Poor old Darwin. So misunderstood by his followers. He was actually a nice old chap with fairly tame ideas, but his extremist disciples took his thoughts a bit too far. At least that is the spin being put out by many Darwinists and atheists today.
While more sober minds see a clear line between Darwin’s ideas and many of the horrible social experiments of the twentieth century, including Nazism, defenders of Darwin argue that at best there is no connection, or at worst any such episodes are aberrations or perversions of what Darwin believed.
But is that the case? Most people are not even aware of the full title of his 1859 masterwork: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. That last half of the title, often overlooked, sounds like it could come straight out of a Ku Klux Klan manual.
A very interesting article appeared lately in the decidedly liberal religious journal Commonweal, taking on this notion of the ‘gentle Darwin’.1 The anti-creationist Peter Quinn argues in that Darwin was not quite so squeaky clean when it comes to dangerous social implications of his theory.
Quinn argues that Darwin’s biological theory had very real ramifications for social theory. Says Quinn:
‘Adrian Desmond and James Moore in their 1991 biography, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist, make clear that natural selection was intended as more than a theory of life’s origins. “‘Social Darwinism’ is often taken to be something extraneous, an ugly concretion added to the pure Darwinian corpus after the event, tarnishing Darwin’s image,” they write. “But his notebooks make plain that competition, free trade, imperialism, racial extermination, and sexual inequality were written into the equation from the start—Darwinism was invented to explain human society.”’
Indeed, the whole ugly world of eugenics needs to be seen for what it really is: very much an outgrowth of Darwinian thought. As Quinn notes:
‘Darwin played a prime role in bringing about a fateful confusion between cultural and racial differences, conferring new scientific authority and intellectual legitimacy on theories of human inferiority central to eugenics, the most destructive medical movement in history.’
Indeed, ‘by the time Darwin published the second edition of The Descent of Man in 1874, he had added Francis Galton’s eugenic theories and Herbert Spencer’s “survival of the fittest” social philosophy to the mix, calling Hereditary Genius, Galton’s treatise on the biological nature of intelligence and moral character, “remarkable” and Spencer “our greatest philosopher”.’ Note that Galton, the Father of Eugenics, was Darwin’s first cousin, and indebted to his theories.
He continues:
‘Darwin’s work is filled with references to the work of those involved in creating a radical new “scientific” justification for labeling races, classes, and individuals as “inferior”. … Darwin writes in The Descent of Man that “a most important obstacle in civilized countries to an increase in the number of men of a superior class” is the tendency of society’s “very poor and reckless”, who are “often degraded by vice”, to increase faster than “the provident and generally virtuous members”.’
Writing in a manner in which even Hitler would be proud, Darwin made it quite clear that certain races are to be preferred over others. Says Quinn:
‘All races, as it turns out, descend from the same ancestor but some are more descended than others. “I do not think that the Rev. Mr. Zincke takes an exaggerated view,” Darwin declares, “when he says: ‘All other series of events—as that which resulted in the culture of mind in Greece, and that which resulted in the empire of Rome—only appear to have purpose and value when viewed in connection with, or rather as subsidiary to … the great stream of Anglo-Saxon emigration to the west.’”’
Photo Wikipedia.org
Francis Galton in 1850s or early 1860s
‘Sounding more like Colonel Blimp than Lieutenant Columbo, Darwin envisions a far grimmer future for races or sub-species less fit than the Anglo-Saxon. “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world,” he predicts. “At the same time the anthropological apes … will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state … even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla.”’
‘Darwin is cavalier about the extermination of lesser breeds. He estimates that minimal force will be required, for “when civilized nations come into contact with barbarians the struggle is short, except where a deadly climate gives its aid to the native race.”’
