The science of evolution has been with us for a long time now, enough, one would think, for people to abandon the nonsensical creationist theories of our religious past. Evidence of geological, molecular-biological and other scientific types has shown quite conclusively that the process of evolution did take place, much like science has shown that the heliocentric theory of the solar system was the correct and that the Old Testament's geo-centric one was completely wrong. It is interesting, then, that even among religious groups, the flat earth societies are considered a joke while evolution is still a subject that is frowned upon, grudgingly accepted by some like the Catholic church ever since the late pope, John Paul II, pronounced it as scientific fact while declaring that the fiction of creation in the Bible was something that conveyed what he called "a moral message," while groups ranging from extremists of the Mel Gibson variety within the Catholic church, several protestantr churches, Orthodox Jewish sects, virtually all of Islam and now, in a recent entry to this gang of anti commensense banditry, some fundamentalist Hindu groups as well.
The reason for this is that nothing comes closer to shaking the foundations of religions as the science of evolution. My mentor in writing on atheism, rationalism and freethought, the late M D Gopalakrishnan and his wife, Prof M Thavamani, currently the Principal of the Ethiraj College for Women, one of India's finest womens' colleges, used to tell me that they found it funny how, within the Semitic faiths themselves, there were subtle changes with time. Moses would claim to have gone up a hill by himself, to have met the Semitic god, and to have received instructions from him. By Jesus' time, he did not see any god though he claimed to be the son of god himself, and contented himself and his followers with performing "miracles" which are little different from the kind of trickery performed by countless magicians before and since. By the time Islam was ready to be spread by Muhammad, he claimed to be only a prophet, not a son of god, someone who met god on hill tops by hilself or anything of the sort. The fact is that in the history of the Middle East itself, there were fewer and fewer people who believed the old myths and new ones had to be created in order to keep people focused on the religious dogma of the day.
Early Christianity, especially after the Christian faith's conquest of Europe, would be brutal in enforcing ignorance among it's followers. Those who dissented with it's primitive teachings (and there had been vastly more refined thought that pre dated Christianity among the ancient Greeks in Europe, though that was left for the Muslims under Ibn Rushd to preserve) were brutally tortured and killed and even later, thinkers like Galileo were bullied into silence by the Catholic church's display of thuggishness in torturing it's enemies before him. it was political reasons that forced the end of the Catholic church's dominance of the European continent, though it would rally hard to enforce it's writ when Pius XXII openly supported the Nazis and their attempt at conquering Europe in World War II. These days, side by side with accepting evolution, the current pope sticks to demonstrating his world view in parroting the hateful nonsense of his predecessors praising the Crusades on occasion and quoting anti Muslim passages until he is made to shut up by embarassed members of his own flock, and then deviating to criticising the Harry Potter novels as Satanist literature, making a grander buffoon of himself than any religious leader has in a long time. But this is to digress from the topic at hand. These days, the anti science baton is carried, in the west, by Protestant churches, from the Hallelujah shouting Pentecostals through the Methodists, Baptists and what have you. These churches spew hatred for Islam and while extreme fundamentalists among the Muslims spew their hatred for them, both are united in trying to denounce evolution. Theya re joined by the Hindu and Jewish extremists in this enterprise.
To me, as a non scientist, this has always been revealing. How religions that have been mutually antagonistic towards each other down their respective histories have found unity in opposing a science that does not have any of the brute strength that the sword arms of these religions have, how religions that stress that their followers need not fear death in their pursuit of their enemy run scared of facts that are incapable of doing any physical harm to any religionist, and, how faiths that have centuries old histories of brutally suppressing people and ideas have been scrambling to save themselves from the soft ideas first proposed to the world by the son of a clergyman from England, have always been fascinating. Indeed, pictures of Charles Darwin, a balding, soft gentleman who reminds anyone who looks at his pictures of a friend's grandfather sitting in a grand living room to offer warm hospitality to visitors seem to worry the pious so much that they have tried every lie and fraud possible to discredit him and his ideas.
