The Evils of Evolution

The following diagram and comments summarize thus far what has been said.

If you accept a belief in God as Creator, then you accept that there are laws, since He is the law-giver. God’s Law is the reflection of His holy character. He is the absolute authority, and we are under total obligation to Him. Laws are not a matter of our opinions, but rules given by the One who has the right to impose them upon us for our good and His own glory. He gives us principles as a basis for building our thinking in every area.

Accepting the God of creation tells us what life is all about. We know that God is the life-giver, that life has meaning and purpose, and that all humans are created in the image of God and, therefore, are of great value and significance. God made us so that He could relate to us, love us, and pour out His blessing on us, and so that we could love Him in return.

On the other hand, if you reject God and replace Him with another belief that puts chance and random processes in the place of God, there is no basis for right or wrong. Rules become whatever you want to make them. There are no absolutes—no principles that must be adhered to. People will write their own rules.

It must be understood that our worldview is inevitably affected by what we believe concerning our origins and our destiny.

As the creation foundation is removed, we see the godly institutions also start to collapse. On the other hand, as the evolution foundation remains firm, the structures built on that foundation—lawlessness, homosexuality, abortion, etc.—logically increase. We must understand this connection.

Many Christians recognize the degeneration that has occurred in society. They see the collapse in Christian ethics and the increase in anti-God philosophies. They are well aware of the increase of lawlessness, homosexuality, pornography, and abortion (and other products of humanistic philosophy), but they are at a loss to know why this is occurring. The reason they are in such a dilemma is that they do not understand the foundational nature of the battle. Creation versus evolution is the bottom line.

If you find it hard to believe that evolution is related to the above issues, some basic research into history will demonstrate the connection clearly. In fact, I have not yet met one informed evolutionist who had disagreed with me concerning the relationship of evolution to these particular moral issues. They might not necessarily agree that this should have happened, but they do agree that this is the way in which people have applied evolution. It is important that you do not misunderstand what I am saying at this point. Certainly, evil, anti-God philosophies existed before Darwinian evolution. People aborted babies before Darwin popularized his view of evolution. However, what people believe about where they came from does affect their worldview. When people reject the God of creation, it affects how they view themselves, others, and the world in which they live.

Particularly in the Western nations, where Christian ethics were once very prevalent, Darwinian evolution provided a justification for people not to believe in God and, therefore, to do those things which Christians would deem as wrong. As one non-Christian scientist said in a TV interview, “Darwinian evolution helped make atheism respectable.”

We are now going to consider a number of areas where evolution has been used to justify people’s attitudes and actions. This does not mean that Darwinian evolution is the cause of these attitudes or actions but rather has been used by people as a justification to make their particular philosophy “respectable” in their eyes. These are covered in more detail and documented in Dr. Henry Morris’s book, Creation and the Modern Christian.

1. Nazism and evolution

Much has been written about one of fascism’s more infamous sons, Adolf Hitler. His treatment of Jews may be attributed, at least in part, to his belief in evolution. P. Hoffman, in Hitler’s Personal Security, said: “Hitler believed in struggle as a Darwinian principle of human life that forced every people to try to dominate all others; without struggle they would rot and perish … . Even in his own defeat in April 1945, Hitler expressed his faith in the survival of the stronger and declared the Slavic peoples to have proven themselves the stronger.”1

Sir Arthur Keith, the well-known evolutionist, explains how Hitler was only being consistent in what he did to the Jews—he was applying the principles of Darwinian evolution. In Evolution and Ethics, he said: “To see evolutionary measures and tribal morality being applied vigorously to the affairs of a great modern nation, we must turn again to Germany of 1942. We see Hitler devoutly convinced that evolution produces the only real basis for a national policy … . The means he adopted to secure the destiny of his race and people were organized slaughter, which has drenched Europe in blood … . Such conduct is highly immoral as measured by every scale of ethics, yet Germany justifies it; it is consonant with tribal or evolutionary morality. Germany has reverted to the tribal past, and is demonstrating to the world, in their naked ferocity, the methods of evolution.”2

2. Racism and evolution

Stephen J. Gould, in Natural History (April 1980, p. 144), said that “Recapitulation [the evolutionary theory which postulates that a developing embryo in its mother’s womb goes through evolutionary stages, such as the fish stage, etc., until it becomes human] provided a convenient focus for the pervasive racism of white scientists; they looked to the activities of their own children for comparison with normal, adult behavior in lower races” (brackets mine). Gould also concludes that the term “mongoloid” became synonymous with mentally defective people because it was believed the Caucasian race was more highly developed than the Mongoloid. Therefore, some thought that a mentally defective child was really a throwback to a previous stage in evolution.

