The 20th Century Heritage of Evolutionary Atheism
Atheists delight in blaming the church for being a hindrance to social progress. Apparently, they feel that the church should remain silent for its past errors. Their underlying assumption is that atheism has the high moral ground. However, before the church goes into guilt-ridden hibernation, let us look at what secular humanism and modern scientific atheism have produced in the 20th century. And let us see if their moral virtues have been so outstanding and superior that they have earned the right to demand that the church be silent.
Darwinian Roots of Evolutionary Atheism
Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882)
Modern scientific atheism arose in the 19th century with Charles Robert Darwin. In 1859, Darwin revealed his evolutionary theory in his book entitled, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. His theory set aside the need for a Creator as the cause of the variety and abundance of life on our planet. He was an agnostic and a believer in the survival of the fittest. Today, agnostics and atheists praise and revere him, because he developed a pseudo-scientific basis to support their rejection of God.
Charles Darwin saw the practical implications of evolution for the human species. Humans could be bred to improve their physical, ethical, and intellectual qualities. He argued that selective breeding of the human herd could cause rapid biological improvements that, otherwise, would take evolutionary processes millions of years to achieve.
Darwin warned that medical advances could rapidly degenerate the human species, because medical technology saves the genetically inferior individuals from death. For example, Darwin argued against the use of small-pox vaccinations. He held his view in spite of knowing that, before researchers developed small-pox vaccine, small-pox caused multitudes to die from its infection. Furthermore, he knew those who survived the disease were physically disfigured for life. Small-pox vaccine was an early medical advance that has genuinely benefited mankind. At the present time, the vaccine has been used to eradicate the disease from the face of the earth, and, now, it is no longer a scourge to humanity. For this disease, we can only imagine the untold suffering that humanity did not suffer because Charles Darwin's complaint went unheeded.
Now, notice Darwin's cold-hearted concern for those who were afflicted with this disease. For him, those who became infected with small-pox were weak and inferior human beings. They were the "worst animals," and society should not allow them to breed and produce inferior progeny.
There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized 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. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.1
Charles Darwin himself was a physically weak human specimen. His son, Francis Darwin, wrote that, from his earliest childhood, he saw his father in constant ill-health. 2 So, by Charles Darwin's own standard, he must have injured the human stock. Through lack of breeding control by society, no one prevented him from degenerate breeding. As a result, Darwin "mated" with his wife and "bred" ten children. "Mating" and "breeding" are animal husbandry terms that evolutionist like to use for human reproduction, but which they seldom apply to their own reproductive behavior.
Eugenics for the Human Race
Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911)
Following Darwin's publication of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, many scientists envisioned the day when evolutionary principles would enrich the qualities of the human species. Why does not society breed a better race of humankind, using this new found scientific knowledge? Sir Francis Galton, an Englishman who was Charles Darwin's first cousin, began the study of human eugenics—Greek for "good genes." He did a scientific study of the abilities of different human genetic strains. In his study, he rated the value of human beings according to their different capabilities. Using his extensive data, he argued in support of racial discrimination, claiming that some human races are inherently superior to others.
In Sir Francis Galton's book, Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry Into Its Laws and Consequences, he stated.
It would be quite practicable to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations.3
Just as a race could improve, it could also degenerate back into ape-like men. He proudly disdained Negroes who made him ashamed even to be a member of the human species. He wrote,
The mistakes the negroes made in their own matters, were so childish, stupid, and simpleton-like, as frequently to make me ashamed of my own species. 4
The biblical view of mankind is that all individuals of every human race are creatures made in the image of God. This gives utmost value to every human being. The poor and mentally handicapped have supreme value in Christian theology. This is in sharp contrast to scientific atheism that has disdained the weak, claiming they were unworthy to survive.
Leonard Darwin (1850-1943)
Leonard Darwin, Charles Darwin's son, was the president of The Eugenics Education Society, a scientific society devoted to racial improvement. Like his father, he was an ardent believer in biological evolution. He envisioned the strong mastering the weak. He was an evolutionary racist who thought whites were biologically superior to Negroes. For him, this superiority was simply a matter of scientific fact. In 1926, he wrote
The aim of eugenics should be the production in future ages of the highest type attainable, it must be wrong to attempt to raise the black races by any process which would result in a lowering of the white stock.5
Leonard Darwin's faith held that mankind's salvation would occur through the science and technology of genetics. He stated
It is a revolution of thought because it opens out before our eyes the possibility of making use of the laws of nature so as to affect beneficially the very nature of man in the future in ways never contemplated in the past.
He then added
The fate of our nation in the future lies largely in our own hands. 6
The theory of biological evolution provided the justification for scientists to guide the biological evolution of humankind toward a new Superhuman Race.
Charles Galton Darwin (1887-1962)
Charles Galton Darwin, the grandson of Charles Robert Darwin, delivered the Galton Lecture before the Eugenics Society on February 16th, 1939. Perhaps, the Eugenics Society gave him this honor because he was a descendent of Charles R. Darwin. He titled his speech Positive Eugenic Policy.7 Though he was not a biologist by education, he held a deep belief in the importance of evolutionary eugenics. He believed that a caring and civilized society would cause disastrous effects upon the survival qualities of human beings.
If then civilization is the condition in which natural selection is inoperative for humanity, it must inevitably lead to degeneration, which for men means decay of the intellect, and such decay must surely lead to a collapse of the civilization. 8
As a side note, C. G. Darwin's position that civilized society causes "disastrous" effects is an argument that, logically, turns against biological evolution. Since evolution has no purpose, direction, or value, it cannot produce "disastrous" or " beneficial" effects. Evolution is indifferent to whether humans exist or what qualities they possess. According to the theory of evolution, civilized society arose through evolution, and it could now evolve in another direction. Evolution places no value upon the continued existence of a human civilization.