A lying religious fraud, Lady Hope, who had never even met Darwin claimed that on his death bed, he had "recanted" and converted to Christianity. And the personal assassination industry then began to employ pliant "Scientists" to offer their theories on why evolution did not take place. As recently as a few weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal carried an article by an economist - what would the man know of science - carry out a similar attack on the most vocal recent speaker for evolution - Richard Dawkins. Claiming that Dawkins was not a man whom any decent person could leave his wife near - I would personally think that this was deserving of a libel by Dawkins against the Journal - the oaf went on to claim that nothing that Dawkins said was new and that, in fact, all of his arguments had been derived from those of atheists in the 19th century. While I do not expect a mud slinger like the writer of the article in question to offer anything sensible, I wonder why he seemed to have forgotten that the argu,ments were basically the same that came from Darwin's time because evolutionists have to counter religious arguments that are much older. Indeed, his co-religionists follow the same scriptures that he does, and so have their predecessors, for the past 2000 or more years. How do you expect someone to argue these scriptures with ignorant followers without going back to the scriptures themselves? Indeed, it is always a point made by the religionists that they cannot have any referential point other than the ideas dished out in the scriptures themselves. The hypocrisy of the writer in question was evident and the stupidity of the editorial board of a newspaper that regards itself as the snottiest of the snotty of New York newspapers was even more visible.
This is not to say that the Wall Street Journal is alone in promoting this nonsense along with the religionists. It's main rival, The New York Times, a newspaper that calls itself "the newspaper of record" while it goes about repeating it's propaganda like a scratched record, carried it's own anti evolution article before the recent elections, accusing evolutionists of refusing to listen to the arguments of the creationists. Again, like Lady Hope and the later writer in the WSJ, the New York Times did not hesitate to stoop to the level of liars and frauds in indirectly promoting a creationist agenda. Perhaps, the Sulzberger owned newspaper was trolling for votes. It has been known to indulge in fraudulent and devious propaganda before elections - this was, after all, the newspaper that asked American voters, before the last presidential elections, to "get over 9/11" and vote for John Kerry. Perhaps, it could not avoid lying as is it's habit, in trying to drum up support, more successfully this time, before another crucial election. In the end, it was clear that this clamour was to try and bring the religious groups to it's side by attacking what they perceived to be their most dangerous enemy - evolutionists.
In this lies the truth about why religions fear the thoughts of a science that has no ability to cause them physical harm. Evolutionists are not like Selljuk hordes out to conquer Byzantium, nor are they, like Atilla and the Huns, out to defeat Rome by force. The fear that the religious outfits have is that the lies that they have successfully sold the world for centuries are exposed by this science. The geocentric theory that failed is not as harmful as evolution because religions cannot say, because of evolution, that man is bound to an all powerful god who speaks t them through a network of priests. Religious bodies are weakened in their control over their followers when the hollow lies that they have been feeding people about their god-given duties are shown for what they specifically are - lies. They cannot, anymore, try to cntrol people, giving divinely ordained reasons in whatever they expect their flocks to do, whether it is what or how they eat, how or when they have sex or whatever. The world's religionists, especially the leaders of the various religions who preside over vast financial empires, are running scared - they have everything to lsoe when their deceptions get exposed. Nothing attests to Charles Darwin's greatness better - if his simple recording and explanation of facts of natural history could shake up somje of the worst, bloody and fraudulent establishments that human history has ever known, he was a far greater man than he was a scientist. The leaders of various religions and their lackeys in their priesthoods and in the media, in comparison, are evident as little people, mean, crooked and incapable of anything honest. If there is a reason to celebrate the greatness of Charles Darwin, it is this fact along with the monumental work that he has left humankind.
Mehul Kamdar from Chicago is currently moderating Mukto-Mona forum. He was the editor of The Modern Rationalist under late M D Gopalakrishnan and associated with various rationalist movements. He can be reached at [email protected]
