TPW #11 | What is Secular Humanism? Part 2

The Danger of Heresy and the Need for Uninterrupted Warfare for the Truth

Paul warns that evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving one another and being deceived. The reason Paul told Timothy that was because he needed to be ready to spend the balance of his life in.

Uninterrupted warfare for the truth.

The most dangerous people alive today are always, always, always ordained ministers. They're the most dangerous people in the world, especially the ones that people think are Christians, who will sell you theological poison to the damnation of your soul.

Folks, I just want to warn you about something. Every heretic in the entire history of the church, without exception, has taught their heresy in the name of being faithful to Scripture. What happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross?

That was the day of wrath. That was the day of judgment. That is the day of final salvation. Brought back in time and applied to us once for all at the moment of our effectual calling when we repent and believe in our unity to Christ.

Secular Humanism, the Enlightenment, and the Protestant Witness

Welcome to the Protestant Witness. This is Pastor Patrick Hines. This is episode number 11. This is part 2 of the series on secularism, secular humanism. I'm going to talk about the Enlightenment and how that affected the way that people think today in the West and how to evaluate that biblically.

But mostly,.

Historically, where does this come from and why has it been so deadly to our culture? The Enlightenment has jokingly been called by some Reformed and Christian theologians the Endarkenment because it was the self-conscious moving away of society from the Bible and man trying to figure out the world without divine revelation.

But I hope you find this helpful. This was an evening service from a little while back, but I wanted to put this up on the Protestant Witness. This is part 2 of secular humanism. Well, thank you for all coming back this evening.

Please take your Bibles and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. We're gonna have two scripture readings this evening. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 18 through 31 is our first scripture reading and then we're gonna look at Romans 2 and.

Just read that.

This evening's message is really more of a historical overview of the roots of secularism and I think that this material, as much as it is difficult for me because as I was putting all this material together, this isn't really an exposition of a text of scripture per se, but I feel like this is so important for us to understand the world that we live in, our nation that we live in today, that it's just vitally important that we know some of this historical information.

But these two passages are key to this as well. So 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 18 through 31. This is God's Word. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased to the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.

But to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling brethren that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen the things that are not so that he may nullify the things that are so that no man may boast before God.

But by his doing you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that just as it is written Let him who boasts boast in the Lord and then if you'll turn to Romans chapter 2 back to the left there just a few pages in your Bible Romans 2 12 through 16 and then we'll pray Romans 2 12 through 16.

Romans chapter 2 verses 12 to 16. This is God's Word. For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. And all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the heroes of the law who are just before God, but the doers of the law will be justified.

For when Gentiles who do not have the law do instinctively the things of the law. These not having the law are a law to themselves. In that they show the work of the law written in their hearts. Their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them on The day when according to my gospel God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.

May God bless the reading of his infallible word. Let's pray, please Heavenly Father. Thank you for the opportunity to gather again here together this evening and we do pray that you would bless Our study of this all-important topic.

It truly is the most dominant and most important non-christian worldview. That we have contact with and where we live in our country. We pray you would help us to see and understand its diabolical and un-christian roots.

Its.

Devastating consequences for the past two or three hundred years. And we pray that you would equip us to with confidence. Understand how to meet people in this secular humanist religion and be faithful witnesses for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

To them we ask in Jesus name.

Amen.

The Rise of Secular Humanism as a Modern Worldview

There is a new very aggressive Religion at work in our country today called secular humanism. Such headlines in the news as these 100 ,000 atheists are unbaptized California school bans all Christian books and Inter-varsity Derecognized at California State University are becoming more and more common.

Such headlines could be multiplied. But why are these things happening in our culture? It's because of the religion of secular Humanism. Now it is extremely difficult to identify all of the manifestations of this very aggressive anti-christian religion.

They come in the form of atheists and agnostics rationalists empiricists skeptics and deists. But the tie that binds them all together is their disallowance of God being involved in the world or in the affairs of men.

Secular humanism is one of the fastest growing worldviews in the West today. There's a sense in which all forms of non-christianity. However are fundamentally humanistic in their basic outlook on life.

