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ISSN 1440-9828
September 2005
No 257
Ernst Zündel
JVA Mannheim
D – 68169 Mannheim
Germany
18 July 2005
To my friends in Australia and New Zealand!
This is an emergency note to tell you of a sad situation which has arisen in Germany in my situation.
I have been ordered by court, the Landgericht Mannheim, not to write more than two letters a day – working days – and these letters must not exceed five pages or two and a half sheets in length.
I am also not allowed to receive more than two pieces of mail on a working day. A piece of mail is either a letter or a one sentence picture postcard, which I receive plenty of, since some American, German and French, as well as South African and of course Australian publications have published my name and address.
Thus I received twenty-three picture postcards in French on a Tuesday, and sixty-two letters on a Friday, which apparently overwhelmed the capacity of the court which acts as a censor in Germany.
This means my mail will very quickly back up and I will get it later and later – and of course can then only respond much later.
I finally received my charges and believe it nor not I am not allowed to discuss them in my letters from prison, to do otherwise would lead to the confiscation of my letter, which has happened already several times!
You, my friends, have been very kind, very helpful, also very loyal – and generous within your means! I would request not to send those postal coupons – but to send any help you can offer to my embattled wife! She needs it!
The prison supplies me with food, clothing, a roof over my head – thus I am OK. The guards and staff are correct! Actually some are down right nice people!
Thanks you my friends. A lady friend will forward this letter to you.
All the best.
Ernst Zündel
Ernst and Ingrid Zündel at the 2000 IHR Conference
From Fredrick Töben
17 August 2005
Dear Supporters
I am deliberately writing this letter on this day because it marks the 18th anniversary of Rudolf Heß’s murder by British intelligence, as ordered by then PM Margaret Thatcher. I still recall in 1970-71 seeing in a tent in the middle of Stuttgart – Schloßplatz – students on a hunger strike attempting to draw attention to Rudolf Heß‘s continued imprisonment at Spandau Prison, Berlin. Remember after his death the authorities bulldozed the site, as the Jews are now doing to Palestinian property. Where was then the world’s outrage, where is the outrage today?
All major humanitarian groups, beginning with Amnesty International, have forfeited their moral and intellectual integrity by remaining silent on the issue. They deserve to be condemned because the continuation – the link to the present – is embodied in Ernst Zündel’s current imprisonment, since 5 February 2003, because it was Zündel who drew the world’s attention to Rudolf Heß’s heroic stance by activating those students into action on behalf of Rudolf Heß. Now Ernst Zündel is in imprisoned at Mannheim where I spent seven months in 1999. I recall then that in January 1977 I met Stuttgart’s Bürgermeister, Manfred Rommel – yes, the son of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel – with a request from an Australian of English background and an admirer of his father, that he sign a book about his father. Rommel informed me that he, too, “unofficially” supported the release of Heß. What a pity that Rommel’s son did not leave any children behind, as did Heinrich Himmler. Why is that important? Recently Topf & Söhne’s heir and son gave a media interview where he groveled to the world, especially to the Jewish lobby and begged for Jewish forgiveness – something Himmler’s daughter never did, and I salute her for that!
I am aware – who is not? – of moves to cast a shadow on this period of history by those who wish to point out how international finance helped the National Socialist cause, how Adolf Hitler was supposed to have been a homosexual, how he is supposed to have had Jewish ancestry, how the symbol of that era, the Swastika, was steeped in socialism (whatever that means), how nationalism itself – the Volksgemeinschaft – was a lot of nonsense and logically quite contradictory.. However, when we now recall how medical doctor Geerd Ryk Hamer, 70, has continued to suffer imprisonment in France on account of his refusing to recant/renounce his medical discoveries as registered in German New Medicine, and how Horst Mahler claims salvation rests not with religion but with German idealist philosophy as embodied in Kant and Hegel, then we are back to the time of 1939-45, which was so rudely and violently interrupted by the God of Mammon and internationalism whose catch-cry has for all time been: “freedom and democracy”. I am reminded of Dr Claus Nordbruch’s comment to the SBS Radio interviewer on January 3, 2005, who confronted Nordbruch about having ill-advisedly chosen the worse address in Australia for his trip around the continent: Adelaide Institute. Nordbruch rejected such a mind-set by claiming that he did not have Berührungsängste, and that he is prepared to address anyone who will listen to him, from any political persuasion.
