What happens to a society when its children are taught they evolved
from the slime of some prebiotic soup through random chemical reactions in a
chaotic, completely unsupervised universe that emerged from a chance
explosion?
After decades of indoctrination into Darwin’s theory of evolution, this
question is no longer an academic one. The fruits of this experiment are
evident everywhere we look, from staggering increases in the homicide and
suicide rates among young people to a total disdain for human life.
Evolution is not only junk science, it is a pernicious social doctrine
which produces a bitter harvest in the hearts and minds of its adherents.
When children are taught this theory as fact (as most are today), it affects
their entire belief system and outlook on life. The implications are
devastating for individuals as well as for society at large.
The first implication of accepting evolution as fact is hopelessness.
There’s a scene in Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” in which Allen’s character,
comedian Alvin Singer, is recounting an episode from his childhood. In the
flashback,little Alvy is refusing to return to school because he has
learned in science class that the universe is expanding. He tells his
mother this means the universe will one day explode and all life will cease
to exist. His mother asks him what that has to do with the fact that he has
stopped doing his homework, to which he replies: “What’s the point?”
The scene is played strictly for laughs, but at the same time it makes a
very insightful point. If it’s true that we are living in a chaotic and
completely unpredictable universe which will one day self-destruct,
obliterating everyone and everything forever, then nothing we do or desire
to accomplish has any meaning or purpose whatsoever. All we can hope is to
live as long as we can and get as much as possible for ourselves out of life
until we perish forever, along with everyone and everything else eventually.
Hard to get happy after that one.
Indeed, in the new introduction to the 30th-anniversary edition of his book
“The Selfish Gene,” evolutionist Richard Dawkins relates how that book’s
dismissal of any higher purpose in nature has had harrowing consequences in
the lives of its readers. He mentions one person who went into “a series of
bouts of depression” which lasted for more than a decade after reading it.
Another young student was driven to tears by its assertion that life is
“empty and purposeless.”
Dawkins’ response to such reactions is to basically shrug them off, asking
if “any of us really tie our life’s hopes to the ultimate fate of the
cosmos” and answering, “of course we don’t, not if we are sane.”
Well, in fact, the two are inextricably linked. In a godless universe where
nothing matters, or ever will, there is no place for hope or eternal love or
lasting joy. We’re all on a cruise ship heading toward the falls, and it’s
only a matter of time before we all go down together to an assured,
irreversible and everlasting doom.
The best we can do, under those circumstances, is try to amuse ourselves as
much as we can for the short amount of time we’re here – which, tragically,
is the conclusion that Woody Allen’s death-obsessed character reaches at the
end of another of his films, “Hannah and Her Sisters.”
The second implication is the loss of truth, since truth must be based on a
fixed standard that transcends time and popular opinion. Truth is something
that never changes; it remains constant even when everything else is in
flux.
Yet in a generation raised to accept evolution as fact, there is no room for
truth nor any basis for absolute virtues or values. Truth cannot possibly
exist in a world that came about as a result of chance explosions and
chemical reactions, where everyone and everything arrived on the scene
accidentally.
That’s why modern society is doing everything it can to relegate the whole
concept of truth to the dustbin of history. In our pluralistic,
relativistic, multicultural, politically-correct age, holding to an
authoritative standard of right and wrong is considered arcane.
Thus, whenever someone promotes family values, for instance, he is barraged
by a chorus of angry voices demanding of him contemptuously: “Whose
family?” In our society, everyone is supposed to make it up for
themselves as they go along.
Finally, the loss of truth leads inevitably to the removal of all moral
restraints. In a godless universe, we are accountable only to ourselves and
the loftiest goal to which we can aspire is our own pleasure. As
Dostoyevsky reasoned, everything is then permissible. There is no such
thing as sin, no final judgment to worry about, no heaven or hell, and no
life beyond this one. Jesus Christ, who claimed to be “the way, the truth
and the life” (Jn. 14:6), was either a liar or a lunatic, and all religious
endeavors are futile.
The first of the moral restraints to be disposed of is always the sanctity
of human life. In a Darwinian world, natural selection is the ruling ethos
and will always prevail, so the powerful must overwhelm and annihilate the
powerless. We saw that clearly enough in the case of Terri Schiavo.
For as much fanfare as Darwin’s book “The Origin of Species” has received
over the past century and a half, precious little notice has been paid to
its subtitle: “The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.”
The idea of a superior race eliminating all “inferiors” on the basis of
evolutionary dogma originated not with Hitler, but with Darwin. Not
surprisingly, this was an idea also enthusiastically embraced by the racist
and eugenicist Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.
Hitler was so enamored with Darwin’s work that he considered dedicating his
own book, “Mein Kampf,” to him. His slaughter of six million Jews and
millions of others in the death camps was a direct result of Darwin’s
influence on him.
The philosophy of Social Darwinism is also at the root of communism and
apartheid, and it is still wreaking havoc worldwide. Nowhere is this seen
more clearly than in the abortion holocaust, the taking of the most
powerless and vulnerable lives of all by the blood-for-money abortion
industry. Before evolution permeated our culture, it would have been
virtually impossible to enact a law legalizing the mass extermination of
unborn children in America. But in 1973, after decades of evolutionary
proselytizing, the U.S. Supreme Court gave us the inhumane and
unconstitutional Roe vs. Wade decision. Thirty-three years and well
over 40 million dead babies later, there’s still no end in sight to the
carnage.
We’ve reached the point where partial-birth abortions continue unabated
despite being opposed by a vast majority of Americans, and where Republicans
in Congress had to struggle to pass a law banning the killing of live-born
infants! Meanwhile, liberal politicians and media elites
are pushing euthanasia and assisted suicide as the next steps down this
slippery slope, hoping to rid society of more of those whom Hitler debased
as the “useless eaters” (the elderly, disabled, etc.).
Call it the natural progression of natural selection.
Related special offer:
“Tornado in A Junkyard: The Relentless Myth of Darwinism”
Tom Flannery writes a weekly political column called “The Good Fight” and a continuing religious column called “Why Believe the Bible?” for a hometown newspaper in Pennsylvania. His opinion pieces have appeared in publications such as Newsday, the Los Angeles Times, and Christian Networks Journal. He is a past recipient of the Eric Breindel Award for Outstanding Opinion Journalism from News Corp/The New York Post, in addition to winning six Amy Awards from the Amy Foundation.