Also, the proposition that evolution is caused by "the survival of the fittest" is non-falsifiable. It is simply a truism that those organisms which most successfully produce progeny for next generation are those organisms which are the most fit to survive. If a species did not survive, obviously, it was not the most fit to survive. Hence, to seek to demonstrate the truth of evolution on the basis of "the survival of the fittest" fails because in every case "the most fit survive," making the proposition is non-falsifiable.
Furthermore, C. G. Darwin's concept of evolutionary progress requires a standard of progress outside of the evolutionary system. Evolutionists need a standard different from the evolutionary process to measure the changes made by the evolutionary process. They require a measurement standard that does not evolve, that is, a non-changing or absolute standard. Yet, evolutionists claim to measure the regress or progress of human qualities caused by evolution. Therefore, to do this, they would have to have a non-evolving standard to evaluate an evolving change. Yet, from an evolutionary viewpoint there is nothing outside the evolving universe. Evolutionists claim evolution created and controls everything within the entire universe. Therefore, every statement evaluating evolutionary progress is itself within the evolutionary process. There is the claim that "everything is evolving," and there is the underlying supposition that "everything is not evolving," namely, the standard to measure change. These two propositions are contradictory; hence, they violate the law of non-contradiction, a fundamental law of logic.
A person must stand upon non-relative or absolute ground to make judgments about any relative or evolving progress. Theism is grounded the absolute being of God who is the standard by which the universe is measured. These standards originate beyond the universe and provide a standard by which to evaluate what happens within the universe. In addition, since change is relative without an absolute frame of reference, evolutionists cannot know for certain if the change is occurring in the observer or in the subject of observation.
C. G. Darwin argued that drastic eugenic measures must be taken to maintain the current level of human evolution. He proposed that society should value a person according to the wages that they earned.
Can anyone suggest a better rough and ready way of estimating a man's value than by the amount he is paid? There are obviously a great many cases which can be cited against this, but is anything better possible. At any rate when we wish to mark our approval of the value of the services of someone we do so by increasing, not diminishing, his salary. That will furnish a rough starting point, and it suggests that our national organization ought to be such that the number of children would bear some close positive relation to the income.9
To increase the fecundity of the rich, he proposed a large tax deduction for each child of the rich. With this tax break, the wealthy would find it worthwhile to have large families. For poorly paid but otherwise beneficial professions, he proposed increasing the wages of these professions. For example, society could raise the salaries of poets to increase their population.
I have for instance heard the argument that if we merely adopt the policy of making the well-to-do breed, we shall have no poets because poets are usually badly paid for their services. I will not attempt to judge whether we ought to have a large supply of poets—after all Plato thought that they should all be killed; but the advocate of this view regarded it as a major objection against a eugenic scheme of the kind I propose, that there would be no provision in it for breeding poets. It is not so; it is an objection against our social organization in general. If poets ought to play a greater part in the world, then the proper way to do it is to reward their services better, which means to give them better pay, and then under the eugenic scheme they will increase the poetic population.10
C.G. Darwin delivered his address to the Eugenics Society in 1939. That was the same year that World War II began. His worries over the deleterious effects of peace and tranquillity upon Western Civilization probably came to an end when the bombs started to explode over England. The world saw, firsthand, the destruction caused by his brand of social Darwinism. It took a person like Adolf Hitler, who sincerely believed in eugenics and the mastery of the strong, to show the world the evils of evolutionary ideology. He was powerful and heartless enough to force scientific atheism upon a whole nation. The fall of the Third Reich and the fall in popularity of Darwinian eugenics happened together. The Third Reich's fall exposed Hitler's atrocities and embarrassed Darwinian evolutionary eugenists into silence.
Miscellaneous Eugenic Statements
In the Journal of Heredity in 1933, scientists expressed their restlessness because no one had the political courage or military power to advance evolutionary eugenics into public policy. If someone could overcome religious and political opposition, their glorious eugenic plans for a master human race would succeed.
Evolutionary eugenists ridiculed the "muddle-minded" person who
strives to belittle the possibilities of eugenical improvement because eugenists are not able to take a whole nation by the neck and inaugurate an effective eugenic policy. 11
Little did they know that their evolutionary hero and savior was rising to power in Germany. Their eugenic idealist was Adolf Hitler who had the courage and power to take Germany "by the neck and inaugurate an effective eugenic policy." How true was the American scientist's statement in 1933, "Eugenics is not dead but sleeping." 12
Evolutionary scientists felt the need to suppress social norms and moral sensibilities. This suppression had to happen to accomplish the biological salvation of the human race. In the Journal of Heredity they boldly claimed that civilized society lowers the quality of the human species. The intellectual consensus was that war and anarchy were the necessary seeds for humanity's evolutionary progress.
Indeed modern social theory can be seen to be inconsistent with and antagonistic to biological evolution. Biological evolution displays no tendency to strive for equality in individuals, but rather to produce variant individuals, and to eliminate those of inferior survival value, and thus constantly to improve the survival quality of a species or of a race. The major trouble with modern humanity is due to the fact that it has been constantly blocking and defeating this biological process throughout its civilized period.13
Shortly after this was written, the whole world had the opportunity to see social conventions thrown aside and replaced by the terrors of a ruthless world war. In strange silence, after World War II, we no longer hear these evolutionary scientists bragging about the benefits of uncivilized society. Maybe they have been scared into silence by modern military armaments and the destruction that nuclear bombs could cause upon civilized society. Where have the evolutionists honestly acknowledged their role in providing the intellectual justification for Hitler's racial policies?
The elitist attitudes of these visionary scientists caused them to look down upon the average American voter. Using their supposed brilliant ideas, they envisioned corporate America constructing biological manufacturing plants to fabricate human beings using modern quality-control production procedures.
Organized eugenics in the United States is in the doldrums because of several facts. Among these may be cited the following:
...
