Darwin: "the evil which the Catholic Church has thus effected is incalculable"

[davidford]

My copy of Descent has a different ordering of the phrasing, but the meaning is the same as what’s here:

Darwin, Charles. 1871. The Descent of Man. Chapter 5 - On the Development of the Intellectual and Moral Faculties During Primeval and Civilised Times
literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-descent-of-man/chapter-05.html
A paragraph and its notes:

 Who can positively say why the Spanish nation, so 
 dominant at one time, has been distanced in the race? 
 The awakening of the nations of Europe from the dark 
 ages is a still more perplexing problem.  At that early 
 period, as Mr. Galton has remarked, almost all the men of 
 a gentle nature, those given to meditation or culture of the 
 mind, had no refuge except in the bosom of a Church 
 which demanded celibacy;* and this could hardly fail to 
 have had a deteriorating influence on each successive 

 generation.  During this same period the Holy Inquisition 
 selected with extreme care the freest and boldest men in 
 order to burn or imprison them.  In Spain alone some of 
 the best men-- those who doubted and questioned, and 
 without doubting there can be no progress-- were 
 eliminated during three centuries at the rate of a 
 thousand a year.  The evil which the Catholic Church has 
 thus effected is incalculable, though no doubt 
 counterbalanced to a certain, perhaps to a large, extent in 
 other ways; nevertheless, Europe has progressed at an 
 unparalleled rate.  

 * Hereditary Genius, 1870, pp. 357-359.  The Rev. F. W. 
 Farrar (_Fraser's Magazine_, Aug., 1870, p. 257) advances 
 arguments on the other side.  Sir C. Lyell had already 
 (_Principles of Geology_, vol. ii., 1868, p. 489), in a striking 
 passage, called attention to the evil influence of the Holy 
 Inquisition in having, through selection, lowered the 
 general standard of intelligence in Europe.

 

[davidford]

Compare

Hitler, Adolf. 1924/5. Mein Kampf.
hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/mkv2ch05.html

 And the same holds true of religions.  
 Christianity was not content with erecting an altar of its 
 own.  It had first to destroy the pagan altars.  It was only in 
 virtue of this passionate intolerance that an apodictic faith 
 could grow up.  And intolerance is an indispensable 
 condition for the growth of such a faith.  

 It may be objected here that in these phenomena which 
 we find throughout the history of the world we have to 
 recognize mostly a specifically Jewish mode of thought 
 and that such fanaticism and intolerance are typical 
 symptoms of Jewish mentality.  That may be a 
 thousandfold true; and it is a fact deeply to be regretted.  
 The appearance of intolerance and fanaticism in the 
 history of mankind may be deeply regrettable, and it may 
 be looked upon as foreign to human nature, but the fact 
 does not change conditions as they exist today.  The men 

 who wish to liberate our German nation from the 
 conditions in which it now exists cannot cudgel their 
 brains with thinking how excellent it would be if this or 
 that had never arisen.  They must strive to find ways and 
 means of abolishing what actually exists.  A philosophy of 
 life which is inspired by an infernal spirit of intolerance 
 can only be set aside by a doctrine that is advanced in an 
 equally ardent spirit and fought for with as determined a 
 will and which is itself a new idea, pure and absolutely 
 true.  

 Each one of us today may regret the fact that the advent 
 of Christianity was the first occasion on which spiritual 
 terror was introduced into the much freer ancient world, 
 but the fact cannot be denied that ever since then the 
 world is pervaded and dominated by this kind of coercion 
 and that violence is broken only by violence and terror by 
 terror.  Only then can a new regime be created by means 
 of constructive work.  Political parties are prone to enter 
 compromises; but a philosophy never does this.  A 
 political party is inclined to adjust its teachings with a view 
 to meeting those of its opponents, but a philosophy 
 proclaims its own infallibility.

 

[davidford]

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Koster: “In Christianity, murder is an aberration. In
political atheism, it is the norm.”
groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0406230445.7cff0545%40posting.google.com
groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0406212033.90a39c1%40posting.google.com
the secular religion of atheism has a bloody history
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1121400956.627638.38960%40g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

Churches resisted Hitler
groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-1128561942.412167.145530%40g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
theological disputes among German Protestants; Nazi concentration camps for Catholics and Protestants
groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-1129228612.176548.107730%40z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com

the atheism-adherent Hitler’s actions are quite understandable
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1127506418.014874.230840%40f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com

a claim: Hitler was a Christian
google.com/groups?selm=1131389424.486586.51840%40g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

“Lyell”
1918 Henry Adams on Quotemining and Darwinianity in 1867-8
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1133804198.957715.189070%40g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

[Darwin]“In Spain alone some of the best men-- those who doubted and questioned… – were eliminated… the evil influence of the Holy Inquisition in having, through selection, lowered the general standard of intelligence in Europe.”

