Posted on 02/22/2004 2:32:07 PM PST by attiladhun2
Whether a new trend or mode of thought has a generally beneficial or corrupting effect is not usually apparent for some decades or even centuries from the time it first becomes widely accepted. However, in the case of Darwin's hypothesis, the insidious nature of his doctrine was revealed within a very short span of time.
Communists, anarchists, and other social revolutionaries of the nineteenth century were already confirmed materialists before Darwin began to espouse his ideas. What the Origin of Species did, however, was endow their atheism with something of a scientific aura. It turned an emotional attachment to godless materialism into an intellectual one. Bomb-slinging radicals needed not any longer blame their renunciation of the Church and her dogmas on abuse at the hands of some wicked old nun while attending catechism. The lumps on the tops of the heads of budding young radicals as they fidgeted in their chairs administered via the knuckles of Sister Theresa and other holy hags could now be considered only secondary evidence for atheistic materialism.
The old Menshevik revolutionaries were content to let the evolutionary process play itself out. They were still committed to Marx's dialectical process and believed that the Capitalist Stage of human development would eventually advance into the Socialist Stage. Some saw this as the Final Stage, while others foresaw a Communist Stage beyond that of universal socialism where crime and warfare would finally come to an end and the institution of the state itself would become obsolete. The, on the other hand, Bolsheviks believed they could bypass the slow process of social evolution altogether and usher in the Communist Stage outright. In this respect they could be called believers in social-punctuated equilibrium. In a way, they were right, because they did create a Monster, though not the Hopeful one envisioned by some of Darwin's recapitulationist expositors. In this case the lizard did not lay the egg which became a bird, but the lizard laid an egg and a sociopathic-mass murderer was hatched complete with all the accouterments of slaughter.
The notion of progress is an ancient one. A cursory reading of Greco-Roman literature will establish that. It was obvious to a philosopher like Aristotle that human society moved from less to more advanced states largely through the invention of new ideas and products. This was considered quite natural. However, until relatively recent times it was concomitantly believed that some things remained largely fixed. This was considered part of the nature of things as well. Some fixed things included the role of the male as father and provider and the role of the female as mother and nurturer. The institution of marriage between these two was considered as much a part of the natural order as the change of seasons. The law was another one of those things considered fixed. These concepts were like immovable boulders in a phenomenological river.
Darwin's hypothesis has radically changed all of that. Beginning in the late 19th Century, law schools began to replace the Scriptures as the basic legal foundation with the Darwinian hypothesis. Rather than a permanent reference point, the law began to be seen as an evolving concept. With a concept of law now more analogous to a glob of puddy than a slab of stone, the letter of the law and original intent were not as important to jurists trained under the new paradigm. Activist judges could now find ideas like "the separation of church and state" in the First Amendment when such a phrase does not exist there. They then could use this invented phrase to seriously compromise the Free Exercise clause of the Bill of Rights or even to ignore it almost completely.
Although Justice Black and the other members of the Supreme Court who gave us Roe vs. Wade did not dare cite The Origin of Species as evidence in their infamous 1973 ruling, who can doubt that evolution did not influence their thinking? Did they not study the same “monkey to modern man” charts we all did in high school and college? Did they not also hear (erroneously) the same lectures describing gill slits at certain stages of pre-natal mammalian development? This would indicate, one would suppose, a rather fishy ancestry for all us fur-bearing critters!
We are now beginning to see the final outworking of this legal Darwinism. Radical homosexual activists and their allies knew they were making little headway in shoving their lifestyle down our throats in the people's legislative chambers. So what more logical place to turn to have the legal imprimatur stamped upon their particular perversion than a gaggle of judges who see the law as so much silly puddy! The institution of marriage as a union between one man and one woman is now in grave danger of being overthrown by activist judges who see such a definition as outmoded. In their minds if the law is an evolving thing then every other social institution that has a legal basis must be likewise evolving and cannot be considered permanent. Marriage was in a tenuous state to begin with in our modern world, and will not likely survive this latest onslaught.
In the last generation social activists and their friends in the legislative branch gave us the welfare state. This helped to virtually destroy the nuclear family in some minority communities. As a consequence, a horde of fatherless young men was turned loose upon society. Gang violence, drug addiction, and a second and even third generation of fatherless young people are even now spreading their misery far beyond the boundaries of "the hood." Many of these same social activists are now sitting on the judicial bench ready to rule traditional marriage out of existence by fiat. Who can doubt what the whole country will eventually look like after the final nail is hammered into the coffin of traditional marriage by these activist judges. Just drive around any big-city ghetto and view the garbage-strewn streets and the graffiti covering practically every wall. Observe the barred windows and doors. Look at the crowds of aimless young men hanging around the street corners shooting dice and drinking cheap wine. You are looking at the future of your own and nearly every other neighborhood. This is evolution, all right, but not quite what Darwin and his disciples had in mind.
I beg to differ. If any evolutionists on these threads believe in social darwinism, I haven't seen it. To call someone a social darwinist implies that they believe that certain groups of humanity are more evolved than others. That's a heavy accusation to make.
Just look at how most of them behave on these threads.