(3) Inability of the average voter at present to see that many if not all of our major ills of today are dependent on the fact that we have not used our intellect in making of men as we have in the production of machinery. 14
These evolutionists were against what people normally would consider medical progress. Just like Charles Darwin who was against small pox vaccinations, they feared modern obstetrics would save racially unworthy mothers and babies. Eugenic evolutionists wished that the babies of poor mothers had a high infant mortality. They thought obstetricians should base their treatment upon the racial value of the child--not its individual human value. Otherwise, they claimed that modern obstetrics would be a curse for mankind.
Hence we see to what a great extent short-sighted Obstetrics, which, in all cases, considers as its duty the indiscriminate preservation not only of the maternal but also of the infant life, may contribute to the increasing degeneration of the power to bear children.15
We must seek to awaken the "race conscience" of the obstetrician. He must no longer blindly seek to produce for the mother a living child, but must ask himself, in individual cases, whether he can take the responsibility as regards race.
Only when a different, a Eugenic, spirit influences Obstetrics, will it become a blessing and not a curse to the race. 16
Evolutionary eugenists wanted to keep Christians out of politics. For example, the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder's Association criticized Roman Catholics and their involvement in politically opposing human sterilization. These Christians obstructed the Association's plans to herd humans into a stall to neuter them. Apparently, the human cattle in Pennsylvania disliked their evolutionary solution, and they were difficult to round up for sterilization.
The preponderance of Roman Catholic sentiment, however, at the present time is undoubtedly opposed to any form of sterilization as a Eugenic measure. In Pennsylvania it is said a sterilization bill was defeated in the Legislature solely by the strong opposition of one Roman Catholic member, who considered it an unjustified mutilation.17
Evolutionary biologists froth at the mouth, when they contemplate fanatical Christians thwarting their noble plans for humanity. Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, humanists, and evolutionists unitedly oppose Christian ideals. However, when these atheists have come to power, the human rights of Christians as well as non-Christians have suffered.
Adolf Hitler and Evolutionary Biology
The Role of Human Eugenics
In his book, Mein Kampf, Hitler stated in clearest terms the Darwinian credo of evolutionary eugenics. Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, Francis Darwin, and Leonard Darwin could not have drafted a better creed than Hitler. The evolutionary establishment would have agreed with Hitler's ideals, as practical and theoretically correct.
No, there is only one holiest human right, and this right is at the same time the holiest obligation, to wit: to see to it that the blood is preserved pure and, by preserving the best humanity, to create the possibility of a nobler development of these beings.18
He envisioned a master race of genetically superior individuals who would populate the joyous Thousand Year Reich. On the basis of modern scientific eugenics, he eliminated those who were mentally deficient, deformed, Christian, Jewish, or criminals.
The Role of Medical Science
To deceive the world, Hitler cleverly used medical scientists to accomplish his racial policies. These scientists were easy pawns to manipulate, since his policies matched their own evolutionary ideals. Hitler used the medical profession, because ordinary people trusted the respected life-saving profession, dressed in their clean white coats. Little did the average person suspect that college-educated doctors would turn out to be "medical killers."
It must put the most modern medical means in the service of this knowledge. 19
The documentation of medicalized killing by Nazis is extensive. Professor Robert Lifton's book entitled, The Nazi Doctors, Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide,20 is an excellent and comprehensive treatment of this subject.
Hitler's Germany does not bear the guilt alone, since his ideas flowed from the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin and his intellectual followers. Also, in America, many in the medical community embraced evolutionary eugenics. The American Medical Association fondly reported Hitler's progress in their journal (JAMA). Their Berlin Correspondent quoted Hitler's propaganda for race improvement: " evidence of brotherly love and of watchfulness over the welfare of the coming generation." 21
The Role of Race
In evolutionary theory, race is more important than an individual's rights. An individual lasts only a few years while a biologically fit race endures for many centuries. Hitler fully agreed with this concept. In Mein Kampf, he wrote
The folkish state must make up for what everyone else today has neglected in this field. It must set race in the center of all life. It must take care to keep it pure.22(Italics in original).
In contrast to this atheistic belief, Christianity places the individual first, because the individual has a soul which lasts forever.
As discussed above, early Darwinian evolutionists claimed Negroes were less evolved than Nordic whites. Hitler agreed with biological evolutionists. He wrote,
It was and it is Jews who bring the Negroes into the Rhineland, always with the same secret thought and clear aim of ruining the hated white race by the necessarily resulting bastardization."23
The dogma that Negroes were close kin to early ape-men appalled Christians. However, evolutionary atheists of the early 20th century considered that it was simply a matter of factual scientific data. To Hitler's embarrassment, Jesse Owens, a superb Afro-American athlete, won Olympic Game championships in 1936 at Berlin in the 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash, and running broad jump.
Results of Hitler's Social & Evolutionary Atheism
The rejection of the Creator by Darwin gave birth to the awful Nazi Holocaust. In World War II, scientific atheism came to power and left fifty five million dead. This does not count the wounded, the homeless children, and the destruction of homes and cities. Evolutionists hate anyone who exposes the link between their intellectual high priest, Charles Darwin, and their pragmatic politician, Adolf Hitler. Each time Christians mention this link, evolutionist cry foul. However, scientific journals provide abundant documentation to support this allegation. It should never be forgotten; Auschwitz and Dachau were the horrific results of Hitler's belief in Darwin's theory of evolution.
Hitler's opposition to Christianity
Christians bled and died under the heavy heel of Hitler's evolution-worshipping government. This was well documented in the Nazi War criminal trials at Nuremberg, Germany.
