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The
Atheist Devotional: Timeless Meditations for
the Godless by M. Moore
Copyright ã 2008 M. Previous: Reading Number 3: Darwin and the Amazing, Evolving Eyeball Next: Reading Number 5: And Now a Word from...Adolf Hitler!
- Reading Number Four -
Darwin, that Lovable Genocidal Racist
Excerpted from: Darwin, The Descent of Man, various chapters
Now we come to the dark side of Darwin. And it’s very ugly. But if it’s so ugly, why include it in a book that’s supposed to be uplifting? Well, because we as atheists need to know how to respond when people bring up these embarrassing things in our heritage. We need to know what kinds of rationalizations...er, I mean explanations we can give to try to explain them away. Let’s start by looking at Darwin’s views on race.
[From Chapter 5] But I have already said enough, whilst treating of the lower races...
Yes, Darwin believed in the concept of “lower” and “higher” races (and of course he’s talking about races of humans in this book, The Descent of Man). But which are the low and which are the high races? Read on...
[From Chapter 6] 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.
Hey, nothing like giving the imprimatur of scientific inevitability to genocide, eh?
At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, 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 a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.
Okay. So someday the highest apes will be gone, and the “lowest” humans (and we find out that these are the negroes and Australian aborigines!) will also be gone (along with the other “savage” races). So then the gap (“break”) between man and apes will be larger, because the “low,” “savage” races of today are evolutionarily less removed from apes than the higher races—the highest race being (surprise, surprise) Caucasians. Isn’t that lovely? Mind you, Darwin’s conclusions about the “low” or “high” evolutionary status of different races of humans were based on the same rigorous, scientific methods and logic as were the ideas he put forth in The Origin of Species. And in fact his views about race in The Descent of Man were based on the very theory of evolution propounded in The Origin. In his mind it was all unbiased, objective Science, dictated (of course) by Reason itself (with which, if you remember, he was in direct communication).
{From Chapter 7] Sir J. Lubbock further remarks how improbable it is that our earliest ancestors could have "counted as high as ten, considering that so many races now in existence cannot get beyond four." Nevertheless, at this early period, the intellectual and social faculties of man could hardly have been inferior in any extreme degree to those possessed at present by the lowest savages; otherwise primeval man could not have been so eminently successful in the struggle for life, as proved by his early and wide diffusion.
Isn’t Science wonderful? Of course, today we have more experience of the abilities of the different races, and we no longer believe that some are incapable of counting past four, or have not yet evolved the mental power to be able to build advanced civilizations. Here’s Darwin again, on savages and civilization:
{From Chapter 5] We should bear in mind that, judging from the small influence of most missionaries, a wandering crew from some semi-civilised land, if washed to the shores of America, would not have produced any marked effect on the natives, unless they had already become somewhat advanced.
So only the most advanced of the savage races can be influenced at all toward becoming civilized, even with the help of the more civilized, higher races. At least that’s what Darwin held. And why not? It’s not like he believed in the Bible, which tells us that we’re all descended from one original pair who were fully human. We atheists and other disbelievers have to bravely find our own way in this world. And if some of us sometimes stray into areas that are, shall we say, undesirable, as did for example Darwin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and so many others...well, that’s all part of finding our way as the independent, godless people we are. Darwin sanctions genocide, Stalin wipes out seven million Ukrainians—it’s all part of exploring all the options for...shall we say, “lifestyles” that are available to us as atheists! But today those ideas about race and genocide are out of fashion. (What, after all, is morality for us atheists besides fashion, or mere personal preference?) So how do we respond if someone tries to discredit atheism by pointing out these historical facts? Well, as far as Darwin, we can try to defend him by saying that he was a man under the influence of his own society’s views on race, and that he was in fact less racist than some—he opposed slavery, for instance, and after some struggle with the question, he actually decided that all human races are varieties (or “sub-species”) of a single species, rather than being separate species (generous of him, eh?). Some have used quotes from Darwin to show how enlightened he was, for example this quote:
It is impossible to see a negro & not feel kindly toward him; such cheerful, open honest expressions & such fine muscular bodies... [From a letter from Darwin to Catherine Darwin]
But of course, the fact that Darwin admired the muscular bodies of “negroes” says nothing about whether he regarded them as the equals of whites. It is true, however, that Darwin opposed slavery. But unfortunately he was hardly in the same league as a William Wilberforce, a devout Christian who dedicated his life to getting slavery abolishing in England. No, defending Darwin personally is rather a losing cause. After all, there were Christians of Darwin’s time and before who far outshone him in their belief in the equality of races:
John Philip [Christian missionary to South Africa starting in 1820]...was an uncompromising supporter of the rights of the black man as against the white: he expressed plainly the conviction that, given the opportunities of education and training, the African would prove himself in every way the equal of the European. [From A History of Christian Missions, by Stephen Neill, Penguin Books, 1964, p. 264]
Now instead of defending Darwin, we could try to simply attack Christians. Point out that there were Christian slave traders, Christians who justified slavery by their made-up doctrine of the “curse of Ham,” etc. We can even go beyond that to bring up the evils of the Crusades, witch hunts, etc. Unfortunately for us, the Christians have an answer for this. They point out that while there are sinful Christians (or people who claim to be Christians), Christianity itself is superior to atheism because it has an actual standard of right and wrong that shows slavery to be wrong, while atheism has no standard for morality at all. So attacking Christians doesn’t work either. Instead you have to go to attacking the Bible, the actual source of Christian morality. You can, for example, claim that the Bible condones slavery, and point out that the God of the Bible commanded the Israelites in the Old Testament to wipe out entire nations of people, so how is that any different from Darwin or Stalin? Unfortunately, a well-informed Christian will have an answer for this one too. She will point out that the Bible is a record of God’s progressive revelation to His people. She may talk about how the New Testament reveals more than the Old, how in the Old Testament laws God made allowances for practices that were not ideal, but had become entrenched in Israelite society, such as divorce (see Matt. 19:7-9). Slavery would fit into that category. Your well-informed Christian might also tell you about how the New Testament recognizes the reality of slavery as well, but strongly militates against it with its affirmation that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). Further, you might be told that Christians were at the forefront of fighting against slavery in Western societies, precisely because of the morality of the Bible, which so strongly opposes oppression of the weak (again, sadly, that is true). And finally, your well-informed Christian might tell you that the wiping out of nations in the Bible was Old Testament and limited to God’s command regarding the Canaanites, whereas atheism has no limits on what an atheist may do, because it has no basis at all for morality. Unfortunately, this is all true. Christianity, in its fullest revelation and its most developed form, is solidly against slavery, murder, or oppression of any kind. I would advise you simply to avoid arguing this topic with well-informed Christians. For our own personal consolation, though, we atheists can choose to dwell in our private meditations on witch hunts and Crusades and Amalekites, forgetting about the far, far greater numbers of millions of people who have been murdered by atheists like Stalin and Mao. After all, what’s a few tens of millions of people butchered, if it’s on the altar of a good cause like our freedom as atheists to choose our own morality?
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