are merely products of individual desires or evolutionary programming, untethered from any underlying reality. Without an ultimate grounding, moral principles risk becoming little more than cultural or personal fiction—useful, perhaps, but devoid of deeper reality. 

And this gets to the heart of the issue: on what foundation does morality stand? If it’s rooted in human subjectivity—whether cultural traditions, individual preferences, or even evolutionary utility—it lacks the universality or authority to rise above personal interest or cultural particularities. A morality that shifts with circumstance cannot bind everyone equally, nor can it demand that people act against self-interest. By contrast, morality grounded in a transcendent mental source—something independent of self-interest or survival-based pragmatism—offers a sturdier foundation. It implies that certain moral values exist universally, standing regardless of personal beliefs or cultural conventions, and we must learn how to apply them. Without such grounding, it’s hard to see how morality can avoid collapsing into mere utility.

In many ways, modern society still clings to the ethical scaffolding provided by Christian moral principles, even as it seeks to justify them through secular, evolutionary theories that exclude any intentional Creator. For instance, evolutionary explanations may account for why certain behaviours emerged (e.g., fostering cooperation for survival), but they fall short of providing moral “oughtness.” Evolution can tell us what is, not what should be. A framework rooted entirely in natural processes renders actions morally neutral—neither inherently good nor bad, just functional or nonfunctional. The result is a worldview where moral categories become illusions, useful constructs for survival but devoid of binding authority. What’s left is a universe governed by pragmatic necessity, not moral truth.

Nietzsche argues that trying to keep elements of Christian morality without embracing Christ is essentially inconsistent:

“When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident. Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole. It stands or falls with faith in God.”⁵

I agree. Maintaining commandments such as “You shall not lie,” “You shall not murder,” and “You shall not steal” without recognising the inherent sacredness of life is comparable to expecting a body to function without a heart. While you might identify functional justifications for these commandments based on their utility, establishing principled arguments without reference to the divine proves challenging. In a universe characterised by ultimate indifference, where everything culminates in cessation, elevating survival as a virtue becomes a leap of blind faith. Christianity anchors our empathy and compassion in a personal source that transcends the material realm and gives meaning to it.

Nietzsche recognised that moral truths must derive from an authority beyond human autonomy. He concluded that without belief in God, moral “truth is fiction.” From a reductionist standpoint that views the universe as a self-contained, entirely material entity devoid of ultimate meaning, there exists no principled foundation for morality beyond what are essentially illusory constructs.

We could explore the philosophical arguments for and against objective morality—morality that is “true”, binding, universal, and consistent—in much greater detail. For instance, proponents argue that without a transcendent anchor (i.e. God), moral values and duties cannot be objectively grounded and ultimately become self-projected illusions. Critics, however, contend that values do not need to be objective and that a naturalistic worldview can provide all the resources necessary. To complicate matters further, I believe there is significant misconception and misunderstanding about what we mean by objective morality—I am talking more of values than a written code. Nonetheless, this discussion is beyond the scope of this brief reflection, and I’m sure many may wish to debate me on this. For a more comprehensive analysis, I invite you to explore our extended essay on the subject.

Getting back to the point, the issue with Nietzsche’s solution is that if we each pursue life guided by our individually crafted values, what shared principles or virtues are left to unite us? A collision of conflicting moralities becomes inevitable, resulting in the victorious group imposing their values through sheer power. Nietzsche’s vision of the Übermensch, the exceptional individual who creates their own values and projects them onto the world, is unrealistic and potentially dangerous. 

How does this all relate to Hitler? Well, he adopted Nietzsche’s critique of Christian values as a form of “slave morality,” arguing that Christianity promotes meekness and compassion while suppressing vitality and individualism. Contrary to Nietzsche’s original intentions, Hitler mapped the ideal Übermensch with himself and all Aryan Germans—becoming the superhuman who would stand amidst the ruins of Christian ethics, rejecting what he termed the “morality of weakness” inherent in Christianity, and embodying qualities that justified strength and dominance in ways that are disturbing by contemporary standards.

Hitler essentially took Nietzsche’s philosophical ideal of the Übermensch, and made it a political and racial one. This led him to scorn Christian virtues such as the belief in universal human rights and the inherent sacredness of every human life. As the British historian Alan Bullock observed, “In Hitler’s eyes, Christianity was a religion fit only for slaves; he detested its ethics in particular. Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle and the survival of the fittest.”⁶

The Nazis exploited Nietzsche’s atheistic worldview, pushing it to a chilling extreme to create a post-Christian, post-religious ideal: the perfect Aryan man—with a philosophy that encourages individuals to establish their own rules, and in Hitler’s case, the glorification of the strong and the destruction of the weak. This was tragically epitomised in Auschwitz, where Hitler’s ideology was starkly inscribed:

“I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience and morality… We will train young people before whom the world will tremble. I want young people capable of violence—imperious, relentless and cruel.”⁷ 

Thus, Hitler cast himself in the role of Nietzsche’s “Superman,” a figure who would solve society’s problems by eradicating the “inferior” and imposing the will of the “superior.”

Nietzsche sought to free humans from the shackles of an imposed morality, but his philosophy resulted in millions of people sent to prison camps and worked to death. Seeking a relativised morality in which everyone could construct their own meaning paved the way for a new and fiercely oppressive dogma of Nazism. After accepting the promise of individual self-determination, millions found themselves to be just expendable cogs in the machinations of some ideologically-driven superhuman—Hitler. Disrespect for the sanctity of life—resulting in a value judgement of life based on its perceived quality—provided the Third Reich’s metaphysical underpinning. When people take it upon themselves to replace God by defining the value of life, good, and evil on their own hedonistic or utilitarian terms, they don’t actually achieve a truly relativistic morality—they simply replace God with a far worse devil. “Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” Indeed.

The Synthesis of Darwinism and Aryan Supremacy

Nietzsche significantly influenced Hitler, but Darwinism also had a major role in Nazi Racial Thought. Human evolution was central to Nazi beliefs. Professor of History, Richard Weikart, has extensively explored the influence of Darwinism on Hitler’s ideology, providing valuable insights into this complex historical connection.

By examining Hitler’s ideology, the biology curriculum of the time, writings of Nazi anthropologists and Nazi periodicals, it becomes evident that Nazi racial theorists universally accepted human evolution from simpler primates. They interpreted Darwinism as suggesting that different races evolved to varying levels of sophistication, forming a hierarchy of superior and inferior races. This hierarchy, they argued, led to an inevitable struggle for existence—a harsh competition where only the fittest could survive. The Nazis believed it was their duty to ensure the survival and dominance of their race, even through violence against those they considered racial adversaries. After all, in the Darwinian struggle for existence, not everyone can survive.