The Nazi Party always was predominantly anti-Christian in its ideology. ... the conspirators devised and carried out a systematic and relentless repression of all Christian sects and churches.24
In one case the hatred of the impious against Christ reached the point of parodying on the person of an interned priest, with barbed wire, the scourging and the crowning with thorns of our Redeemer.25
In the Diocese of Chelmno, where about 650 priests were installed before the war, only 3 percent were allowed to stay, the 97 percent of them were imprisoned, executed, or put into concentration camps. .. By January 1941 about 700 priests were killed, 3,000 were in prison or concentration camps. ... The Tribunal will recall, from the previous reading of this document, the imprisonment of 2,800 priests and lay brothers in Dachau alone from 1940 to 1945, of whom all but about 800 were dead by April 1945, including an auxiliary bishop.26
Strangely, some individuals accuse the church of being silent during the Holocaust. These people should remember that Christians had to be silent when they were rotting in mass graves or being held behind barbed wire in concentration camps. They physically could not oppose the atrocities of Nazism and its military elite who were putting into practice Darwinian ideology.
Reichsleiter Martin Bormann wrote in the secret decree entitled, Relationship of National Socialism and Christianity, that "National Socialist and Christian concepts are irreconcilable."27
Nazis murdered Christians of all denominations on the altar of biological atheism. The S.S. Black Guard executed Dietrich Bonhoeffer on April 9, 1945. In his book, Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer challenged Christians to live devoted lives for Christ. He wrote in 1937 "when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."28 They executed Bonhoeffer for his faith by hanging.
Social & Evolutionary Atheism is Irrational
The Allied powers found Defendant Fritz Schwalm, a member of the Schutzstaffeln (SS), guilty for his war time activities. They sentenced him to prison on three counts: crimes against humanity, war crimes, and membership in a criminal organization. At his trial, he spoke warmly of his faith in the theory of evolution. In spite of the massive destruction unleashed upon the world by the belief in the evolutionary superiority of the Aryan race, his irrational faith remained intact. Like most evolutionists of today, no amount of evidence could change his mind; his evolutionary dogma totally deluded him. At the Nuremberg War Trials, Herr Schwalm said,
If we, nevertheless, still remain optimistic and continued to have the courage to go on living, then it is because of the knowledge which biology especially gives us. The theory of evolution has not only widened our view of the history of the past, but it particularly gives us new hope for the future. If uncounted millions of years were necessary to create man out of primeval life, then compared with these periods of time, man is at the beginning of his development and has approximately the same scope before him.
The greater our achievements in these fields of knowledge become, the harder the work will be to banish what today we still call misfortune. And yet this science conveys hope. This science and the belief in an eternal divine law can also spur us to action. This idea was recently expressed by the President of UNESCO, Julian Huxley."29
Amazement strikes us to think of the incredible mental blindness that overtake devotees of scientific Darwinism. Apparently, they think gas chambers, mass graves, bombed out cities, and starving children are the necessary by-products of the survival of the fittest.
Humanism: The Religion of Death
Humanist Manifestos I and II
Humanist Manifestos I and II state that no one created the universe and that man emerged from a continuous biological process. Like the Nazis, humanists reject a Creator and espouse organic evolution.30 The humanist's religion advocates the improvement of human behavior, using technology and evolutionary principles as guidelines. Their plan promises to reduce the hardships of the human experience while achieving an abundant and meaningful life.
We have virtually conquered the planet, explored the moon, overcome the natural limits of travel and communication; we stand at the dawn of a new age, ready to move farther into space and perhaps inhabit other planets. Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, extend our life-span, significantly modify our behavior, alter the course of human evolution and cultural development, unlock vast new powers, and provide humankind with unparalleled opportunity for achieving an abundant and meaningful life.31
Further, they claim there is no deity or divine purpose for the human species. They boldly declare mankind must save themselves. They believe that traditional theism with its prayer-hearing God is an outmoded faith. In fact, they contend that it is a very harmful belief system. For them, Christians hinder the gospel of humanism and its plan of salvation for humankind. They feel that Christians are guilty of condemning multitudes of human beings to an irrational and unfulfilled life.
While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves. 32
Humanist Manifesto II explicitly states that they want to legalize abortion, suicide, and euthanasia. Abortion is for the preborn child; suicide is for the teenager and the middle aged person, while euthanasia is for the aged.
Sixth: ... The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. ...
Seventh: ... It also includes a recognition of an individual's right to die with dignity, euthanasia, and the right to suicide. 33
Abortion
These humanists kindly encourage mothers to go to abortion clinics. In the United States, more than 30 million mothers have visited these clinics since 1973. They have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to enrich the bank accounts of humanistic doctors. It is hard to understand humanists calling it a free choice when it is so expensive. Where is the humanist's compassion for the 30 million tiny babies exterminated since 1973 in the United States? Why don't they have the freedom of choice too?
Suicide
Humanists would find "Problem-Resolution Centers" an attractive alternative for distraught teenagers with personal problems. At these centers, teenage boys and girls could solve their parental conflicts and broken romances. Also, emotionally battered wives could find encouragement from the Center's understanding counselors who would wisely suggest the "Sympathy Needle" or "Compassion Pill." Humanists could argue that, since abortion is protected by the constitutional right to privacy, physician-assisted suicide, likewise, must be considered protected by a constitutional right to privacy. In addition, if doctors can euthanize the aged, mentally competent teenagers should have the same constitutionally protected " freedom-of-choice" regarding assisted suicide. If this were not the case, teenagers could argue there was age discrimination which is considered unconstitutional.
Euthanasia
Once their "Dignity-In-Exiting" initiative—commonly known as the DIE initiative—has passed, we can imagine the following scenario happening daily. "Twilight Dignity Havens" or "Sunset Compassion Clinics" will be established. Humanistic doctors will make appointments for the non-working elderly at a local "Twilight Dignity Haven. " At these clinics, medical professionals would prescribe a barbiturate overdose for the aged, claiming the overdose beautifully displays the dignity of the human spirit. The "legal" advances in medical treatment options provide the aged with personal autonomy and freedom-of-choice, so death can eliminate their mental pain and physical suffering.
