Michael Bray

Author of A Time To Kill

Darwinism: The Established State Religion in America

Terence J. Hughes

Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences and Climate Change, University of Maine

16 August 2015

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America).

Three questions come immediately to mind. First: Why did our Founding Fathers prohibit establishing a State religion? Second: Is Darwinism a religion? Third: Has Darwinism become the Established State Religion in America? Let’s take them in order.

  1. Why not a State Religion in America? Colonial America was populated by three main ethnic groups, the British, the Irish, and the Germans. The British were the dominant group, primarily English, and formed two main Christian bodies, Anglicans in the Southern colonies and Puritans in New England. The Anglican Church was the Church of England and the Puritans were dissenting Christians, although they had their taste of power under Oliver Cromwell and his Parliament. That “taste” took root in New England with the Congregational Church of the Puritans. Rhode Island was established by Roger Williams and his Anabaptists to free themselves from the established Congregational Church. In the South, Maryland was founded by Catholics who enshrined religious freedom in its Charter, but that was abandoned when Protestants outnumbered them and took power. In general, Southern Anglicans were more tolerant.

The Irish settled along the Appalachians from Maine to Georgia and, being on the frontier, were not heavily involved in colonial government. They were largely Presbyterians dating from the 1609-1611 Scottish “plantation” of Ulster after James VI of Scotland became James I of England, but a substantial number had been Catholics. Presbyterians brought their preachers with them. Catholics came without their priests, who had a five-pound bounty on their heads in Ireland (same as on a wolf). The Presbyterians were largely educated, whereas the Catholics were not. In Ireland, under the Penal Laws dating from Queen Elizabeth, Catholics were forbidden to be educated, enter a profession, hold public office, engage in commerce, live within five miles of a town, purchase or lease land, to vote, to carry arms, to attend Catholic worship, and on and on. This put a Presbyterian “stamp” on the Irish immigrants. Princeton University is the Crown Jewel of Irish Presbyterian contributions to higher education in America. Most of the Irish on the frontier became Methodists when they settled the Ohio River Valley or Baptists when they settled lands further south, with circuit-riding preachers providing the dominant Christian witness. Forming governing institutions in the tidewater colonies after Independence was not foremost on their minds.

The Germans settled mainly in southeastern Pennsylvania, from whence they followed the Shenandoah Valley into Virginia and further south. They were largely from the German Palatinate in the old Holy Roman Empire, which was founded by Charlemagne, but had subsequently split into numerous principalities. In the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia that ended The Thirty Years War triggered by the Protestant Reformation, the populace of each principality had to conform to the Christian religion of the reigning prince. Several princes in the Palatine were Catholics with Lutheran subjects. Many Germans belonged to Pietist sects that had no reigning princes. These and others came to America for religious and economic freedom. Speaking German, they didn’t participate often in the English colonial culture based in Philadelphia, which was dominated by English Quakers who dissented from the Anglican Church in England.

These differences meant the founding documents of the American Republic were fashioned by educated citizens of largely English descent and linked to the commercial hubs of Boston in New England, Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, and the plantation culture in the South. New York, with its Dutch heritage, was less involved. Such diverse Christian affiliations, often subjected to religious persecution in England (not to mention in Ireland and Germany), made our Founding Fathers determined to prevent the Federal Government from establishing a specific State Religion in the new United States of America. With that intention, they bequeathed to us the First Amendment to our Constitution.

  1. Is Darwinism a religion? Most people think of Darwinism as providing a “scientific” explanation for human origins and destiny, as a substitute for the Christian explanation. In its form embraced by the scientific and academic Establishment, Darwinism asserts that mankind descended from worms and is destined to be eaten by worms, to become worm excrement. Period. In Darwinism, biological evolution depends on totally random events, two random processes in particular. First is “natural selection” by which biological species adapt to purposeless environmental changes which can be considered as random even though they often obey known physical laws of nature. Natural selection is a screening mechanism that favors species most adaptable to these changing environmental conditions, so they reproduce more rapidly than those less adaptable. The second is “genetic mutation” by which random mutations in the cellular chromosomes of species produce the changes that can adapt most readily to environmental changes. Mutations were unknown to Charles Darwin when he published his seminal work, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life” in 1859.