The leading American paleontologist of the first half of the 20th century, Henry Fairchild Osborne, adds fuel to the fire with his belief that “The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolian … . The standard of intelligence of the average adult Negro is similar to that of the eleven year old of the species Homo sapiens.”3

Many of the early settlers of Australia considered the Australian Aborigines to be less intelligent than the “white man,” because aborigines had not evolved as far as whites on the evolutionary scale. In fact, the Hobart Museum in Tasmania (Australia) in 1984 listed this as one of the reasons why early white settlers killed as many aborigines as they could in that state. In 1924, the New York Tribune (Sunday, February 10) had a very large article telling their readers that the missing link had been found in Australia. The missing link referred to happened to be aborigines from the state of Tasmania.4

The incredible thing is that we live in a society that states it wants to be rid of racist attitudes. Yet we are conditioned to racist attitudes by our very education system, and the whole foundational basis for racism permeates people’s minds.

It was the evolutionary view that convinced anthropologists there were different races of humans at different levels of intelligence and ability. It is the Christian view that teaches there is one race (in the sense that we all came from the same two humans, and therefore there are no lower or higher evolutionary groups) and that all people are equal.

At one school a teacher said to her students that if ape-like creatures had evolved into people, then this should be seen to be happening today. Some of the students told her that this was happening today because some aborigines are primitive and therefore, still evolving. Regrettably, in the children’s eyes the teaching of evolution had relegated the Australian Aborigines to a sub-human level.

3. Drugs and evolution

Many people would not think of evolution as being in any way related to the taking of drugs. However, the following letter of testimony from a man in Western Australia shows clearly this relationship.

At school, the theory of evolution was presented in such a way that none of us ever doubted it was scientific fact. Although the school was supposedly Christian, the biblical account of creation was presented as a kind of romantic fiction, not intended to convey literal truths about God, man or the cosmos. As a result, I assumed the Bible was unscientific, and therefore practically of little or no use.

It never occurred to me that evolution was only an assumption—a concept concocted in someone’s head—and I regret to say that I wasn’t sufficiently interested to go check out the so-called “facts” for myself. I assumed that reliable people had already done that.

After I left school, I began to put into practice the assumptions and presuppositions I’d picked up during childhood. My naive belief in evolution had three important practical consequences:

1. It strongly encouraged me to look to drugs as an ultimate source of comfort and creativity.

2. It led me to the conclusion that God, if He was around at all, was a very distant and impersonal figure, separated from humanity by very great distances of space and time.

3. It led me to increasingly abandon the moral values I had been taught at home, because when man is viewed as an arbitrary by-product of Time + Matter + Chance, there is no logical reason for treating men or women as objects of dignity and respect, since in principle they are no different from the animals, trees, and rocks from which they supposedly came.

I want to elaborate on just one point, the great faith in dope that I had as a result of being convinced that evolution was “fact.” After leaving school, I became increasingly susceptible to drugs. Drug-taking seemed to me to make sense because in principle it fitted with what I’d been taught about the nature and origin of man. “From chemical reactions hast thou come, and unto chemicals thou shalt return.” And so I did.

My faith in drugs as a source of comfort and creativity was almost unbreakable even after ten years of total devastation, during which my job, personality, and relationships had fallen apart. Even after I came to Christ, I still continued using drugs, or feeling strongly drawn to them, until some Christians had pointed out the truth about man’s nature, origin, and destiny as recounted in Genesis. It was only when I perceived the truth of this, that my private love of drugs was completely and voluntarily abandoned. I now know that my hope is in the person of Jesus Christ, and in Him only. It’s no longer a platitude, but a living reality. I’m free, and it is the truth which has made me free—free from any desire for dope, free from the compelling faith I once had in chemicals as a result of believing a lie—the lie of evolution. I appeal to you parents and teachers, to re-examine the evidence as I have done.

4. Abortion and evolution

Many will remember being taught at school that as an embryo develops in its mother’s womb it goes through a fish stage with gill slits, etc., and other evolutionary stages until it becomes human. In other words, the idea is that as the embryo develops it passes through all the evolutionary stages reflecting its ancestry. This theory of “embryonic recapitulation” was first proposed by a man called Ernest Haeckel. Not many people realize that this whole theory was an intentional deception. I quote, “But it still remains true that, in attempting to prove his law, Haeckel resorted to a series of dishonest distortions in making his illustrations. Branding them as dishonest is not too harsh, since Haeckel mentions where he originally procured some of his drawings without mentioning the alterations he made.”5

Eventually, Ernest Haeckel admitted this fraud, but the deplorable aspect is that this theory is still taught in many universities, schools, and colleges throughout the world. Admittedly, evolutionists who have kept up with the latest writings know that this view is wrong and refrain from teaching it in their classes. However, in most of the popular school textbooks and reading materials this view is still promulgated in various forms, often very subtle.

As people accepted that the child developing in a mother’s womb was just an animal reflecting its evolutionary ancestry, there was less and less problem about destroying it. As evolutionary ideas became more accepted, the easier it became to accept abortion. In fact, some abortion clinics in America have taken women aside to explain to them that what is being aborted is just an embryo in the fish stage of evolution, and that the embryo must not be thought of as human. These women are being fed outright lies.