Humanists will make sure that Christian bigots do not prevent a person's grandmother from meeting her children's financial needs. With humanists in charge, a grandmother would not have to waste her precious dollars on medical treatment in a nursing home. Now she can show her love to her children by accepting medical treatment in a serene "Sunset Compassion Clinic." She would have the benefit of not having to face the horrors of growing old.
From a humanist perspective, if a grandmother were not willing to go to a " Twilight Dignity Haven," it would show that she did not love her children. Only a self-centered grandmother would waste her children's inheritance by paying to stay in an institutional nursing home. If a grandmother did not see the benefits of a "Compassion Pill," it would be evidence, showing that she was mentally impaired.
Even after a presenting the benefits of Dignity-In-Exiting, for some strange reason, some grandmothers might try to avoid visiting a "Twilight Dignity Haven." Everyone knows that a true grandmother's heart is not self-centered. Caring people conclude that a grandmother's refusal to accept a doctor's treatment must be caused by her mental incompetence. In response to the assessment of a grandmother's condition, a humanistic doctor would nod in agreement toward the grandmother's children with an understanding smile. It is accepted by intelligent people that others are responsible to decide morally difficult questions for the mentally impaired.
So, the children decide that grandmother should be medically "cured" by putting her to sleep compassionately and permanently, and according to what her real wishes would be if she were mentally competent. The doctor supports their decision and reminds each one that what was about to be done was legal and that no one has the right to impose their morality and religious beliefs upon them. With grandmother gone, the children receive their inheritance. Now, they can afford the down payment for their new home. Death benefits are good. However, because of what they did to their grandmother, their conscience is not at ease. Slowly and continually, it whispers; "it was wrong, wrong, wrong."
Death the Problem Solver
A person needs more than a pocket full of posies to hide the stench of death in the Humanist Manifesto II. As in a funeral, they play well the words of human dignity and freedom. Their sweet notes of liberty and reason gently sound forth. Their soft melody of compassion and love calm the human spirit. They cleverly play these musical scores to divert our attention from the foulness coming from their doctrinal casket: abortion, suicide, euthanasia, and God-is-dead.
Death has a real charm for humanists who believe death is an efficient problem solver for any difficulty that a person or society has. It is all too true that killing people can eliminate poverty, prison over-crowding, Christian fundamentalists, unwanted babies, mental deficiency, non-productive old people, politically incorrect ideologies, physical handicaps, and difficult domestic situations. On the other hand, real Christians oppose the humanist's death solution. Christians seek "problem resolution" rather than "people dissolution."
Thanatology is the study of death. The experts in this field are thanatologists who have the expertise and advanced technology to aid humanists to achieve their social agenda.
Humanist Lack a Moral and Ethical Standards
Humanists cannot offer a rational justification of why life is actually meaningful. They claim life has meaning, but they lack a rational basis for this claim. Those who chose to live must pretend life has meaning and is worthwhile. Humanists assert people should live moral lives, but they offer no rational basis for this assertion. They want us blindly to act as if life and morality had value.
The question is not whether some humanists live moral lives. The question that we ask them is what logical reason can they give to live morally. Since humanists are materialists, how can they explain the change of matter into something moral? There is nothing apparently moral about atoms. Humanists boast they are rational, yet their boast rings hollow when they cannot give a rational basis for their belief system.
Communism: The Deadly Atheism
Russia
Another important figure was Karl Marx who held Darwin in utmost esteem. Marx's political theory of communism correlated well with Darwin's scientific theory of organic evolution. Both theories embrace atheism. Without God, Marxism promises it can usher in the proletariat's utopia. It entices many people with dreams of a worker's paradise. What Marxism has actually delivered has been a spiritual and economic nightmare. It has blighted the lives of hundred of millions of people worldwide.
In Russia, Stalin implemented Communism by collectivizing agriculture. As a result, about 10 million farmers starved or froze to death. Stalin was an atheist who felt no responsibility to God. To maintain power, he ruthlessly murdered millions more in his cruel purges. The USSR was an atheistic state where the leaders of the people suppressed, murdered, and deprived them of their basic human rights. Their official doctrine was atheism, so the church suffered militant persecution. Recently, the winds of freedom have been blowing in the USSR; and, world wide, atheistic communism has been discredited. However, we should never forget the millions killed by this evolutionary-loving, anti-God system.
China
In China, Mao Zedong forced modern scientific atheism upon China's masses. He avowed his atheism when he proclaimed, "They are theists and we are atheists." 34 Tens of millions of Chinese citizens were executed to achieve his utopic dream of atheism. Even today, the Chinese communist leaders continue to purge dissent. They fear the Bible, because it proclaims that man's ultimate responsibility is to God and not to the state. The Bible is banned from their country, so much for the atheist's vaunted freedom of the press. The Great Leap Forward caused starvation, and the Cultural Revolution was a bloody crushing of human aspirations. On June 4, 1989, Red Chinese soldiers massacred Chinese students at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The student's crime was the desire for basic human rights. Such is the bloody legacy of atheism.
Conclusion
Atheism's Love Affair with Death
Governments under atheistic ideologies have murdered hundreds of millions of persons. Men, women and children have gone to the gas chamber, gallows, and concentration camps at the command of the atheistic leaders of Nazism and communism. These atheists were driven by their ideas of a utopia for the human race. They think that if they kill enough people, they will establish the perfect state. Death is their solution for personal and societal problems.
Their necrophilia—love affair with death—results from their sub-conscious desire to have never been born. If they had never been born, they would never have to give an account to God. They blame God for their life that brought them into moral accountability to God. Furthermore, they reason that abortion is an act of kindness, since it prevents the unborn from reaching moral accountability. Unwittingly, secular humanists affirm the veracity of scripture because it states that those who hate God love death.