Darwin had no mechanism by which members of a species “adapted” to environmental changes. That mechanism was provided from the Science of Genetics, founded by a Catholic Augustinian friar, Gregor Mendel, who published his Laws of Heredity in 1866. Subsequent experiments located the source of these laws within the nucleus of biological cells, specifically in the cellular DNA that controlled heredity. Mutations in DNA produced changes that are invariably detrimental to survival of a biological organism. However, evolutionary theory maintained, without proof, that some mutations were constructive and favored survival during external environmental changes. In the version of evolution termed “Darwinian”, mutations are completely random. Therefore, the twin pillars of Darwinian evolution are random mutations able to adapt to random environmental changes. Order and design have no place in this way of thinking. Hence, there is no place for God in His own Creation. In extreme Darwinism, the Universe either existed eternally or arrived accidentally. God as a “Creator” doesn’t exist. The only realities are “accidents” that bring about nature and our place in nature. It is a concept in which “science” as we know it has no place. Science exists to discover the physical laws that control changes we observe in nature. So how can Darwinian evolution be a science?

Let’s explore that question a bit more. Karl Popper, a philosopher of science, determined that a “scientific” theory had to be “falsifiable”. By that he meant experiments had to exist that could test the theory to see if it conformed to reality. Experimental tests had to be repeatable. For example, the geocentric theory of Ptolemy was falsified by later heliocentric calculations by Copernicus and observations by Galileo. Earlier, the flat-earth theory had been falsified by observations during navigation on the high seas. Experiments to “prove” beneficial genetic mutations exist have been performed for decades, notably by irradiating fruit flies because thousands of generations span one human lifetime. All they produced were genetic monsters (legs growing out of eyes, for example). But these monsters were still fruit flies. No new species were produced. Even if they had been, they resulted from purposeful mind-controlled experimental tampering, not by mindless natural selection. Moreover, evolutionary theories applied to various species cannot be tested by repeatable experiments. So they aren’t scientific.

There is no proof genetic mutations are random. Many events in nature, originally called random, were later shown to result from precise physical laws. Our knowledge of what goes on in the DNA of cells, and in supporting cellular structures, is too primitive to rule out precise laws that control mutations. When I was a boy, all this stuff was called “protoplasm” just to give a name to it. Then the supporting structures were called “junk DNA” resulting from mutations that failed. Now we know these structures are essential to cellular viability and reproduction, and are subject to known physical laws.

Fossil “evidence” for the evolution of whales from land mammals seems convincing, but today otters, sea lions, elephant seals, toothed whales, and baleen whales show progressive adaptability to life in the sea, yet none has “evolved” from the others. Proposed “evolutions” of all species have similar counter explanations. “Evolution of horses” from Eohippus to the thoroughbred may be understood as natural variations of horses, genetically the same species. No evolution. Domestic dogs have been bred scientifically to produce a similar range of size and shape, from the tiny Mexican Chihuahua to the giant Irish Wolfhound. In observing finches on the Galapagos Islands, Darwin ascribed to “evolution” changes of bills from long and slender to short and stout, and back, as the environment changed from wet to dry, and back. But the birds remained finches. All these bill sizes and shapes were contained in their NDA. Evolution had nothing to do with it.

Regarding human “evolution”, The Research News section of Science, the official journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, on pages 1232-1233 of the 12 December 1980 issue (which can be accessed online), carried the headline, “Is Your Brain Really Necessary?” It showcased a student at Sheffield University in England “who has an IQ of 126, has gained a first-class honors degree in mathematics, and is socially completely normal. And yet the boy has virtually no brain.” A brain scan showed his cerebrum, where all “human” mental attributes reside according to Darwinian theory, was only a millimeter thick and plastered against the inside of his skull by cerebrospinal fluid. Darwinian theory points to primitive “humanoid” skulls with brainpans that get larger over time and have increasingly distinct imprints of brain convolutions on the inside. Convolutions increase the surface area of the cerebrum and are cited as “proof” of evolution toward the modern human brain. The Sheffield student had a cerebrum of almost undetectable volume and no convolutions.

So why can’t the definitively “human” characteristics of self-conscious intellect, will, and empathy also reside in brains occupying any of those very old “primitive” humanoid skulls? Why do these characteristics have to exist in a human brain at all? Why can’t they exist in the human soul, which uses the human brain to communicate these qualities to other human beings? That’s what Christianity teaches. We are created in the image and likeness of God, a pure spirit with no brain. The Sheffield student is not alone. Physicians have reported many such people over many years. Traditionally, they were called “waterheads” and each one of them is a “scientific experiment” that falsifies Darwinism, moving it from the domain of science to the realm of religion.

Interbreeding among the “Intelligentsia” has not produced the superior “race of thoroughbreds” promised by eugenics enthusiast, Margaret Sanger. Instead, their children generally “regress to the mean” in intelligence. This points to intelligence residing in the human soul, individually created by God, not in the human brain. This is another demonstration that Darwinism is not scientific. Darwinism is an atheistic religion that is a heretical departure from traditional Christianity. Darwin’s father wanted him to become an Anglican parson. Darwin originally believed in God, but lost that faith as he became increasingly enamored with his alternative explanation for human origins and destiny.

