News of pickpocketing, fraud, violence, mass shootings, abuse and homicide that many newspapers around the world carry everyday reflects the level of morality of societies today. These stories are indicators of the loss of values and virtues in society while conveying the risks and threats the same members of society face on a daily basis.

As the nature of these crimes becomes ever more vile, society becomes more vulnerable everyday; the crimes diversify in nature, the age of the perpetrators decrease, the number of injured parties increase, ultimately leading societies into a downward spiral of iniquity.

No one can deny the profound influence of the media on the psychosocial development of children and teenagers. Being more media and social media-savvy individuals, teenagers and the young are particularly exposed to the moral harms inculcated by society through a story, tweet or a blog post. Stories of misconduct and violence flooding the news outlets everyday often make young minds -knowingly or at the subconscious level- familiar with such unpleasant scenes, and in some cases, feel sympathy for them.

This gloomy picture that makes its way right into our homes via the media every day alarms scrupulous people and parties who are concerned about the integrity of their family members and communities. Concerned about possible repercussions the general moral decline can cause in their environment, they feel the urge to take measures and swing into action.

However before taking any action, it is wiser and more reasonable to be aware of the real cause of this malice and eliminate it for once and all. For this to happen, first an accurate diagnosis of the root of the problem must be made.

In our time what plagues the world most is hatred, intolerance and prejudice among members of communities who don’t belong to the same religion, ethnicity, race or conviction. These unfavorable feelings largely stem from people’s intolerance for differences. Different opinions, convictions, viewpoints - whatever makes people dissimilar - set them against one another. But when we delve deeper, we come across with the main and unique cause, which is Darwinist/Materialist education.

People may ask, how can Darwinist/Materialist education be responsible for all these vices?

Principally the Darwinist/Materialist education inculcates young minds to consider other people as little more than advanced forms of animals. Under the suggestions of this mindset, the mind starts to see a human being as something equivalent to an animal and does not attach any value on   him, just as how an animal is, in most cases, not considered as important. At this point, for a Darwinist/Materialist mindset, another human being becomes a mere animal which can be oppressed and defeated, if the other party wants to survive. According to this sick outlook on life, conflict is the basis of survival. Conflicts, fighting, murder - in brief anything that will allow one person to defeat the other party and let him survive - becomes permissible. On this course, ruthlessness replaces love while treachery replaces compassion. Sacrifice is forgotten and every individual starts to live a self-centered life.

For a young mind which is raised with this Darwinist education, life revolves only around his own self. Egoism, greed and the instinct to defeat the other party become the main motives of his existence. While this warped education quenches love, affection, self-sacrifice in the human soul –which are the feelings that make a person a human being- it replaces them with violence, rage, hate and aggressiveness. Sometimes this hate and the instinct to oppress take the form of an ailment.

The school shootings that struck the USA in recent years present a comprehensible illustration of the kind of harm the Darwinist education does upon young brains.

The Columbine High School massacre (1999) is still fresh in our memories as the deadliest high school shooting in US history.[1]  As we may remember, two senior students Dylan Klebold (17) and Eric Harris (18) murdered a total of 12 students and one teacher while injuring 24 people. The shooting spree ended with the suicide of the two perpetrators.

In the aftermath of this disaster, the FBI and a team of psychiatrists and psychologists made a lengthy analysis into the psychological state of the two high school students who killed their schoolmates. The private journal of Harris, which began with the sentence, “I hate the world”, revealed the hate in his heart.  Harris’ website, journals and personal videos were also filled with lists of things he hated. The only thing he expressed in all these personal documents was contempt. Harris wrote his real feelings in his journal as follows:

“'Isn't America supposed to be the land of the free? How come, if I'm free, I can't deprive a stupid … dumb… from his possessions if he leaves them sitting in the front seat of his … van out in plain sight and in the middle of … nowhere on a … night. NATURAL SELECTION. … should be shot.' " [2]

Meanwhile, that Eric Harris’ wore a T-Shirt that read “Natural Selection” while he was carrying out the attack reveals his motive clearly.[3] Under the auspices of Darwinist education, the perpetrators considered themselves as superior to their classmates as a result of natural selection and thus saw it proper to kill them.

Barry Arrington, the attorney of the six pupils killed in Columbine shooting, explained Harris’ devotion to Darwin as follows:

“As the attorney for the families of six of the students killed at Columbine, I read through every single page of Eric Harris’ journals; I listened to all of the audio tapes and watched the videotapes, including the infamous “basement tapes.” There can not be the slightest doubt that Harris was a worshiper of Darwin and saw himself as acting on Darwinian principles. For example, he wrote: “YOU KNOW WHAT I LOVE? Natural SELECTION!” It is the best thing that ever happened to Earth. Getting rid of all the stupid and weak organisms….but it’s all natural! YES!” [4]

Harris expressed his Darwinist convictions in a video he shared on the Internet as follows:

“I'm coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the teeth and I WILL shoot to kill. .... I can't wait till I can kill you people…

My belief is that if I say something, it goes. I am the law. If you don't like it, you die. If I don't like you or I don't like what you want me to do, then you die…

So that's the only way to solve arguments with all you (expletive removed) out there, I just kill.” [5]

As it can be clearly seen in the example of the Columbine Massacre, the Darwinist/Materialist mindset makes a substantive negative impact on the mind and deprives the soul of all humane feelings. As long as hearts are not softened with love of Allah and awe of Allah, the iniquity, immorality and horrific crimes that we have become accustomed to hearing every day will never cease to exist.

It is only the morality of the Qur'an, faith in Allah and love of Allah that give peace and relief to the human heart and makes us live as real human beings.

Adnan Oktar's piece published on Islam Today Magazine of UK