Man either embraces with love the law word revelation of God in Scripture or man in his own authority. Is his own God ultimately speaking? Within the realm of secular humanism. However, you could list the following subgroups which are more or less sort of like denominations within the broader religion of secular humanism.

There's rationalism. That's a belief that all human opinions and actions should be based on reason and knowledge as opposed to religious belief or emotional response. There's also empiricism. Empiricism is the philosophical theory that all ideas are derived from some form of experience be it internal or external.

This theory posits that this is the sole foundation of true knowledge. It developed in the 17th and 18th centuries is expounded in particular by John Locke Francis Bacon and especially David Hume. Another religious denomination of secular humanism would be agnosticism the view that truth values of Metaphysical claims another thing in other words anything that goes beyond the material world.

Such as the existence of God are either unknown or in fact cannot be known at all. Then there's just plain old atheism the view that rejects or disbelieves the existence of God or gods. And then there's nihilism.

Nihilism is the rejection of all religious and moral principles. So what we want to understand this evening what I want to really try to bring forward to you is the history of secular Humanism, how did our country get to where it is today?

Why is it that the vast majority of your neighbors co-workers? Fellow students that you went to school with and everyone else are really for the most part Disinterested in spiritual matters and really just don't care that much whether or not God exists.

Why is it that so many people have the attitude of the young man? I shared the gospel with in my freshman dorm when I was at Ohio University I shared the gospel with this young guy. I remember his reaction reaction so shocked me.

I Asked him what do you think's gonna happen to you when you died and his reaction was laughter. Followed by well up or down I guess followed by more laughter. I Just was stymied by that really is that funny?

Heaven or hell an eternity of bliss or agony and yet that's the attitude of most of the people that we know today that are outside of the church. Basically when it comes to the history of secular humanism, it really starts in the Garden of Eden.

It starts with the rejection of the authority of God. But basically anyone who rejects the existence of God is a secular humanist. Anyone who would allow for the existence of a God but refuses to believe that this being is interested in the world that we live in is also for all intents and purposes a Secular humanist or has at least been deeply influenced by secular humanism.

So in this sense, as I said secular humanism is as old as Adams rebellion in the Garden of Eden itself. We know from Scripture that there were people even in Israel who said there is no God. They're quoted in the Psalms in two different places.

I believe it's Psalm 53 and Psalm 14 the fool has said in his heart There is no God. David and the psalm writers had met such people who said there is no God. We weren't delivered from Egypt's all mythology.

There are people who said that even them and the scripture calls them fools. History gives us numerous examples of individuals who rejected the existence of God and the existence of anything other than matter.

The Enlightenment, the Thirty Years' War, and the End of the Age of Faith

But secular humanism really began to push more into the mainstream of human thought in the 17th century. That would be the 1600s. You have the Protestant Reformation takes place in the 16th century. That's the 1500s that not only liberated Europe from the bondage of Roman Catholicism, but it also sadly ignited over 100 years of religious wars that culminated in what was known as the 30 Years War from 1618 to 1648.

The church historian Bruce Shelley describes this unbelievable period of combat in the following words. Please listen closely to this quote. From 1562 to 1598 France suffered a series of civil wars between Roman Catholics and French Calvinists or Huguenots.

When both parties reached the point of utter fatigue. They agreed to a territorial compromise in the royal edict of Nantes in 1598 the Huguenots gained religious freedom and political control of certain parts of the country while Roman Catholicism remained the official religion of the realm and in the greater portion of the nation in a similar way between 1560 and 1618 in the Netherlands the strongly Dutch Calvinistic Calvinists fought a war of independence from Catholic Spain and won in the southern territories.

However, the area that we call Belgium the people remained Catholic and did not gain their independence from Spain until much later. All these conflicts were a bloody prelude to the last and most Devastating of the so-called wars of religion the 30 Years War from 1618 to 1648.

I still remember listening to dr. James my church history professor in seminary describing this war and it's unbelievable savagery and The the devastation that I brought to Europe. He said there were cities big cities large cities became ghost towns.

There were so many dead people. It utterly annihilated agriculture the economies of entire nations in Europe. The 30 Years War did. Bruce Shelley continues this conflict began primarily as a religious struggle with political overtones and ended as a Barbarous political power struggle with religious overtones and the final years of the conflict religion faded into insignificance.