Again, let me state here that abortion certainly existed before Darwin popularized his evolutionary theory. However, his evolutionary theory has been used to give abortion its respectability, and thus we see the great increase in abortion today.

5. Business methods and evolution

In the last half of the 19th century, a widespread philosophy known as “social Darwinism” dominated the thinking of many industrial tycoons of the era. They believed that because evolution was true in the biological sphere, the same methods should apply in the business world: survival of the fittest, elimination of the weak, no love for the poor.

In 1985 one of Australia’s large banks (the National Australia Bank), in a commemorative magazine concerning their merging with another bank, was using Darwinian principles of survival of the fittest to justify its merger. There are many other examples in history books of famous businessmen who have accepted evolutionism and applied it in the business field.

6. Male chauvinism and evolution

Many try to blame Christianity for the chauvinist attitude of many males in our society. They claim the Bible teaches that men are superior to women and that women are not equal to men. This, of course, is not true. The Bible teaches that men and women are equal, but they have different roles because of the way God created them and because of their reactions to the temptation of the serpent (1 Timothy 2:12–14). In New Scientist, Eveleen Richards states: “In a period when women were beginning to demand the suffrage, higher education and entrance to middle-class professions, it was comforting to know that women could never outstrip men; the new Darwinism scientifically guaranteed it.” She went on in the article to say, “ … an evolutionary reconstruction that centers on the aggressive, territorial, hunting male and relegates the female to submissive domesticity and the periphery of the evolutionary process.”6 In other words, some have used Darwinian evolution to justify that females are inferior. However, there are those in the feminist movement today who use evolution to try to justify that females are superior. There are even those who use evolution to justify children’s rights. When you think about this, any theory that justifies either male or female supremacy justifies neither.

Christian women need to realize that the radical feminist movement is pervaded by evolutionist philosophy. Christian women need to be alert and not be deceived by such an anti-God movement.

A whole book could be written about the justification of many of the evils we see today from a foundational acceptance of evolutionary philosophy. But at this stage people start saying to me, “Are you blaming evolution for all the evils in society?” My answer is, “Yes and no.” No—because it is not primarily evolution that is to blame, but the rejection of God as Creator. As people reject the God of creation and therefore reject His rules, they abandon Christian ethics and accept beliefs in accordance with their own opinions. Yes—because, in a very real sense, the justification for people rejecting the God of creation is the so-called “scientific” view of evolution. Evolution is the main justification today for rejecting belief in divine creation.

The following illustration is my favorite, and beautifully summarizes what this book is all about.

On the left we see the foundation of evolution. The castle built upon it is entitled “humanism.” Associated with the humanist structure are the issues we have been discussing. On the right we see the foundation of creation, and built upon that is the castle entitled “Christianity.” As part of the foundation collapses, the structure starts to collapse. However, on the Christian structure, the cannons are either aimed at each other, aimed nowhere, or aimed at the issues of humanism, but certainly not aimed at the foundation called evolution.

Christians are fighting a war, but they don’t know where to fight it or how to aim their guns. This is the real problem. If we want to see the structure of humanism collapse (which any thinking Christian must), then we have to re-aim the cannons at the foundation of evolution. It is only when the foundation is destroyed that the structure will collapse.

You will notice that one cannon is taking potshots at the issues of humanism represented as balloons. Here is another aspect that Christians must consider very carefully. Many might even agree to fight against such issues as abortion, sexual immorality, pornography, and so on. But if we attack only at the level of these issues and not the motivation for their popularity, we are not going to be successful. Even if the laws are changed in our society to outlaw abortion, but the reason abortion has become acceptable (evolution) has not been attacked or destroyed, the next generation will be even more conditioned to evolution and simply change the law again. If the Church wants to be successful in changing society’s attitudes toward abortion, pornography, and homosexuality, it is going to have to fight the issue at a foundational level. The foundational basis of evolution needs to be destroyed and the foundational basis of creation restored to its rightful place of importance.

Dear reader, there is a war raging. We are soldiers of the King. It is our responsibility to be out there fighting for the King of kings and Lord of lords. We are the King’s army. But are we using the right weapons? Are we fighting the battle where it really matters? Unfortunately, many Christians have what would be viewed militarily as a totally ridiculous strategy. They do not fight the battle where it rages. They are not fighting on the real battleground. They have no hope of winning. When are Christians in the nations around our world going to wake up to the fact that we need to re-aim our weapons and aggressively and actively fight the issue of evolution by restoring the foundation of creation?

In Western nations most churches compromise with evolution. Many theological and Bible colleges teach that the issue of creation/evolution does not matter. They teach that you can believe in both evolution and the Bible because you do not have to bother about taking Genesis literally. This compromising stand is helping to destroy the very structure they claim to want to remain in society—the structure of Christianity. Chapter 10 challenges all those involved in pastoral and teaching positions in our churches to take a positive stand for the God of creation and thus oppose the anti-God philosophies that are destroying our nations.