[Darwin an atheist?]
I don't think he was an atheist, I think he was mad at God for "letting" his wife die, or maybe even started doubting God's existence, which lead to the book ["the origin of species"]. The book by the way has been discounted by much of modern science.
49 comments
I am puzzled by this.
He only became agnostic after critically analyzing the authority of the christian religion.
So where do fundies get "atheist" and that his doubt in god caused him to create the theory of evolution? Hell he was doing that whilst still a very orthodox christian.
Really? I had not realized that Darwin's work and the theory it gave birth to had been discounted by modern science.
That must mean that all the advances claimed by modern medicine the last 150 years don't really work. It's all prayer and placebo that made people well.
Good news for barbers. They can be surgeons again.
christ on a fuckin bike, darwins wife was alive when the origin was published because she ( along mwith huxley convinced him to publish it!!) and by the way moron,darwin was very much an agnostic when he died, he was not an atheist (if only.......) but still agnostic is preety close to heathen in their mind so we'll buy that, and as for the theory being disproven by much of science id love to know how as a biologist myself, considering that ToE has been validated by gentics (which did'nt really exist when darwin published) and all modern biology relies on evolution so this must be.....
an absoulultey fucking epic science fail
homeskoolin don't yer just love it!!!
The book by the way has been discounted by much of modern science.
Are you people actually obliged to write a bullshit refutation like that immediately after any mention of Origin? It's really getting annoying, like touching wood or saying "peace be upon him" or any of the other inane or inconsequential conditioned responses that plague society.
The only person who could tell us whether Darwin was an atheist was Darwin and, because educated 19th Century Britons didn't much care about religion, he said little about the subject.
The bit about his work being discredited is a lie. Either tammy is a liar or she has been misled by other liars.
Charles Darwin was an honest man and a Christian. He may have had some dispute with contemporary religious dogma but he was by no measure anti-religious or anti-God. He looked at the world around him with an open mind, put forward ideas, amassed evidence and drew conclusions based on his observations to explain the huge diversity of life on our beautiful planet. What he DIDN'T do was sit in a darkened room with his eyes shut and his fingers in his ears and then complain that it was dark!
If you believe in a God fine, I don't care; knock yourself out. What I DO care about is the constant dissemination of lies and misrepresentations by fundamentalists, of whatever creed, and your constant attempts to suppress information and deny children the right to a fully rounded education.
For your own sake and that of your children (if you have any) open your mind, educate yourself and STOP LYING.
"I don't think he was an atheist,"
"...I think he was mad at God for "letting" his wife die,"
"...or maybe even started doubting God's existence, which lead to the book ["the origin of species"]."
"The book by the way has been discounted by much of modern science."
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These poor, benighted souls just repeat crap they've been told from the pulpit by preachers who want their money. It's hard to believe, but there it is.
Without their irrational belief, their pastors would have to live in trailer homes. The preachers' lies are effective because their flocks sre, alas, dumbasses.
Without exposure to proper education, they will remain so, and go on swallowing all this tripe and repeating it to anyone who will listen, at the same time impoverishing themselves and making their pastors rich.
All they actually achieve is to make themselves look really, really stupid. No harm in that, except that their influence, especially in America, is stronger than it should be. That's because conservative politicians pander to the stupid; trying to appeal to rational folk is far too much like hard work.
fergus
I answered them in the thread. Guess how long that will last, but this is what I said:
@tammychestnut;193230
The book by the way has been discounted by much of modern science.
That is a lie. Much of what Darwin said was unrefined given his lack of understanding of Genetics, cellular construction and meiosis. However, modern science has not been able to disprove his theory at all. Rather, it has only sharpened it to a razors edge. The theory of evolution states that we came from a common ancestor with apes. If that is true, then a look into our genetic structure and that of our closest simian relative should yield similarities. For example, we should share retro-viral information. And we do - several hundred sequences worth meaning that when our common ancestor was infected with a retrovirus, it mutated into benign code that was simply left in the gene structure. When we split off, we retained it and so did the chimpanzee. We share them and in the exact same positions in our DNA. The only way known for this to occur is for us to be related.