For the most part France and Spain both nominally Catholic struggled for political advantages in the Rhineland. That's a portion of Germany when the swords fell silent Germany lay ravaged. Ferdinand's dream of a revival of imperial authority was gone and in its place were 300 independent states.

Out of sheer futility the religious zeal of Catholics and Calvinists cooled and men began to question the territorial idea. Denominal it denominationalism became an alternative. The terms of peace called the peace of Westphalia.

You need to know that phrase the peace of Westphalia in 1648. Reflect the passing of an entire age of thought. Calvinism joined Lutheranism and Catholicism as a recognized expression of the Christian faith.

Princes if they chose could for the time allow Protestants and Catholics to exist within their territories and the Pope was Excluded from any interference in the religious affairs of Germany. Naturally Pope Innocent the 10th condemned the treaty but both Catholics and Protestants ignored his protests.

After more than a thousand years the state was free to transact its business as though the Pope did not exist and quote. The 30 Years War ended with that treaty the peace of Westphalia 1648 historians of thought Typically marked that year as the end of the age of faith.

If you pick up almost any volume Written by Christians or non-christians alike on world history. You will read about the age of faith. When is the age of faith end? 1648 the the peace of Westphalia at the end of the 30 Years War.

That's the end of the age of faith and what begins in 1648 the age of reason aka the Enlightenment. The age of reason or the Enlightenment is typically bookended with another date that you need to know 1789.

What happens in 1789? That's the storming of the Bastille and the launching of the French Revolution. Which is the most significant event in the history of the world after the fall of the Roman Empire?

Why is it such a significant event? Why is the French Revolution so important for us to understand in order to understand why our country today is the way that it is? Because of its vicious dechristianization policy the French Revolution's introduction of the Thought crime to Europe its introduction of an absolutely ruthless cold-hearted murderous and brutal version of state terror.

All of the horrific Enlightenment ideals and the delusions of men like Jean-Jacques Rousseau. We're now being applied to politics and the results were catastrophic. When men cut themselves loose from the Bible and tried to figure out the world around them without God.

The end result was they set the whole world on fire. And you see the way that my church history professor described this to us in seminary was he said. The children that were born to the parents that were fighting the Thirty Years War.

When they came of age and looked at Europe and saw that the whole place was destroyed. Because of these religious wars all of them grew up and said we have had enough of Christianity. No more. We don't care about this Catholic Protestant nonsense.

Look at what it's done. It's blown up the whole continent. We're gonna figure things out for ourselves. And what did they do in response to figuring out for themselves? They blew it up a hundred thousand times worse.

Tens of thousands of perfectly innocent people were beheaded in the French Revolution by a system of paranoia. That was so barbaric and horrifying that in my estimation France to this day and the rest of Europe has literally never recovered from it.

Their collective abandonment of God's Word and that continent has left them annihilated. World War 1 1914 to 1918 left 10 million soldiers dead and four monarchies destroyed in. Their foolishness after that war ended they called it the war to end all wars and they never thought that humans would fight again.

Little do they know that 21 years later another conflagration would begin that would take the lives of six times more People more than 60 million people died in World War two in battles invasions massacres and gas chambers.

Now, why do I share all of this in a sermon? Because the ideas which plunged Europe into a bloodbath for the last 250 years are Coming into our country stronger and stronger with every passing month. They continue to grow and gain ground here in this country.

And now our country has murdered more than 65 million unborn children the French hater of Christianity Voltaire. Once they were loose from Scripture Voltaire publicly enjoyed things such as Cross-dressing and every other form of vile sexual immorality homosexuality.

You name it. They were doing it that always goes with secularism. What have we seen in our country in the last 50 years as We become more godless. What do you see the rise of death bloodshed? Selfishness sexual filth perversion being paraded in the streets the very same things that destroyed Europe are beginning to destroy us now.

Wherever you find secular humanism there you will find totalitarian governments innocent bloodshed oppression poverty misery gender confusion.

Perversion.

Homosexuality the murder of unborn children and every other form of evil and a Hatred of everything that is good and beautiful in the world and the family and in life by the society. As I said the historian Bruce Shelley has written a marvelous book called church history in plain language Which is now in its fourth edition.

