On 13th September, the Herald in its ‘Mirror’ segment carried an Opinion Piece by Bernard Simoes titled “Did Charles Darwin mislead us?’. The same is available for viewing at http://tinyurl.com/npzrus
In the said Opinion piece, the author pins the blame for all the evils that have afflicted mankind – terrorism, wars, racism, etc - on Charles Darwin and his Evolution theory, calling it the bane of Science. Today’s Herald Mirror carries a rejoinder by Patrick Ferdinand. The same is appended below. ------------------------------------ Why blame Charles Darwin? By Patrick Ferdinand Mr. Bernard Simoes had written a diatribe against Charles Darwin and his monumental work ‘The Origin of Species’, three weeks ago on this very page of the Sunday herald Mirror(13 September), accusing him of being the cause of all the ills that have afflicted mankind since its publication, 150 years ago. I have some answers to the doubts raised by Mr. Simoes, a ‘Creationist’ along with his tribe of Fundamentalist Christians, who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. That the species of all creation were created separate and have existed in their separate forms, since the beginning of time till this date. He terms ‘Evolution’, a hoax and merely a theory, not a fact of science. It astonishes me to know that people like Mr. Simoes do exist in our own India, where of the six systems of Philosophical thoughts, two are atheistic, apart from Buddhism. That down the ages, religious literature in India has the largest volume of agnostic, skeptical and atheistic writing than anywhere in Europe. And this was long before Darwin and his Origin of Species appeared. Atheism has existed in Europe, since the time of the Greeks. So what is Bernard Simoes whining about? So much for his myth that Darwin ushered in atheism, in the last 150 years… That Darwin gave people license to promote racism and slavery. If Bernard Simoes has read his Bible critically and not lapped up every word as the word of God, he will realize that far from being the word of God, the two Testaments, Old and New, are chaotically cobbled together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, mistranslated, distorted and improved by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors, copyists unknown to us and to each other spanning centuries. That it is a hotchpotch of Babylonian, Persian and Egyptian myths, pseudo-History, ptolemaic geography and plenty of sheer sexual vulgarity and gore. At the same time it cannot be denied that certain books of the Bible do contain sublime passages of outstanding moral and literary merit. And why not? All so called religious books contain some merit, because they contain the accumulated wealth of mankind. Man, being man, is capable of sounding the heights and debts of human conduct. Another proof, if proof be needed that-the Bible is a work of man, not God. Further, he will learn that the God of the Old Testament, the Father of the God of the New Testament, is the most unpleasant character in all fiction; jealous, proud, petty unjust, unforgiving, vindictive, a bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynist, a racist, a genocidal megalomaniac, sado-masochistic and capriciously malevolent bully. I would advise Bernard Simoes to read his Bible again and if he has any difficulty discovering such a God, kindly contact me and I will provide him Chapter and verse from the Bible, which will substantiate every attribute of God that I have mentioned, not of God, but the God of the Old Testament. As regards Black Slavery, it has been in existence since Biblical times and even earlier. In fact, it is only in the last 150 years that slavery has been abolished, thanks to the compatriots of Charles Darwin. As regards Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, all were Christians, the first two Catholics, the third, Russian Orthodox. Their misdeeds had nothing to do with the theory of Evolution. They behaved as they did, because their minds had not evolved since biblical times, just as Bernard Simoes’ mind is still fossilised in the Bible. True, Evolution is still a theory; that is because Science is an eternal search for the truth that is the beauty of Science. And what is the story of ‘Creation in Genesis’, if not a pious myth? It is Evolution, the theory that we have evolved from lesser beings, that we still carry within ourselves part animal and part human characteristics, that man can be both good and evil, not because of ‘Original Sin’ and the Fall of Man. Science being Science has to proceed step by faltering step to get to the truth, but the Church knows everything above, the same Church that did not know, whether the Earth revolved around the Sun or the Sun revolved around the Earth, till the 17th Century. Something that perceptive Indians knew in the 5th Century AD. Yes, Nazism, Fascism and Communism were perpetuated by Catholic societies and Catholic Governments, that in fact banned Darwin. And what about all the misery and suffering that afflicted mankind, since the birth of Christianity? The condemnation of Jews for no fault of theirs, who was responsible for the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, the burning of witches and heretics and dissenting Christians? The unnecessary slaughter during the Crusades and the myth of the ‘holy and just war’? Where was Darwin then? The pernicious consequences of racism, initiated by the ‘God of the Old Testament’ when he chose Abraham and his progeny as his ‘Chosen People’ and gifted them the whole of Palestine in Secula Seculorum are with us till today. The Church taught this myth for two thousand years. At the same time, the Jews were the perfidious race branded ‘Christ- killers’. This myth boomeranged on the Jews, thanks to the Catholic Church. Today, the tables are turned and the Jews, who suffered the atrocities of the holocaust, are visiting the same brutalities on the Palestinians, giving rise to Muslim fundamentalism and Jehad. This new holocaust threatens not just the peace of the Middle East, but the security of the whole world. Who is the Father of this historic injustice? Certainly not Darwin. Evolution still being a theory there is plenty of intelligent research and scholarship in evolutionary science. The brainwashing is done by those who believe that the Bible is the last word on everything under the sun. There can be no research no questioning, since they know everything, because the Bible tells them so. No, Mr. Simoes, the Origin of Species does not lie, because Evolution is an ongoing process. Evolution by Natural selection is NOT CHANCE but a cumulative process. To try to explain everything by quoting God is ignorance and mental lethargy, dressed up in spirituality. Finally, as regards Evolution and morality, organized Religion is an insult to human morality. With or without it, you have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things, but for good people to do evil things, it takes religion. Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
