Saturday, November 07, 2015

Why William Jennings Bryan Opposed Evolution

"Science is a magnificent material force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can be perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the misuse of machinery. ... If civilization is to be saved from the wreckage threatened by intelligence not consecrated by love, it must be saved by the moral code of the meek and lowly Nazarene."

Here is the article on Bryan from PBS. In a lot of ways, politically, he had a lot more in common with Bernie Sanders than he did with Rush Limbaugh. Although history is right in viewing him as a supporter of obscurantism, it's hard to fault his motives.

2 comments:

Secular Outpost said...

I wonder if a parallel point could be made about, say, Bertrand Russell or Richard Dawkins. Both believe(d) that religious belief does more harm than good. That is surely at least part of their motivation for publicly criticizing religious beliefs.

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