Problem
For almost eight years finally we have had our trusty Minolta workhorse photocopier give up on us for a major overhaul that will cost us $1,000. Had we taken out the service insurance and paid half a cent on each page photocopied, then this would have cost us nothing. However, as we have almost reached the half-million copies made on the machine, I have been advised we did well not to take out that insurance scheme.
I now invite you to help us pay for this by making a donation, either in Postal Order or in cash placed in an envelope. Bank cheques cost too much to cash. Please be advised that to date we have in or twelve years of operation never lost any donation, and I don’t know if this is due to the fact that I once worked in the PMG pay office during the 1960s!
Plan of possible tour
Also, we have been fortunate in finding a man who until recently – for 70 years of his life – believed in the gassing story. He has now constructed a model, 1:100, of the alleged murder weapon, as per pictures below. We intend to organize an Australian tour of this model sometime after October, perhaps during the dead time of January 2006. It is important for individuals finally to have a closer look at the alleged murder weapon. I say this in light of Prof Deborah Lipstadt’s recent statement that the Zyklon B gas was inserted through windows, and not through holes in the roof. During the 1960s Frankfurt Auschwitz trial it was claimed that there were two gas insertion holes. Then it was claimed that it was four gas insertion holes. Now during the 2000 David Irving London trial the then expert, Prof Robert Jan van Pelt, claimed the holes were the size of tennis balls and that they had been filled in with concrete before the Germans dynamited the structures. The story keeps on changing as the Revisionists show the absurdity of the believers’ claims of gassings.
And now to the photographs of the model of the alleged murder weapon as it appears on our website: www.adelaideinstitute.org
Fredrick Töben outside the gate of Auschwitz-Birkenau
Plan of Auschwitz-Birkenau
An aerial view of Auschwitz-Birkenau, one of millions of photographs stored by
Keele University, allegedly proving the gassings – blatant nonsense, if not outright deception.
This is an exact model - 1:100 - of the alleged 'Holocaust' murder weapon at Auschwitz-Birkenau
Enter through the gate
...or walk around it, or ...
... take the roof off and look inside the Leichenhalle-mortuary and the crematorium, and learn how this huge chemical slaughterhouse worked!
==========================================
Please advise me if you are interested in viewing this model by either ringing me up or by sending me a brief note. Thank you for your continued support – the battle goes on until we close our eyes.
Sincerely
Fredrick Töben
*************************************************
From Ingrid Zündel
Stand by for a Zündel Holocaust Trial # 3, to be fought on the soil of Germany.
12 August 2005Even though communication between me and Ernst is now severely restricted, I can give you the exact dates of when Ernst's trial will start. For now, five days have been reserved in November. They are:
Tuesday, 8 November 2005 - 9:00h.
Wednesday, 9 November 2005 - 9:00h.
Tuesday, 15 November 2005 - 9:00h.
Wednesday, 16 November 2005 - 9:00h.
Thursday, 24 November 2005 - 9:00h.
Just a few days ago, I received the text of these charges in German - 14 points. Those who are able to read these charges with an open mind, will know they are an indictment not against Ernst Zundel who speaks the truth as he found it and knows it, but against a country that prides itself on being a "democracy".1. The bulk of the charges pertains to documents that have been posted on the Zundelsite for some 8 years, translated into several languages. They are introductory essays ("Holocaust 101") to Holocaust Revisionism and come in eight languages. You can read for yourself what they say if you are so inclined - http://www.zundelsite.org/101.html
2. A few of Ernst's "Germania" letters sent to his world-wide network of friends and supporters are also found politically objectionable.