His followers were quite happy to run with such ideas, and Darwin would not seem to disapprove. Consider his son:
‘In 1912, in his presidential address to the First International Congress of Eugenics, a landmark gathering in London of racial biologists from Germany, the United States, and other parts of the world, Major Leonard Darwin, Charles Darwin’s son, trumpeted the spread of eugenics and evolution. As described by Nicholas Wright Gillham in his A Life of Francis Galton, Major Darwin foresaw the day when “eugenics would become not only a grail, a substitute for religion, as Galton had hoped, but a ‘paramount duty’ whose tenets would presumably become enforceable.” The major repeated his father’s admonition that, though the crudest workings of natural selection must be mitigated by “the spirit of civilization”, society must encourage breeding among the best stock and prevent it among the worst “without further delay”.’
Concludes Quinn:
‘Educated at the best schools, winners in a global competition that has driven anonymous millions to the wall, the Gentle Darwinians’ effort to turn Charles Darwin into the sainted founder of a humanist creed undoubtedly reflects their own high position in today’s world order. But unlike their Victorian predecessors, they prefer a Darwin devoid of his social theories and his role in linking evolution with rank prejudice.’
It is time Darwin is taken off his pedestal and treated to rigorous and penetrating scrutiny. Numerous works have been penned on this subject. Richard Weikart’s From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany would be a good place to begin for those who are really interested in such matters. The truth is, bad ideas have bad consequences, and Darwin had his fair share of them.
This is a video of an atheist who obviously understands the Christian faith better than most professing Christians. This video was filmed by the The Great News Network – www.thegreatnews.com
Thanks to repentandtrustdotorg for posting this on YouTube
(Christianity’s Impact On The Value Of Human Life)
Some people, in this world, make contributions to life that are life changing for all those who follow. Often their names are forever remembered by something we call recorded history.
I. Jesus Christ, the greatest person who ever lived on this earth has forever Let me distinguish here what I am talking about. I’ve spent many months talking about Jesus…on purpose. My entire focus has been on the spiritual aspects of what He provided for us by coming to this world as a man, taking our sins on himself, dying in our place, then defeating death and sin, and satan, and rising from the dead bringing eternal life to all who would believe.
changed almost every aspect of human life!
… and many, many simply don’t know it at all.
What I’m going to be talking about in these next three sermons and reinforcing in the Bible studies on Wednesday evenings is different than anything I’ve been saying this last year or anytime in the history of this church.
John records in his Revelation of Jesus Christ that Jesus said these words:
(Revelation 21:5) And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. (KJV)
(Revelation 21:5) He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” ..(missed the word, “Behold“ look closely, examine carefully)
It’s important to understand proper theology….Jesus formed a perfect and wonderful world when He said “Let their be” and all this came into existence:
(John 1:1-3) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
Sin wrecked what God had made and brought it’s destruction into every area of human existence. Jesus death and resurrection didn’t just bring change into the inner man but he also brought sweeping changing into the sinful world around us. He began the process of
making everything new!” …
We’ve mentioned here before, but it’s still a potent truth. Jesus birthday forever changed the way we measure time. The whole world now counts time as BC and AD.
A.D. – Anno Domini -_____________________
When the atheistic Soviet Union wrote their constitution in 1917 they were forced to reference in the constitution the phrase “In the year of our Lord.”
You can go into a New age library and find rows of books proclaiming that man is sovereign and God is the figment of weak people’s imaginations and every one of them are required by law to reference the phrase “In the year of our Lord”….but that’s a minor point compared to what I’m going to show you.
Jesus taught:
(Matthew 13:31-32) He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.” (NIV)
That is what has happened in the last two thousands years ; from the humble beginnings in in a manger in Bethlehem, this One who many today scorn as irrelevant is still proclaimed as Savior of the world by some 1.8 billion people in almost every country in the world.
