Page 18 - The Struggle Against the Religion of Irreligion
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indispensable ideological role in the war against fundamentalism.
For that reason, the scientific organizations are devoted to
protecting Darwinism rather than testing it, and the rules of
scientific investigation have been shaped to help them succeed. 6
The prominent advocates of materialist and atheist philosophies
committed to promote them throughout the world have, as stated by
Johnson, embraced Darwin's theory of evolution solely because it
provides a so-called scientific basis for their own ideologies. This was
observed from the time the theory of evolution was first put forward.
Karl Marx, the founder of dialectic materialism who harbored enmity
against religion, often stressed the significance of the theory for his
ideology. And in a letter Marx wrote to his close friend Engels, he
made clear his thoughts on Darwinism:
...This is the book which contains the basis in natural history for
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our views.
And after having read Darwin's book, The Origin of Species Friedrich
Engels commented:
Our theory is a theory of evolution, not a dogma to be learned
by heart and to be repeated mechanically. 8
6 Darwin on Trial, p. 155.
7 Cited in Evolution, Marxian Biology and the Social Science, p. 527.
8 Marx and Engels Correspondence, International Publishers, 1968, Letter from Engels to
Florence Kelley Wischnewetsky.
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