Ray a day: 19.1

I think this is the longest post we have ever written. Good luck!

Wow, we’re already on our nineteenth post using Ray Comfort’s newest book as a springboard to discuss all manner of things including atheism, cosmology, argumentation, fallacies, evolution, biology, science, research, ethics, etc. Believe it or not: we’re only on page 20 of the book. We’ve got 113 left to go (it’s not a big book). Here’s one we haven’t discussed yet: Racism. An “angry skeptic” asks Ray what Darwin’s stance on racism is, and answers his own question by saying that Darwin was against racism. Ray responds by quoting Darwin:

At 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. At the same time anthropomorphous apes … will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla

 After this quote Comfort goes on to say that Darwin was a racist bigot and that “his hooded believers” will give a fiery defense of these “evil racist beliefs”. He also makes another jab at people who are atheist, saying essentially that behaviors like “rape and pedophilia” are “to be expected from those who deny that there is good and evil”.

Once again I have to point out that claiming (not outright, but rather somewhat indirectly) that atheists are “to be expected” to commit terrible crimes such as rape and pedophilia betrays Comfort’s bigoted atheophobic hatred for people who don’t believe in his god. I find it frankly disgusting that a publisher was willing to publish something like this – it serves to alienate people and create or reinforce horrifying, disturbing stereotypes. In case no one has figured it out yet, I’ll type it loud and clear:

THIS IS WHY I CARE ABOUT RELIGION.

It’s rather ironic that this question is about racism. Comfort clearly thinks that racism is evil, and it is. It is evil to say that black people are rapists, and it is equally evil to say that atheists are rapists. Ray is committing essentially the same crime that he claims Darwin is committing, only Ray’s hatred toward atheists makes Darwin’s “racism” look like a candle to the sun. Comfort is just as bad as people who claim black people are to be expected to rape and be pedophiles. It is irony of the order that makes me want to cry.

Which brings me to my next point. To understand Darwin’s views on race, one has to understand them in the context of the time in which he lived – the original “angry skeptic” is absolutely correct.

Evolutionary theory actually served to quell racist views in the time in which it was published. His theory  refuted theological beliefs of his time that were fundamentally racist – namely that white people and black people were a different “kind”. To see Darwin as a racist is to misunderstand the history of racism, antisemitism, and other atrocities committed by western civilization, often due to Christian theology and pulpit-preaching.  Before evolution was accepted by mainstream science (and please, don’t kid yourself – it has been accepted by mainstream science), education on the nature of biology was primarily theological.

The idea of the Aryan race was popularized by Arthur de Gobineau, who wrote “An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races”. There was absurd (read: copious amounts of) theological support for slavery and white supremacy and the moral defense of slavery was almost exclusively based on scripture and supported by those on the pulpit. Abolitionists of slavery, including our friend Abraham Lincoln, argued that whites should take care of the inferior darker-skinned races instead of exploiting them due to their inferiority, much like the modern-day P.E.T.A.. 

Prior to Darwin, the primary (theologically based) view was that people of different races were actually people of different species. It was widely believed that interracial couples were engaging in species-to-species copulation, and that the degeneration of society was due to this interbreeding. People were taught that among these “species” of people, African-Americans and Native Americans were inferior to Europeans biologically.

Furthermore, it was believed that these races were created in this way by God, and that God both intended them to be separate and that the darker skin of the “inferior” species was due to the more sinful nature of said species. It was widely believed that darker skin was God’s punishment, like a whole-body scarlet letter. These were views taught in Sunday School and in universities, and preached during church services by pastors and priests. People were enslaved because they were viewed as an inferior species to people of European descent, and thus treated like property – like dogs or cattle.

In Darwin’s time, “savages” and “civilization” were hot-button issues, with people believing that the European and US way of living was more civilized, and that tribal peoples (including Native Americans) were “savage”. This terminology was used in a way that is just as commonplace and P.C. as our usage of “industrialized” and “indigenous” are now. Darwin differed from his contemporaries by remarking that “savages” were really quite nice and intellectually capable.

In fact, the original opposition to Origin of Species was not that it was racist or hateful, but that it suggested that all people had a savage origin – including white Europeans. Darwin argued in the face of people who insisted that Europeans and people of darker skin were of differing species, and instead argued that we are all the same and that we all have a common ancestor. He contended that culture and biology are two different things, that all of the races blend together, and that there are no clear distinctions – we’re all the same species, we’re all Homo Sapiens. He suggested that differences in apparent behavior or morals were not due to one race being inferior, but due to environmental press. He was horrified by slavery and the mistreatment of people, and was a strict abolitionist.

Claiming that Darwin was a racist or claiming that Darwin inspired the holocaust (Ray at least admits that he is aware of Hitler’s religious reasons for Nazism, but of course blames it on the Catholic Church which he claims is somehow not true Christianity) not only serves to perpetuate the myth that evolution causes evil, it also attempts to absolve Christianity of its undeniable ties to the Nazi Regime (and racism.. and slavery…). Hitler believed in Evolution and creationism. He believed that the Aryan race was created by God, but that the “inferior” races descended from apes.

To be succinct – “Darwinism” was not the problem.

We’re not done yet, but you clearly need a break. Here’s a comic, courtesy of our bestest buddy, Saint Gasoline.

We’re back from our quick comicbreak, and now it’s time for Flimsy!

This is a common approach for Ziztur and I to take; she has significant education in science and history, and I know the Bible.  Guess where I’m going with this one?

So, seeing as how Charles Darwin was actually not much of a racist at all, the next obvious question to ask is whether there is any racism deeply embedded in the worldview that Comfort claims.  At the very least, the  Holy Bible itself couldn’t possibly be racist in any way, right?

Leviticus 25:44-46:  Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.  You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.  You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

Genesis 28:1:  So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him and commanded him: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman.

Deuteronomy 7:2-3:  And when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.  Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.  Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons.

 Plus, like, lots and lots of other verses commanding genocide, which I’m leaving out simply for the sake of practicality.  But what about Jesus himself?  Jesus Christ wasn’t racist, was he?

Matthew 15:22-28:  A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.”

Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”

“Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

I think, at this point, we’re just beating a dead horse.  To wrap this up:

1.  Darwin was not very racist at all.  If he were born and raised in our modern culture, he almost certainly would not have been racist at all.  While it is true that he might be considered mildly racist if he had been born and raised in today’s modern culture, the exact same is true, to an equal or greater extent, of Jesus Christ himself.

2.  No biologist looks to Charles Darwin to dictate their personal morals.  An attempt to tar those who accept evolution theory as immoral based on a claimed immoral opinion of Darwin is doomed to painfully miserable failure.  On the other hand, fundamentalist Christians do look to the Bible to give them their morality.  Neither I nor Ziztur nor any other atheist I know claim that all Christians are immoral based on their adherence to the Bible, but this argument is, if anything, more valid than applying this logic to Darwin.

3.  An immoral opinion held by a person does not invalidate their opinion on something else (like a scientific assertion).  If Charles Darwin was in fact completely racist, utterly sexist, and had an extraordinary fondness for kissing babies with a little bit of tongue, it would make him a terrible person.  And evolution would still be scientific fact.

4.  Words cannot describe how surreal it is to read Comfort describe how such bigotry leaves a blatant moral scar on the character of Charles Darwin, while in the same breath trying to explain with a straight face how those who accept evolutionary theory can be expected to commit rape and pedophilia.