In the latest mental lapse from the left, religion is now claimed to be a white man’s device to prevent the evolutionary story of mankind’s connection to Africa from being revealed. Are we on the road to cancelling the Bible?
In any other period in American history, it would seem odd that a prestigious scientific journal would lead off an article with a partisan nod to political infighting and racial tensions. But these are far from normal times in American history.
Also on rt.com Religion may be declining in the USA, but religiosity is on the rise, only this time the zealots have traded prophecy for politicsIn the latest issue of Scientific American, in an article unscientifically titled ‘Denial of Evolution Is a Form of White Supremacy’, writer Allison Hopper, after lauding the “Juneteenth holiday and the one-year anniversary of the one of the largest protests in American history against racial injustice,” laments the dearth of reading material available to children that show “the story of the dark-skinned early people who launched human civilization”.
Unless the race-baiting headline somehow failed to give away the plot, the blame for that oversight, and so much more, falls heavily upon the shoulders of the white man and his racist religion.
The beginning of the article, which describes how “all living humans are of African descent,” is predictable enough. Most people are fully aware that some of the earliest human fossils have been unearthed under the African sun, and that it was from the ‘dark continent’ that humans began their slow, long trek around the planet. “These dark skinned early people laid down the foundation for human culture,” Hopper writes, without mentioning, however, that the oldest inhabited cities in the world – places like Athens, Jericho, Susa and Byblos – were outside of Africa.
In any case, it is the next part where the blame game becomes particularly jarring and even intolerable. While clearly distraught by the “antievolution activists” in her midst, Hopper seeks to “unmask the lie that evolution denial is about religion and recognize that at its core, it is a form of white supremacy that perpetuates segregation and violence against Black bodies.”
I have read many sweeping statements in my time, but that one takes the cake. Whatever her views on evolution may be, Hopper has reduced the basic tenets of religion – as practiced the world over by billions of Muslims, Jews, Christians and countless other creeds – to nothing more than an elaborate scam foisted upon the world by white supremacists to conceal the historical achievements of black people.
What is the ‘scientific’ basis for this scurrilous conspiracy theory? Apparently back in the 1920s, some Klansmen launched a court battle against the teaching of evolution, a legal ‘battle’ that went nowhere. That is evidenced by the fact that the teaching of evolution now largely dominates the public school curriculum, while lectures devoted to biblical gospel have been prohibited from classrooms since 1962 (which, incidentally, could go a long way to explain the precipitous decline in morals and behavior ever since).
Hopper is also perplexed that bookstores in America – at least the ones that are still in business – are not overflowing with titles devoted to the very exciting theory of Darwinian evolution. Failing to employ the slightest degree of scientific inquiry, Hopper hops along without acknowledging that numerous non-religious titles devoted to such fictional characters as Harry Potter, witches and vampires – a radical and somewhat unsettling new sort of evolution – now largely consume the attention span of young and old alike.
Meanwhile, as proof that America is morphing into some sort of evil white theocracy, she points to the 2007 construction of a Bible-themed amusement park on the outskirts of Cincinnati, Ohio (gulp!). This is what Hopper ominously describes as “[s]cience deniers… pumping money into a well-funded antievolution machine.” By the way, if you’ve never heard of the Creation Museum, don’t worry… you’re probably just not the type of person who dresses up in white robes and parades around with tiki torches on weekends.
So, let me get this straight: knuckle-dragging creationists are condemned to liberal hellfire when they open a single Bible-themed amusement park, yet millions of Americans have visited that secular mecca of godless entertainment known as Disneyland, where those goofy mascots to evolutionary theory, prehistoric dinosaurs, rear their heads daily from numerous attractions? Got it.
I won’t pretend to be a religious scholar, but as a practicing Catholic and former altar boy, (and no, I’ve never been sexually assaulted), I have sat through my share of endless sermons and bible reading sessions and not once did the slightest hint of race or ‘white supremacy’ enter into the discussions. The promulgators of critical race theory, however, will almost certainly assign that collective reticence to a symptom of ‘whiteness’ or some such mindless garbage.
Hopper, who I must assume is also no religious scholar, points to the biblical story of Cain and Abel as proof perfect that religion is a white man’s scheme.
“As the biblical story goes, the curse or mark of Cain for killing his brother was a darkening of his descendants’ skin,” the author claims. “Historically, many congregations in the US pointed to this story of Cain as evidence that Black skin was created as a punishment.”
Without ever identifying the name of those “many congregations” – a glaring oversight for someone enthralled by scientific proofs – a simple scroll through the Bible proves that no such claim with regards to race is ever mentioned. In Genesis 4: 1-18, it is written that as punishment for killing his brother, God condemns Cain to be a “restless wanderer (shall you be) on the earth.” And that’s pretty much it.
It’s worth mentioning, since Hopper certainly does not, that the science of evolution is not itself without some question marks. Although scientists take for granted a direct link between apes and human beings, that so called ‘missing link’ to prove the connection between the species has never been discovered.
And even if it were, there are enough people who support the idea of ‘intelligent design’ – which states that certain features of life and the universe are best explained by an intelligent cause – to suggest that religion will not disappear quietly into the night any time soon. Meanwhile, the very fact that humans have the intellectual ability to ponder such things could itself prove some connection to ‘godliness’.
More to the point, however, is the theory of evolution. With its unavoidable connection to ‘natural selection’, otherwise known as ‘survival of the fittest,’ this idea has been an unmitigated disaster for many people, both black and white. Throughout modern history, less scrupulous individuals have justified the most nefarious acts – from the practice of eugenics to outright genocide – as somehow the natural order of things.
And while we are at it, Darwin’s thinking was “used by late 19th-century Americans to justify acts of genocide against Native Americans,” as Phil Moore, the British bible teacher and evangelist has pointed out. The same sort of ‘supremacist’ thinking would certainly apply to the warped mentality behind the slave trade. That’s a particularly critical point, coming as it does amid the inquisition-style mindset that has gripped the left and its disturbing ‘cancel’ mentality.
So, before the progressives think about cancelling religion, or even the Almighty, they had better take a long, hard look at themselves in the mirror. The worst perpetrators against minorities and majorities alike may be found their very own reflections.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.