Nazi officials and SS anthropologists believed the Nordic race had evolved to higher levels of intelligence, physical strength, and social cohesion due to greater selective pressures during events like the Ice Ages. They claimed these harsh conditions eliminated the weak, leaving only the strongest to continue the Nordic lineage. To ensure their race’s survival and dominance, they advocated for increased reproduction, territorial expansion, and eugenic policies to elevate the Nordic race in the global evolutionary struggle.

While Nazi racial ideology included non-Darwinian elements such as Aryan supremacy and anti-Semitism, it emphasised themes like species transmutation, advancing human evolution, inherent human competition for survival, and the need for Lebensraum (living space) in the evolutionary struggle. Even before Hitler’s rise to power, German racial theorists had combined Gobineau’s ideas, Mendel’s inheritance laws, and anti-Semitism with social Darwinism—a synthesis largely endorsed by Nazi racial theory.

Today’s Darwinists generally reject racism and violence. However, it’s important to acknowledge the uncomfortable similarities between Nazi-propagated racial inequality and the racist attitudes among some leading Darwinian scientists, anthropologists, and physicians of that era. Acknowledging that Darwinism was a foundational part of the Nazi worldview does not imply that Darwinism inevitably leads to Nazism. Numerous non-Darwinian influences, such as Schopenhauer and Wagner, also shaped Hitler’s ideology. Additionally, anti-Semitism existed long before Darwin, and he did not appear to hold anti-Semitic views himself.

German evolutionary biologist Ludwig Plate once noted that “progress in evolution goes forward over millions of dead bodies.”⁸ Nazi ideology interpreted evolution as necessitating the genocide of “lower” races, considering it their obligation to promote evolutionary progress by purging the world of the weak, sick, or members of supposedly inferior races. In their eyes, this was the right thing to do. Social Darwinism became a path to justify policies of eugenics, euthanasia, military expansion and genocide.

I realise these are significant claims—so let me take a moment to back them up clearly. In the following sections, I’ll outline four propositions to further explain and substantiate these assertions.

Proposition 1: Darwin’s views on race provided a basis for European colonialism and Nazi racial policies

The late 19th century saw a significant shift in societal attitudes. Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking theories revolutionised our understanding of natural selection. Yet, alongside this scientific awakening came unintended consequences. Darwin’s ideas, revolutionary as they were, also sparked troubling questions: Could humanity itself be subject to these same natural laws? Regrettably, this line of thinking began to fuel the rise of scientific racism, influencing societal attitudes in ways Darwin himself may never have anticipated.

In his seminal work, The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin sought to illustrate the evolutionary journey of humans by highlighting racial differences, and that these variations were evidence of human evolution. Darwin professed that one of the main purposes of his book was to describe “the value of the differences between the so-called races of man.”⁹ Darwin observed the tragic events of European colonisation, and extermination of indigenous peoples in Australia, the Americas, and other regions, as an unfortunate consequence of natural selection in the “struggle for existence”. In his eyes, the so-called “fitter” races were prevailing. In an 1881 letter to a colleague, Darwin expressed a sombre implication of his theory: “The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence… what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilised races throughout the world.”¹⁰ In The Descent of Man he spelled out his racial theory:

“The western nations of Europe… now so immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors [that they] stand at the summit of civilisation… At some future period… the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races through the world.”¹¹

Historians Adrian Desmond and James Moore have noted that while Darwin emphasised the common ancestry of all humans, many began to see the logical implication of normalising racial genocide through the lens of natural selection:  “racial genocide was now normalised by natural selection and rationalised as nature’s way of producing ‘superior’ races.”¹² Darwin himself believed that imperialist expansion was a driving force behind human progress, and confessed to Charles Kingsley that “The higher races of men, when high enough, will have spread and exterminated whole nations.”¹³

For Darwin, the narrative was stark: the evolution of life is driven by relentless competition for survival, a process unfortunately marked by widespread death and destruction. He wrote, “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.”¹⁴

Not all 19th-century British intellectuals embraced Darwinian interpretations of race. Darwin himself seemed torn by his own views. In the early 1800s, the British Empire was heavily influenced by Christian reformers like William Wilberforce. Wilberforce famously sold badges of black slaves that asked, “Am I not a man and a brother?” These reformers promoted the idea that all races were equal in the eyes of God. For decades, Christian reformers had worked tirelessly to teach Britons that non-European races were their equals before God. They believed that with proper education and upbringing, non-Europeans could achieve the same level of technological advancement as Europeans.

Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859) subtly shifted the moral ground. By introducing a view that seemed to diminish the role of a Divine creator, Darwin inadvertently encouraged a reductionist philosophy. This shift challenged the widely held belief in the inherent sanctity of life as associated with the divine will of God. Just four years later, British anthropologist James Hunt used Darwin’s theories to justify slavery. In his 1863 paper, “On the Negro’s Place in Nature,” Hunt argued that transporting Africans to America might have actually benefited them, a stark contrast to the earlier humanitarian views.

Darwin’s perspectives on race were significantly influenced by his voyage on the HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836. During this journey, he interacted with various indigenous peoples, noting their intellectual inferiority compared to Europeans. His disdain was palpable when he described the natives of Tierra del Fuego, writing, “Viewing such men, one can hardly make oneself believe that they are fellow-creatures…”¹⁵ In Australia, Darwin reflected on his encounters, stating, “Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal… The varieties of man seem to act on each other in the same way as different species of animals—the stronger always extirpating the weaker.”¹⁶

In 1876, The Melbourne Review cited Darwin’s theories to rationalise the genocide of Australia’s indigenous people. The publication argued that “the inexorable law of natural selection [justifies] exterminating the inferior Australian and Maori races… The world is better for it” because failure to do so would mean “promoting the non-survival of the fittest, protecting the propagation of the imprudent, the diseased, the defective and the criminal.” Christian missionaries protested against this atrocity, while Darwin himself remarked, “I do not know of a more striking instance of the comparative rate of increase of a civilised over a savage race.”¹⁷

Cecil Rhodes adopted Darwinian ideas to justify white expansion across Southern Africa. Inspired by Winwood Reade’s book The Martyrdom of Man, Rhodes admitted, “That book has made me what I am.” According to one historian, Reade’s work, which presented history through a Darwinian lens of progressive development, had become a “substitute bible for secularists.” His ideology led him to become the architect of one of the most brutal and immoral acts of European expansion and genocide in history. In 1877, he wrote:

“I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race… It is our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory, and we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes that more territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race, more of the best, the most human, most honourable race the world possesses.”¹⁸

Charles Darwin had complex views on the subject of race and evolution. On one hand, he lamented the suffering and decline of certain indigenous populations. On the other hand, he recognised that, from an evolutionary perspective, the expansion of European societies and the displacement of native peoples could be seen as part of a broader process of natural selection and the unfortunate benefit of human evolution. Through a utilitarian lens, it’s not hard to see that if natural selection is a virtue, then, unfortunately, acts of genocide might be seen as part of the natural order, regardless of our sentimental feelings about the matter. 

