How Can Evolution Destroy Faith In God?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

That quote was from his autobiography:

The quote also doesn't say what you're claiming it does. Saying that the history of evolution does not necessarily require the design by or direct intervention of God is not the same thing as claiming that evolution disproves God's very existence.

And Darwin's personal views are in a large part irrelevant when it comes to the arguments that he made. His beliefs certainly informed his writings, but they can be judged for what they actually say.

In fact, the point that you made in another post, i.e. that his children hid his feelings on Christianity until after he died, seems to indicate that they would have changed public opinion of Darwin. Whatever his writings said, this action certainly seems like Darwin's extant writings weren't generally taken as some sort of "argument from indesign" for the non-existence of God. If Darwin had actually been shouting "God does not exist!" from his soapbox, any misgivings he had about Christianity wouldn't have been news.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Perhaps reading this statement can be clarified:

Because Christian apologetics before (and after) Darwin argued according to natural theology that the ordered quality of nature is proof that God both exists and is benevolent. Darwin argued that the disorder of nature is proof that God doesn't exist according to this natural argument -- it wasn't just a refutation that Christian apologetics were wrong on one point, but the argument was simply reversed.

Christianity has not been able to recover from this - obviously.

The Christian Church, especially the Catholic and other main stream churches have in the past always been slow to reject their early ideas about the world and creation.
To day that is not the case and the mantle for rejecting other than Biblical teachings has fallen to the more primitive fundamentalist Christians.
The large body of Christians do accept scientific discovery and explanations for the creation of the world and all its inhabitants.

 

[namguy]

No true Christian would buy into that belief. Now the Catholics, they make up rules and what they believe in as they go along, it's been that way since Constantine's day.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

No true Christian would buy into that belief. Now the Catholics, they make up rules and what they believe in as they go along, it's been that way since Constantine's day.

Do You believe the sun moves round the earth.... That was the world view , including all early Jews and Christians... To day after many burnings at the stake we accept it to be false.

True Christians believe we were given minds to think with, and establish true facts about Gods Universe.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

The quote also doesn't say what you're claiming it does. Saying that the history of evolution does not necessarily require the design by or direct intervention of God is not the same thing as claiming that evolution disproves God's very existence.

My point is that Christians were arguing that God exists using arguments that Darwin defeated.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

My point is that Christians were arguing that God exists using arguments that Darwin defeated.

And of course some still are...

 

[UnTheist]

I believe that the earth isn't any older that 6 to 8 thousand years, no matter what science tells us.

That's fine.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

And of course some still are...

I've already said that...

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

My point is that Christians were arguing that God exists using arguments that Darwin defeated.

Which is all fine and good, but that's not the point that I challenged you on, remember?

Darwin argued that the disorder of nature is proof that God doesn't exist -- it wasn't just a refutation that Christian apologetics were wrong on one point, but the argument was simply reversed.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Whatever his writings said, this action certainly seems like Darwin's extant writings weren't generally taken as some sort of "argument from indesign" for the non-existence of God. If Darwin had actually been shouting "God does not exist!" from his soapbox, any misgivings he had about Christianity wouldn't have been news.

Obviously my reading of the responses to Darwin and his writings indicate otherwise. When I wrote my first post referencing Darwin, I had thought that he explicitly stated that the lack of design in creation defeats Christian apologetics. I remember Darwin saying this, and the only place I've found it written explicitly is in the autobiography. I've scanned through Origin of Species and The Rise of Man today and can't find the specific treatment that I recall, but I'm reasonably confident that Darwin understood his work as explicitly against Christianity - perhaps I should say the existence of the Christian God rather than the existence of God. I am certainly, clearly, within this perspective in my constant reference to Christian apologetics.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Which is all fine and good, but that's not the point that I challenged you on, remember?

Sure. I simply think that your challenge has failed. Nevertheless, I am exploring my thinking and am attempting to clarify myself if I think it's needed. I'm also not just responding to you alone when I respond to your posts... I'm trying to answer in such a way that less significant questions from others are addressed as well.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Obviously my reading of the responses to Darwin and his writings indicate otherwise. When I wrote my first post referencing Darwin, I had thought that he explicitly stated that the lack of design in creation defeats Christian apologetics. I remember Darwin saying this, and the only place I've found it written explicitly is in the autobiography.

Defeating Christian apologetics is not the same thing as denying the existence of God. Whatever his personal feelings, it seems to me that he structured his arguments to allow for the message "your God doesn't work the way you think He does" just as much as "your God simply isn't there".

I've scanned through Origin of Species and The Rise of Man today and can't find the specific treatment that I recall, but I'm reasonably confident that Darwin understood his work as explicitly against Christianity - perhaps I should say the existence of the Christian God rather than the existence of God. I am certainly, clearly, within this perspective in my constant reference to Christian apologetics.

Sure, a Christian context is appropriate... Darwin lived and published his works in 19th Century England for a 19th Century English (or at least Western) audience. However, characterizing his writings as against the Christian Church works just as well as against the Christian God.

 

[Jose Fly]

The fact remains that despite what angellous asserted, Darwin never argued "the disorder of nature is proof that God doesn't exist".

 

[Random]

Darwinism cannot destroy faith in GOD, because a quintessential element of man's rationality is the identification of some aspect of the Self, usually the conscience, with GOD. Evolution, of any kind, does not threaten belief in higher powers @ all.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Defeating Christian apologetics is

not the same thing as denying the existence of God. Whatever his personal feelings, it seems to me that he structured his arguments to allow for the message "your God doesn't work the way you think He does" just as much as "your God simply isn't there".[/quote]

It is when the argument for that God's existence is based on what one thinks that God does. We're on the same page now I think.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

The fact remains that despite what angellous asserted, Darwin never argued "the disorder of nature is proof that God doesn't exist".

Try to keep up... see post #38.

 

[Jose Fly]

LOL! Um, #38 doesn't contain a single word from Darwin.

Your assertion remains unsubstantiated.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I can't believe I'm getting so much grief because of this quote. Darwin is referring here to William Paley's Natural Theology:

"The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection had been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws." (p.87)

According to the Christian apologists, it is God who designs! Darwin had to therefore completely rethink who he thought God was and never recovered from this. The God of Christian theology prior to this time can no longer exist.

 

[Jose Fly]

I can't believe you think "There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws" = "the disorder of nature is proof that God doesn't exist".

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I can't believe you think "There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws" = "the disorder of nature is proof that God doesn't exist".

Try again. I can't possibly imagine how you cannot understand that I am strictly limiting "existence" in terms of an argument from natural theology (eg., a theological/philosophical construct of Christian apologetics called "God" who Creates and designs everything in nature), despite my repeated attempts to bring clarity to this point. It's the arugment that is defeated, and Christians have been recycling it over and over again despite its being dead and being farther and farther removed from the ongoing efforts of science and philosophy.

When the Christian apologists argued that God could be found by reason, they opened themselves up to falsification. It did not come in force until Darwin, although it had been railed by some philosophers and scientists before that time. Darwin just poured salt in the open wound of natural theology, albeit reluctantly. He did have theological training, however, and did it consciously, which is a memorial to his courage and intellectual honesty.