The majority of the participants in the crevo threads that have been banned from FR were creationists. Granted, some posters (on both sides of this debate) have been less than civil. However, just because someone is impolite doesn't mean they believe in social darwinism.
Have you ever heard of the science of psychology? There are scientific theories about behavior.
Sure, but putting forth a theory that explains why people do certain things doesn't mean that believers of that theory are in favor of such behavior. For example, psychologists can put forward theories as to why men cheat on their wives, but that does not mean they condone such behavior.
However you are describing the theory of evolution as a simple theory for our existance apart from creation. This in itself addresses all moral issues of the bible by definition.
I disagree. Certainly, there are religious ramifications from the theory of evolution. However, a scientific theory and the scientists who propose such theory are not responsible for the effects of the theory. We do not blame the scientists who discovered the atom for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The purpose of the athiestic theory of evolution is to relieve us from any responsibility to God and allow us to do what ever we want.
The purpose of the theory of evolution is to explain how species change over time based on the available evidence. Any religious and sociological effects of the theory are not part of the theory.
My mistake. I was thinking of a social darwinist as someone whose behavior shows that they are evolutionists. That would mean that they have no onus to treat their fellow man in the way a Christian is supposed to treat them.
A scientific theory that opposes the bible is not the same kind of science as nuclear theory. The science of origin is unique in that way.
Suppose for a second that evolution were true and that there were no God. What would be the proper way for man to procede? How should he treat his fellow man? How should he feel about himself and his future? How should he feel about same sex marriage and socialism? I hope you see that my point here?
By treating me like I'm an idiot. Something my religion doesn't put me at liberty to do.
Darwin was very aware that evolution, in its Lamarkian form, had been widely adopted by political radicals during the 1820's and 30's who would later be concentrated in London's new secular medical schools (where they could largely escape the social retribution they would face in other academic venues). Adrian Adrian Desmond documents this movement in his book The Politics of Evolution. Actually these "philosophical anatomists" and "radical medical reformists" were not mostly socialists, and a lot of them weren't even atheists, but they were radical enough by English standards.
Darwin knew, and was briefly mentored by, one of these enthusiastic Lamarkians and later medical "reformists," Robert Grant, while they were both studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh and both active in one of the school's scientific societies. Grant was teaching in London when Darwin moved there after the Beagle voyage, and made a couple of attempts to renew their acquaintance, but Darwin rebuffed him.
The fact is that Darwin was conservative by temperament. As a Whig he was politically opposed to the Torie conservatism of his day, but he was constitutionally conservative in the modern "classically liberal" sense. He distrusted radicalism deeply, and the association of evolution with radical views is probably one reason he hesitated in publishing his theory by more than 20 years.
Darwin's theory, correctly understood, turned out not to be suitable to uses that the radicals had previously found for Lamarkian evolution. There was no historical inevitability to Darwin's evolution, as there was with Lamark's. There was no driving "will to evolve," but only the lamarkian ghost of "use and disuse" that Darwin retained. Many leftists did make a hero of Darwin, but it was only because they misread him, or because they hailed his winning of general scientific acceptance of evolution, while incorrectly thinking that evolutionary theory would retain its Lamarkian character.
In short, it was in the decades immediately before Darwin the evolution was most distinctively associated with the political left, and it was Darwin more than anyone who took the revolutionary "Mickey" out of evolution.
Ah. And would this be an example of the "proper" way to treat your fellow man?
To: PatrickHenrySource: Post 179.
Let's cut through the hogwash.My question to you Patrick is does Darwinian evolution necessitate the evidence of superior (intellectually) races?
Again, does evolution lead us to nature’s inevitable result of "favored races"? Yes or no?
FYI, others in your troop of evolutionist have answered that with a "yes".
179 posted on 02/12/2004 11:06:46 AM EST by bondserv
I politely answered your question in post 181, and then I said this:
As for your remark about my "troop," I'm sure that, upon reflection, you will realize it was inappropriate. You might even acknowledge this.You never responded. I guess being anti-evolution is no guarantee of knowing how to treat one's fellow man.
When you say you do you mean me?
Being anti-evolution does not make one a Christian. Being a Christian does not make one able to be crucified and take it as a lamb to the slaughter. Personally, I often find that evo's often attack me rather than discuss C vs E.
Nothing in the theory of evolution states or requires that there is no God.
Gravity is a very real phenomenon. However, scientists are not exactly sure what gravity is. Hence, there are various "Theories of Gravity." Evolution (the change in allele frequency within a population over time) is a very real phenomenon. The "Theory of Evolution" attempts to explain that phenomenon.
In science, a theory is a framework consistent with the evidence used to explain a phenomenon. It is not a hypothesis.
Yes it does. It calls the God of the bible a liar and the bible says God can't lie. It breaks the scriptures and Jesus says the scriptures can't be broken.
I disagree. We'd still have a responsibility to our fellow human beings, regardless of our responsibilities to God. Indeed, we have to live with one another on a daily basis; no one gets to hang with the Almighty until afterward.
My mistake. I sometimes get you guys confused. I withdraw any suggestion that the misconduct was done by you. It was one of your colleagues.
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