Influenced by Thomas Malthus’s principle of population, Darwin reasoned that organisms reproduce more quickly than their food supply, leading to competition for resources. This “struggle for existence” was a key component of his theory of natural selection, which promotes the survival of the fittest in the struggle for supremacy.¹⁹ After all, it is for “the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy” to survive and multiply. In this struggle, Darwin suggested that differences among human races could lead to a hierarchy. He insisted certain races were intellectually and morally superior, and it is them that will rise: “Nor is the difference slight in moral disposition between a barbarian… and a Howard or Clarkson; and in intellect, between a savage who does not use any abstract terms, and a Newton or Shakespeare.”²⁰

Darwin admired individuals like Thomas Clarkson, a prominent British abolitionist, for their moral courage and character. Yet Darwin’s own views were layered, complex, and at times contradictory. In his section “On the Extinction of the Races of Man,” Darwin observed that natural selection, through processes such as racial extermination, has historically shaped human evolution. But does the mere fact that something occurs in nature make it morally acceptable in human societies?

It’s tempting to dismiss this interpretation as a misreading of Darwin’s intentions. However, when we view his scientific observations through a strictly materialistic lens—where natural science is the only reliable guide to reality—we risk arriving at unsettling conclusions about how we value life. How we attend to the world shapes the answers we discover. When we attend to the world through a strictly evolutionary value system, coupled with a materialistic approach, the logical implication is that death and destruction to the weak is a necessary “progress” of human evolution.

Darwin’s theories eventually gained traction among European colonial proponents, such as Friedrich Ratzel. Ratzel’s concept of Lebensraum (living space) significantly influenced Nazi ideology by suggesting that the extermination of so-called “primitive peoples” by Europeans was a demonstration of Darwinian natural selection. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, scientific racism had become widespread among biologists and anthropologists. These scholars argued that Darwinism validated racial inequality, leading to a symbiotic relationship between racism and Darwinism. Social Darwinism and biological racism were later adopted by politicians like Hitler to justify policies aimed at promoting the “Aryan” race and exterminating “inferior” races.

I wonder how Darwin would have felt about contemporary interpretations of his work. Throughout his writings, a clear conflict emerges between his deep-seated human compassion and the austere conclusions drawn from his theory of evolution. This tension permeates much of his work. 

Raised in Britain, Darwin was rightly celebrated as a national icon, a figure whose insights transformed our understanding of the natural world. His contributions to science over the last two centuries are undeniable. Yet, the social implications of his work are far more complicated and fraught than we often acknowledge. While it is appropriate to honour Darwin as a pioneering scientist, it is equally important to recognise the sometimes harsh and contradictory aspects of his views. Darwin grappled with the logical implications of his theory, especially when it was adopted as the sole explanation for life.

Many argue that the darker uses of Darwin’s theories were simply misappropriations. But I am not so sure. This isn’t to undermine the scientific validity or the importance of his work, but rather to explore the philosophical and social ramifications that arise when Darwin evolution is viewed as the sole framework for understanding human existence, identity, and progress. If we start with a highly reductionist philosophy, then humans become little more than biological machines, and our value is reduced to evolutionary utility—this is a strictly utilitarian ethic.

Darwin may not have intended for his theories to be used as justification for acts of genocide or social engineering, but the uncomfortable reality is that his work provided a scientific veneer for such atrocities. The blame does not lie with the scientific theories themselves but with the materialistic interpretations prematurely derived from them (and applied to them).

Proposition 2: Hitler’s worldview was underpinned by Social Darwinism

In his book Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress, Emeritus Professor Charles Weikart examines the ideological foundations of Hitler’s policies, which were grounded in concepts of social Darwinism. Hitler viewed evolutionary progress as inherently desirable and biological decline as detrimental. His objective was to enhance humanity by promoting what he considered a superior race and eliminating those he deemed inferior. Walter Gross, a physician who directed the Nazi’s Racial Policy Office, articulated this ideology in a 1938 article: 

“Only in agreement with the natural and organic laws of the struggle for existence can the German people evolve to the highest possible level. The ‘elimination of every inadequate organic being in the struggle for existence’ is necessary, in order to secure the ‘preservation and improvement of life.’”²¹

Benoit Massin, an expert on the history of scientific racism in Germany, highlights that: “In fact, on many occasions, the impulse for racial and eugenic policy came not from politicians but from scientists and the medical profession.”²² He also states, “Not only did these scientists help the regime, sometimes they directly inspired its murderous policies.”

Traudl Junge, Hitler’s last secretary, revealed a telling remark from Hitler: “science is not yet clear about which branch humans originated from… In nature the law of struggle reigns from the beginning. Everything that is incapable of life and everything weak is eradicated. Only humans, especially the church, have artificially preserved the weak, the unfit for life, and the inferior.”²³ This perspective was consistent with the views of many leading scientists and physicians in early twentieth-century Germany.

As we have said earlier, it’s crucial to remember that Hitler didn’t draw his ideas from a single source. Hitler’s ideas were diverse—He admired philosophers like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and respected Frederick the Great’s Enlightenment rationalism. Sure, he held strong views about scientific racism and eugenics, which was supported by many scientists of his time, but oddly enough, he also found inspiration from the unconventional “World Ice Theory”, which depicted the cosmos as a perpetual clash between fire and ice. Additionally, Hitler found great enjoyment in various forms of art and media, such as Wagner’s operas, films, and newspapers.

