Why you should become a Bible-believing anarchist
who also believes the universe was created around 4004 B.C.
Darwin's grandfather was a hoot, known as "an apostle of sexual liberation," who was “fond of sacrificing to both Bacchus and Venus” (alcohol and sex).
Many his ideas were incorporated (without attribution) by his grandson Charles in his book on natural selection.
Answers in Genesis has published a terrific article on Erasmus Darwin which supports the claim of this website that evolution is an ancient religion which was invented to replace Christianity and serve as an organizing principle for society and politics.
The title of the article is "Science or Philosophy?" but it could better be entitled "Science or Religion?" Check out that poem (or might we call it, "hymn"):
Science or Philosophy? | Calvin Smith
Confirmation that the whole concept of the story of evolution was something that had been explored and promoted prior to Charles Darwin’s ponderings is well established. Here’s just one example found in the works of Ernst Krause in his book Life of Erasmus Darwin, published in 1879.
Almost every single work of the younger Darwin may be paralleled by at least a chapter in the works of his ancestor; the mystery of heredity, adaptation, the protective arrangements of animals and plants, sexual selection, insectivorous plants, and the analysis of the emotions and sociological impulses; nay, even the studies on infants are to be found already discussed in the writing of the elder Darwin.5
And here we must in the first place admit that he [Erasmus] was the first who proposed and consistently carried out, a well-rounded theory with regard to the development of the living world. . . . It is the idea of a power working from within the organisms to improve their natural position. . . . In contrast to the old theory that all adaptation to purpose in the arrangements of the world was fore-calculated and fore-ordained.6
This is true Darwinism of the last [seventeenth] century—Darwinism of the old school.7
Darwinian Evolution Before Charles Darwin
Indeed, the whole concept of some cosmic explosion resulting in a vast and ancient universe where on our primeval planet life somehow arose in ancient waters through naturalistic processes had already been conceptualized, collated, and captured in print in the writings of Erasmus long before his grandson was even in existence.
Just look at select portions of a poem he wrote titled “The Temple of Nature.”
Ere Time began, from flaming Chaos hurl’d
Rose the bright spheres, which form the circling world;
Earths from each sun with quick explosions burst,
And second planets issued from the first.
Then, whilst the sea at their coeval birth,
Surge over surge, involv’d the shoreless earth;
Nurs’d by warm sun-beams in primeval caves
Organic Life began beneath the waves. . . .
Hence without parent by spontaneous birth
Rise the first specks of animated earth;
From Nature’s womb the plant or insect swims,
And buds or breathes, with microscopic limbs.
Organic life beneath the shoreless waves,
Was born and nurs’d in Ocean’s pearly caves;
First, forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire, and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin, and feet, and wing.
Thus the tall Oak, the giant of the wood,
Which bears Britannia’s thunders on the flood;
The Whale, unmeasured monster of the main,
The lordly Lion, monarch of the plain,
The Eagle soaring in the realms of air,
Whose eye undazzled drinks the solar glare,
Imperious man, who rules the bestial crowd,
Of language, reason, and reflection proud,
With brow erect, who scorns this earthy sod,
And styles himself the image of his God;
Arose from rudiments of form and sense,
An embryon point, or microscopic ens!8Here we can clearly see the basic tenets of “pond scum to people” evolution laid out in his rather lengthy prose. As an interesting side note, this poem (published posthumously in 1803) was originally titled “The Origin of Society.” Of course, shaping and guiding society was what the Lunar Society was all about.
Science or Philosophy?
Now let’s ask a question here, namely, where did Erasmus get all these ideas? Did he have the benefit of all the scientific facts observed in geology, biology, microbiology, the study of the fossil record, DNA analysis, etc. that modern-day evolutionists cite as support for the story of evolution?
No, statistically, he would have barely had any significant percentage whatsoever of the sorts of so-called proofs and evidence for the story of evolution that is currently touted. All these ideas came from the imagination of Erasmus Darwin, and all without the benefit of any scientific confirmation from so-called ape-men fossils, radioisotope dating, etc.
