The rejection of God's existence removes the foundation for objective morality and human dignity, as evidenced by the historical consequences of atheism - from Social Darwinism's justification of imperialism and racism to the eugenics movement and the ideological violence of atheistic regimes that claimed over a hundred million lives in the 20th century.
“If God does not exist, everything is permitted.” (1)
When belief in God is denied, the foundation for moral responsibility, human value, and objective truth disappear. Here we explore the consequences of atheism and the impact of Darwinian thought on individuals and societies. It traces how rejecting Divine accountability gave rise to ideologies that dehumanised people, justified oppression, and distorted science into a tool of domination. From imperialism and racism to eugenics and moral decay, this chapter examines how godlessness, when elevated to a worldview, leads humanity not toward enlightenment, but toward its own destruction.
The Consequences of Atheism
Every belief system has ramifications, both personal and societal. Believing that God does not exist removes any sense of intrinsic purpose in life and eliminates the idea of cosmic accountability for wrongdoing. Without belief in Divine justice, no ultimate punishment awaits acts of evil. While this shift profoundly affects the individual, its broader impact on society is far more catastrophic. When people see no higher moral authority, they are more likely to pursue personal gain or pleasure over and above the greater good. Why are there record numbers of divorces, nervous breakdowns, and stress-related illnesses? Why are incidents of violent crimes, murders, child abuse, rape, drug addiction and depression at epidemic proportions? Historical and contemporary evidence shows that the further a society turns away from belief in God, the more prone it becomes to moral decay and widespread social harm.
The Rise of Social Darwinism and Pseudo-Science
Social Darwinism was a set of political and social ideas that applied Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection to human society. Politically, it was used to justify European imperialism by portraying colonisation as a “natural order” in which stronger nations were destined to dominate weaker ones. A notorious example was the concept of the “White Man’s Burden,” which framed imperial rule as a moral duty for Europeans to “civilise” the so-called lesser races, drawing on notions of racial superiority based on evolutionary theory. Writers and politicians like Rudyard Kipling (2) and Cecil Rhodes (3) used Social Darwinist rhetoric to rationalise European colonialism. Colonial expansion was seen as evidence of the “fitness” of Western civilisations over “weaker” societies, justifying the partition of Africa, for example, arguing that they were “civilising” indigenous populations.
On a social level, Social Darwinism fuelled both racism and the eugenics movement by providing a pseudo-scientific basis for claims of inherent racial superiority. Proponents classified people into “superior” and “inferior” races to justify slavery, segregation, and discriminatory laws. These ideas inspired eugenics programs aimed at “improving” humans through selective breeding, which led to forced sterilisations, anti-miscegenation laws (prohibition of marriage between different races), and even genocide. Charles Darwin wrote,
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaff hausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.” (4)
In the United States, for example, the eugenics movement influenced legislation that resulted in the sterilisation of tens of thousands of individuals labelled “unfit.” Figures like Francis Galton (who coined the term “eugenics”) directly linked his ideas to Darwin, arguing for selective breeding to improve human populations. (5) Over 60,000 people were sterilised under laws influenced by eugenics, including the infamous case Buck v. Bell (1927), where Oliver Wendell Holmes justified sterilisation by saying, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Previous pseudoscience’s such as phrenology and craniometry (the belief that person’s character, intelligence, or racial rank could be determined by the shape and measurements of the skull), which predated Darwin, but was later woven into Social Darwinist thinking to give racial inequality a false scientific legitimacy. Madison Grant, an American eugenicist and author, advanced Social Darwinist ideas in his 1916 book The Passing of the Great Race, claiming that racial hierarchies were rooted in biological superiority and explicitly linking these claims to Darwinian evolution. His work influenced U.S. immigration laws and included statements such as, “The laws of nature require the obliteration of the unfit.”
This rhetoric underpinned the racial segregation policies in the United States where advocates insisted that certain races were inherently inferior and thus justified unequal treatment. In congressional debates for The Immigration Act of 1924, the law’s architects, including eugenicist Harry Laughlin, drew heavily on Social Darwinist and eugenics ideas to restrict immigration.
On an economic level, people like Herbert Spencer, who popularised the statement “survival of the fittest,” (6) influenced capitalists like John D. Rockefeller. Spencer’s ideas were used to oppose welfare programs and labour protections, believing that aiding the poor interfered with natural social evolution.
Atheism and the Age of Ideological Violence
Social Darwinism gave a veneer of scientific legitimacy to some of the most oppressive and destructive ideologies of the 19th and 20th centuries. While not the sole driving force, it was frequently used to justify violence, murder, and genocide - leaving a legacy that demonstrates the dangers of using pseudo-scientific theories for ideological ends. Atheist ideologies such as Marxism reduced human beings to little more than animals. Under leaders like Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, this worldview found its most brutal expression, culminating in the deaths of over a hundred million people. These rulers, driven by militant atheism, used their ideologies to unleash ruthless violence upon humanity. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn commented after witnessing the horrors of the Soviet regime, “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” (7)
(Taken from the book: ‘God: There is No Doubt!’)
(1) Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
(2) Rudyard Kipling, From his 1899 poem “The White Man’s Burden,” written to encourage U.S. colonisation of the Philippines: “Take up the White Man’s burden, Send forth the best ye breed, Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need.”
(3) Rhodes speech to the Colonial Society, London (1895): “I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race…The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread-and-butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists.”
(4) Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man.
(5) Francis Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development, p. 17.
(6) Herbet Spencer, Principles of Biology, p. 444.
(7) Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Men Have Forgotten God: The Templeton Address. Templeton Prize Lecture, London, United Kingdom.
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