Julius Friedrich Lehmann was a prominent Munich publisher known for his focus on scientific and medical literature. He played a significant role in shaping the ideological landscape that influenced Adolf Hitler and the early Nazi Party. A member of the nascent Nazi Party since March 1920, Lehmann frequently sent Hitler publications that explored themes of social Darwinism, racism, and eugenics. One of his notable contributions was the launch of the journal ‘Deutschlands Erneuerung” (Germany’s Renewal) in 1917. This journal featured articles on racism, anti-Semitism, eugenics, and German superiority, written by scientists, scholars, and publicists. Its impact was substantial enough that Hitler recommended all Nazi Party members read it by 1922.

A particularly influential piece published in the journal was Fritz Lenz’s essay, “Race as the Principle of Value: On a Renewal of Ethics.” Lenz, who later became a professor of eugenics at the University of Munich, argued that racial superiority should guide ethical considerations. This perspective became evident in Nazi ideology when Lenz republished the article in 1933, claiming that it embodied core principles of the National Socialist worldview.

‘Germany’s Renewal’ also featured articles advocating eugenics by medical professor Max von Gruber and plant geneticist Erwin Baur. Baur’s work particularly highlighted biological laws as key factors in the rise and fall of civilisations. His arguments reflected elements that would later appear in Hitler’s own discourse, emphasising natural selection, the degeneration caused by cultural leniency, and the negative effects of racial mixing. One of the solutions he proposed to avoid biological degeneration was sterilisation for those deemed biologically inferior. In ‘Mein Kampf’ and his speeches, Hitler would later echo positions similar to those found in Baur’s work.

In addition, Lehmann published ‘Human Heredity’ (‘Grundriss der menschlichen Erblichkeitslehre’) by Baur, anthropologist Eugen Fischer, and Fritz Lenz. This book became a standard text not only in German universities but also gained attention in the UK and US. The well-received work emphasised racial inequality, Nordic superiority, and the necessity for making eugenics policy. Lenz proposed the introduction of eugenics to reinforce the Nordic race, including marriage restrictions, voluntary sterilisation, legalisation of abortion, and even euthanasia to end the lives of those with disabilities. Lenz also provided a Darwinian foundation for his eugenics ideology, framing it as a mechanism to foster evolutionary advancement or, at the very least, prevent biological regression.

The point I am trying to make is that in the 1920s and 1930s, social Darwinism, racism, and eugenics were widely accepted as legitimate scientific theories. They were considered to be the logical and direct implications of scientific evolutionary fact. This is a stark contrast to today’s view, where such ideologies are largely considered pseudoscientific. The Baur-Fischer-Lenz text provided scientific validation for Hitler’s racial policies, including his anti-Semitic views. Hitler’s ideologies were consistent extensions of the scientific claims of his era. The Darwinian concept of the struggle for existence, especially among different races, was central to Hitler’s worldview. He frequently referred to terms like “struggle for existence” and “struggle for life” to emphasise the importance of racial struggle over class struggle. He stated: “Politics is the striving and struggle of a people (Volk) for its daily bread and its existence in the world… It is the struggle for the moment and the struggle for posterity.”²⁴ Hitler firmly believed that survival in the struggle for existence was the ultimate goal of his policies.

In his books, Mein Kampf and his unpublished Second Book, Hitler explained—similar to Darwin in The Origin of Species—that populations tend to grow faster than their food supplies, leading to a competitive struggle for resources. He argued that superior humans would win this struggle, while the inferior would perish. He also argued against the interbreeding of races, believing it would hinder evolutionary progress. He stated: “The stronger must rule; it must not unite with the weaker, thus sacrificing its own greatness.”²⁵ Later in a 1942 speech to military officers, he described the war as a manifestation of natural laws, including evolution, struggle, and selection. He stated, “The entire universe appears to be ruled only by this one idea, that eternal selection takes place, in which the stronger in the end preserves its life and the right to life, and the weaker falls.”²⁶

In a June 1944 speech, Hitler reiterated that his policies aligned with natural selection. He claimed, “It is absolutely true that first of all, the law of selection exists in the world, and nature has granted the stronger and healthier the right to life… That is an eternal law of nature.”²⁷ He emphasised that what might seem cruel actually facilitated higher evolution. He declared, “Nature teaches us with every look into its working, into its events, that the principle of selection dominates it, that the stronger remains victor and the weaker succumbs… what often appears to someone as cruelty… is in reality necessary, in order to bring about a higher evolution of living organisms.”²⁸

Hitler cautioned his officers against humanitarian ethics, arguing that such values would lead to human extinction. He stated, “War is thus the unalterable law of all life, the precondition for the natural selection of the strong and simultaneously the process of eliminating the weaker. What appears to people thereby as cruel, is from the standpoint of nature obviously wise.”²⁹

The point is that Darwinism significantly influenced Hitler’s ideology and political decisions. He promoted a racist interpretation of social Darwinism, believing that the struggle for existence would eliminate ‘inferior’ races and purify the Aryan race. Despite the horrific atrocities he committed, Hitler believed he was contributing to the overall progress, in which biological degeneration was morally unacceptable.

Proposition 3: The Nazi curriculum presented Darwinian evolution as a meta-theory, defining purpose and ethics

Examining the school curriculum during the Third Reich is essential to understanding the Nazi regime’s stance on Darwinian evolution. On September 13, 1933, the Nazi administration made the teaching of heredity and racial science compulsory. The regime stressed that understanding these biological fundamentals was “a condition sine qua non for the renewal of our people. No pupil, boy or girl, should be allowed to leave school for life without this fundamental knowledge.”³⁰

In 1938, the Nazi-led Ministry of Education produced a handbook mandating the teaching of evolution, particularly human race evolution through “selection and elimination.” The curriculum included teaching the emergence of primitive human races alongside animal evolution in the fifth class, and expanded to cover “Lamarckism and Darwinism and their worldview and political implications.”³¹

This 1938 curriculum echoed the biology curriculum developed by the National Socialist Teachers’ League in 1936–37, which made biology, including evolution, central to propagating Nazi ideology. Biology texts frequently discussed human and racial evolution, with theories like the Ice Age advancing Nordic races being widely accepted. Nazi ideals permeated classrooms with proclamations such as “Nature Eliminates Everything Sick and Weak,” “All Life is Struggle. The Weak Perishes,” and “Only the Healthy and Vigorous Survive in the Struggle for Existence.” The term “contra-selection” was used to explain that helping the sick and weak would reduce the number of “valuable” people. In a 1939 article, the racial biologist and professor Ferdinand Rossner criticised teachers who had reservations about evolution, asserting that anti-evolutionism indirectly attacked Nazi racial ideology. 