In addition to that his influence and teaching can be directly tied to massive world changes in the areas of :
1) High regard for human life
2) Worldwide impact on moral values…civilizing the uncivilized
3) Impact on health and medicine…hospital construction
4) Contribution toward freedom for all and civil liberties
5) Contributions to the poor and needy in our world
6) Impact on science
7) Impact on economics
8) Establishment of sexual values and family formation
9) Contribution to education and the formation of schools and universities
10) Impact on arts and music
11) Representative government the separation of political powers
12) The codifying and writing of languages
13) Elevated value for the common person
14) Elevated value of women
15) Millions of changed lives from societal liabilities to assets
As I show you this stuff, it will become clearer and clearer that Christ and Christianity have literally been at the very roots of the development of civilizations as we know it. Completely aside from the whole issue of salvation from sin and eternal life….
If Jesus Christ had not come into this world; our world would be a very different place …..from Washington, to Moscow, to Hong Kong, to Mexico City. If you think there are things about this world that you don’t like not now …try to imagine your community without the positive effects Christianity has brought. Maybe you, like many struggle to understand the full significance of the “mustard seed of Christianity, growing like a tree throughout the world….. That’s why I’m preaching these three messages.
There are those in our society, (who are becoming increasingly more vocal), who try to paint Christianity as an annoying tumor on the side of an enlightened world. They literally have no idea what they are talking about! Many world leaders have disdained Christ and Christianity and they are rotting in the grave…their accomplishments have turned to dust, but Christ and his worldwide accomplishments lives on.
Frederick Nietzsche, the nineteenth century atheistic philosopher who coined the phrase, “God is dead” said Christianity was a poison that had infected the whole world. He said, if Jesus hadn’t died as quick as he did, that “greater maturity” would have caused him to reject his own doctrines. Here’s a direct quote:
“I condemn Christianity, I bring against the Christian Church the most terrible of all accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth. It is, to me, the greatest of all imaginable corruptions, it seeks to work the ultimate corruption… The Christian church has left nothing untouched by it’s depravity, it has turned every value into worthlessness, every truth into a lie, every integrity into baseness of soul.”
Many of Nietzsche’s idea’s were put into practice by one of his disciples: Adolph Hitler. In “Mein Kampf”, Hitler blamed Christians for carrying on the idea of Judaism and said he wanted to completely uproot Christianity once he had finished Uprooting the Jews.
“Historically speaking the Christian religion is nothing but a Jewish sect… After the destruction of Judaism, the extinction of Christian slave morals must follow logically…I shall know the moment when to confront , for the sake of the German people and the world…It is not merely a question of Christianity and Judaism. We are fighting against the most ancient curst that Christianity has brought on itself….Ah the God of the deserts, that crazed, stupid, vengeful, Asiatic despot with his powers to make laws…That poison with which both Jews and Christians have spoiled and soiled the free wonderful instincts of man and lowered them to the level of doglike fright.”
Need I remind you that Hitler is very, very, dead and the God he defied lives on, sovereign in power! Hitler’s soul is in eternal punishment, facing the laws of God he so despised!
Charles Markmann; who wrote a book on the history of the ACLU said:
If the otherwise admirable civilized pagans of Greece and Rome had had the sense to laugh Judaism into oblivion, we would have been spared the 2000 year sickness of Christianity.
Communism in Russia and China have tried desperately to wipe out the effects of Christianity by killing off thousands of believer only to have Millions more take their place. I showed you the statistic a while back that when Communism took over China there were only about one million believers….now there are:
More than 100,000,000!
Let’s talk for a bit about the poison that Christianity has brought to our world…
II. Christianity’s Impact on the Value of Human Life
(Genesis 1:27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (NIV)
The entrance of sin into the world brought with it a worldwide phenomenon.
The devaluation of Human Life!
Once you lose sight of God and the fact that men and women are created in his image the value of an individual life falls off dramatically. Cain’s improper focus on God led to the murder of his brother and if you are a student of history at all you know that the early history of the world is a history of paganism and barbarianism.
