Posted on 02/01/2009 2:48:48 PM PST by EveningStar
...Two arresting new books, timed to coincide with Darwin’s 200th birthday, make the case that his epochal achievement in Victorian England can best be understood in relation to events — involving neither tortoises nor finches — on the other side of the Atlantic. Both books confront the touchy subject of Darwin and race head on; both conclude that Darwin, despite the pernicious spread of “social Darwinism” (the notion, popularized by Herbert Spencer, that human society progresses through the “survival of the fittest”), was no racist...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sin and slaughter existed prior to the theory of evolution.
“slaughter existed prior to the theory of evolution”
Yeah, and lying thieving corrupt men existed before Ted Kennedy. Does that mean we should just accept it?
When pro-slavery types were called upon to justify their position, they always went to the Bible. Why is that?
Could it be that the Bible explicitly allows slavery? See Ephesians 6.
Unfortunately it still pales into insignificance against the fruit of organised religion, though... there's been over 500 years of genocide and slaughter between Moslems and Jews, Christians and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslems and Christians, Moslems and Moslems, and conflicts continue to this day.
I surely don’t have answers, but it seems to me that “genocide and slaughter” have been going on forever within the religious ranks. More death and destruction in the name of religion I cannot imagine.
The NYT gets Herbert Spencer wrong by the way. The common understanding of Spencer as author of social darwinism is quite wrong.
Learn the difference between cause and effect.
To be fair, Buddhists, Hindus, animists and a variety of other faiths have all been party to mass murder. Jews, Muslims and Christians are just the ones we’re most familiar with in the West.
To answer both questions: idiots and no it doesn’t.
But did they kill because of their religion, or because of their religion?
Hitler is often promlugated as an atheist who killed in the name of secularism, but he didn’t. He never killed anyone because of their religion, ‘only’ for their race, politics and/or personal opposition to him and his regime. He specifically stated in ‘Mein Kampf’ that his hatred of Jews was not based on their religion, but on their race....
Well I would beg to differ there. There has been unending genocide and slaughter. And the basis most often is religion.
The Bible does not expressly prohibit slavery. In the light of eternity, slavery was a very secondary issue. However, it was primarily Christians that caused its abolition.
A difference without a distinction.
Why for all those centuries did no Christian realize this?
Apostle Paul (Ephesians 6:9) tells Christian slaveholders to be good masters. He does not say slavery is wrong.
It is because evil men use religion as an excuse but it is amazing that you can not see communism, socialism, dictatorships, abortion as also used to slaughter human kind......all evil men.
On what philosophical basis would biological evolutionary theory contradict the practice of slavery?
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