Many years ago I read the first edition and I'll never forget how much I learned from that section that he calls the age of reason and Revival. I was shocked to find out what the origins of the society that I lived in really were.

Why people were what they were in my experience? Why was that almost every person I ever tried to share the gospel with. And all the years I was computer programmer in the four different companies I worked for there was almost Uniform indifference to the things of God.

Nobody cares. You have an eternal soul that will go somewhere for eternity. Don't you care. People don't care. They don't care no interest. That's section the age of reason and revival is the section on the Enlightenment the grand revolt Against Christianity and the Bible and that section of Shelley's history has four chapters in it.

The very first chapter in that section is called aiming at the foundations The cult of reason. That chapter by itself is worth the price of the book. You should get the book and read that chapter to your children and discuss it read it to them every day for a week and discuss.

It.

If you want to understand why people are so disinterested in spiritual matters in America today You need to understand the Enlightenment and what happened in that. For us who know Christ and have had the blessing of being raised Even if we were raised in Nominally Christian households the idea that people would not care about or even be concerned about spiritual and eternal matters at all.

It's difficult for many of us to fathom. But disinterest in spiritual things can be traced back to this time period and we would all do well to understand it and to understand. What is profoundly wrong about it?

One of the books that we had to read in seminary about the Reformation was Roland Bainton's biography of Martin Luther called here I stand and the opening chapters of that book. He describes the intellectual climate of Europe on the eve of the Reformation at that time.

Everybody was concerned about their eternal destiny. It was the preoccupation of what everybody did all the way through their lives. Everyone was always thinking about what's gonna happen to me when I die and Bainton paints that picture.

So well, you just think he almost it's almost like you're in a time machine and you go back into this this ancient world where? Everybody was concerned about spiritual things and now today we live in a cult in a culture in a society.

That's not concerned about those things at all. Bruce Shelley said this quote the age of the Reformation Proved again that faith and power are a potent brew as long as Christians had access to power. They used it to compel uniformity to the truth Catholic Lutheran or reformed.

So men died for their faith tens of thousands of them until something general but very deep in man awoke. To revolt and then he goes into the Enlightenment the age of reason listen. We call that revolt the age of reason or as some prefer the Enlightenment.

When as Charles Williams put it national interests and mental Relaxations combined to exclude metaphysics from culture. What does that mean? To exclude metaphysics from culture to simply put ideas of God.

Souls.

Afterlife judgment no concern any longer. No concern to us any longer. We've seen what that did to our world. We're not interested in it anymore. Shelley continues the spirit of the age of reason was nothing less than an intellectual Revolution a whole new way of looking at God the world and oneself.

It was the birth of secularism. The Middle Ages and the Reformation were centuries of faith in the sense that reason served faith the mind obeyed authority. To a Catholic it was church authority to a Protestant biblical authority.

But in either case God's Word came first not man's thoughts. Man's basic concern in this life was this preparation for the next. The age of reason rejected that in Place of faith it set reason. Man's primary concern was not the next life.

But happiness and fulfillment in this world. That's what the word secular means. Concerned only with this world no concern about death the afterlife we don't care. You start talking to people about heaven and hell and angels and demons and Judgment before the throne of God and everything else on the cross and people laugh that off.

Why the Enlightenment? Because they are secular and they're thinking they have embraced the spirit of this movement this age as I said primary to man's concerns is Happiness and fulfillment in this world and the mind of man rather than faith was the best guide to happiness not emotions or myths or superstitions.

Shelley continues the spirit and purpose of the Enlightenment were eloquently expressed by one of its spokesmen Baron von Holbach who wrote this now listen to this paragraph. This was written during the age of Enlightenment.

During.

1648 to 1789 does it you tell me if this does not capture almost every person, you know today. That's not a Christian. Listen. Quote. Let us endeavor to disperse those clouds of ignorance. Those mists of darkness which impede man on his journey which prevent his marching through life with a firm and steady step.

Let us try to inspire him with respect for his reason with an Inextinguishable love of truth so that he may learn to know himself and no longer be duped by an imagination that has been led astray by authority.

So that he may learn to base his morals on his own nature on his own wants on the real advantage of society. So that he may learn to pursue his true happiness by promoting that of others in short. So that he may become a virtuous and rational being who cannot fail to become happy.

