Satanic Darwin
Ian Pitchford (Ian.Pitchford@scientist.com)
Sun, 17 May 1998 22:44:11 +0000 CSRC Creation-Science Research Center
Charles Darwin's Hidden Agenda for Science
The standard, long held view of the connection between Darwin's
religion and his theory is wrong. Supposedly he was a Christian who
studied at Cambridge to become a minister. But then, during his voyage
around the world on the Beagle, the scientific facts persuaded him to
believe in evolution and give up his Christian faith. However, an
examination of the various influences upon the youthful Charles Darwin
reveals an entirely different story.
Family Background.
Charles' grandfather, Erasmus, a successful and wealthy physician in
the 18th century, wrote the book, Zoonomia (Laws of Life), which
portrays a pantheistic world in which all life and species evolved.
Erasmus' close friend, industrialist Josiah Wedgwood I, embraced
Unitarian theology. Erasmus' son and Charles' father, Robert Darwin,
also a wealthy physician, probably an atheist, married Susannah
Wedgwood. Other marriage ties between the two families followed. Not
surprisingly, Darwin males generally were freethinkers, following the
Unitarian, pantheistic and atheistic views of their principal sires.
The Son, His Father and His Wife.
Charles Darwin, was born in 1809. His dominant, atheistic father,
Robert, advised him to conceal his unorthodox beliefs from his wife.
Should he predecease her this would spare her from unnecessary grief
because of her spouse's dying an unbeliever. Charles never spoke
publicly about his religious views. However, before he married Emma
Wedgwood in 1839 he told her about his rejection of Christian faith.
Though probably not herself evangelical, she was nevertheless pious,
and the rather gross unbelief of her husband was painful to her. But
during his life and even after his death she protected his reputation
by concealing his unbelief.
Charles' Education
Robert Darwin sent his son off to Edinburgh University in 1825. The
sixteen-year-old boy found himself in a university community which was
in a continual ferment of radicalism of all sorts advanced by
dissenters from the Anglican church, freethinkers, anti-Christians and
atheists, materialists and evolutionists. Evolution was in the air.
Most influential in this phase of Charles Darwin's life was Robert
Grant, a dozen years his senior. Holding the medical degree from
Edinburgh, he had made himself the leading British authority in
invertebrate zoology. Grant was an avowed atheist, and evolutionist,
and also a social and political radical. On zoological field trips
with Grant young Charles listened to his persuasive private lecturing
but kept his own counsel. Deeply interested in biological science,
Charles abhorred medicine The sight of blood sickened him. After two
years he returned home without a degree.
Disappointed, father Robert Darwin decided to send him off to
Cambridge University for a degree in theology, after which he could
purchase for him a "living" in an Anglican country church. There he
could be a sportsman, a scholar, or an amateur naturalist, supported
by a government stipend for life. Charles dutifully signed onto the
Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England and entered Cambridge.
He surely saw the hypocrisy in an atheist father's financing his son's
preparation to be a minister of the gospel.
At Cambridge Prof. Adam Sedgwick, a leading English geologist, took
Darwin with him on a geology field trip in the south of England.
Impressed with the young man's abilities, he predicted that his
student would make his mark in science. Though studying for a degree
in theology, Darwin put his greatest energies into geology and other
natural sciences. Darwin read Archdeacon William Paley's classic book
on the evidence for God in the designs of living creatures. Darwin was
impressed with the book but devoted the rest of his life to disproving
it. Reading the standard theology texts, he concluded that he could
accept intellectually the arguments for Christianity. Later, however,
with a fellow student he decided that he could not affirm having a
divine call to the Christian ministry.On the other hand, naturalist
Von Humboldt's reports of his travels to exotic places stirred in
Charles a yearning to follow in his steps. Thus when he received his
theology degree in 1831, his future was doubtful. With a young friend
he was planning a trip around the world when a letter arrived from the
Royal Navy inviting him to be the official naturalist on a voyage
around the world on H.M.S. Beagle. He accepted and his destiny was
sealed.
Darwin's Theology and His Theory of Evolution.
On the five-year voyage on the Beagle Darwin's abilities in natural
history became apparent. The large collections of specimens of rocks,
fossils, plants, fish, marine invertebrates, insects, birds and land
animals which he sent back to England made him famous before his
return. Shortly after his return to England in December, 1836, Charles
moved to London to arrange for the proper use of his specimens and
write several books about his observations. He was also reading
voraciously, seeking support for his ideas about evolution. Mostly
between 1837 and 1840 he filled a number of notebooks with his private
brain storming speculations about geology and evolution. Within five
months of debarking from the Beagle Darwin had written down his
espousal of the theory of evolution of all species. Those early
notebooks contained the germinal ideas for most of his research and
writing for the next forty years.
His Notebooks also reveal his theological views in those early years
from 1837 to 1840. The Creator God of the Bible is discarded, man is
degraded to an evolved animal and his mind, thoughts, religion,
emotions, language and facial expressions are made into products of
evolution. The philosophy of materialism is enthusiastically embraced
and human freedom of the will is repudiated. By 1842 Darwin wrote out
a lengthy essay in which he gave a detailed summary of his theory of
evolution.