These letters were legal in Canada, where most of them were written, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling in 1992 giving Ernst the right to say what he believes to be the truth, and they are legal in the United States, based on the First Amendment to the Constitution. They were NOT written in Germany, where draconian laws are locked in place that serve the State of Israel and not the German people.
I don't know anything beyond this document outlining Ernst's political "sins". I will keep you updated to the extent that I hope to be updated on developments.I should also add that an arrest warrant in Germany has been sworn out against me as well, which means that I will not be able to attend the trial in Germany.
So we are gearing up for yet another round. It will be yet another burden on my time and drain on our resources. It is also an important step forward.
Stand by for a Zundel Holocaust Trial # 3, to be fought on the soil of Germany. I conclude with a few comments from Ernst on this upcoming trial, gleaned from various letters to me.
Ingrid Zündel
***
I have had no more mail since I was notified that my case has been taken over by the Landgericht, which as first order of business decided to restrict my incoming and my outgoing mail by what amounts to a 90% reduction. This allowed me to go through every document (I assume!) that the government is marshalling against me. Since I am still uncertain what I am allowed to say about things, let me be general in comments:
Remember how useful court cases have been in the past - for instance, when in 1981 during the postal hearing I got to see the letter of Simon Wiesenthal, which started all these years of persecution? Well, this time we hit the Motherlode, and Bruce [our immigration attorney who handles our suit against the U.S. government] will be able to add a few names to the depositions.
I found it a very painful process because I am tired of the subject, but it seems my fate is that I have to go through this rigmarole (sp?) one more time. With hard work we will produce a shocking documentation, and that will be useful.was up at 4:30 a.m., and I have been studying and preparing for the trial and had to relive my life and my struggle, almost as if in a film - and, kiddo, was it one steady grind! I am now amazed and in awe of myself that, like a sleepwalker, I walked through the minefields of my enemies! I now have ample, ample confirmation of the accuracy of my intuition!
Remember when I used to be "soul-upset", when I used to think there was something wrong with my kids? It was the you-know-what's, scheming and meeting and interviewing people. We suspected all along - except it is worse! But we were right on the money most of the time!I also read and am astonished at the millions of words spoken, written, and typed - alone the typing was heroic. I also note with sadness how many of our friends have fallen by the wayside, now very elderly. And many, many died.
The whole exercise is like a standing on one of those Tribünen, and instead of troops marching past, it is one's life passing by in front of me for review. When I see the superhuman effort in the face of such unmitigated callousness and unfairness, I can only conclude that some extraordinary dynamism made me sustain all of this.
I am going through those mountains and mountains of documents and it's an upsetting task because it shows a huge amount of work by thousands of bureaucrats of all stripes who have been officially confronted with the results of my work. Yet when you read their comments and analyses, it is not the least reflected that it impacted on their thinking and attitudes about Germany's role. So we deny ourselves what is called a normal life and happiness, while these people, whom we try to shield and protect, attack us from behind without any appreciation our work deserves. There has to be a way to break through this log jam. There are shocking things going on!
What we are dealing with are very, very complex issues, especially in Germany as it tried to pick itself up by its own bootstraps out of incredible pulverization. It's like trying to reassemble the constantly changing little pieces of a kaleidoscope being slowly turned, with its pieces tumbling and shifting. Compare these pieces to the forces in society, all climbing over each other, all juggling interests, wants, desires, personal ambitions, greed, corruption, all the powers of lobbies, open and hidden, the secret societies, cults and sects which have been around for hundreds, maybe thousands of years!The last century was the culmination and the beginning of that never-ending process of "historification" where, as soon as something is spoken or written, it's like a bullet out of a rifle barrel on its own trajectory - gone, unleashed, aimed or randomly heading somewhere.
Seeing in these many, many thousands of pages how thoughts and words impact on people's lives, on societies' functioning - that is one hell of a realization!
In the end, the overall thoughts, concepts and goals are lost in the minutiae of bureaucrats filling in papers, of the statements of snitches and paid agents, of little petty thieves giving false testimonies which then careen through history's corridors, hitting this and that. You add to that the vendettas of minorities, pyramid climbers in society's bureaucracies, in the spy services, in the legal systems, the police forces, the corridors of power, elected and unelected.