In all civilizations where Christianity had not touched; the taking of another human life was not something to be concerned about. In today’s civilization, where the true God of heaven is absent, we find atrocities that defy our ability to understand. We can’t even conceive of the atrocities of a Hitler or a Saddam Hussein. We can’t even fathom the mind of a suicide bomber. I read a book from a prisoner in a modern concentration camp in North Korea …. I couldn’t finish the book.
You must understand….the only reason you value life, like you do, is because of your Christian value system. The more our nation moves away from our roots and toward a post-Christian future the cheaper life is becoming….it has started with our unborn infants, will eventually move to the elderly, and then the unwanted in society…the deformed, the criminals, the unproductive, the Christians. Pastor…you are being overly dramatic…
No I’m not….read your history books!
In the ancient world, the pagan world, the world Jesus was born into it was common practice to sacrifice a child, Not one, thousands and thousand of children were murdered.
If you were being born in ancient Rome or in ancient Greece (and those were the civilized countries) a newborn came out into the most dangerous environment imaginable.
1) Abortion was considered a normal and desirable part of everyone’s lives.
2) It was perfectly common for an unwanted child to simply be placed in the woods for the wild animals to feed on, or for strange and perverted people to come along and retrieve for whatever purposes they intended.
3) Virtually all deformed babies were simply abandoned
4) If you were a girl your chances at survival and a good life were minimal
5) Romans considered the child the property of the Father…up until age eight he could kill or sell his child and it was considered simply a matter of wise economics.
6) Only about ½ of the children born lived beyond age eight.
Then came Jesus!
Why? Because the founder of our faith is the one who said:
(Matthew 19:14) Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (NIV)
In a day when children had no value.. Jesus elevated them to a preferred status. The early church were so forceful and faithful in there attempts to turn the horrible practices around that slowly but surely their views became the predominant views of the Romans themselves. Sometime around 300 AD (In the year of our Lord) Emperor Constantine
Enacted laws that give children the same rights as adults and made killing children a crime. They also promoted a practice that today we take for granted: Adoption
While we are on the subject of life let’s look at another aspect: Suicide!
If you are made in the image of God then taking your own life is perhaps the single greatest insult one could commit against God. In Godless societies today taking ones own life can be considered a badge of honor. Killing one’s self in battle is the highest form of human behavior.
Did you know that in ancient times suicide was considered an honorable way to go out. In 4000 years of Bible history only five people took their own life. In ancient Rome it was common for a great to “exercise his power of choice over his own body” Pontius Pilate committed suicide and nobody thought less of him for doing so. Christianity was an outspoken foe of taking ones own life in the ancient world and brought into the pagan world for the first time a sense that living until death was more noble than choosing to go out early under our own terms.
Interestingly, as our own country has become more post-Christian, the suicide rate has risen and we have even gone so far now as to toy with assisted suicide for the elderly or infirmed.
(Proverbs 8:35-36) For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the LORD. But whoever fails to find me harms himself; all who hate me love death.” (NIV)
We talk, even in political circles in our world, about the sanctity of human life. The word “sanctity” means holy, sacred unto God, that which God has declared to have great value!
To the humanist, or atheist, or even the unbeliever, there can be no such thing as the sanctity of life.
And that is showing up in our post-Christian world. We now have far greater penalties against endangering a turtle egg than we do against killing the egg of a human being created in God’s image. I’m not against protecting turtles but it seems odd to me that often those who raise there voices the loudest to save animals are also the loudest to give permission to terminate human babies.
Ted Turner said in Miami Beach in 1992:
Overpopulation is the cause of drive by shootings and other social ills, but the root of the problem is Christianity, which posits that people are more important than sea otters and elephants.
The environmentalist magazine, Wild Earth said:
If you haven’t given voluntary human extinction much thought before, the idea of a world with no people in it might seem strange. But if you give it a chance I think you might agree that the extinction of Homo Sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions , of Earth dwelling species.
So much more to talk about on Wednesday Evening, Christianity’s contribution to women, the elderly, slavery, cannibalism…..
The moral base of any society can be judged by it’s view of human life!
