The Scopes Monkey Trial

An important event in the history of the conflict between the Theory of Evolution and belief in a Divine Creation occurred in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. John Scopes, a high school biology teacher was on trial for contravening the state's Butler Act law which forbade the teaching of "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals."

The trial quickly degenerated into a media circus. The leading protagonists were an high-profile conservative religious spokesperson, former US Secretary of State and Presidential candidate: William Jennings Bryan. Opposing him was a leading intellectual and lawyer: Clarence Darrow. Although Scopes was found guilty, it was generally felt that he and Darrow had won a moral victory. Nonetheless, popular opposition to acceptance of the Theory of Evolution remained high, with the result that most textbooks made little or no mention of evolution until the early 1960's. Those that discussed it often omitted it from their index.

Welcome to age-of-the-sage.org where many issues are raised that have some bearing on the Scopes Monkey Trial controversy!

Most people are aware of something of what Darwin and his Theory of Evolution have to say about the origin of Humanity as one of a vast number of species but we hope to demonstrate that, whatever evolutionary theory may hold to be the origin of Humanity, we are nonetheless "Beings invested with Spirituality."

Please consider the following Slide Shows that summarise D-E-E-P Wisdoms about Human Existence gleaned from World Faith teachings and other sources.

We very much hope that they will greatly pique your interest and lead you to investigate our site further.

This slide show suggests that Human Nature has three main aspects:-     Materialistic, Spiritual, and Ethnic. Human Nature

These slides develop this view of Human Nature to consider wider questions:-     about God, about Man, and about Society. God, Man, and Society