The term "Darwinian" has become somewhat loaded and the latest spin on it comes courtesy of the TV show "Sex and the City"....
Miranda: Y'see, this is why I don't date -- the men out there are freaks.
Carrie: Well that's completely unfair.
Miranda: I'm sorry, if a man is over 30 and single, there's something wrong with him, it's Darwinian -- they're being weeded out from propagating the species.
The message I came home from the "Evolution, Religion and Politics" seminar was that it is time for Darwin to be reclaimed. Primarily, RHUC's own David Williams discussed how the theory of evolution through natural selection has changed our concept of how we view the world and our place in it. Whilst the religious right can feel theatened by seeing man as the product of a process of adaptation, occupying a seemingly insignificant place in the cosmos, religious liberals can argue this knowledge enobles mankind and life on earth. Secondly, Pejman Khojasteh discussed his paper of how religions themselves can be analysed as part of an evolutionary process, since by encouraging and disseminating moral sentiments they give mankind a "survival advantage". Finally, Unitarian minister Richard Boeke (a former airforce chaplin to the custodians of nuclear weapons) discussed how when faced with global warming, we should not be complacent about the possibility of our own species' extinction.
I have heard some people describe Richard Dawkins as a "secular fundamentalist". However, on the whole I think his defence of the science of evolution against "intelligent design" theorists is sound. Since our denomination has never shied away from siding with reason against credulity I think his arguments are at least worth hearing out. Instead of Richard Dawkins, I think the people who could most be accused of abusing Darwin are the advocates of untrammelled individualism. There is a popular misconception that the phrase "survival of the fittest" is an apology for everything from Nazi Eugenics to its more benign form in the antics of "Sex and the City". In fact Darwin's point is best expressed as, "survivial of the most well adapted" and refers more to the species as a whole than any individual. As such, if it is found that religious experience and spiritual sentiments have an explanation in evolutionary biology, Unitarians should be the first to celebrate that finding. Rather than "explaining away" what we do, it might underpin its value and enoble it.
Posted by Scott
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