The main point here is that the Nazi curriculum taught an elevated form of Darwinian evolution as a meta-theory. They endowed it with the power to dictate an entire ethical framework.

Proposition 4: Nazi Germany employed evolutionary concepts to propagate beliefs of racial hierarchy, Nordic racial superiority, and eugenics

In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin reflected on how modern society’s practices—such as providing asylums for the mentally ill, homes for the handicapped, hospitals for the sick, and welfare programs for the poor, might interfere with natural selection’s “process of elimination.” He observed that these religious and humanitarian initiatives might enable the survival and reproduction of individuals who might not have survived in a natural state. Darwin also mentioned the implications of medical advancements like vaccination, observing that it “preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed.” Darwin’s stark conclusion: “Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man… hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.”³² Darwin was torn by the implications of his theory. Likewise, many of his followers believed it would be too cruel for humans to go back to the law of the jungle. They wanted to develop a kinder way to mimic natural selection through modern science. That was the goal of eugenics.

Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin, developed eugenics inspired by On the Origin of Species. He believed that humans should actively guide their own evolution by encouraging reproduction among those with desirable traits, such as intelligence and health, while discouraging it among those deemed unfit, including individuals with mental defects or criminal backgrounds. Galton famously questioned, “Why not breed better humans, so we can speed up evolutionary progress?” He envisioned eugenics as a way to improve humanity by doing “what nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly and kindly.”³³

In the end, Darwin himself did not advocate for a cold or calculated approach to social welfare or reproduction based strictly on natural selection principles. In some instances, he seemed to oppose eugenics and other interventions aimed at guiding human evolution. Instead, he emphasised that sympathy and caring for the weak and sick—what he described as the “noblest part of our nature”—should take precedence over “hard reason.”

Despite Darwin’s more compassionate stance, many of his followers embraced the idea of “hard reason” in aiding natural selection. Some argued that their scientific interventions were actually compassionate, believing that controlling reproduction was kinder than allowing nature to act unimpeded. This perspective gained significant traction in the late 1800s and early 1900s among prominent Darwinian biologists and physicians, including Darwin’s son, Leonard.

For decades, eugenics was widely embraced by the global scientific community and championed by some of the most prominent scientists of the 20th century. In the United States, supporters included biologists from prestigious institutions like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. One of the key figures in the early 20th-century American eugenics movement was Charles Davenport, a zoology professor at Harvard. In 1904, he became the founding director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a centre focused on heredity research and eugenics promotion. Davenport asserted that eugenics was a scientific discipline, as reflected in his 1910 book titled Eugenics: The Science of Human Improvement by Better Breeding. He and other advocates pushed for compulsory sterilisation of those they considered unfit. Influenced by scientists and physicians, Indiana enacted the first compulsory sterilisation law in 1907, with many states soon following. Eugenics significantly shaped American policies, leading to marriage restrictions, immigration limits based on racial hierarchies, and forced sterilisations. By the 1960s, 60,000 American women were sterilised without consent under eugenic policies. Scandinavian countries also adopted compulsory sterilisation laws in the late 1920s and early 1930s. However, it was Nazi Germany that pursued eugenics with the most ruthless intensity.

The roots of eugenics in Germany can be traced back to Ernst Haeckel, a prominent Darwinian biologist who, in the 1870 edition of his book on evolutionary theory, proposed using artificial selection to improve human heredity. By 1904, Haeckel was advocating for the involuntary euthanasia of adults with disabilities or illnesses, whose lives he described as “completely worthless.” These ideas resonated with members of the German Eugenics Society and were echoed by physician Wilhelm Schallmayer in his influential 1891 pamphlet The Threatening Physical Degeneration of Civilised Peoples. Schallmayer suggested that evolutionary theory “undeniably leads” to evolutionary ethics, advocating for state policies that favour a nation’s survival in the struggle for existence.

Later in the 1920’s, Hans F. K. Günther emerged as one of the most influential architects of Nazi racial ideology. Günther’s Nordic racism drew from sources like Arthur de Gobineau, who claimed the Aryan (or Nordic) race was superior but declining due to mixing with other races. Günther used Darwinian theory to explain racial origins and inequalities, citing influences like Darwin, August Weismann, Francis Galton, Alfred Ploetz, and Wilhelm Schallmayer. Günther also drew on the work of Social Darwinists Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Ludwig Woltmann, who combined Darwinian evolution with Gobineau’s racial theories. Articulating his philosophy, Günther argued: “The only way to our goal is the Darwinian way, i.e., selection and elimination: The hereditarily valuable having many children, and the hereditarily inferior having few or no children.” He argued that despite shared ancestry, “these races also have different value. The scientific theory of the common origin [of races] offers no foundation for a political thesis of the equal value of all humans!”³⁴

Another figure shaping Nazi racial ideology was Karl Astel, a Nazi Party and SS member who transformed the University of Jena into a hub for Nazi scientific propaganda. He attributed the evolution of the Nordic race to survival of the fittest during the Ice Age, where harsh conditions eliminated the weak, allowing only the strong to reproduce. He stated that “In this way, through continual destruction in innumerable generations of the life that was incapable of preserving itself, through a propagation of the life that had the greatest part of those fit for life, the Nordic race and its traits… were bred.”³⁵ By contrast, he claimed, other races had not faced the same level of environmental adversity, which allegedly explained their evolutionary “inferiority.”

By the time Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1923, eugenics had become central to his worldview. He advocated for its implementation, asserting that it was grounded in the laws of nature and evolutionary science. He criticised humanitarian efforts to alleviate social hardship, dismissing them as misguided interventions that contravened natural selection. According to Hitler, civilisation had undermined the beneficial effects of Darwinian selection by supporting “inferior” individuals, a process he termed “contra-selection.” These ideas formed the basis for the Nazis’ racial policies, which ultimately led to the forced sterilisation, euthanasia programs, and genocide carried out during the Third Reich.

After Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933, it took only six months for his regime to implement compulsory sterilisation for individuals deemed to have hereditary illnesses. Under this decree, roughly one in every 200 Germans was sterilised. By January 1934, the Nazi Interior Ministry organised a seminar in Munich to educate 120 psychiatrists about the new eugenic sterilisation law that was intended to align with nature’s efforts to engage in a biological struggle for existence, purifying and improving every species and race through a process of selection.

