How do you argue he wasn't, when you consider the following quote from 'Origins?'
"To my mind it (evolution) accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. . . . There is grandeur in this view of life . . . having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that . . . from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
2007-03-26 03:47:23 · 13 answers · asked by super Bobo 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
'Fud' - every question on this site has already been asked. The last time this was asked, that I could find, it didn't include the actual quote. Sorry to offend.
2007-03-26 03:56:27 · update #1
Darwin wrote in a later letter that he was extremely sorry that he wrote it in such a way, it seems it was immediately hijacked by what would later become creationist/ID proponents.
Here is a source with references:
Darwin dismissed the entire controversy as pointless and premature: “It will be some time before we see slime, protoplasm, etc., generating a new animal. But I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation, by which I really meant ‘appeared’ by some wholly unknown process. It is mere rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter” (1973, p. 594; the quote from Darwin appears in an extremely anti-religious letter he wrote to J.D. Hooker on March 29, 1863, as reproduced in Francis Darwin’s Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 1887, 3:17, emp. added).
2007-03-26 04:06:48 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
You can't argue someone's religion by their quotes. Look up Mark Twain quotes. Or Einstein, both are quoted controdicting themselves when it comes to religion. Something that would tell me Darwn Wasn't a creationist... That sorta doesn't go with the theory he's famous for.
2007-03-26 10:51:20 · answer #2 · answered by Same T 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
He was still raised a Christian, it is just that he saw how biology was really put together. He probably never really considered all the ramifications of what he figured out, especially when he was first putting it on paper. Religions die slow. You can still find things about Greek and Roman gods in our society.
2007-03-26 10:55:30 · answer #3 · answered by Alex 6 · 3⤊ 0⤋
This would be another one for the "Already Asked" list. Anyone want to start a book on how many more we'll identify in the next, ooh, say, 2 hours?
Edit: Mea culpa, shouldn't have bothered to say anything - others are obviously happy to answer the question, so I shall away myself. Hope you get some good answers.
2007-03-26 10:53:15 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
He wasn't an atheist but he was an evolutionist and I'm sure he thought nothing wrong with it.I am not an evolutionist but I see how easy it would be to think that and still believe in a God.There's lots of people who are "Theistic Evolutionists".
2007-03-26 10:52:57 · answer #5 · answered by AngelsFan 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Back then all scientists were struggling to connect their belief in God with the realities of science. Even for geniuses, this question is a hard one. It is interesting how so many of you fundies believe it is so easy.
Many great scientists believed in a God, because back then everyone did. But the evidence of their discoveries piled up...and now it is in doubt.
Plus back then if you dissented from the belief in God (at least publically) they killed you.
2007-03-26 10:51:32 · answer #6 · answered by Jedi 4 · 2⤊ 1⤋
I say he should have said ''Our Heavenly Father..and lead us not into temptation..but deliver us from evil''...before saying any word he said about me as being an evolved monkey..
You see when devil tempates ..you can think you are king Cesar incarnated..or you can think ...God made you out of dirt..also the body from inside...not just outside..
2007-03-26 10:54:58 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I agree with him. I didn't know he was a deist. I, too, believe God was the big bang and then evolution took over.
2007-03-26 10:56:57 · answer #8 · answered by Gorgeoustxwoman2013 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
He was taught Creationism as a child, and he had to work hard to think originally to create Evolutionism. Your quote shows that he was in the process of going from one extreme to the other. Please don't think that he belongs in the Creationist camp.
2007-03-26 10:50:41 · answer #9 · answered by S K 7 · 3⤊ 2⤋
Might have held intelligent design ideas, he described himself as an Agnostic. True creationism is a joke....
2007-03-26 10:51:05 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