Evolution is a winding path that takes many turns. For example, we as a species have 2 fewer chromosomes than chimps and gorillas. That was something that needed explanation - if our species lost two chromosomes, it would be fatal. So how did that happen? Two ways - either we are not related or two of our chromosomes have fused together into one. How do we tell if this has happened? Easy. All chromosomes have a identical structure. They have talomeres on the ends to indicate code endings and they have centromeres near the center. If we find a chromosome with two centromeres or with talomeres inside the code, we have found the culprit. This is what evolutionary theory PREDICTED about the situation. And what did we find? We found that our chromosome two indicates just that - now found to be the combination of chimp chromosome 2 and 13 if I recall correctly.
Modern science found these things. Science has not proven that Darwin was wrong or some other wild fantasy. Rather, it has only been able to confirm it over and over again, despite numerous attempts by scientists to destroy it (as is the way of science, to attempt to disprove even its most basic tenents).
Please refrain from misrepresenting and lying about the state of science and evolution. Is not one our your commandments not to bear false witness?
I don't think he was an atheist
If I remember correctly, he wasn't.
...which lead to the book...
Okay. When people get pissed off at God, they yell at him, curse him, maybe go on six day long drinking binges with wild sex orgies. All these things are realistic. Do you really, honestly think that in a fit of rage, Darwin said, "I'll show you God! I'll write a book that says man evolved from monkeys!" Think about it.
By the way FSTDTers, I said monkeys intentionally, as it is a common myth. I am aware that man did not evolve from monkeys.
Alas, somebody has never read anything about Darwin or evolution, from the sounds of it. And, "Disaffected Intelligence"--nice reply. It puzzles me why creationists need to go after Charles Darwin so personally all the time. He was the compiler and the catalyst, the man who set the stone rolling.
Fergus for the win.
These poor, benighted souls just repeat crap they've been told from the pulpit by preachers who want their money. It's hard to believe, but there it is.
Without their irrational belief, their pastors would have to live in trailer homes. The preachers' lies are effective because their flocks sre, alas, dumbasses.
Without exposure to proper education, they will remain so, and go on swallowing all this tripe and repeating it to anyone who will listen, at the same time impoverishing themselves and making their pastors rich.
All they actually achieve is to make themselves look really, really stupid. No harm in that, except that their influence, especially in America, is stronger than it should be. That's because conservative politicians pander to the stupid; trying to appeal to rational folk is far too much like hard work.
That should be the standard reply to every half-wit fundie post here.
Well, some has been disproved, yes. Gemmules for instance. Considering that nobody knew at the time what exactly caused inheritance (though it was of course quite easily observed that it existed, especially to animal breeders) it probably seemed a very logical possibility. Same goes for some of the other stuff. To say the whole book has been discredited though is just a plain out lie. If you'd quit thinking evolution is all about "people came from monkeys" and learned that it's really about things we can observe RIGHT NOW, and we can test through experiment, which Darwin began with studies like those of the Galapagos finches, you'd make a LOT of progress intellectually.
I'm with redfergus.
What galls me is the fact that these preachers preach because they are, congenitally, either obnoxious beggars or general failures.
Someone, please, show me I'm wrong.
[ I think he was mad at God for "letting" his wife die, or maybe even started doubting God's existence, ]
Darwin was studing to be a christian minister. Even though he did not pursue a career as a preacher, he was still a christian during some of this travels and studies.
Darwin was a theist (a fairly serious Christian in fact) for most of his life, but became an agnostic after his daughter died, which was after Origin of Species was published.
And Darwin's basic theories have been confirmed and expanded upon and, along with genetics, form the basis of modern biology.
He was wrong about a few of the small details, but that was mostly because neither he, nor anybody else knew about DNA and genetics, Gregor Mendel did his work around that time, but was obscure for several decades afterward.
, I think he was mad at God for "letting" his wife die....which lead to the book ["the origin of species"]
His wife was alive and well when his book was published.
The book by the way has been discounted by much of modern science.
Uhh, no it hasn't.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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