Ingrid, add to that the betrayals of friends and of wives, jilted girl friends, of revenge being extracted for imagined hurts never inflicted, yet treated as if real!What unfolds before one's eyes is psychohistory, a drama with constantly changing actors and storylines and constantly changing stage sets, only part of which are visible. The cranes, wires, pulleys, carpenters, painters behind the scenes are invisible, but very, very real to the unfolding of the play, which is unfolding history.
The study of these documents have made me realize that – with sledge hammer-like impact!
If all this sounds weird to you, sitting on our balcony, looking down our beautiful valley, I can understand you might shake your head and maybe say, "What on earth is Ernst talking about?"
Well, it is that I am at the center of these unleashed, countervailing forces pushing, shoving, climbing over each other, tugging, pulling me this way and that.
I am punch-drunk [with fatigue] and must end the letter. I will continue it tomorrow morning 5 a.m.
***
Those are the words of the world's best-known political prisoner, my husband and your friend. Since Ernst is prevented from giving me specifics, I cannot give you specifics, but a little bird has told me we can expect a few surprises. Please stay with me - you and I have center stage, and it could well be that the last round has begun!
To my friends, a big thank you, straight from the heart! To our enemies: Don't count us out! To the rest of the world: No surrender!
Ingrid Zündel
This was the last time Fredrick Töben saw Ernst and Ingrid Zündel. A few days later, on 5 February 2003, Ernst was kidnapped by local police, then transported to Canada where he spent two years in prison. On 28 February 2005 he was flown to Germany where he arrived at Mannheim Prison just after midnight on 1 March 2005.
A letter from an Australian-born lady of Scottish background
who to this day unashamedly remains an admirer of Adolf Hitler.
Dear Fredrick
Have just finished reading Germany’s Hitler, by Heinz A Heinz, first published in 1934, and this 1938 edition is by Hurst & Blackett, 34 Paternoster Row, E.C.4, London There is no indication of the author’s identity or qualifications, but he dedicates the book >TO MY SINCERE ENGLISH AND AMERICAN FRIENDS<. He is obviously an enthusiastic National Socialist! Overall, the book portrays Adolf Hitler as very considerate, always polite and impressive – intensely loyal to his old friends – of course his brilliance and capability shine through. For me – a devastating loss for Germany and Mankind!
His time on the Western Front is described very well – the best I have read. His bravery outstanding, despite being at first wounded, and then blinded by gas.
The struggle against the Marxists in Munich and the rest of Germany was long and hard – Europe can thank Adolf Hitler and his SA for the outcome. His time in Landsberg Prison reminds me of Ernst Zündel – same restrictions with visitors and a warder sitting in, except that when Adolf left, the prison staff was all converts!The true situation in the Sudetenland is explained – there was so much hardship and discrimination, Adolf had to act. He mentions the removal of those with mental and genetic problems, but rather callously reduces this to removal of a financial burden from the community, rather than racial purification.
Very little is said of the Jews, except those who had fought for Germany were accepted as citizens.
Heinz explains how Germany overcame inflation and unemployment, not by re-arming as is always said, but by national effort, wise planning, schemes to alleviate poverty and goodwill – labour camps, mothers’ help, etc. but I was not impressed by removal of women from tertiary education – good will would be needed here!
So, all in all, a good book about a good man. But as I am from an older generation, I may feel the tragedy more than you do. I would like you to find the time to read it – quaint language and rather stilted at times, but you get a picture of a genius.
Brisbane, 21 July 2005
For the Record from the Archives
Fredrick Töben participating in ABC Radio National - talk-back
1. Politics: 22 November 1984Morning Extra, Mike: … and to Dr Fredrick Töben who is at Goroke in Victoria.
Fredrick Töben: Good morning Mr Hawke.
Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke: Good morning Doctor.
FT: May I call you Robert?
BH: You can call me Bob even.
