This article was written nearly over a year ago. I just discovered it, and decided to post it. Please ignore the time frames referred to. Any quote taken from the internet which you doubt, just Google a line or two of it and you are likely to find it.
On atheism, morality, and the rest......
Recently a professional counselor (a lady) was describing to me how it has been established by science that a person’s inclination to morality has nothing to do with whether that person is a theist or an atheist. I thought I knew a bit about how science is supposed to ‘progress’ by thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Thus I looked up the internet about this matter. I am dutifully, documenting what little I could discover on this topic. Every now and then I comment a bit about what I’ve documented. But before that I would like to narrate the kind of turn the conversation with the lady counselor took. The lady acknowledged that God could be considered to be a father and we his sons. However, somehow (I do not know how) God is indifferent to the fact whether his son acknowledges his divine Father ( His Grace, His Bounty and feels love and gratitude for Him) or whether another son, just ignores Him, says He has no existence and often even insults Him. She tried to convince me with great fervor that the destiny of a person is not affected whether he adores his Creator or just ignores His existence. I tried to explain how every single theistic religion affirms that God’s love is extended to the surrendered soul and His displeasure is, meted out to those otherwise inclined. This time she couldn’t come up with yet another scientific claim, and just pointed out how that is another question indicating maybe that God’s bounty or His displeasure are debatable points. What I did not manage to tell her, I would like to point out now. If there is God, and if there are laws of karma (as you sow so you reap) then they will be there whether we accept them or not. So if God does exercise love and wrath then we could become affected by such things irrespective of our scientific pedigrees. So maybe it makes sense to dissect religion a bit just like one would dissect a dead frog to understand the details. Even more so because people like Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Pasteur, Kelvin etc all believed in the glory of God. It’s true that it appears great to party with meat, sex and alcohol. Yet frequent party goers complain of PPS (post party syndrome). So juuuuust maybe, it could make sense to try out our ancient knowledge which claims to be able to confer peace on the sincere enquirer. Now, over to the internet.
I’m starting with a quote by a famous person, Stephen Jay Gould. This is what I found on him:
Stephen Jay Gould (/ɡuːld/; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In the later years of his life, Gould also taught biology and evolution at New York University.
This is what he said:
Harvard University's staunch evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould stated, "Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory."
Stephen Gould also admitted the following about the atheist Ernst Haeckel:
Haeckel was the chief apostle of evolution in Germany.... His evolutionary racism; his call to the German people for racial purity and unflinching devotion to a "just" state; his belief that harsh, inexorable laws of evolution ruled human civilization and nature alike, conferring upon favored races the right to dominate others; the irrational mysticism that had always stood in strange communion with his brave words about objective science - all contributed to the rise of Nazism. - Stephen J. Gould, "Ontogeny and Phylogeny," Belknap Press: Cambridge MA, 1977, pp.77-78).
Leading Nazis, and early 1900 influential German biologists, revealed in their writings that Darwin’s theory and publications had a major influence upon Nazi race policies. Hitler believed that the human gene pool could be improved by using selective breeding similar to how farmers breed superior cattle strains. In the formulation of their racial policies, Hitler’s government relied heavily upon Darwinism, especially the elaborations by Spencer and Haeckel. As a result, a central policy of Hitler’s administration was the development and implementation of policies designed to protect the ‘superior race’. This required at the very least preventing the ‘inferior races’ from mixing with those judged superior, in order to reduce contamination of the latter’s gene pool. The ‘superior race’ belief was based on the theory of group inequality within each species, a major presumption and requirement of Darwin’s original ‘survival of the fittest’ theory. This philosophy culminated in the ‘final solution’, the extermination of approximately six million Jews and four million other people who belonged to what German scientists judged as ‘inferior races’.
Hickman adds that it is no coincidence that Hitler:
‘ … was a firm believer and preacher of evolution. Whatever the deeper, profound, complexities of his psychosis, it is certain that [the concept of struggle was important because] … his book, Mein Kampf, clearly set forth a number of evolutionary ideas, particularly those emphasizing struggle, survival of the fittest and the extermination of the weak to produce a better society.’
While it is true that persecution of the Jews has a very long history in Europe, it is also true that science in the twentieth century revived and absolutized persecution by giving it a fresh rationale — Jewishness was not religious or cultural, but genetic. Therefore no appeal could be made against the brute fact of a Jewish grandparent.
As the history of eugenics proves, science at the highest levels is no reliable corrective to the influence of cultural prejudice but is in fact profoundly vulnerable to it.
“Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.”
—Richard Dawkins
“What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question."
- Richard Dawkins
Just in case you still don’t have a clue who Mr. Dawkins is I will recommend that you look up the internet on him. I do apologize for being unassiduous.
Darwin himself was a racist and white supremacist. He predicted mass genocide from his theory, claiming:
At some future period not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous 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 civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla.
Likewise he compared native populations to animals:
“ The difference between a Tierra del Fuegian and a European is greater than between a Tierra del Fuegian and a beast”
To sum the above facts up I would like to say that atheism means regarding life not as something sacred but as a mere conglomerate of chemicals just driven by the urge to win and survive. This mindset has resulted in facism and other forms of cruelty.
http://fore.research.yale.edu/publications/statements/preserve/
At the above link is a beautiful statement issued by a body of scientists regarding how human beings can benefit from considering the environment, the earth and each other as sacred. While the above quotations inform us of the downside of atheistic thought and horrible culminations as their inevitable outcome, the above statement, by very good men of science lends credibility to the act of seeing through a theologically sound pair of lenses.
I will get back to the lady in a couple of weeks time armed with this article. She is trying to convince me how I cannot contribute to the spiritual upliftment of humanity without being able to earn my living. And she has succeeded. And that is another story.
