2007-02-19 23:01:58 · 11 answers · asked by fefe 4 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
Before Darwin came along with his theories, religious men like Darwin believed that their god had left clues as to how the universe was made and that those clues were not only there for man to see but their god wanted man to find them.
That is why Darwin majored in Natural Science, which was part of the school of THEOLOGY.
Natural Science, itself, evolved into biology.
If you actually read biographies of Darwin's contemporaries, you'll find that those people, who included believers in Christianity and other religions as well as Atheists, generally believed that the world could be explained by scientific observation. The only difference was that the atheists believed the scientific observation should occur to further man's knowledge of the world and the theists thought it helped man to better understand the divine, including gods like that of Christianity.
The war between creationists and everyone else is the manufactured propaganda of a distinct subset of Christianity. That subset, I'm ashamed to say, is based in the US, started with "unaffiliated" churches and is rooted not in Christianity (as other forms of Christianity have no such battle) but in plain old fashioned ignorance.
These same anti-evolution sources used to say Blacks and Jews were different races than "humans" and they were ignorant and wrong about that, too.
Time will erase their views from the pages of history, just as they have mostly erased Darwin's deeply held Christianity, and in the future those extinct people who shunned evolution will be seen as the antisecularist radicals they are, and probably lumped in with things like Radical Islamic Terrorists and other religious people who do stuff not based in their religion at all, but in a political agenda.
2007-02-20 04:59:00 · answer #1 · answered by LabGrrl 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Natural forces they were unable to explain but Newton had shown that the world was understandable via natural laws and no doubt people a few intelligent people suspected it even before that.
It's not an atheist theory though. Darwin didn't set out to disprove genesis, it just happened accidentally when he looked at the truth.
Many Christians understand and accept the theory of evolution. Its not a case of believing in it. Science doesnt require faith - you can say you don't believe in the theory of gravity but it wont mean you can fly when you leap off a tall building.
2007-02-20 00:38:37 · answer #2 · answered by Leviathan 6 · 3⤊ 1⤋
There were plenty of atheists before Darwin's time. They simply didn't believe in God, I'm sure the arguments were slightly different. Evolution is commonly thought of as a "tool" used by atheists to discredit Christianity. However, evolution, is just a theory that should not really be thought of as threatening to the creation story at all. Microevolution is pretty well accepted in the scientific community, although macroevolution still is challenged by many in the field.
2007-02-19 23:29:42 · answer #3 · answered by btpage0630 5 · 1⤊ 2⤋
First, you need the proper definition of "atheist". Think a-theist or non-theist. This means simply not believing in ghostly beings for which there is no evidence whatsoever.
There is plenty of evidence to support evolution. There is none to support the existence of a "creator".
Thus, before Darwin, an atheist would have thought (not believed) that we simply don't know.
2007-02-20 02:51:25 · answer #4 · answered by Joan H 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Atheists have never "believed in" anything. To be an atheist is to invest no faith in higher beings whatsoever.
Pre-Darwin atheists probably subscribed to the idea that all things existed by way of natural occurrences having nothing to do with a Man in the Sky conning human beings into wrenching bits of ribcage from their bodies.
An atheist, really, is more concerned with denying the possibility of a God than offering his version of how the world came to be. He leaves that to science.
2007-02-19 23:21:26 · answer #5 · answered by chrissy 1 · 2⤊ 1⤋
You don't have to be an atheist or anything else but sensible to believe that gravity is a fact and that Sir Isaac Newton had a theory about how it worked. You don't have to be an atheist or anything else but sensible to believe that evolution is a fact and that Mr. Charles Darwin had a theory about how it worked.
About the only so called "Christians" who greatly object to the observed fact of evolution or the theories about it are the "heretics" of the American fundamentalist "churches" who have fallen into error through isolation and ignorance.
Most of them don't know the difference between evolution and a theory of evolution, the difference between evolution and the origin of life, the difference between carbon dating and all the other methods and their pastors make very sure they stay confused and ignorant, because if they finally worked it out their contributions to his retirement fund might cease.
2007-02-19 23:16:45 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 2⤋
Different atheists have different opinions. Some of the Greek thinkers were the first to reject the gods of their land, as well as I recall. Darwin was not the first to say there was some form of evolution. Laplace had one about the universe. I could write a book about your question. You need broader horizons, it seems.
2007-02-20 02:42:55 · answer #7 · answered by miyuki & kyojin 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
That sounds very astounding. I have by no potential heard of Al-Jahiz before, although I did know of a few Muslims in the course of the middle a at the same time as who made tremendous contributions to fields like math and chemistry. i imagine that is impressive that both Darwin and Al-Jahiz made those discoveries no longer by using religious dogma, yet by the careful study of the organic international.
2016-10-17 08:12:15 · answer #8 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I know a good deal of Atheists that don't follow the teachings of Darwin. Atheism is about religion, not science.
2007-02-19 23:41:55 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Before Darwin there was another person by the name of Mendel who stated that offspring inherit characteristics of their parents.
dunno bout the atheist though
2007-02-19 23:06:14 · answer #10 · answered by ssuasw 3 · 0⤊ 6⤋