Darwinian theory of evolution and biology gave boost to racist arguments
To the Expositor:
This is in response to Professor Gold’s January 15 letter ‘The do gooders arrived with a Bible in one hand, whiskey in the other.’
First, I am not particularly interested in the debate about the schools.
Belonging, as I do, to a minority group who has their own schools (though not publicly funded) I would naturally like to see that privilege extended to other groups. This seems like a basic freedom, but I don’t wish to enter that debate.
I also share the professor’s abhorrence of the broken promises. Although I think he paints with too broad a brush, I also agree that both whiskey and the Bible were (and are) horribly abused. I do not feel, though, that the professor gave a very good picture of the driving force behind the “European elites.” It wasn’t whiskey, and it certainly wasn’t the Bible. Perhaps it is best summed up in the words of Charles Darwin, who wrote ‘On the Origin of Species’ or ‘The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.’ In his book Decent of Man, chapter 3, he wrote: “In some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world.” That this was the driving force is confirmed by the late Stephen Jay Gould, professor of paleontology at Harvard, who wrote: “Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1850, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory.”
I don’t quite know what to make of the professor’s accusation that someone stole the New Testament from the Jews; this seems like accusing the Conservative Party of stealing Stephen Harper from the Liberals, but we’ll let that go. He also gives no evidence as to why a Jew from Tarsus debating with Greek philosophers on Mar’s Hill in Athens would be talking about European blood, white or otherwise, but we’ll let that go too.
I liked the professor’s quote from Socrates, and if he had given the quote in Acts a little more fully, he would have seen Paul quoting one of the other Greek poets, so let’s see what he said; “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might feel for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
That we are “children of the same Creator” would seem like a better base to build on.
Respectfully yours,
Elias Brubacher
Massey