Question: if [Darwin]“selection” could have [Darwin]“lowered the general standard of intelligence in Europe,” could not [Darwin]“selection” raise [Darwin]“the general standard of intelligence in Europe”?

Hitler’s human breeding plan using [1871 Darwin]“careful selection” + mutations
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1124684179.251743.95950%40o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1124731489.829229.220700%40g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

Darwin on [1871 Darwin]“careful selection” in connection with the breeding of humans;
1924/5 Hitler & 1871 Darwin on heterogeneous & homogeneous peoples
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1133977762.788382.143030%40g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

[1872 Darwin]“Blushing is evident in all the Aryan nations of Europe… The
Semitic races blush freely, as might have been expected, from their
general similitude to the Aryans.”
[1871 Darwin]“Dr. Saviotti in… 1871… remarks that it more frequently
occurs in prognathous skulls, not of the Aryan race, than in others”
[1871 Darwin]“the Europeans and Hindoos… belong to the same Aryan
stock… Jews… belong to the Semitic stock”
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1132942108.117285.130610%40z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com

an exercise: parallels between 1871 Darwin & 1924/5 Hitler?
groups.google.com/groups?selm=1134448996.907734.300780%40g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

1871 Darwin backtracks a bit on his theory of NS
groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.LNX.4.44L.01.0310120131230.26092-100000%40linux1.gl.umbc.edu
1959 Gertrude Himmelfarb on 1871 Darwin backtracking; 1892 Henry de Varigny
groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0312222212.4728f71b%40posting.google.com

1871 Darwin: [CD]“the civilised races of man”-- e.g. [CD]“the Caucasian”-- [CD]“will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races”-- e.g. [CD]“the negro or Australian,” as in Australian aborigine-- with the end result being [CD]“man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian”
groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407060404.711490be%40posting.google.com

Multi-Pronged Role of Darwinian Thought in Shoah’s Arrival
google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1132080322.482544.299440%40g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

Hitler’s actions make sense given his atheism and eugenic, social Darwinist vision
groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-1134145559.645139.229550%40f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com

 

[steveandersen]

:yawn:
Darwin was a man of his time and palce and bought into a lot of the anti-catholic blue snow of his day

really sort of a variation on the notion of “Protestant work ethic”

your point?

 

[Della]

Darwin was a man of his time and palce and bought into a lot of the anti-catholic blue snow of his day

really sort of a variation on the notion of “Protestant work ethic”

your point?
[/quote]

Well, a lot of people have never actually read Darwin’s The Descent of Man and would be surprised to read his ignorant comments about the Catholic Church. It’s true he, as an apostate Protestant, was only quoting what was generally believed by people in his society, still it’s good to be reminded of the fact that such distortions of the truth led to the suppression of the Catholic faith in England for centuries, as well as to the persecution of Catholics in other countries, as well.

And it is unsettling as well as informative to know that Hitler used such lies in his own hypocritical and biases writing in order to inflame anger against the one foe of his bigotry who could really stand in his way in the minds of the people–the Catholic Church, since a large portion of the German people were Catholics.

 

[BillP]

Della:

such distortions of the truth led to the suppression of the Catholic faith in England for centuries,

Well in fairness to the English I would point out that the Pope did explicitly authorize the overthrow of Elizabeth’s goverenment.

 

[Della]

BillP:

Well in fairness to the English I would point out that the Pope did explicitly authorize the overthrow of Elizabeth’s goverenment.

Even so, it doesn’t excuse the brutal crack down by Elizabeth’s government run by the Cecils and not really by the Queen. She was mostly bamboozled by Cecil, who made sure she only heard and decided what he wanted. The way she was abandoned by all as she was dying is evidence enough that she was just a pawn in whose name priests and lay people were slaughtered for the “crime” of being devoted Catholics with no intentions of overthrowing anything.

 

[Libero]

Well, a lot of people have never actually read Darwin’s The Descent of Man and would be surprised to read his ignorant comments about the Catholic Church. It’s true he, as an apostate Protestant, was only quoting what was generally believed by people in his society, still it’s good to be reminded of the fact that such distortions of the truth led to the suppression of the Catholic faith in England for centuries, as well as to the persecution of Catholics in other countries, as well.

