Posted on 01/15/2008 4:32:43 PM PST by wagglebee
'Darwin's Plantation' Breaks New Ground in Study of Subject
Contact: Melany Ethridge, 972-267-1111
PETERSBURG, Kentucky, Jan. 15 /Christian Newswire/ -- Author Ken Ham and theologian Dr. A. Charles Ware take a groundbreaking look at one of the human race's greatest problems – racism – in "Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots." Along the way, they also tackle the questions of the origin of all the people groups, skin "color," and interracial marriage,
Ham is the president of Answers in Genesis and the new Creation Museum, ministries that uphold the authority of the Bible from the very first verse. Ware is the president of Crossroads Bible College (training Christians to reach a multiethnic urban world) and a national leader in promoting multiethnic ministry.
With Darwin's birthday coming Feb. 12, and his 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species" little more than a year away, the time seems right for an accurate assessment of his legacy.
Ham and Ware show that although racism certainly did not begin with Darwin, his beliefs did more to fuel racism than the ideas of any other single individual. "Racism is a consequence of sin in a fallen world infused with evolutionary thinking," Ham writes.
The subtitle of Darwin's "Origin of Species" is "The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." Darwin himself writes in "The Descent of Man" that he would rather be descended from a monkey than a "savage."
Even Stephen Jay Gould, the late leading evolutionist, agreed that the publication of "Origin of Species" had a negative impact on the discussion of racial issues. "Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory," he wrote.
Ham and Ware note that evolutionary theory made its way to American shores during the time of the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation (the 1860s).
"Without the legal ability to enforce slavery, many people turned to the theories of Darwin to justify racism in its many forms," the book says. "They began to use evolution as justification of their views that African-Americans were an inferior 'race' and a 'sub-species' that was not really fully human and not deserving of fair and equal treatment."
Ham, originally from Australia, studied environmental biology at the Queensland Institute of Technology. He notes that the remains of perhaps 10,000 Aborigines, some slaughtered as "specimens," were shipped to Britain to prove that they were the "missing link."
Perhaps most tragically, Hitler used evolutionary thought to justify his concept of a "master race" and the extermination of the Jews and other so-called "inferior" groups of people.
"As soon as one believes that human beings have evolved from creatures of lesser intelligence, it is an easy corollary to assume that some people groups are more evolved than others," the book says.
Ultimately, though, the book is not about assigning blame. Instead, it sets out a Biblical blueprint for harmonious race relations. In fact, with man's history of racial conflict, the authors say that "GRACE (God's Reconciliation At Christ's Expense) relations" provides a much better model than race relations. This concept mirrors the teaching found in a compelling exhibit inside the Creation Museum on the origin of the different people groups.
Ware adds: "'Darwin's Plantation' presents the scientific and Scriptural case for the origin of the so-called races and of their skin color and eye shapes, plus what the Scriptures teach about still-controversial issues like interracial marriage."
The authors paint a picture of a world where churches are multiethnic and interracial marriage is no longer a problem. How can this happen? According to this book, it can only happen when Christians accept the Bible's truth that there is only one race – the human race (Acts 17:26; Genesis 1).
Answers in Genesis is a biblical apologetics ministry which conducts more than 300 teaching meetings each year, hosts an award-winning Web site and produces the "Answers" radio program heard on more than 900 stations throughout the United States. The high-tech Creation Museum, which opened in May, has seen over 300,000 visitors in less than eight months of operation.
Crossroads Bible College is a Christian undergraduate institution in Indianapolis whose particular concern is to train men and women of many cultural and ethnic backgrounds for effective roles in Christian service.
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Thanks for giving more evidence that evolution deniers are stuck on stupid.
This from a man whose “museum” teaches that it is OK to have sex with your sister if she’s the only date you can find.
I draw a very clear distinction between evolution (a debatable scientific theory) and Darwinism (a political movement with eugenic atheism at its core).
“Thanks for giving more evidence that evolution deniers are stuck on stupid.”
LOL! As if any more evidence was needed. Racist! Hitler! It’s getting to where you can’t tell the libtards from the cretards without a program.
Col 3:11 Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Christianity clearly teaches that all are equal before God. I guess someone who wanted racism needed something to justify it and found it in Darwinism.
That doesn’t equate to what you wrote. That’s intentional misrepresentation on your part. The meaning is clear, you should be able to see it.
Did Cain marry his sister? Ken Ham rather strongly implies he did. I’m not aware of any such declaration in the Bible, and yet Ken Ham says it would be OK.
My question to Ken ham is whether it is OK to make up stuff that isn’t in the Bible and then lecture other people’s children about why it is OK.
That has nothing to do with the topic of the thread. That’s as blatant an attempt at topic changing as I’ve seen yet.
If you want to discuss the topic, why don’t you start a thread about it?
bump
Ken Ham gave a talk at our church once. If I recall correctly, he does believe that Adam and Eve’s kids had to marry each other. Who else would they marry, I suppose. The earliest humans lived hundreds of years and were more pure, not yet prone to genetic disorders, etc., so at first they were allowed to marry close relatives. The prohibitions against incest did not occur until later in the Bible. At least according to Ham. I disagree with a lot of what he teaches. I’m just reporting what I remember about that particular issue.
Interesting.
For the record, I’ve always accepted natural selection as fact. I found the subject fascinating in school. But, yes, as the article points out, it’s obvious that eugenicists and racists of all kinds derive their theories from the theory of evolution. The Holocaust and euthanasia is what happens when natural selection is used (or misused) as a guide for life, without a belief in Natural Law or a moral guide.
Still, if people like Hitler truly wanted to live according to Darwin’s theory alone, they would never exterminate people nor frown upon intermarriage between groups. In survival of the fittest, variety is important. When the environment changes, the very traits that were a disadvantage in the previous environment can be an asset in the new environment.
"Physical, mental, and moral peculiarities go with blood and not with language. In the United States the negroes have spoken English for generations; but no one on that ground would call them Englishmen, or expect them to differ physically, mentally, or morally from other negroes." -- Thomas Huxley, "Darwin's Bulldog" [Erik Trinkaus, Pat Shipman, The Neandertals pp 46-47]
That’s like saying holocaust museums teach that it’s OK to exterminate Jews.
I no longer have the slightest interest in debated creation vs. evolution. I have NEVER seen anyone who is firmly on one side or the other change their mind on the subject, nor do I see any real value on debating something that either did or did not happen but cannot be concretely proven either way.
That being said, it is an historical FACT that the Darwin family used evolutionary theories to develop racist eugenics. I see evolution as one facet of Darwinism, but it is the eugenics aspect of Darwinism that is far more dangerous and destructive. It is without question that Hitler and Sanger were believers in eugenics in exactly the way that Galton and Leonard Darwin intended and while Galton and Darwin may not have openly called for the death of those they considered "inferior," it was a logical and predictable result.
The thread is about whether Ken Ham can even read, much less draw moral conclusions.
He does seem willing to read things into the Bible that aren’t there, and teach his fantasies to other people’s children as Biblical truth.
Well, I suppose that makes sense, since racism was invented in the mid 19th century. Before that, everybody just smiled on their brother and learned to love one another. [/S]
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