All they that hate me love death. Prov 8:36 (KJV)
Atheism Suppresses Human Rights
The devastation grows horrendously when we consider those who have lived under communism for more than seven decades. Millions of lives were wasted by atheism, and their human spirits crushed under its heavy load. Atheism took away freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly. Today, China bans the Bible and jails Christian pastors. Even in America, the Bible is taken from public institutions under the banner of "separation of church and state." Sadly, the Bible is the world's most banned book.
Atheism is Mentally Blinding
In spite of the mass graves, the gas chambers, and the Siberian concentration camps of atheistic governmental regimes, atheists continue to heap guilt upon Christians. They cleverly do this so no one will look at their bloody hands. There is no amount of evidence that can alter their closed minds. The atheist's difficulty is moral and emotional not intellectual. Atheism is a theology of emotional hatred towards God.
Atheism is Not Logical
Logically, atheism is self-defeating. Atheism claims to know that God is nowhere. This claim is a universal negative. No finite being can see the entire universe while limited to a minute portion of the total space-time continuum. For an atheist to know that God is nowhere, the atheist must presuppose a divine attribute, that is, omnipresence. God is omnipresent and observes all there is to perceive. Hence, an atheist would have to be God to prove a universal negative, because only God is infinite in knowledge and presence. It is self-defeating to presuppose a divine attribute to argue against the existence of a being with this divine attribute.
Furthermore, a finite being cannot see everywhere. If a being could see everywhere, it would not be a finite being; it would be an infinite being. To be an infinite being is to be God. Again, this is not what the atheist desires to demonstrate.
Theists consider that God is a spirit. A spirit being cannot be visually seen, because it is not a material being. Finitude limits the capabilities of a being. Humans are finite and limited beings. One human limitation is not being able to see spiritual beings, because the human visual system is limited to material objects. Hence, it logically follows humans cannot physically see God who is a spirit.
Some objects are not visible. Gravity and magnetism are not visible, although we see the effects of gravity and magnetism. Intelligence is neither visible nor material. Mind is an immaterial entity. We intuit its existence. Any discussion between two individuals assumes that two minds are communicating. The speaker presupposes that the hearer has an intellect which is capable of understanding what is being said. We base our interpersonal communications upon the presupposition of its presence. Mortimer Adler presents an insightful discussion of mind in his book, Intellect: Mind Over Matter.35 Like magnetism, gravity, and intellect, God is a not visible. Consequently, since materialistic atheists accept non-visible entities such as gravity, magnetism, and intellect, they do not have a logical basis, a priori, to reject the existence of a non-visible God.
Are there natural objects whose ultimate cause of their existence needs to be God? We believe there are. When causes and their effects are logically considered, it can be shown there has to be a first uncaused cause. If an object is the result of some cause, it is considered an effect. If there were not an adequate cause for the existence of an effect, the effect would not exist. Objects are either (1) self-caused, (2) uncaused, or (3) caused by another. There are no self-caused objects, because a self-caused object would have "to exist" to be the cause its own existence, and it would have "to not exist" so it could be brought into existence. Hence, a self-caused object violates the law of non-contradiction, because it would have " to exist" and "to not exist" in the same respect. It would be arguing that a cause and an effect were one and the same thing. Hence, there are no self-caused beings, including God.
There are two possibilities remaining. Either an object is (2) an uncaused being or it is (3) a being caused by another (a being caused by another is the same thing as an effect). Now, if every effect requires a cause and if that cause were also an effect it would require a further cause. And if this further cause were another effect, it would require one more cause. This effect-cause linkage cannot go back forever in an infinite regress, because, in an infinite series, a starting point is never reached to bring about the whole process. There has to be an uncaused cause to begin the series. This uncaused cause is the first cause in the series of causes and effects. Without a first cause, there never would be an effect. Now, since we observe there are some objects in nature which are effects, there must exist a first uncaused cause. Furthermore, we have shown that it cannot be a self-caused object, because a self-caused object is logically impossible. Therefore, it must be an uncaused object, since there is not a prior cause in the series of causes.
Just as a scientist argues from an observed effect to the required properties of its cause, so have we argued from the nature of an effect to the necessity of a first uncaused being. We have shown logically that there are natural objects whose ultimate cause must be traced to the first uncaused being. In answer to the question asked above, "Are there objects whose ultimate cause would need to be God?" we must answer in the affirmative. In theistic terms, the being who is the first uncaused cause is by definition, God.
Since God is not an effect, it does not make logical sense to ask, "What is the cause of God?" Only an effect requires a cause. Since God is the first cause and not an effect, questions about the cause of God are meaningless. For example, the question, "Who was the first person to step upon the moon?" should be answered with, "Mr. Neil A. Armstrong was the first person who stepped upon the moon." To ask the question, "Who stepped on the moon, before the first person stepped on the moon?" is logically incoherent. Likewise, the question, "What was the cause of the first cause?" is a logical fallacy called a category mistake.
Hypocrisy of Atheists
Sometimes atheists endorse great social ideals. For example, they demand governmental help for the poor, but they seldom financially support these efforts from their own pocketbooks. They feel their tax dollars are their contribution to the poor. It is ironic to see some politicians voting for legislation repealing Christian rights, and then, later, to see them having their photograph taken while they are serving food to the poor in a gospel mission's dining room. These politicians need the backdrop of a Christian food line to show the public that they have a concern for the poor. Apparently, the atheist's food lines are closed down. So, they must find a gospel mission each Thanksgiving or Christmas for an opportunity to have their photograph taken showing them feeding the poor. It almost makes one suspicious that seeking votes is more important to these politicians than actually helping the poor.