In fact, Kraus (quoted earlier) actually mentions that
Dr. Erasmus Darwin could not satisfy his contemporaries with his physio-philosophical ideas; he was a century ahead of them, and was in consequence obliged to put up with seeing people shrug their shoulders when they spoke of his wild and eccentric fancies, and the expression “Darwinising” . . . was accepted in England nearly as the antithesis of sober biological investigation.9
So what Erasmus was promoting was a philosophy—or story or perhaps we should say a narrative [say it: RELIGION! -- kc] — of naturalism, certainly not observational science.
Again, the question is what was the root of Erasmus’ imagining a chaotic origin of the world where life began as filaments in the sea and gradually morphed and grew fins and feet and eventually turned into philosophers such as himself—going about “Darwinising” about such things—in contrast to “sober biological investigation” (i.e., real observational science)?
Well, it began with a philosophical presupposition. And that presupposition was that the Creator God of the Bible did not exist, that the Bible was not the Word of God, and that naturalistic explanations were the only true way to understand the world. As Uglow’s exploration of The Lunar Men regarding Erasmus’ education and how it shaped his worldview outlook explains,
Everything he learned at Edinburgh concentrated his mind on the physical and the material. Inevitably he rejected conventional religion, with its mystical Trinity, its promise of salvation and store of miracles. . . . And as to life after death, no one could know: ‘The light of Nature affords us not a single argument for a future state.’10
Erasmus would have been “what one might call a Deist . . . he was still ready to accept the notion of some controlling force”11:
He refused to believe that this remote God had much to do with everyday life.12
That he influences things by a particular providence, is not so evident. The probability, according to my notion, is against it, since general laws seem sufficient for that end.13
Indeed, Erasmus’ commitment to materialistic explanations and his rejection of the God of the Bible is why he found himself on the receiving end of the accusation of being an atheist more than once, which was something quite distasteful at that time in England.
So, although one can find nods to “the notion of some controlling force – a First Cause, a Being of Beings or ‘Ens Entium’”14 being considered possible in his publications (likely to blunt these accusations), a careful perusal of his work seems to indicate his accusers were correct. To paraphrase Erasmus—“general laws were quite enough to ‘roll this planet round the sun.’”15 That is, God isn’t required to explain our existence. The fact is, there have always been atheistic-minded people in the world who have doubted the existence of God and then applied those doubts to their explanations of the facts we observe in nature, interpreting all that they see through a naturalistic lens regardless.
Evolutionary Ideas Have Been Around for a Long Time
So let’s not be foolish enough to think that it was Erasmus Darwin who was the first one to propose concepts like some kind of cosmic explosion leading to spontaneous generation of life followed by biological evolution over millions of years of earth history—far from it!
Many of the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Hindus, and Romans all had such ideas—again, all without the benefit of what modern evolutionists have today, such as the ability to travel the world to study the geologic column, to use technology that measures the half-lives of radioisotopes as dating methods, or to use microscopes to study DNA, etc.
Chaos theory, transmutation, Darwinian evolution, neo-Darwinian evolution, punctuated equilibrium—it doesn’t matter what label you slap on or what cute little bow you use to decorate whatever version of the concept you believe in, because stripped down, it always begins with an ideology that is rooted in a commitment to a naturalistic view of the world and a rejection of the Creator God and his revealed Word. Far from simply facts observed in scientific study, all one needs to come up with a story of evolution is a commitment to naturalism that is then applied to whatever you observe.
The Idea of Evolution is an ancient religion. It is also a modern religion. It was not invented by Charles Darwin. It was not proven by radiometric dating. Evolution's priests will use any contemporary "facts" to support their pseudo-scientific religion. These same facts (if they are indeed factual) can be seen to support creationism -- if you want to see them that way. Romans 1 says all facts are interpreted by religious presuppositions and the willingness to obey God's commandments. If you don't want God telling you what to do, you will twist the facts to justify your rebellion. You can phrase your rebellion "scientifically," or "philosophically," but it is ultimately religious, even if it is not phrased in sacramental, liturgical, poetic, or "religious" terminology.
Notice that Erasmus "rejected conventional religion, with its mystical Trinity, its promise of salvation and store of miracles. . . . " The churchmen of the 18th century lived in Francis Schaeffer's "upper story," and industrialism and the divine right of kings were not in their bailiwick. They were into "churchy stuff" like sacraments and sermons, and left social concerns to evolutionists, who were quick to dismiss Christianity by limiting Christianity to this "upper story." Churchmen were apologetic failures.