It may also be good to be reminded here that Catholics did alot of supressing themselves - a notorious queen called Bloody Mary springs to mind…

 

[Melchior]

The point, I think, is that ideas have consequences. All you folks who have capitulated to *Darwin’s theories should think long and hard about this. It effects how you look at everything. And it will and has destroyed the faith of many.

Darwinism had alot more to do with racism than science.

• Let’s face it “theistic” evolution neccesitates adherence to Darwinism to a large degree. This road logically leads to atheism. Thankfully we are not usually logical.

Mel

 

[Della]

Libero:

It may also be good to be reminded here that Catholics did alot of supressing themselves - a notorious queen called Bloody Mary springs to mind…

This Queen was also a pawn of politics. Those who truly meant to overthrow Mary’s government (remember she had to flee for her life at one point) ought to have been punished–she gave them clemency. But, the ordinary person who preached against the Church ought to have been treated with more mercy. It was a great mistake and a shame that she allowed ordinary people to be executed. A great opportunity to show the mercy and tolerance of the Church was missed here and Catholics paid dearly for it under Elizabeth.

 

[Della]

Melchior:

The point, I think, is that ideas have consequences. All you folks who have capitulated to *Darwin’s theories should think long and hard about this. It effects how you look at everything. And it will and has destroyed the faith of many.

Darwinism had alot more to do with racism than science.

• Let’s face it “theistic” evolution neccesitates adherence to Darwinism to a large degree. This road logically leads to atheism. Thankfully we are not usually logical.

Mel

Yes, it is pseudo-science but it gave impetus to those who wanted to destroy religion to run amok to the destruction of many souls. It destroyed the faith of Western Europe, paving the way for Hitler’s neo-pagan nationalism and led to the Bolshevik take over of Eastern Europe with all its horrors.

 

[Athrond]

Melchior:

Thankfully we are not usually logical.

Translating to; “Thankfully we are usually irrational”.

This is adressed at christians not believing in evolution, and not “christians in general”, so please don’t take offence if you don’t fit with the above.

---

I can understand that the notion of evolution may seem threathening to you (catholics etc. ), but for the life of me I can’t understand why you, as christians, cannot atleast accept that the world is the way it is. The way your god created it. The world must therefore be the ultimate standard for gaining knowledge about the world.

So; the world tells us that it ISNT 6 milennia old, because"radioactive clocks" tells us otherwise, and furthermore evolution HAS happened. Created or not.

Rather you would seek to force the world to be as written in the bible, a book written by people that had ,relatively speaking, no knowledge about the world.

Athrond

 

[Libero]

Elizabeth

Elizabeth did do some good things didn’t she, she allowed us to believe in transubstantiation, she also allowed the publication of a Catholic prayer book - unless we are talking of another Elizabeth.

 

[CindyGia]

—
I can understand that the notion of evolution may seem threathening to you (catholics etc. ), but for the life of me I can’t understand why you, as christians, cannot atleast accept that the world is the way it is. The way your god created it. The world must therefore be the ultimate standard for gaining knowledge about the world.

So; the world tells us that it ISNT 6 milennia old, as"radioactive clocks" tells us otherwise, and furthermore evolution HAS happened. Created or not.

Rather you would seek to force the world to be as written in the bible, a book written by people that had ,relatively speaking, no knowledge about the world.

I’m sorry…, I just needed to do this

 

[Athrond]

CindyGia:

I’m sorry…, I just needed to do this

Rather than doing that, you should eksplain why you find my post ridicoulous.

To me it seems resonable to ask such questions. Riddiculing them only brings anger.no?

Edit: maybe my post wasn’t perfectly clear; I meant “the natural world”.

 

[Della]

Athrond:

Translating to; “Thankfully we are usually irrational”.

No, the full quote was: "* Let’s face it “theistic” evolution neccesitates adherence to Darwinism to a large degree. This road logically leads to atheism. Thankfully we are not usually logical.

Mel"

Let’s not excise words out of comments when the rest of the words explain what the author was saying. It’s disingenuous to do so and misleading, as well.

This is adressed at christians not believing in evolution, and not “christians in general”, so please don’t take offence if you don’t fit with the above.

---

I can understand that the notion of evolution may seem threathening to you (catholics etc. ), but for the life of me I can’t understand why you, as christians, cannot atleast accept that the world is the way it is. The way your god created it. The world must therefore be the ultimate standard for gaining knowledge about the world.

So; the world tells us that it ISNT 6 milennia old, because"radioactive clocks" tells us otherwise, and furthermore evolution HAS happened. Created or not.

Rather you would seek to force the world to be as written in the bible, a book written by people that had ,relatively speaking, no knowledge about the world.

