A friend has alerted me to this book and article in The Times online.
Charles Darwin and the children of the evolution
The headline makes the statement "The naturalist outraged the church, prompting a bitter debate that still sets creationists against evolutionists. Now a sinister link has emerged between his work and the recent spate of high-school killings by crazed, nihilistic teenagers."
Read the article here by Dennis Sewell
The book is available "The Political Gene: How Darwin’s Ideas Changed Politics" (Picador, £18.99) by Dennis Sewell is available at the BooksFirst price of £17.09, including p&p.
"The Political Gene: How Darwin’s Ideas Changed Politics" at www.amazon.co.uk
Charles Darwin and the children of the evolution
The headline makes the statement "The naturalist outraged the church, prompting a bitter debate that still sets creationists against evolutionists. Now a sinister link has emerged between his work and the recent spate of high-school killings by crazed, nihilistic teenagers."
Read the article here by Dennis Sewell
The book is available "The Political Gene: How Darwin’s Ideas Changed Politics" (Picador, £18.99) by Dennis Sewell is available at the BooksFirst price of £17.09, including p&p.
"The Political Gene: How Darwin’s Ideas Changed Politics" at www.amazon.co.uk
2 comments:
If you can point to any of Darwin's writings which encourage school shootings please do so. Having read all of his books and much of his original diary material and correspondence I can't.
By contrast it's very easy to find encouragement to kill in scripture.
Of course Darwin did not encourage school shootings Mr McGrath, although as you have read all his books you will be aware of his comments about the inhabitants of Tierra Del Fuego and other aboriginal peoples. He didn't encourage their genocide, but seemed to accept it as inevitable, based on his theory.
The Finnish school killer left a message on Youtube which made it clear he was inspired by Darwin. The Columbine killers were also fascinated by Natural Selection.
This would no doubt have appalled Darwin. But that isn't the point which is being made. The point is, ideas have consequences, sometimes unintended. The school shootings are a mere footnote compared to the mass murders carried out by social Darwinists of the 20th century.
And yes, there is encouragement to kill, in highly specific circumstances, in the Old Testament, but as I suspect you know, there is none in the words of Jesus or the New Testament writings.
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