Atheists put a guilt-trip upon Christians for Galileo, while they ignore their Russian colleagues who sent scientists and Christians to Siberia for disagreeing with the atheism of the Communist system. At least, the Church did not kill Galileo or send him to Siberia. Scientific atheists readily remember the 20 Salem witches who were executed in Massachusetts, while they conveniently forget the 200-300 million murdered in the attempt to achieve a utopia of atheism.
In 1553, John Calvin of Geneva, Switzerland had Servetus executed for heresy. Later, Christians made a monument upon which they engraved an apology for his execution. Where are the monuments of apology for the atrocities committed because of belief in evolution and atheism? Maybe they cannot afford to purchase enough concrete to make the millions of memorials needed to honor the dead who were killed in the name of their ideologies.
Confessions of Atheists
Jean-Paul Sartre, a French existential atheist, admitted atheism is a cruel affair. For him life was an empty bubble upon the sea of nothingness. Life had no rational meaning or eternal value. He was too hard-headed and true to the facts to claim life and reality had meaning or merit. He chose to accept reality in all its harshness and embrace existential nothingness. He was no mushy-minded humanist who needed to pretend human existence had value. He chose to accept the consequences of rational thought no matter where it led. He was not going to generate a pretend reality through a volitional act of the will like a typical humanist.
Atheism is a cruel and long range affair: I think I've carried it through. I see clearly, I've lost my illusions.36
Robert Jastrow, former Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is an evolutionist and astrophysicist. In his book entitled, God and the Astronomers, he presented evidence supporting the "Big Bang Theory." The evidence demonstrates that the universe was created and is now expanding. Entropy is increasing, and the universe is thermodynamically becoming more disordered. It is as if the universe had been wound up like a clock and is now winding down. This is what theologians have been saying for centuries. Scientists are finally catching up with Christian theologians.
Theologians generally are delighted with the proof that the Universe had a beginning, but astronomers are curiously upset37 ... For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; He is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.38
Some people try to escape the fact the universe had a beginning. They propose the universe expands in a "Big Bang" and then collapses in a "Big Crunch." This cyclic process is envisioned to yield an eternal universe that repeatedly goes on expanding and then collapsing. However, even a cyclical universe would need an input of energy to begin the whole "bouncing" process. Atheists dislike the light of good science and desperately seek shelter in an implausible theory.
Furthermore, the second law of thermodynamics predicts that a bouncing ball would lose amplitude with each bounce and finally come to a state-of-rest. Consequently, an expanding and collapsing universe would reach a state-of-rest in an infinite amount of time. Since the universe is not in a state-of-rest, the amount of time in the past is not infinite. The amount of time in the past has to be finite. Therefore, the universe has not always existed, and it must have had a beginning.
Like the magician who pulls the rabbit from an empty hat, evolutionists try to pull the universe from absolute nothingness. It takes irrational faith to believe absolutely "no thing" could create "some thing." They embrace their religious faith to avoid the logic of a Creator. To give a scientific flavor to their religion, scientific atheism uses the magic of chance. They employ the analogy of throwing dice and mathematical probability to arrive at some degree of probability for the appearance of life and the universe. In the beginning, there was absolute nothingness. With absolute nothingness there is no dice or probability. There was no warped space-time continuum to generate virtual quantum particles. There was just utter nothingness.
There is no such thing as pure chance. There is probability. Probabilities exist when there are possibilities among choices. One does not roll two dice and get a horse; one gets a sum between two and twelve. Probability defines mathematically the odds of an event occurring. The event must pre-exist in the dice. When the dice are non-existent, the odds of rolling a "universe" remain non-existent. The odds are zero; they are not even as great as 10-10,000. The philosopher and skeptic, David Hume (1711-1776), explicitly taught there is no chance.
There be no such thing as Chance in the world.39
It is universally allowed that nothing exists without a cause of its existence, and that chance, when strictly examined, is a mere negative word, and means not any real power which has anywhere a being in nature.40
The modern day magician—the Darwinian evolutionist—sometimes tricks the unsuspecting with the non-entity of chance. Using the "non-being" of chance, they seek to generate the "being" of the entire universe. An explosion in a print shop has an infinitely better probability of producing Webster's dictionary than does "nothing" in creating a single molecule of one of the dictionary's pages. In the case of the print shop, something is producing something. In the second case, "nothing" is producing " something." There is a finite difference between two contingent beings, such as a print shop and a dictionary. However, there is an infinite distance between non-being and being, such a distance exists between nothing and even a single molecule. In the light of this logic, evolutionists lack the intellectual integrity to admit there has to be a powerful and wise Creator of the universe.
Bertrand Russell, a famous atheist and philosopher, confessed the need for Christian love. However, he also realized his typical audience would consider that his answer was a compromise to Christianity, a religion they despised. Notice, Mr. Russell stating that Christian love gives "a motive for existence, a guide in action, and a reason for courage, and an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty."
The root of the matter is a very simple and old-fashioned thing, a thing so simple that I am almost ashamed to mention it, for fear of the derisive smile with which wise cynics will greet my words. The thing I mean - please forgive me for mentioning it—is love, Christian love, or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide in action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.41
Christianity gives an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty while evolutionary theory does not. From an evolutionary view, survival of the fittest is more important than intellectual honesty. Animals use deception in many forms to attain their ends. For example, a lion sneaks upon its unsuspecting prey to kill for its own survival. In the struggle to receive a good grade in a college course, cheating on an examination could make good sense. Whereas, intellectual honesty does not always make good sense from the viewpoint of receiving a high grade.
Positive Christian Social Influence
The Bible is the guide for the Christian faith. Christian failure results from disobedience to the Scriptures. The Bible commands Christians to love even their enemies. The doctrinal foundations of the Christian faith are sound, but Christians who are unfaithful to scriptural precepts become unjust. Christian theology teaches the equality and dignity of each human being. However, an atheist must borrow a base for good moral behavior from the Judeo-Christian heritage, since their doctrinal foundation does not provide theoretical justification for ethical actions.