Historian Michael Burleigh argues that Nazi documentaries about eugenics and euthanasia were grounded in a “crudely Social Darwinian view of life as a perpetual struggle for survival amidst a hostile natural environment.” Nazi propaganda films like “Victims of the Past” advocated Darwinian themes and promoted eugenic ideals across Germany. In 1939, Hitler radicalised his eugenics policies further by introducing a secret euthanasia program (T4) that, in a little more than five years, murdered about 200,000 disabled children and adults, plus tens of thousands of other people with disabilities in occupied countries. Despite public opposition, the T4 directors used films like “I Accuse” to promote euthanasia to the German public.

At the heart of these policies was a chilling principle: “The weak and unfit for life must yield to the strong. Nature allows only the most powerful to survive. This struggle is a divine law; it serves for the perfecting of all creatures.” Therefore, the struggle for existence was perceived as a positive force that improved biological organisms. The methods developed during the “eugenic” killings of the disabled—such as gas chambers—became the precursors for the systematic extermination of millions of Jews and other groups during the Holocaust.

Ultimately, the eugenics and euthanasia movements largely stemmed from a materialistic and reductionist interpretation of Darwinian evolution, reducing humans to biological machines valued for their evolutionary utility. Historian Hans-Walter Schmuhl explains that eugenics aimed to establish a new ethical framework based on Darwinian principles, which ultimately paved the way for the widespread acceptance and implementation of euthanasia practices.

A deeply unsettling aspect of this history is that many of Germany’s leading anthropologists, celebrated Darwinists, were embraced and promoted by the Nazi regime. Their ideas became foundational to Nazi racial doctrine, as they held professorships at top universities, served on government committees shaping racial policies, and even joined SS sub-organisations focused on racial matters. These anthropologists frequently lectured on racial ideology for Nazi training courses, with the Nazi regime actively endorsing and advancing their careers.

Eugenicists of that era emphasised the Darwinian principle of natural selection, with its focus on the struggle for existence, as a tool to “improve” the human species. They advocated for policies designed to artificially control human reproduction, particularly limiting it among those they classified as “unfit” or “inferior.” In their pursuit of what they considered “racial hygiene,” these eugenicists wielded Darwinian ideas to justify sterilisation, euthanasia, and ultimately, genocide—turning scientific principles into instruments of immense cruelty.

Contemporary Ethical Debates

Throughout history, both religion and the absence of religion have been invoked to justify terrible acts. Adolf Hitler’s relationship with religion and philosophy is far from straightforward. Though not a Christian in any sense, his rhetoric often employed religious imagery. It is fair to argue that his worldview was rooted in a materialistic (and therefore atheistic) perspective—one that rejected religious notions of the sacred, human equality, and objective moral principles. This materialistic outlook shaped his ideology, allowing him to view human life in purely utilitarian terms, divorced from any transcendent sense of purpose or inherent dignity.

Naturalism, often intertwined with materialism, is a worldview that positions matter and energy as the fundamental building blocks of reality, from which all phenomena emerge. It champions natural science as the preeminent tool for understanding the universe, operating on the premise that the cosmos functions as a closed system—one devoid of supernatural intervention or explanations that are not reduced to non-purposeful mechanisms. In this view, the universe becomes a self-referential machine, and humanity is disconnected from “delusions” of the sacred, valued through the lens of physical attributes and utility in an ostensibly purposeless struggle for survival.

By the late eighteenth century, materialism began to gain traction among intellectuals, paving the way for concepts such as biological determinism and scientific racism. These concepts were further amplified by the rise of Darwinian evolution, which transitioned from being one component of a broader explanatory framework to becoming the dominant narrative for understanding life on Earth. Throughout the nineteenth century, this shift in thought profoundly shaped intellectual discourse, leading to the widespread acceptance of scientific racism among many biologists and anthropologists.

The historical connection between Darwinism, racism, and Nazi ideology remains a contentious topic, often stirring debate among those eager to shield Darwinism from associations with morally repugnant ideologies. Yet, there is considerable evidence suggesting that Darwinian principles significantly influenced Nazi ideology and its policies. If you find the Nazi interpretation of Darwinism abhorrent and seek to challenge it, your quarrel is not with me, but with the Nazis themselves.

The Nazi regime’s racial ideology, while incorporating non-Darwinian elements such as Aryan supremacy, anti-miscegenation, and anti-Semitism, wove these components into a broader worldview deeply rooted in evolutionary principles. Central to this ideology was the notion of species transmutation, the evolutionary development of human races, the advancement of human evolution, and the inevitability of struggle for existence. This struggle, they believed, necessitated fighting for Lebensraum (living space) as a means of survival in the evolutionary battle.

German anthropologist Otto Reche epitomised this fusion of evolutionary thought and Nazi policy in his essay on human evolution, where he explicitly linked Darwinian ideology to the practices championed by the regime. His vision of biologically improving humanity through the advancement of evolution was embraced by Nazi leadership, who framed its claims of racial inequality as scientifically valid. Their logic was clear: since conflict is a mechanism for selection and rejection, and since evolution does not have a terminal point, then as Darwin pointed out: “If he (man) is to advance still higher, it is to be feared that he must remain subject to a severe struggle. Otherwise, he would sink into indolence; and the more gifted men would not be more successful than the less gifted.”³⁶ The Nazi regime sought to accelerate human evolution, not just through racial segregation and the implementation of eugenics policies, but through war itself. British anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith acknowledged Hitler’s commitment to evolution in his 1946 book Ethics and Evolution: “The leader of Germany is an evolutionist not only in theory, but, as millions know to their cost, in the rigour of its practice.”³⁷

To clarify, I am not equating Darwinism with atheism, nor am I denying the scientific validity of Darwinian evolution as a framework for understanding biological adaptation. However, it is important to reflect on the broader philosophical implications of adopting a purely naturalistic worldview—one that ignores and dismisses other dimensions of human existence, such as spirituality and the sense of the sacred. Those who embrace an atheistic naturalism are inclined to adopt Darwinism (or neo-Darwinism) as the sole explanation for human life. But in doing so, there is a potential risk of dismissing other layers that extend beyond empirical science, perspectives which have historically informed humanity’s understanding of its worth and purpose.