End. Quote. What is the purpose of your life. To do whatever you want? Remember the saying when the 70s and 80s I gotta be me. I gotta be me. That is secular humanism. Right there. The Enlightenment project failed badly.

When the man-centered ideas of the Enlightenment impacted theology it destroyed confidence in Scripture. Entire generations of Seminary students had their faith wrecked by the rise of German higher critical scholarship.

Which tried to analyze the form and content of the Bible using atheistic presuppositions and anti-supernatural biases. Why is the ELCA what it is? Why is the PC USA what it is? Why was the Southern Church seduced to liberalism?

The Enlightenment. Because of the age of reason.

So-called.

Why did entire generations turn their back on God turn their back on the Bible turn their back on the faith? Entire generations of seminary students come out not believing anything and their church is completely liberal now the Enlightenment.

The result was Catastrophic for the church the Giants of old Princeton. God bless those men Warfield Machen the Hodges they responded to the German higher criticism, but the damage was already done. In fact one of the historians of old Princeton wrote in his Chronicle of what happened at old Princeton how it became liberal they said when they carted Warfield out after his funeral.

It was as if the spirit of the seminary was gone. When Warfield died the place was seduced to liberalism within a very short time. Just so you know exactly what I'm talking about. What do I mean by German higher criticism?

That's something you need to know about too. Here's a good working definition of higher criticism and folks as I said, you need to know this because if you're young people go to Universities anywhere there are professors if they comment at all on the Bible.

They will take as gospel truth everything that German higher critical scholarship ever said in the 19th century. They will simply accept it as gospel truth. Here's what here's what higher criticism is quote the study of the literary methods and sources discernible in a text.

Especially as applied to biblical writings and quote let me give you a practical application of this. I remember learning about what's called the documentary hypothesis when I was in seminary. That's the idea that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses.

But was written by at least four different authors and in fact one person I read said it was written by 12 different people. The book of Isaiah is said to have at least two different authors and sometimes even three authors in some scholarly works.

I remember reading men who would refer to Deutero Isaiah and Triton Isaiah, and I remember thinking who is Deutero Isaiah who is Triton Isaiah? Well, that's the findings of German higher critical scholarship, and you look at what why do you think that there are multiple authors well?

Because there's differences in the style of the Hebrew. I would simply ask you when you've written at different times in your life has there been sort of different styles of what you have Written. Does that mean that you are multiple people or anything like that?

It's it's liberalism on steroids folks is what it is. At the time I didn't know what what they meant by those those titles. But they were just accepting as facts the naturalistic atheistic findings of higher criticism.

A lot of that stuff has been discredited by good Christian scholarship. And as I said it was able and answered by old Princeton at the time. But unbelievers and institutions of a higher learning will accept German higher critical scholarship as undisputed fact.

Where did such things as believing the Pentateuch had 12 authors come from? Secular humanism traceable back to the Enlightenment. I'd like to give you the names of three individuals who were once upon a time seminary students whose faith was ruined By German higher critical scholarship traceable back to the Enlightenment.

Frederick Nietzsche Was at one time a seminary student his faith was destroyed by German higher critical scholarship. Charles Darwin you ever heard of that guy. Joseph Stalin was at one time a seminary student who had the entire Gospel of John committed to memory.

His faith was ruined by German higher critical scholarship and evolutionary thinking. So folks these aren't just skeletons smoldering in your northern Europe somewhere this stuff has affected the the very Cultural milieu into which all of us live and move and breathe.

Day in and day out these are the things that have influenced the way people around you think. There is much more historically that can and ought to be discussed regarding the Enlightenment and its profound influence on the Western world.

But it is the grandfather of the secular humanist aggressive religious ideology that wants to silence Christianity in our culture today. Why is abortion legal? Why is gay marriage legal? Why is the family in shambles in this country?

Why is sexual immorality on the rise? Why is marriage on the rocks and the church languishing and almost entirely absent in terms of its influence in our country? Secular humanism and as I've said the presuppositions and the worldviews that gave rise to that have Deeply influenced churchmen for decades for decades as I mentioned remember Finney one historian of Christian theology called Finney's version of Christianity religious humanism.