FT: OK. My question, Bob, focuses on your foreign policy and relates to the internal system in our country. I’d like you to clarify your position on what I consider a hypocritical stance being adopted by your government on the Australia-South Africa policy. We oppose apartheid in South Africa, yet we’re introducing it into Australia in a very subtle way through the land rights legislation, and I believe that this hypocrisy is an example of Australia being at an advanced stage of corruption.
BH: Well, Dr Töben, that’s a line of reasoning which, even with my intellectual agility I find impossible to follow, but I’ll give you what I think are the appropriate comments. There is no hypocrisy and no vestiges of hypocrisy in this matter. I don’t know whether your question assumes that there is some justice in what’s happening in South Africa. I hope you’re not assuming that, but let me make it clear what the position of my government is in regard to Apartheid and its practice in South Africa. I find it, and my government finds it, abhorrent without qualification that you have a systemized basis of denying to the overwhelming majority of the population in South Africa, simply because they are black, the denial of the rights that are available to the minority in that country, and are persecuted in a way which is absolutely abhorrent. It’s systematized, and they are denied their opportunities as human beings in a way which is just totally abhorrent.
Now, there is no similarity, you would require the most distorted sort of logic to relate that systematized abuse of rights to what’s occurring in this country in regard to the question of land rights .Let me make these points. In 1967 the people of Australia, I guess you were here at that time Dr Töben, the people of Australia by an overwhelming majority in a referendum in 1967 said this: that they didn’t want to leave the question of Aboriginal affairs and Aboriginal rights any longer the exclusive preserve of the state, and by one of the largest majority ever in a referendum put to the people of Australia, they said the national government, the Federal Government, should have a constitutional responsibility in this area. Now that was a clear decision of the people of Australia, and in response to that decision of the people of Australia, in a referendum, let me remind you which was put to the people of Australia, not by a Labor government but by a non-Labor government. A non-Labor government said to the people of Australia the federal parliament must have rights to legislate in this area - the non- Labor government. And then when that was passed by the people of Australia in response to a non-Labor government referendum, the government of my predecessor passed legislation, land rights legislation in regard to the Northern Territory, which gave effect to the will of the people in 1967 that the Commonwealth should legislate.
Now, what we are doing is to say, with the consultation of the states, with the miners, with the farmers, and with the Aboriginals, we will move to give effect to the desire of the people of Australia expressed in a referendum. Now that is a position where the whole of the people of Australia were consulted as to whether there in fact should be a legislative power in the federal parliament, was done by a non-Labor government, a non-Labor government has acted on it, and a Labor government is going to act on it.
Now there are the full democratic, constitutional processes, and as I say it requires the greatest distortion of logic imaginable to try and equate that in any way with the situation in South Africa.MIKE: Dr Töben, we’ll have to leave it there. Thank you very much for your call, and let’s go to…
***PS: 2 June 2005 – Fredrick Töben: Australia’s Federal Parliament is in the process of dissolving the Aboriginal & Torres Straights Islanders Commission, ATSIC, the peak body that had intimated it would work towards the establishing of a separate Aboriginal nation within Australia. For two decades ATSIC attempted to lift Aboriginal living standards – without success. Instead, it developed a corrupt fat-cats bureaucracy that could not even teach youngsters to blow their own nose.
*************************************
2. Education - 5 December 1991Fredrick Toben: Good afternoon. I was very disturbed to hear what was going on with this business of bringing in this sexism because in my view it creates victims –
Don Haywood – Liberal Opposition Education Minister: Yes.
FT: - and our legal system will be flooded with calls in this respect, and children at school, they should not be stifled like that. It’s going to create victims, it’s going to force children into absolute passivity. Instead of making mistakes at school and learning therefrom this is going to really destroy them. The idea of sexism is a bureaucratic instrument, in my view, which will enslave the youngsters, and it doesn’t provide a moral-ethical dimension for a developing person.
Bernard Lynch – talk-back host ABC Radio: Don Haywood?