  1. Has Darwinism become the Established State Religion in America? The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits “Congress” from establishing a State religion. It does not prohibit establishment by the Executive and Judicial branches of the Federal Government. And that is what has happened.

It began in the Judicial branch with the McCollum v. Board of Education ruling in 1948 that branded as unconstitutional religious instruction in public schools. Congress was not involved in those instructions. Then, Justice Hugo Black, in the U.S. Supreme Court Torcaso v. Watkins ruling of 1961, wrote, “Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism, and others.” Darwinism, in the guise of Secular Humanism, was given the status of a religion in America. That ruling was quickly followed in 1962 by Engel v. Vitale, which declared the following state-sponsored prayer in New York public schools was unconstitutional: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our Country.”

That ruling replaced the actual wording of the First Amendment with the doctrine of “Separation of Church and State”, thereby extending the Congressional prohibition to the Judicial and Executive branches of the Federal Government, and to state governments as well. In a 1963 case brought by professed atheist, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the Supreme Court in Murray v. Curlett banned both prayers and Bible reading in public schools. This prohibition was then applied to voluntary prayer initiated by students in the 1963 Abington Township School District v. Schempp Supreme Court ruling. Prayer restrictions were now placed on the people, not just on the government. Even prayers by student athletes in huddles during athletic games, prayers heard only by God and them, were branded unconstitutional. In 1968, the Supreme Court ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas, that banning teaching of evolution in public schools was unconstitutional. The “religion of Secular Humanism” based on Darwinian evolution as the only explanation for mankind’s origin and destiny was proclaimed as “our” State Religion, in direct violation of the clear intention of our Founding Fathers, as expressed in the First Amendment and elsewhere

The Lemon v. Kurtzman 1971 ruling established three tests to determine if a government practice established a State religion. It did unless (1) it had only a secular purpose, (2) it did not primarily affect religious practice, and (3) it did not entangle government with religion. Then the Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that posting the Ten Commandments in public schools was unconstitutional (Stone v. Graham), ruled in 1985 that moments of silence in public schools that could include silent prayer were unconstitutional (Wallace v. Jaffree), ruled in 1987 that teaching “creation science” alongside Godless evolution in public schools was unconstitutional (Edwards v. Aquillard), and ruled in 1992 that nondenominational prayers by clergy at public school graduation ceremonies was unconstitutional (Lee v. Weisman). These rulings exposed the three-point test as mere window-dressing to create the illusion of objectivity to rulings that seemed defensible in legal terms, but actually were intended to suppress the Christian witness.

The executive branch of the Federal Government, charged with enforcing Supreme Court rulings, was drawn into establishing Darwinism as the State religion. It wasn’t long before the executive branch moved beyond mere enforcement of Court rulings to actually initiating rulings of its own, all having the same goal of sidelining Christianity and installing as Federal Law the one dogma of the Darwinist religion: Survival Of The Fittest The first step was to move Christianity out of the public arena and replace it with Darwinism. Eugenics, the “god” of Darwinism, was cited as “scientific” justification for mass sterilization of “inferior” people in America. The Buck v. Bell Supreme Court ruling in 1927 enshrined “Survival of the Fittest” as a national policy. Carrie Bell had been branded as “feebleminded” by the State of Virginia (she wasn’t), and should therefore be sterilized because “three generations of imbeciles are enough” in the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Thirty other states quickly enacted similar laws. Eugenics wasn’t discredited until it attained its inevitable goal of murdering “defectives” by the millions in Nazi Germany. It could not stand in the face of one word. Auschwitz.

The most visible champion of eugenics in America at that time was Margaret Sanger, daughter of Irish immigrants. She founded the Birth Control League, which became Planned Parenthood, now funded with well over a half-billion dollars annually by the Federal Government, funding that increases every year. By its own count, 79 percent of its abortion centers, let’s call them Auschwitzes, are in Black neighborhoods. Sanger, with funding from Clarence Gamble of the Procter and Gamble fortune, initiated her “Negro Project” designed to “exterminate the Negro population” (her words) in America, using Black preachers to “sell” birth control, meaning fewer Black people, as the only way out of Black poverty. It was amazingly successful, recruiting Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and other prominent Black ministers to sell abortion as “liberating” Black women. Today 37 percent of Black babies are aborted, when Black people are only 13 percent of the American population.