The doctrinal foundations of evolutionary atheism are the fang and claw of the survival of the fittest. The strong attack the weak in the process of natural selection. According to Darwinism, the evolutionary achievements of the human species happened through killing the weak and out-smarting the less cunning. This process left the strong and cunning to breed and produce future offspring. Eugenists have claimed that further improvement of the human race would continue, if the strong could weed out the weak and less intelligent. The doctrine of scientific atheism states that biological evolution has no tendency towards equality of persons. Equal rights obstruct evolutionary progress. Christian doctrine stresses equality of races.
However, when the world has seen their doctrine put into practice, the world has experienced the terrors of unimaginable suffering. Survival is by power and deception, practices well developed by atheistic dictators.
Christians have thousands of hospitals worldwide. There are Baptist Memorial Hospitals, Catholic Saint Mary Hospitals, Presbyterian Hospitals, and many hospitals owned by other Christian denominations. Nearly every city has some gospel missions to feed and shelter the poor. There are medical missions in most foreign countries. The early universities and colleges in America were started by Christian churches. To the Christian's credit, they morally and politically oppose the humanist's agenda of death.
The integrity of scientific research depends upon absolute ethical standards. Situational or relative ethical standards could justify altered research data. Sometimes people lose their lives because of dishonest reports. Investigators traced the cause of the disaster of the Challenger space shuttle on January 28, 1986 to O-ring failure. Knowledge of the environmental conditions of O-ring failure was alleged to have been suppressed by the manufacturer's management. In fact, cheating and bogus research data has discredited the character of some US scientific researchers. It takes a Christian ethical foundation to have trustworthy science.
God Loves Atheists
God loves everyone in the world, including atheists. God does not love their acts of sin, but He loves them as persons. Though atheists irrationally embrace a theology of hatred towards God, He entreats them to choose life. This is a choice for real life, real freedom, and real truth.
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death: ... therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: Deut 30:19 (KJV)
God sent the Lord Jesus Christ into the world to be the Savior of sinners. God desires all to be saved from their sins. The gift of salvation is for all who admit they are a sinner and who accept Christ as their personal Savior. As a sinner, you need to accept the gift of salvation. The choice is yours. Christ paid the penalty for the sins of those who believe in His sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. He is now risen from the grave. Please accept God's great and gracious gift today! Christ is coming again.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 (KJV)
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Rom 10:9 (KJV)
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. Acts 16:31 (KJV)
References
1 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, John Murray, London, England, 1871, Republished by Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, Vol. 1, p. 168.
2 Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin and Selected Letters, Edited by Francis Darwin, Republication of 1892 edition, Dover Publications, Mineola, NY, 1958, p. 109.
3 Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry Into Its Laws and Consequences, MacMillan and Co, London, England, 1869, p. 1.
4 ibid. p. 339.
5 Leonard Darwin, The Need For Eugenic Reform, John Murray Publisher, London, England, 1926, p. 496.
6 ibid. p. 5.
7 Charles Galton Darwin, Positive Eugenic Policy, The Eugenic Review, Vol. XXXI, No. 1, April 1939, p. 13-22.
8 ibid. p. 15.
9 ibid. p. 20.
10 ibid. p. 21.
11 C.G. Campbell, The Present Position of Eugenics, The Journal of Heredity, Vol. 24, 1933, p. 145
12 C.C. Little, "Not Dead But Sleeping." Journal of Heredity, Vol. 24, 1933, p. 149.
13 Campbell, op. cit. supra note 11 at p. 144.
14 Little, op. cit. supra note 12 at p. 149.
15 Agnes Bluhm, Eugenics and Obstetrics, In: Problems in Eugenics, First International Eugenics Congress, University of London, Published by The Eugenics Education Society, London, England, 1912, p. 391.
16 ibid. p. 395.
17 Bleecker Van Wagenen, Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeders' Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population, In: Problems in Eugenics, First International Eugenics Congress, University of London, Published by The Eugenics Education Society, London, England, 1912, p. 478.
18 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Trans. Ralph Manheim, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, MA, 1971, p. 402.
19 ibid. p. 403-4.
20 Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi Doctors, Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, Basic Books, Inc., New York, NY, 1986, pp. 561.
21 Berlin Correspondent, Sterilization to Improve the Race, JAMA, Vol. 101, No. 11, Sept. 9, 1933, p. 866.
22 Hitler, op. cit. supra note 18 at p. 403.
23 Hitler, op. cit. supra note 18 at p. 325.
24 Trial of The Major War Criminals before The International Military Tribunal, Official Text in the English Language, Proceedings November 14-30, 1945, Nuremberg, Germany, 1947, Vol. II, p. 115.
25 ibid. Vol. IV, p. 65.
26 ibid. Vol. IV, p. 518-9.
27 ibid. Vol. IV, p. 58.
28 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, MacMillan Publishers, New York, NY, Revised Edition 1963, p. 99.
29 Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuerenberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10, United States Government Printing Office, 1950, Vol. V, p. 85.
30 Humanist Manifestos, I and II, Edited by Paul Kurtz, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1933 (I), 1973 (II), p. 8.
31 ibid. p. 14.
32 ibid. p. 16.
33 ibid. p. 18-19.
34 Mao Tsetung, Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, China, 1971, p. 482.
35 Mortimer J. Adler, Intellect: Mind Over Matter, Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1990, pp. 205.
36 Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words, Translated from French by B. Frechtman, George Braziller, Inc. New York, NY, 1964, p. 253.
37 Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, W.W. Norton, New York, NY, 1978, p. 16.
38 ibid. p. 116.
39 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, N.Y., 1988, p. 55
40 ibid. p. 88.
41 Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society, Unwin Paperbacks, London, England, 1952, Re-issued 1985, p. 105.