DH: Well, I think that’s a very valid comment. I’d also say that I believe education is increasingly being diverted in Victoria, away from those very fundamental educational needs of students into the sort of ideologically based activities. And of course this is something which is very much part of the government’s whole approach of using education for social engineering purposes. I think it’s misguided and is going to be very unhelpful and could leave a mark on some of these young people for all their lives.
BL: Fredrick, just a quick comment from you. You were a teacher for many years I know. Was there much of this what we might call dirty jokes and sexism going on in your days?
FT: If it was, then we would have teachers, or we would from our own volition inform youngsters that this was not the done thing. We would give them a moral framework, which would enable the youngsters to direct their energies into a, well, socially acceptable pattern of behaviour.
BL: OK. Thank you very much for joining us, Fredrick. Don, a lot of this sexism, of course, comes in from the home. Each home is different, parents raise their kids differently, and what goes in one house doesn’t go in another … which gives us a bit of a problem.
DH: Yes, I understand that point but I think, again as your caller said, it is a responsibility of a school to develop that sort of ethos and character in a school where students respect each other, and I think that’s what it gets down to, and if a student is telling an unsatisfactory joke, then that student should be advised and counseled and told that’s not just the ethics, that’s not just the character of the school. We believe that students should treat one another with good manners, and that’s what it really gets down to in the end.
**********************************
3. Science - 7 March 1993
Terry Laidlaw: …you’re listening to Sunday Night Talk, Terry Laidlaw with you, and with me Paul Davies, professor of mathematical physics at Adelaide University and John Honour, Jesuit priest, philosopher of science and theologian. We’re talking about the relationship between science and religion and if you’d like to join the discussion at any stage the number to ring 03 670 9044 if you’re calling from out of the 03 telephone area one of my producers says it can be used badly and for power and for control and for all sorts of things. It must be even more humble than science, religion …Fredrick from Goroke joins us on the line there, good evening Fredrick.
Fredrick: Good evening Terry and guests. I’d like to express two points of view if I way. Professor Paul Davis’ concept of the Big Bang theory seems to me to be too limiting because pre-science people also had a limited view of the universe beginning with the planets and the sun, and so on, and we now know that the known universe is unimaginable in size and inconceivably violent, and the question to ask in my view is: What came before the Big Bang? Was it another Big Bang, or the literary concept of the pulsations of the universe? And in this context I don’t think what Paul believes, if I understood him correctly, is significant. He sometimes says there’s a danger in thinking about something. I don’t think there is any danger in thinking that the universe, for example, is a continuum, a never-ending state of being, and in this context my second point …
TL: Let’s comment on this one, Fredrick, I won’t cut you off, we’ll come back to you, is that all right?
F: Right.
TL: Do you want to have a go at that one first, Paul, that there is no problem with a total continuous …
Paul Davies: Yes, first of all let me say that the Big Bang theory I’ve been talking about is not my theory or my belief – it’s the party line, the standard point-of-view. It’s not eccentric, you know, there’s a lot of evidence that it’s along the right line. Let me re-iterate the point I made that the Big Bang is not the explosion of a lump of something in a pre-existing void. It’s the origin of time and space and time as well as matter and energy. So the question about what happened before the Big Bang is simply meaningless. And this is the great contribution of modern physics to cosmology. It shows us that time can stretch and shrink and it can have a beginning and an end. Time is part of the physical universe, and the origin of the universe is the origin of time. Now that seems like a radical view but already in the 5th century Augustin said that the world was made with time and not in time. So it’s an idea that is not only respectable in religion and philosophy but it’s now respectable in science. This is an idea we have to embrace, and the reason I say we have to is because to assert the universe has always existed runs into horrendous problems. They’re not problems that need scare us, but they’re problems that we have to confront, and they’re the simple problem that if any process proceeds at a finite rate, and if this process is irreversible, then it’s obvious that it can’t have been going for an infinite amount of time because any such process will reach its end state after a finite period of time. The classic case is a ticking clock. A clock won’t go on ticking forever. It has to be re-wound. So it you go into a room and find the clock is ticking, you know somebody must have been there to set the thing going at a finite time in the past. It can’t have been ticking away forever, and the same thing is true of the universe. For example, we know the sun is going to burn out. It can’t have been burning forever. It simply doesn’t have the fuel to burn forever. It has a limited period of time. That’s one example of an irreversible process decaying (?) at a finite rate, eventually the sun will burn out. The universe as a whole obeys a similar principle. So we know it can’t have been going on forever. It’s just common sense but it’s also basic physics.