In 1844 H.L. Hasting visited the Fiji islands. Life was very cheap. You could buy another human being for 7.00 or trade for one musket. They were cheaper than buying a cow! After purchase you could work them, whip, them, starve, them or eat them and no one would say a word. In fact, some were actually bought for the last purpose.
He returned several years later and found that one could not buy a human being for 7 million dollars and there were now some 1200 churches scattered throughout the islands. The gospel had been preached and people had learned that they were not there own, they were bought with a price, not silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
The cold hard reality is this, If Christianity had not penetrated into the United States many of us sitting in this room would never have lived long enough to be here today….
Conclusion:
1) Abortion disappeared in the early Church
2) Infanticide and Abandonment disappeared
3) The Church started taking in others abandoned children (Orphanages)
1- There is one true God, eternally existing in three persons -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- each of whom possesses equally all the attributes of Deity and the characteristics of personality.
2- Jesus Christ is God, the living Word, who became flesh through His miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit and His virgin birth. Hence, He is perfect Deity and true humanity united in one person forever.
3- He lived a sinless life and voluntarily atoned for the sins of men by dying on the cross as their substitute, thus satisfying divine justice and accomplishing salvation for all who trust in Him alone.
4- He rose from the dead in the same body, though glorified, in which He lived and died.
5- He ascended bodily into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God the Father, where He, the only mediator between God and man, continually makes intercession for His own.
6- Man was originally created in the image of God. He sinned by disobeying God; thus, he was alienated from his Creator. That historic fall brought all mankind under divine condemnation.
7- Man's nature is corrupted, and he is thus totally unable to please God. Every man is in need of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
8- The salvation of man is wholly a work of God's free grace and is not the work, in whole or in part, of human works or goodness or religious ceremony. God imputes His righteousness to those who put their faith in Christ alone for their salvation, and thereby justified them in His sight.
9- It is the privilege of all who are born again of the Spirit to be assured of their salvation from the very moment in which they trust Christ as their Savior. This assurance is not based upon any kind of human merit, but is produced by the witness of the Holy Spirit, who confirms in the believer the testimony of God in His written word.
10- The Holy Spirit has come into the world to reveal and glorify Christ and to apply the saving work of Christ to men. He convicts and draws sinners to Christ, imparts new life to them, continually indwells them from the moment of spiritual birth and seals them until the day of redemption. His fullness, power and control are appropriated in the believer's life by faith.
11- Every believer is called to live so in the power of the indwelling Spirit that he will not fulfill the lust of the flesh but will bear fruit to the glory of God.
12- Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, His Body, which is composed of all men, living and dead, who have been joined to Him through saving faith.
13- God admonishes His people to assemble together regularly for worship, for participation in ordinances, for edification through the Scriptures and for mutual encouragement.
14- At physical death the believer enters immediately into eternal, conscious fellowship with the Lord and awaits the resurrection of his body to everlasting glory and blessing.
15- At physical death the unbeliever enters immediately into eternal, conscious separation from the Lord and awaits the resurrection of his body to everlasting judgment and condemnation.
16- Jesus Christ will come again to the earth (personally, visibly and bodily) to consummate history and the eternal plan of God.
17- The Lord Jesus Christ commanded all believers to proclaim the Gospel throughout the world and to disciple men of every nation. The fulfillment of that Great Commission requires that all worldly and personal ambitions be subordinated to a total commitment to "Him who loved us and gave Himself for us."
18- I believe the Bible (the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments) is the Word of God, written. As a "God-breathed" revelation, it is thus verbally inspired and completely without error (historically, scientifically, morally, and spiritually) in its original writings.
On Christianity…
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." - C.S. Lewis
Who Do I Follow?
One says "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," One says "I am a Calvinist", and another, "I am an Armenian".... As of me??? I am of Christ!!! I believe that God foreknows who are those whom will choose to follow Him and has ordained such before the foundation of the world.
