More important, the vast majority of Americans remained orthodox. But the greatest advance in secular humanism in the 19th century was evolution. Darwin s theory which is still only a theory, except a much discredited one provided an explanation for the origin of the human species without God or creation. Life, humans included, it said was the result of random collision. This is why the evolution theory is so tenaciously defended by the secular elite, despite a complete lack of evidence for it and mounting disproof against it.
Evolution is the linchpin of secular humanism.
Therefore, a creator is required. Of course, it wasn t long before the scientific theory of evolution was applied to human society. When the liberals embraced socialism at the end of the 19th century, they, in large part, accepted the materialism of the age. So at the opening of the 20th century, the ground was laid for all the enormities of the age. Varieties of socialism were growing and appeared to be the wave of the future.