Page 602 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

had died not because of any laws of nature, but from the maltreatment
they'd received. Also, of course, when the numbers of dark skinned peo-
ple were observed to be increasing, it was realized that these Darwinist
claims were untrue.

The replies given by a police officer to an investigation carried out by the
Royal Commission in 1861 help clarify how racist basis and the maltreat-

ment of the Aborigines were regarded as perfectly natural at the time. The
officer was asked:

"And if we did not punish the blacks, they would look upon it as a confession of
Sir Douglas Nicholls, the first weakness?"
native Australian to be
knighted, and his wife.
"Yes, that is exactly my opinion."

"It is a question as to which is the strongest race—if we submit to them they would despise us for it?"

"Yes." 7

According to Stone's account, a news report from 1880 said:

Nothing that we can do will alter the inscrutable and withal immutable laws which direct our progress on this
globe. By these laws the native races of Australia were doomed on the advent of the white man, and the only
thing left for us to do is to assist in carrying them out with as little cruelty as possible. We must rule the blacks

by fear. 8

These lines again reveal the ruthlessness at the heart of the Social Darwinist perspective. These peo-
ple were regarded as a species of animal, but were treated in a way nobody would treat an animal,
simply because their skin was of a darker color and because they possessed certain different physical
characteristics—yet another proof of the cruelty of Social Darwinists. A letter to a newspaper also dat-
ed 1880 described the oppression of the Aborigines:

This, in plain language, is how we deal with the aborigines: On occupying new territory the aboriginal inhabi-
tants are treated exactly in the same way as the wild beasts or birds the settlers may find there. Their lives and
their property, the nets, canoes ... are held by the Europeans as being at their absolute disposal. Their goods are
taken, their children forcibly stolen, their women carried away, entirely at the caprice of white men. The least
show of resistance is answered by a rifle bullet... [those] who fancied the amusement have murdered, ravished,
and robbed the blacks without let or hindrance. Not only have they been unchecked, but the Government of the

colony has been always at hand to save them from the consequences of their crime. 9

What has been recounted here is only a tiny part of Social Darwinism's dark face, but is enough to sug-

gest the full scale of the disasters that atheism and Darwinism wreaked on humanity.

1. Joe Stephens, "The Body Hunters:As Drug Testing Spreads, Profits and Lives Hang in Balance," Washington Post, December 17,
2000.
2. David Monaghan, "The Body-Snatchers," The Bulletin, November 12, 1991, pp. 30-38.
3. Ibid., p. 33.
4. Ibid., p. 34.
5. Ibid., p. 33.
6. Sharman Stone, Aborigines in White Australia: A Documentary History of the Attitudes Affecting Official Policy and the Australian
Aborigine 1697–1973, Melbourne: Heinemann Educational Books, 1974.
7. Ibid., p. 83.
8. Ibid., p. 96.
9. Ibid., p. 93.

600 Atlas of Creation Vol. 3