On atheism, morality, and the rest......
Recently a professional counselor (a lady) was describing to me how it has been established by science that a person’s inclination to morality has nothing to do with whether that person is a theist or an atheist. I thought I knew a bit about how science is supposed to ‘progress’ by thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Thus I looked up the internet about this matter. I am dutifully, documenting what little I could discover on this topic. Every now and then I comment a bit about what I’ve documented. But before that I would like to narrate the kind of turn the conversation with the lady counselor took. The lady acknowledged that God could be considered to be a father and we his sons. However, somehow (I do not know how) God is indifferent to the fact whether his son acknowledges his divine Father ( His Grace, His Bounty and feels love and gratitude for Him) or whether another son, just ignores Him, says He has no existence and often even insults Him. She tried to convince me with great fervor that the destiny of a person is not affected whether he adores his Creator or just ignores His existence. I tried to explain how every single theistic religion affirms that God’s love is extended to the surrendered soul and His displeasure is, meted out to those otherwise inclined. This time she couldn’t come up with yet another scientific claim, and just pointed out how that is another question indicating maybe that God’s bounty or His displeasure are debatable points. What I did not manage to tell her, I would like to point out now. If there is God, and if there are laws of karma (as you sow so you reap) then they will be there whether we accept them or not. So if God does exercise love and wrath then we could become affected by such things irrespective of our scientific pedigrees. So maybe it makes sense to dissect religion a bit just like one would dissect a dead frog to understand the details. Even more so because people like Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Pasteur, Kelvin etc all believed in the glory of God. It’s true that it appears great to party with meat, sex and alcohol. Yet frequent party goers complain of PPS (post party syndrome). So juuuuust maybe, it could make sense to try out our ancient knowledge which claims to be able to confer peace on the sincere enquirer. Now, over to the internet.
I’m starting with a quote by a famous person, Stephen Jay Gould. This is what I found on him:
Stephen Jay Gould (/ɡuːld/; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In the later years of his life, Gould also taught biology and evolution at New York University.
This is what he said:
Harvard University's staunch evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould stated, "Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory."
Stephen Gould also admitted the following about the atheist Ernst Haeckel:
Haeckel was the chief apostle of evolution in Germany.... His evolutionary racism; his call to the German people for racial purity and unflinching devotion to a "just" state; his belief that harsh, inexorable laws of evolution ruled human civilization and nature alike, conferring upon favored races the right to dominate others; the irrational mysticism that had always stood in strange communion with his brave words about objective science - all contributed to the rise of Nazism. - Stephen J. Gould, "Ontogeny and Phylogeny," Belknap Press: Cambridge MA, 1977, pp.77-78).
Leading Nazis, and early 1900 influential German biologists, revealed in their writings that Darwin’s theory and publications had a major influence upon Nazi race policies. Hitler believed that the human gene pool could be improved by using selective breeding similar to how farmers breed superior cattle strains. In the formulation of their racial policies, Hitler’s government relied heavily upon Darwinism, especially the elaborations by Spencer and Haeckel. As a result, a central policy of Hitler’s administration was the development and implementation of policies designed to protect the ‘superior race’. This required at the very least preventing the ‘inferior races’ from mixing with those judged superior, in order to reduce contamination of the latter’s gene pool. The ‘superior race’ belief was based on the theory of group inequality within each species, a major presumption and requirement of Darwin’s original ‘survival of the fittest’ theory. This philosophy culminated in the ‘final solution’, the extermination of approximately six million Jews and four million other people who belonged to what German scientists judged as ‘inferior races’.
Hickman adds that it is no coincidence that Hitler:
‘ … was a firm believer and preacher of evolution. Whatever the deeper, profound, complexities of his psychosis, it is certain that [the concept of struggle was important because] … his book, Mein Kampf, clearly set forth a number of evolutionary ideas, particularly those emphasizing struggle, survival of the fittest and the extermination of the weak to produce a better society.’
While it is true that persecution of the Jews has a very long history in Europe, it is also true that science in the twentieth century revived and absolutized persecution by giving it a fresh rationale — Jewishness was not religious or cultural, but genetic. Therefore no appeal could be made against the brute fact of a Jewish grandparent.
As the history of eugenics proves, science at the highest levels is no reliable corrective to the influence of cultural prejudice but is in fact profoundly vulnerable to it.
“Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.”
—Richard Dawkins
“What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question."
- Richard Dawkins
Just in case you still don’t have a clue who Mr. Dawkins is I will recommend that you look up the internet on him. I do apologize for being unassiduous.
Darwin himself was a racist and white supremacist. He predicted mass genocide from his theory, claiming:
At some future period not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous 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 civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla.
Likewise he compared native populations to animals:
“ The difference between a Tierra del Fuegian and a European is greater than between a Tierra del Fuegian and a beast”
To sum the above facts up I would like to say that atheism means regarding life not as something sacred but as a mere conglomerate of chemicals just driven by the urge to win and survive. This mindset has resulted in facism and other forms of cruelty.
http://fore.research.yale.edu/publications/statements/preserve/
At the above link is a beautiful statement issued by a body of scientists regarding how human beings can benefit from considering the environment, the earth and each other as sacred. While the above quotations inform us of the downside of atheistic thought and horrible culminations as their inevitable outcome, the above statement, by very good men of science lends credibility to the act of seeing through a theologically sound pair of lenses.
I will get back to the lady in a couple of weeks time armed with this article. She is trying to convince me how I cannot contribute to the spiritual upliftment of humanity without being able to earn my living. And she has succeeded. And that is another story.
