Doc_Daneeka wrote:
polymathpoolplayer wrote:
BTW some personal stuff in my life: I had an only child who had some serious health issues (resulting in her death at the age of 2)
My most sincere condolences. I have a son, and wouldn't wish to imagine the sheer horror of losing him forever.
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BTW Darwin was religious, and did not see the conflict either.
Actually, he was not. He was agnostic (in the sense originally meant by Huxley), and not religious at all, except as a youth. His family and friends (and his own letters) were quite clear on this point. I only mention it because there are a lot of myths about Darwin's views on religion.
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Peace to you all
And peace to you.
OK we disagree: this from wikipedia on Darwin's religion:
Darwin’s family tradition was nonconformist Unitarianism, while his father and grandfather were freethinkers, and his baptism and boarding school were Church of England.[15] When going to Cambridge to become an Anglican clergyman, he did not doubt the literal truth of the Bible.[20] He learnt John Herschel's science which, like William Paley’s natural theology, sought explanations in laws of nature rather than miracles and saw adaptation of species as evidence of design.[22][23] On board the Beagle, Darwin was quite orthodox and would quote the Bible as an authority on morality.[142] He looked for "centres of creation" to explain distribution,[43] and related the antlion found near kangaroos to distinct "periods of Creation".[45]
By his return he was critical of the Bible as history, and wondered why all religions should not be equally valid.[142] In the next few years, while intensively speculating on geology and transmutation of species, he gave much thought to religion and openly discussed this with Emma, whose beliefs also came from intensive study and questioning.[78] The theodicy of Paley and Thomas Malthus vindicated evils such as starvation as a result of a benevolent creator's laws which had an overall good effect. To Darwin, natural selection produced the good of adaptation but removed the need for design,[143] and he could not see the work of an omnipotent deity in all the pain and suffering such as the ichneumon wasp paralysing caterpillars as live food for its eggs.[120] He still viewed organisms as perfectly adapted, and On the Origin of Species reflects theological views. Though he thought of religion as a tribal survival strategy,
Darwin still believed that God was the ultimate lawgiver.[144][145]
Darwin continued to play a leading part in the parish work of the local church,[146] but from around 1849 would go for a walk on Sundays while his family attended church.[136] Though reticent about his religious views, in 1879 he responded that he had never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God, and that generally “an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind.”[78]
Hence while postulating his theories he was a believer; whether he was near death is irrelevant.That he may have believed in a god isn't quite the same as claiming that he was religious. For most of his life, he simply was not. He quite clearly described himself as agnostic, and by that he took Huxley's useage of the term, which has quite sadly drifted since then.
I am sorry, I should not have jumped on this point. I did so merely because I have had too many encounters with those who claim that Darwin was either an orthodox Christian, or that he became one on his death bed. You claimed neither, and I attacked reflexively. For that, I am sorry.
20 Aug 2009, 9:28 pm