TL: But you want to go beyond that, Fredrick, I think?
F: Yes, I’d like to disagree with that but I won’t go on with that because the plasma making up our universe or the space above us, I’ll come to that in a minute. The great German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, of course offered a common sense explanation, which does not bring science and religion into conflict, and he was fascinated by the two wonders – the universe above us and the moral law within us, and the unity flows from such thinking through the categorical imperative, and such a view can do without a God but does not exclude a God, and this is what gives value to individual freedom.
TL: For those who haven’t had a look at Kant, sort of operationalize that for us, tell us what you’re saying in concrete terms.
FT: Well, just walk out, look this is being broadcast all over Australia, in the bush you just have to walk out of your house and just look up and you just look into that void out there. It’s not a void, it’s fully populated, and that just reduces you as an individual to nothing, but by thinking that we know that we are a part of that universe and therefore we have to listen within ourselves, within us we hear the moral law, and this of course for some, those who believe in God, that is God speaking to us. Therefore there is that unity. It’s not split.
TL: I think the point’s taken. I think John, I can see the look on your face, and not on Paul Davis, I think you have some problems with that way of tying things together.
JH: Immanuel Kant was writing a kind of reaction to a philosopher David Hume who’d really done a terrific hatchet-job on the whole of metaphysics and said only the things that we can see and taste and touch are real and we can’t do any metaphysics, and Kant said this is pretty serious because I’m interested in metaphysics, and so he wanted to deal with the sort of questions Fredrick was asking, and he did it in a fairly extreme way by fielding particular questions of freedom and the moral law. I don’t think we have to take quite as drastic a path as Kant did because I find morality such a tendentious issue these days that I don’t think it’s helpful to talk about it. But I appreciate what Fredrick’s saying, but there are other approaches too, even the transcendental aesthetics of Immanuel Kant might lead us in that direction.
TL: Though Fredrick’s pushed us into an interesting direction. I mean if you can glean from the structure of the physical world signs of a transcendent god, can you glean there also, Paul Davis, the sign of what the good life is? I mean, does the physical world tell us about what it is to be
human?PD: I often get asked this question, and what I say is you don’t go to a physicist to put you right on, you know, ethical issues or moral dilemmas …
TL: ...then why on theological issues?
PD: Well, because, I’ll come back to the opening remarks that when we’re dealing with these deep issues of existence concerning the physical world and the natural world about us, like its origin, the nature of the origin of life and the nature of consciousness, and so on, then that’s a very legitimate area for scientists, in particular physicists to get involved. When it comes to who to vote for in the election, you know, then that is a real issue, it’s an important issue in people’s minds, but you wouldn’t ask a physicist. No, it doesn’t mean there’s anything about human behaviour that’s sort of violating the laws of physics or in conflict with them. It’s just that the laws of physics don’t help you very much in evaluating these human concerns. These human concerns are very real for human beings but we mustn’t – I come back to the point I made earlier – we mustn’t –
TL: Oh, for some reason or other it appears that Adelaide’s rushed off to get some news and Paul Davis has dropped out for that reason. That might be an appropriate occasion for us to take a break in the program. You’re listening to Sunday Night Talk. It’s half-past eleven, and with me in the studio John Honour, Jesuit priest, philosopher of science and theologian, also the rector of the Uniting Faculty of Theology the Jesuit Theological College within the Uniting Faculty of Theology, and if we can get him back, Professor Paul Davis, professor of mathematical physics at Adelaide University. As I said, we’ll take a short break and during the break this is Franciscas Henry with Morning has broken…
©-free 2005 Adelaide Institute