My argument is not to undermine Darwinian evolution, but to highlight a cautionary principle: reductionist interpretations of human life can lead to impoverished ethical frameworks. These frameworks may foster values that are harsh, competitive, and even inhumane. Hitler’s reliance on the metaphysical implications of Darwinian thought, paired with Nietzsche’s atheistic philosophy, provided him with intellectual scaffolding to justify his atrocities. Hitler took the metaphysics of Darwinian theory, and in his Mein Kampf said: 

“If nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race (like the Germanic race) should inter-mingle with an inferior (like the Jewish race). Why? Because, in such a case her efforts, throughout hundreds and thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.”³⁸

While you could argue that Hitler grossly misinterpreted Darwinian theory, I think his worldview was merely an extreme yet logical extension of Darwinism when framed through an exclusively materialist and reductionist lens. As far as Hitler was concerned, he was advocating for evolution and striving to establish a new world order free from the influence of Christian morality. He rejected the inherent dignity and sacredness of life as proposed by theistic traditions, embracing instead a view of humanity stripped down to material and functional value—a view dictated by utility and power. 

At what point do we admit that Hitler’s application of Darwinism was not a perversion of the original scientific theory, but an extension of its logic when taken as the sole explanation? Hitler’s use of Darwinism was not a pseudoscientific justification. This does not mean that Darwinian evolution is inherently dangerous or inevitably leads to atrocities. Science itself is neutral; it is a tool we use to explain the natural world. However, when scientific theories are co-opted and interpreted through a narrow, utilitarian lens—as Hitler demonstrated—the consequences can be devastating. 

The lesson is not to reject scientific progress but to recognize the dangers of divorcing science from broader ethical and philosophical considerations. By integrating science with spirituality, morality, and philosophy, we can aspire to a more holistic understanding of the human condition—one that protects the sanctity of life and resists the dangers of reductionism.

Ignoring this legacy of Darwinian racism might not lead us directly to repeating the atrocities of Nazi Germany, but it could subtly shape our societal path, echoing unfortunate prejudices of the past. Today, many secular scholars have sought to establish a foundation for human rights independent of religious frameworks. Philosopher Ronald E. Osborn examines recent efforts in this area but concludes that core humanistic values—such as inviolable human dignity, inalienable human rights, and intrinsic human equality—cannot be fully supported by naturalism (and by extension, atheism), which he argues tends toward nihilism. While many nonreligious individuals are deeply committed to human rights, and numerous secular philosophers advocate for equality and rights as essential principles, creating an objective philosophical basis for these rights from a secular standpoint remains challenging.

Secular humanists today anchor themselves on a belief in the human spirit and capacity for progress, creativity, and love without any need for a “God hypothesis.” But Richard Dawkins’s relentless claim that there is “no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference”³⁹ illuminates a problem. This bleak, secular view of the universe erodes the foundations on which we balance life and humanness itself. If there is no real good or evil, why should we lament? If our sympathy for others is just a byproduct of evolutionary kinship, why should we empathise with the suffering of those outside our tribe, particularly “weaker” races? And if our sense of self, our soul, is just a delusion, moral agency evaporates and so do human rights. As the late Christopher Hitchens, a champion of atheism, declared:

“How do I know there are such things as human rights? I don’t. I don’t know if there are such things… Our grounding [for human rights] is about as tenuous as our position as a primate species on a rather dodgy planet.”⁴⁰

Human equality has no firm secular foundation, and there is no escaping it.

Hitler exploited the perceived weaknesses in secular and naturalistic philosophies to justify atrocities against those outside his defined “tribe.” Competition’s eradication of the weak fuels the engine that drives evolution—it is the key to natural selection; so if you reduce humans to just their scientific components and exclude deeper levels of meaning, then you are left with a worldview incompatible with a belief system that values humans equally. 

What is truly instructive about Hitler’s use of natural selection is that Darwin himself foresaw such implications and repercussions from his theory. Darwin said, “In the long run, a million horrid deaths would be amply repaid in the cause of humanity.”⁴¹ Again, to repeat an earlier quote by Darwin: “Looking at the world at no distant date, what an endless number of lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilised races throughout the world.”⁴² This grieved Darwin.

While it is unwise to judge a philosophy solely by its misuse, Hitler’s actions inadvertently highlighted the potential consequences of naturalism when divorced from moral considerations. The atrocities committed in concentration camps represent a logical, albeit horrific, extension of a worldview that provides no place for the sacredness of human life. Hitler unintentionally exposed atheism and dragged it towards its reluctant logical conclusion. 

Thankfully, after the horrors inflicted by Nazi Germany were exposed, Darwinian eugenics and racial policies were rightly discredited and widely condemned. Yet, a strictly materialistic interpretation of Darwinism—positioning it as the sole explanatory framework for human life—continues to shape contemporary bioethical debates. Though we should always approach historical parallels with caution, it is sobering to acknowledge that some modern-day thinkers have blindly adopted views reminiscent of concepts once embraced in darker eras.

Take, for instance, Kevin MacDonald, an emeritus professor of psychology and a known white supremacist. MacDonald’s assertions echo Hitler’s principles: that racial groups are engaged in a survival of the fittest, that behavioural traits are biologically predetermined, and that stereotypically Jewish traits are evolutionary tactics to triumph over other races in this racial competition.

Similarly, provocative claims have emerged in bioethics. Philosophers such as Peter Singer and James Rachels explicitly argue that Darwinism undermines the traditional Judeo-Christian sanctity-of-life ethic. These philosophers openly contend that practices like pre-birth and after-birth abortion, euthanasia, and even infanticide are morally permissible under a Darwinian secular worldview. Singer asserts that even “a week-old baby is not a rational and self-conscious being, and there are many nonhuman animals whose rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, capacity, and so on, exceed that of a human baby of a week or a month old.”⁴³ Therefore, Singer concludes that “the life of a newborn baby is of less value… than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee.”⁴⁴ Medical ethicists Alberto Guibilini and Francesca Minerva also argue that “after-birth abortion (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.” ⁴⁵

Perhaps you find some of these arguments unsettling or even extreme. I do. While these ethicists are making a poor caricature of morality, in many ways, they are remaining consistent with the materialistic framework of their secular worldview. If human life is all about maximising pleasure or happiness while minimising pain or unhappiness, then killing babies born with serious defects makes sense—it allows parents the opportunity to have a child without such conditions, reduces the number of severely disabled children, and alleviates the burden on limited resources.

Why Are Ethicists Discussing the Killing of Disabled Babies?

