Darwin an Atheist? (evolution, church, agnostic, dogma, God)

[Rex]

I think not

From a letter of 1873:

What my own views may be is a question of no consequence to any one but myself. But, as you ask, I may state that my judgment often fluctuates. . . . In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, that an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind.

[The Voice of Reason]

Score one for the Agnostics.

TVOR

[painted wolf]

See thats the thing that most anti-evolutionists miss... Darwin never tried to remove god from the system, just church dogma. The problem is the the idea that people can be inerrant, so Church dogma must also be inerrant because those people are never wrong. (silly as far as I'm concerned)

wa:do

[The Voice of Reason]

Painted Wolf -

Two questions -
1) what does wa:do mean? I see it at the end of many of your posts.
2) I have tried to send you a PM on a couple of occasions. Do you intentionally not take PM's or do you just not have it set up?

Thanks,
TVOR

[painted wolf]

TVOR-

1) wa:do is Cherokee for thank you. I like to thank people for bothering to read my posts.
2) oops... I guess since I didn't have anything selected it chose to just default to no. I have fixed this so that I can now receve PM's. (I'm not always very handy with these computer thingies. Sad really, )

wa:do

[Michelle]

gv-li-e-li-ga wa-hya ( you're welcome wolf)

I think Darwin's statement shows how open-minded he was.

[Jayhawker Soule]

Originally Posted by painted wolf

I like to thank people for bothering to read my posts

But obviously not enough to clearly communicate that "thank you".

Speaking of clear communications, I'm curious as to the intent of the post. What should we conlude from the fact that Darwin was not an atheist? Only that Darwin saw no conflict between 'evolution' and the possibility of Deity (nor, by the way, did his friend Huxley). That may have some anecdotal value, but, at the same time, the study of pigeons does not make one a philosopher.

[The Voice of Reason]

Originally Posted by Deut. 32.8

That may have some anecdotal value, but, at the same time, the study of pigeons does not make one a philosopher.

Deut, I really like the way your mind works.
I think you have to look at the fact that this statement is contained in a letter written by Darwin, as opposed to being written for the sake of being published. Secondly, it is obviously a reply (deduced from the phrasing) to someone (perhaps a friend) that has inquired as to Darwin's stance on religion - it is almost as if he were posting on this board, in response to a question from another site member.

Thanks,
TVOR

[Jayhawker Soule]

There is much of interest here.