Because it really is it is a religious version of the same thing that the Enlightenment was saying a Totally naturalistic understanding of of everything salvation conversion revival all of it. I Mentioned to you the French Revolution being perhaps the most significant event in Western history after the fall of the Roman Empire one of the most important documents that was produced by the French revolutionaries was called Declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen and that documents aim was to make all people equal under the law.

Article 4 of that document is crucial. Listen to the way that it reads. Quote. This is article 4 of the declaration of the rights of man from the French Revolution. Quote. No corporate body no individual may exercise any authority that does not expressly emanate from it.

Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others. Thus the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no bounds. Other than those that ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights.

Isn't that so absurd? So what if what if my desires conflict with someone else's then what do you do? I guess you would fight and try to behead the other guy. That's basically what they did and They say this in closing these bounds may be determined only by law and quote, of course that begs the question the law based on what?

The key to notice here is the source of these rights. What is the source of human rights other humans? What's the source of rights? It's not God. It's not revelation. It's other people. Our American Declaration of Independence has its own flaws, of course.

But by contrast it says we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by Their creator, although that's probably not the Christian God necessarily. But at least he's mentioned with certain unalienable rights that among these are life liberty in the pursuit of happiness and quote.

Where do our rights come from in our Declaration of Independence our creator at least? What we need to understand about our situation in our country is this and folks. This is very very important. Please remember this Europe and the United Kingdom are much farther advanced than we are in America in terms of their slide into total secularism.

They are much farther along in the process than we are. You know why we're not as far as they are because of revivals that God has brought here. God has stopped us from going so fast into total secularization.

By bringing revival through Edwards through Whitfield through great ministers and preachers. God has blessed this nation so much and It's so sad to see us going the very direction that Annihilated that whole continent.

But we are well on our way to full secularization now. The church is exploding in Korea and parts of Africa. We praise God for that, but in America It's dying and in Europe and the UK are almost completely dead and are presently being overrun by Islam.

If for no other reason because Muslims actually have kids. The birthright in Europe and America is below replacement. We are dying as a culture. We are dying now. Ideas have consequences folks, and I hope that this historical survey has helped a little bit.

I regularly put out copies of Bruce Shelley's book a church history in plain language. Get a copy of that read the chapters on the Enlightenment. It will blow your mind how much of an influence that has on the people you sit across from in cubicles at work.

They think the way that movement taught them to think. It's an excellent book. And if you want to study church and world history and look at the way the church has interacted with and been affected by These movements, that's a great place to start.

Charles Darwin, Marxism, and Eugenics

Another individual who is very important for us to remember and to understand his impact is Charles Darwin. Now we all know who he was and we all know the books that he wrote. But I want you to just listen to a few things that you might not know about him.

He was the right man at the right time. To give perhaps the greatest push forward out of all of all to outright secular humanism in the world around him. He was the right man at the right time with the right ideas that really lunged that forward into the mainstream.

At the time that Darwin published the origin of species. There were two other guys I'm sure you've heard of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels who were also ideologues living in England at the time. German ideologues.

Karl Marx and Engels were already writing extensively books on history and economics and pushing their diabolical state deifying Atheistic communist ideas when the origin of species was published in 1859.

Karl Marx was one of the first people to get a copy of that book and read it and he wrote a letter to Engels. And he said quote Darwin whom I have been reading is.

Splendid.

This is the view of natural history that best fits our political ideas.

End quote.

Darwin's impact on secularization was staggering. I have a friend who did missionary work in China for quite some time and he was told again and again. By Chinese people and his dialogues with them. They would simply say I believe in Darwin.

What do you believe? Do you believe in God? Do you believe in this. You believe in that. They would just say. I believe in Darwin. Bodie Hodge and Patterson wrote this quote. Not only did Darwinian evolution become the skeptics mechanism and cudgel for denying God's existence.

Social Darwinism justified much of the 20th century's Eugenics atrocities. If you don't know what the word eugenics means you need to look that up and learn about eugenics. It's one of the dirtiest little secrets in American history.

Many people don't realize this but Margaret Sanger. Margaret Sanger the founder of the American birth control league also known today as Planned Parenthood. She in the 1930s remember World War two starts in 1939.