Jerry Coyne, evolutionary biologist and professor emeritus at the University of Chicago in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, also advocated for the legalisation of infanticide for babies with biological defects. He wrote, “After all, we euthanize our dogs and cats when to prolong their lives would be torture, so why not extend that to humans?”⁴⁶ Coyne recognises that the reason we do not do so is because of a view of human beings that Darwinism has yet to completely overcome:

“The reason we don’t allow euthanasia of newborns is because humans are seen as special, and I think this comes from religion—in particular, the view that humans, unlike animals, are endowed with a soul… When religion vanishes, as it will, so will much of the opposition to both adult and newborn euthanasia.”⁴⁷

Coyne’s argument underscores a sobering reality: without a transcendent basis for human dignity—such as the belief that humans occupy a special category of personhood based on creation in the image of God—the value of human life is increasingly evaluated through utilitarian or functional criteria. This perspective inevitably erodes the long-standing moral premise that all human beings, regardless of capacity, possess inherent worth. While the endorsement of after-birth abortion by so-called intellectuals may be shocking to some, the broader societal acceptance of abortion has laid the groundwork for such debates. Alexander Sanger, a former chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council, goes further by arguing that human-directed abortion is an extension of natural selection. He states:

“Humanity has evolved to take conscious control of reproduction and has done so in order to survive… We cannot repeal the laws of natural selection. Nature does not let every life survive. Humanity uniquely, and to its benefit, can exercise some dominion over this process and maximise the chances for human life to survive and grow.”⁴⁸

Let me be very direct. If you maintain a belief in human equality and the inherent value of life while adhering to a secular worldview, then I think you are being inconsistent. Contemporary secular humanism posits a worldview where its moral and reality constructs are often at odds: human beings are a mere collection of atoms labouring under the illusion that they are moral agents, yet simultaneously asserting that humans possess immense, equal, and inalienable worth.

Historical events, such as Hitler’s use of secular philosophies to justify his ambitions, underscore the potential dangers of a worldview devoid of an ultimate relational anchor. Without belief in the sense of sacred, and the depth of relationships reaching as far as the divine, a reductionist perspective risks viewing humans as nothing more than purposeless biological machines governed solely by self-created physical laws, rendering the sense of self an illusion. In such a framework, morality is not a responsibility but a mere preference. As MIT professor Alan Lightman articulated,  “We are a bunch of atoms, like trees, and like doughnuts,” so, eat a doughnut, or eat a child. Anything goes—or, as the paraphrased line from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov you might have heard goes: “If God is dead, everything is permitted.”

Everything means everything. What we call good and what we call bad. Not all atheists are immoral. You don’t need religious belief to act ethically or have personal moral values. However, from a strictly hard-atheistic perspective, it’s hard to see how morality as absolute goodness can be justified. While an atheist may live an upright life, they lack a basis for notions of universal moral obligations and principles. Moral duty cannot logically operate without a moral law; and there is no moral law in an amoral world.

In a world increasingly guided by doctrine built on secular and materialistic presuppositions, we may find disturbing parallels between our own underlying assumptions and those that drove Hitler’s ideology. The challenge is to examine our beliefs, to understand the paths they may lead us down, and to strive continually for a society that upholds the dignity, empathy, and compassion that can guard against the darkest corners of the human soul.

1. OSS; The Nazi Master Plan; Annex 4: The Persecution of the Christian Churches, 6 July 1945 ↩︎
2. Bucher, Rainer. 2011. Hitler’s Theology a Study in Political Religion. London and New York: Continuum International Publishing, p. 28 ↩︎
3. Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. Volume 1, Chapter 11: “Nation and Race”. ↩︎
4. Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960, pp. 100-101. ↩︎
5. Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols ↩︎
6. Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, abridged edition (New York, NY: HarperPerennial, 1962), 219. ↩︎
7. United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality. “Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume V.” United States Government Printing Office, 1946, p. 365. Document 2656-PS. ↩︎
8. Plate 1932:vii ↩︎
9. Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray, 1871. Print. Chapter 7. ↩︎
10. Charles Darwin to William Graham, July 3, 1881, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter no. 13230, University of Cambridge, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13230.xml. Letter quoted in Francis Darwin, Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters (London: Murray, 1902), 64. ↩︎
11. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 2 vols. [1871] (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 1:201. ↩︎
12. Desmond, A., & Moore, J. (2009). Darwin’s Sacred Cause: Race, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ↩︎
13. Charles Darwin to Charles Kingsley, February 6, 1862, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter no. 3439, University of Cambridge, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-3439.xml. Letter quoted in Desmond and Moore, Darwin’s Sacred Cause, 318. ↩︎
14. Darwin, C. (1859). On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray. ↩︎
15. Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle, ed. Leonard Engel (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1962), 70–71, 208; quotes at 501, 213. For more on Darwin’s view of the Australian aborigines, see Barry W. Butcher, “Darwinism, Social Darwinism and the Australian Aborigines: A Reevaluation,” in Darwin’s Laboratory: Evolutionary Theory and Natural History in the Pacific, eds. Roy MacLeod and Philip F. Rehbock (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), 371–394. ↩︎
16. Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle, 433-434 ↩︎
17. Darwin, Charles. The Voyage of the Beagle. 1839. Quoted in Nicholas, F. W., and J. M. Nicholas. Charles Darwin in Australia. Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 97. ↩︎
18. John Flint, Cecil Rhodes p. 24 ↩︎
19. Darwin, Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, 537. ↩︎
20. Darwin, Descent, 1:35. ↩︎
21. Gross, Walter. “National Socialist Racial Thought” 1938. ↩︎
22. Massin, Benoit. “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race.” Edited by Dieter Kuntz and Susan D. Bachrach, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2004, p. 125. ↩︎
23. Traudl Junge, “Bis zur letzten Stunde: Hitlers Sekretärin erzählt ihr Leben,” ed. Melissa Müller (Munich: Claassen Verlag, 2002), 122. ↩︎
24. Adolf Hitler, “Zukunft oder Untergang,” March 6, 1927, microfilm, p. 2, Hoover Institution, NSDAP Hauptarchiv, Reel 2, Folder 59. ↩︎
25. Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. Translated by Ralph Manheim, Houghton Mifflin, 1999. ↩︎
26. Adolf Hitler, “War der Zweite Weltkrieg für Deutschland vermeidbar?,” May 30, 1942, in Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier, ed. Henry Picker (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1989), 491. ↩︎
27. Adolf Hitler, “Hitler vor Bauarbeitern in Berchtesgaden über nationalsozialistische Wirtschaftspolitik am 20. Mai 1937,” in “Es spricht der Führer”: 7 exemplarische Hitler-Reden, ed. Hildegard von Kotze and Helmut Krausnick (Gütersloh: Sigbert Mohn Verlag, 1966), 220-221. ↩︎
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