Abortion is also the ongoing cornerstone of American foreign policy in the Third World, dating from National Security Study Memorandum 200 written by Henry Kissinger under orders from Richard Nixon as U.S. President. NSSM 200 mandates that economic aid to Third World countries be denied, pending implementation of aggressive population reduction programs employing contraceptives and abortions. Even disaster relief is held hostage to this demand.

All of this, in America and abroad, is applied Darwinism. The goal is to keep wealth and power in the hands of White elites in the First World, so their “intellectual and moral superiority” and the economic resources they control worldwide are not submerged by the rising population of Margaret Sanger’s “human weeds” in the Darwinian scheme of things.

Under President Barack Obama, this policy of replacing Christianity with Darwinism as guiding Federal activities at home and abroad has proceeded on two fronts. First, Obama “interprets” the First Amendment as protecting freedom of worship, not freedom of religion. “Worship” can be confined to within the walls of Christian churches, but not allowed in the public square, whereas religious freedom has no such constraints. Second, in laws enacted by Obama and his Democrat Congress and in Executive Orders decreed by Obama alone, coercive fines, penalties, and regulations have been imposed on organizations devoted to preserving the Christian principles established in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution upon America’s founding. First among these are the God-given rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness proclaimed in the Declaration, and protected by provisions of the Constitution. Few Americans know the Declaration is listed first in the United States Code of Federal Statutory Law.

These coercive mandates are ubiquitous in Obama’s Affordable Care Act, dubbed “Obamacare”. Suppressing religious freedom are mandates for funding contraceptives, abortions, and sterilizations that directly attack doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church forbidding these practices. Two Supreme Court rulings have upheld the Affordable Care Act, NIFB v. Sebelius in 2012 and King v. Burwell in 2015, when a reading of the clear wording of the Act would demand a ruling its applications were unconstitutional.

Also in 2015, the Supreme Court held homosexual marriages were constitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges. This ruling allowed lawsuits from homosexual activists against small businesses that cater to weddings, but for Biblical reasons do not want to be involved with homosexual weddings. Such lawsuits have already won draconian penalties that bankrupt these businesses. The ruling also opened the door to force Christian denominations that uphold Biblical condemnations of sodomy to admit homosexuals practicing sodomy into their church ministries at all levels, and to shut down Christian churches, hospitals, schools, and other Christian activities that do not permit full participation by homosexuals engaged in sodomy. Free speech is being criminalized as “hate speech” if it criticizes sodomy.

These two Supreme Court rulings in 2015 enshrined abortion and sodomy as “protected” activities that have one thing in common. No children are born. This amounts to a Federal war against the next generation of Americans. Already some 60 million of the next generation have been murdered by abortion in this war. Sodomy further depletes its ranks. The Federal Government has become The Enemy Of The People.

The Established Religion of Darwinism does not distinguish right from wrong, so homosexual sodomy is equal to conjugal marriage, abortion is equal to childbirth, contraception and sterilization are equal to bearing and raising children, and soon, euthanasia will equate death with life. Only one rule is allowed: Survival Of The Fittest. All of these practices are being enacted into law for the purpose of reducing the “unfit” population in America, and are justified by the eugenics god of Darwinism. By decreeing we came from worms only to become worm excrement, Darwinism provides no incentive for bearing and raising children. Why spend the time, money, and effort just to produce worm excrement? Enjoy la dolce vita during our few years on Earth. Because that’s all there is.

So where does all this leave us? America has a State Religion in direct violation of what our Founding Fathers intended. That State Religion is Darwinism. It has only one dogma: Survival of the Fittest. In practice, that dogma gives the rich and powerful the “right” to persecute, even to exterminate, the poor and weak. It was imposed by the United States Supreme Court, bit by bit over recent decades. Just one unelected Supreme Court lawyer, invariably from an “elite” Ivy League university, by a five-to-four vote can determine our national destiny. Under President Obama, these lawyers now have the enthusiastic collaboration of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Together, their goal is to drive Christianity into the Catacombs of American society, where it has no voice and no influence. This is being done even though Christians are a large majority of Americans. Why have Christians allowed this? Because we Christians now lack the will to defend our freedom. This has happened before, in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, during the lifetime of many of us.

Germans and Russians had been exposed to the best of Christian Civilization for a thousand years and more, far longer then we have here in America. Yet it was all abandoned in a flash, within a heartbeat, and replaced with murderous governments of the worst kind in human history. So it can happen in America and is happening in America. Moreover, we know how it ends. It ends with mass exterminations and ubiquitous slave-labor prison camps, at places we know as Auschwitz and the Gulag Archipelago.

Comments are currently closed.