Emancipated but still not free

Two great emancipators of the Nineteenth Century were born on this day in 1809: Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. Which of the two has so far proved the greater emancipator?
    Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (1863) bore the fruit this year of Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th President of the United States. Darwin's Origin of Species¹ gifted us with evolution² as a much superior (because true) alternative to the god hypothesis in order to explain the existence of complex life on Earth.
    Both liberations continue to be resisted by significant numbers of mankind, particularly evolution, which is combatively opposed by many Christians, especially in the United States. Lincoln's emancipation may have fared better, as Mr. Obama's election seems to attest. But Obama most certainly would not have been elected if he had come out as an atheist. Ironically, it is the slaves (of religion) who fight for their (and our) continued enslavement—and that of their children, of course.
    But the slaves of religion could be their own masters and unlock their prison cell and walk out tall. But they don't; do they fear death that much?³ Or are they prevented by a powerful taboo against cutting the cultural umbilical cord and severing their mooring—as though to do so would lose them the comfort of their parents' turning on a light when they wimper in the dark?⁴
    Of course, the slaves were actively indoctrinated as children, so the question arises, why did their parents indoctrinate them? The parents may tell you it was for the sake of their children's souls, but actually they feared that if their children fell away, their religious beliefs would be called into question. Keeping their children "faithful" seemed to confirm their own faith and prove they were right. Most people judge what's right by whether the other members of the herd believe it.
    The texts of all three Abrahamic religions prescribe death for believers who throw up the faith. This practice may be morally abhorrent but it does keep the herd intact by eliminating members who won't toe the line, either by literally killing them or by scaring them off or into submission. (I acknowledge my debt to the prophet of the youngest Abrahamic religion for introducing the term "slave of religion"; Muhammed called himself Muslim—literally slave of god⁵.)

And, at home

Happy birthday to my wife, who is considerably younger, as well as better looking, than Lincoln and Darwin. For more than thirty years I have admired her credo that she expressed in a needlepoint by altering the concluding word of the pattern's familiar pietistic homily:

Who plants a seed
Beneath the sod
And waits to see
Believes in DNA.

Of course, the effect of having a spouse is not universally acknowledged to be liberating, and many years ago, when I was trying to put my mind and my emotions around the reality of being married, someone pointed out that marriage is "a velvet cage." I've enjoyed the velvet and resigned my spirit to the steel wire.
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1. Full title, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, published in 1859
2. A number of articles on the occasion of Darwin's 200th birthday (and the 150th anniversary year of the publication of his book) can be found in The New York Times:
   • "On Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’," a portal to related articles
   • "Darwin at 200: The Ongoing Force of His Unconventional Idea," by Verlyn Klinkenborg
   • "The Origin of Darwin," by Olivia Judson
3. See reader Jim's comment on Lincoln's sober attitude toward death.


4. See the same reader's answer to this question.


5. The Prophet Muhammed said he was the slave of god. But there is no god. Therefore, Muhammed was merely the slave of religion.