Athrond

The Catholic Church does not teach that we cannot believe in evolution. It only says that Catholics must believe that we are all descended from one man and one woman created in God’s image. That leaves us wide open to accepting whatever science tells us is true, since whatever is true is also Catholic, universal, because it is true.

And the 6,000 year dating of the earth was based on a faulty understanding of the genealogies of people listed in the Bible. The Church has never taught that the earth is only 6,000 years old–it has never made any comment on the age of the earth at all, because the Church only declares matters of faith and morals to be true or untrue. The only reason the Church mentions us all having one set of ancestors (Adam and Eve) is to support the teaching that all human beings are children of God created in his image.

So, please don’t lump Catholics in with Fundamentalists whose interpretation of Genesis is not dogmatically upheld by the Catholic Church. There are individual Catholics who do hold to the same beliefs as Fundamentalists, but they are free to believe whatever they want as long as they don’t contradict Church teaching, which is, as I’ve already written, very limited in scope and interest in the whole evolution debate.

 

[Athrond]

Della:

No, the full quote was: "* Let’s face it “theistic” evolution neccesitates adherence to Darwinism to a large degree. This road logically leads to atheism. Thankfully we are not usually logical.

Ah I appologize. I missread the sentence.

Athrond

edit: mayhap this is also a dereilment of this thread. I will ask my “question” in a separate one. so, eh, please ignore

 

[Della]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Della
No, the full quote was: "* Let’s face it “theistic” evolution neccesitates adherence to Darwinism to a large degree. This road logically leads to atheism. Thankfully we are not usually logical.

Ah I appologize. I missread the sentence.

Athrond

No prob. I’ve done it too.

How about the rest of my comments? Did they help you understand the official Catholic stance on evolution?

 

[Athrond]

Della:

No prob. I’ve done it too.

How about the rest of my comments? Did they help you understand the official Catholic stance on evolution?

Yes thank you! I’ve started a new thread in this forum. edit: eh about this topic

 

[davidford]

Various persons:

Hitler used such lies in his own
hypocritical and biases writing in order
to inflame anger against the one foe of
his bigotry who could really stand in his
way in the minds of the people–the
Catholic Church

2001 Abraham Foxman: Hitler was a big liar
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1128010617.235272.105530%40g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

Churches resisted Hitler
groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-1128561942.412167.145530%40g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
theological disputes among German Protestants; Nazi concentration camps for Catholics and Protestants
groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-1129228612.176548.107730%40z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com

it doesn’t excuse the brutal crack down
by Elizabeth’s government run by the
Cecils and not really by the Queen. She
was mostly bamboozled by Cecil, who
made sure she only heard and decided
what he wanted.

Feynman on giving all the information; Dobzhansky, Mayr, Wilson, Gould, Futuyma, Dawkins, Sagan, Simpson
groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.95.970912002214.12893C-100000%40umbc8.umbc.edu

The point, I think, is that ideas have
consequences.

the atheism-adherent Hitler’s actions are quite understandable
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1127506418.014874.230840%40f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com

All you folks who have
capitulated to *Darwin’s theories should
think long and hard about this. It effects
how you look at everything. And it will
and has destroyed the faith of many.

your freethought/ atheism conversion experience?
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1135012135.008700.163480%40g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

Darwinism had alot more to do with
racism than science.

Darwin on correlation between human skin colour and odour
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1135051524.767332.265230%40o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com

Hitler’s actions make sense given his atheism and eugenic, social Darwinist vision
groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-1134145559.645139.229550%40f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com

Yes, it is pseudo-science but it gave
impetus to those who wanted to destroy
religion to run amok to the destruction of
many souls. It destroyed the faith of
Western Europe, paving the way for
Hitler’s neo-pagan nationalism

Multi-Pronged Role of Darwinian Thought in Shoah’s Arrival
google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1132080322.482544.299440%40g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

the world tells us that it ISNT 6 milennia old

go away, young-earthism
groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.LNX.4.44L.01.0310190200530.8725-100000%40linux1.gl.umbc.edu

evolution HAS happened

Meaning of “evolution”?

legerdemain in the use of the word ‘evolution’
google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1132102419.915797.111840%40o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com

The Catholic Church does not teach that
we cannot believe in evolution. It only
says that Catholics must believe that we
are all descended from one man and
one woman created in God’s image.

1859 Darwin vs. the Judeo-Christian conception of the unity of man
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1120016676.023811.113660%40g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

That leaves us wide open to accepting
whatever science tells us is true

Dallas Willard: “science says nothing. It is not the kind of thing that can say anything. Only scientists say things…”
groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407260437.2d8959da%40posting.google.com