Darwin's Duplicity and Opportunism.
During the five years on the Beagle Darwin was a close companion of
Captain Robert FitzRoy. FitzRoy was an opinionated conservative
Anglican. It is interesting indeed that on the long voyage young
Charles maintained a reputation for being a biblical literalist. Yet
as we have seen, after only five months or less off the ship Darwin
had written down some of his basic ideas on evolution and his
repudiation of the God of the Bible.It is incredible that his thinking
could have undergone total transformation from biblical literalism in
that short time. No, on board ship he must have acted like an orthodox
Christian in order to please his opinionated captain. In the period
from 1837 to 1840 Charles Darwin's reputation was rising, promoted
especially by Adam Sedgwick who sponsored him in the Royal Society.
Yet to Sedgwick evolution was an abomination, so Charles had to keep
his chief love absolutely to himself. In one of his notebooks he wrote
out a verbal strategy he could use to conceal his belief in evolution.
If Sedgwick had guessed what his young protege was thinking, Darwin's
career would have suffered a severe setback. Yet he yearned to tell
his associates about his theory. It was during this time of great
inner stress before 1840 that he began to suffer from severe headaches
and stomach trouble. Darwin kept his ideas from general circulation
for some years until his reputation in the scientific community was
established. Nevertheless, he delayed publication of the Origin of
Species for 17 years, offering in that book only a few hints on the
subject of human evolution. He delayed the publication of his book on
The Descent of Man another 12 years until 1871. Always the consummate
social and political strategist, he waited for decades for the right
intellectual and religious atmosphere and political climate to develop
which would assure his victory when his infamous book, The Origin of
Species, was published in November, 1859.
When another naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, in 1858 sent Darwin a
short essay outlining the essence of Darwin's own theory, his hand was
forced. An arrangement was made for joint credit to be given the two
men, but Darwin wrote the definitive book. In the fifteen months of
the crash writing project, Darwin's illnesses all converged on him. He
could scarcely write twenty minutes without excruciating stomach
pains, and he suffered from violent headaches and vomiting. During the
two weeks when the book was being printed and bound for sale, Charles
was undergoing treatment in the hydropathic clinic at Ilkley. In a
letter to fellow scientist J.S. Dalton he wrote: "I have been very bad
lately; having had an awful 'crisis' one leg swelled like
elephantiasis--eyes almost closed up--covered with a rash & fiery
Boils...it was like living in hell." Could it be that God was trying
to tell Darwin something? He would not listen. A lost soul ruled by
satanic power, he had to be a man of iron will wholly given over to a
consuming vision.
Darwin's Hidden Agenda for Science.
There is no evidence in all of Charles Darwin's published
correspondence and writings that he ever embraced biblical
Christianity. As we have seen, virtually all the formative influences
on his thinking were contrary to Christian faith. He always concealed
his rejection of Christianity, but in his 1876 Autobiography he stated
his unbelief in very blunt, even crude words. His closest scientific
associates were all men who had given up biblical Christian faith, and
some of them were committed enemies of the faith. For example, Sir
Charles Lyell, the father of modern geology, was determined to
discredit the biblical record of earth history, and Charles'
"bulldog," anatomist T.H. Huxley, wrote that he was "sharpening [his]
claws," ready to "disembowel" any clergymen who criticized Darwin's
Origin of Species.
It is clear that Charles Darwin's hidden agenda for science was to
drive out of the thinking of all scientists any concept of divine
special creation, divine intervention into the world, and divine
teleology (purpose, plan or goal) in the natural world. This amounts
to redefining science wrongly to make it an automatic weapon against
Christian faith. Darwin's theory has often been criticized by secular
scientists, but his agenda for science has long enjoyed universal
success in the secular establishment.
The Responsibility of Christians
We Christians must as a part of our faith boldly reassert the Lordship
of Jesus Christ over all things, including science. If the Lord Jesus
delays His coming, those whom God calls to serve Him in science,
education or other fields of scholarship must labor to get science
correctly redefined. We must, in the name of truth and correct
science, demand a level playing field so that all kinds of believers
or unbelievers may work in science. Thus all will have the opportunity
to demonstrate by the quality of their work the value for science of
their faith or non-faith. The persecution of Christians in the
scientific-educational-scholarly establishment because of their faith
must be stopped. Christians must be free to glorify their God and
Redeemer in all areas of endeavor. Especially this is so wherever tax
dollars are involved.
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Ian Pitchford - Email: Ian.Pitchford@mcmail.com
Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies
http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/
University of Sheffield, 16 Claremont Crescent
SHEFFIELD S10 2TA, United Kingdom.
Tel: 0114 222 2961 Fax: 0114 270 0619
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Online Dictionary of Mental Health
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InterPsych: Mental Health Debate on the Internet
http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/InterPsych/inter.html
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