Notice that this letter is kept secret for 100 years. He never stops being a Christian. Only hard superstitious belief counts as religion to you, apparently.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
This certainly puts an end to the watchmaker argument.
- Thread starter Twilight Hue
- Start date
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
But since he was an agnostic it would be more accurate to call Darwin an atheist than a theist.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Not religion. Just theism is privy with superstition.
Darwin is only a Christian in minds of people who just like to assume that. In the letter, and in his own handwriting he specifically states that he's not a Christian.
74x12
Well-Known Member
I don't see at all how this nullifies the watchmaker argument. You're using circular reasoning.
What I disagreed about was the claim made that accepting natural philosophy must be the same as atheism.
You've explained your own cult experiences which you related to everyone already. We remember and that you generalize from your experiences to miss-characterize theists who absolutely are theists but not superstitious and who accept natural philosophy. These you insist are atheists, but that's only because you don't apparently understand theism.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Well it's certainly not intelligent design and the subsequent arguments associated with irreducible complexity in support of a deity or similar.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Oh I understand theism well enough by which it's attributed to the belief in a supernatural God or deity. It's pretty self-explanatory.
gnostic
The Lost One
No, Darwin has never given up being a Christian. He was both Christian and agnostic.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Lol. You can certainly keep on believing that if you want. Even sprinkle some magic dust for good measure.
Darwin's letter pretty much closes the case on that rather silly notion.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Did you read his letter?
"Dear Sir,
I am sorry to have to
inform you that I do
not believe in the Bible
as a divine revelation
& therefore not in Jesus
Christ as the son of God.
Yours faithfully
Ch. Darwin"
Read more: A Letter About Darwin’s Belief in God Just Sold for Nearly $200,000 | Smart News | Smithsonian
That is about as clear of a statement as one can make that he is no longer Christian.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Who made that claim?
gnostic
The Lost One
I think I know the letter you are talking about.
In it, he denied being atheist , but that he was agnostic. But he didn’t actually renounced being a Christian, despite his move towards being agnostic.
Darwin did express his doubt about the Bible and about the dogmas in Christianity in general. But in his 1879’s letter to John Fordyce, he actually expressed that a person can still understand and accept evolution, while still following theism.
“Letter 12041 said:
Many of his contemporaries, were both biologists that accepted evolution and still be Christians.
gnostic
The Lost One
Ok, I must have a different letter, in which he never denied the existence of god.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Atheism is not a denial of the existence of god. It is a lack of belief in a god or gods.
One thing that you must be aware of is that the meaning of words change over time. In Darwin's time "race" and "species" were roughly synonymous. Today atheism is a much broader concept than it was in the past. Basically people are either theist, that means that they belief in a god or gods, or they are atheists, they lack such a belief. A person may be an agnostic theist or agnostic atheist, though most agnostics that I am aware of fit into the latter category.
Ponder This
Well-Known Member
LoL, it's an analogy - not an argument.
If you adhere to the belief that gears are designed...
then I'm afraid the bug with gears is a slam-dunk for the Watchmaker Analogy.
Every mechanical device designed by humans that is discovered to occur naturally affirms in the mind of the Creationist the correctness of his theory, because that was exactly the point of the analogy. Paley argued that finding things in nature (things akin to finding gears on bugs) were evidence of an intelligent designer!
The counter arguments to the Watchmaker Analogy don't rest on the discovery of such things as gears on bugs in nature. Moreover, the Watchmaker Analogy wasn't a counter argument to Evolution in the first place! The Watchmaker Analogy predates Darwin. Darwin rejected Paley's design in nature argument because of his theory of Natural Selection.
Do people even pay attention to each other's arguments anymore?
If you adhere to the belief that gears are designed...
then I'm afraid the bug with gears is a slam-dunk for the Watchmaker Analogy.
Every mechanical device designed by humans that is discovered to occur naturally affirms in the mind of the Creationist the correctness of his theory, because that was exactly the point of the analogy. Paley argued that finding things in nature (things akin to finding gears on bugs) were evidence of an intelligent designer!
The counter arguments to the Watchmaker Analogy don't rest on the discovery of such things as gears on bugs in nature. Moreover, the Watchmaker Analogy wasn't a counter argument to Evolution in the first place! The Watchmaker Analogy predates Darwin. Darwin rejected Paley's design in nature argument because of his theory of Natural Selection.
Do people even pay attention to each other's arguments anymore?
I read that...watched the video and wondered how it is supposed to disprove creation? This insect is designed and its functionality is planned...not due to a mutation, a fluke, or or an accident of nature......
If functional gears used by man are engineered for their purpose, and they have to be designed specifically to perform that function....how can you say that these are not?
I don't get it....?? You think they just happened by random chance? The watchmaker still stands in my book.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Organic mechanisms such as the gears discovered on the plant hopper nymph affirms that the process of evolution is the actual source by which it came about and certainly excludes the notion of intelligent design by any God or deity.
This discovery totally counters and puts to rest the watchmaker analogy by which creation or intelligent design has now been proven not to be a prerequisite in order for gears to randomly form. It doesn't support the watchmaker analogy , it effectively destroys it.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I read that...watched the video and wondered how it is supposed to disprove creation? This insect is designed and its functionality is planned...not due to a mutation, a fluke, or or an accident of nature......
If functional gears used by man are engineered for their purpose, and they have to be designed specifically to perform that function....how can you say that these are not?
You think they just happened by random chance? The watchmaker still stands in my book.
It's easy enough to observe. We already know how the gears form in the Plant Hopper nymph as the experts can trace the cladistics of the insect via its genome.
It's obviously not a result of a creation by a God or a deity. It's clearly the result of natural selection and adaptation to the environment of which the insect lives in to which the experts already know how the mutations occur that brought about the gears in the first place.
There are certainly no indicators of any divine guidance or design at play within the genome which pretty much kills the notion that a God or deity is proactively playing a role in its development. It comes about through genetic mutation for which the insect develops either an advantage or disadvantage in its environment and passes it on. We know this because evolution can be observed, and design has nothing to do with it.
It kills the notion of intelligent design because it's random genetic mutation , not divinity that results in what appears to be something intelligently designed but simply is not because of the random nature by which mutations occur that can be detrimental as well as beneficial for the organism.
If there's anything that "designs" it would be the environment and how the organism adapts via genetic mutation.
The watchmaker analogy/theory is just not relevant anymore in the argument for design. And that includes intentional genetic manipulation because it's still random and uncontrollable.
Your use of "random chance" indicates you don't understand the mechanisms of evolution -- and yet you declare them invalid and maintain magic as a more reasonable explanation.I read that...watched the video and wondered how it is supposed to disprove creation? This insect is designed and its functionality is planned...not due to a mutation, a fluke, or or an accident of nature......
If functional gears used by man are engineered for their purpose, and they have to be designed specifically to perform that function....how can you say that these are not?
You think they just happened by random chance? The watchmaker still stands in my book.
Irrigation ditches and canals are engineered and created by man. This does not mean a river can't occur naturally.
Many people walk about on artificial knee or hip joints. This is not evidence that natural joints must be similarly manufactured.
Sculptors carve stone into interesting shapes. This doesn't mean Nature can't do the same without planning or intention.
No biologist is claiming that joints, hearts or eyes develop by random chance. Just because you don't understand how animals, lightening or earthquakes occur, doesn't mean some invisible personage must be behind them.
I think no one made that claim, and I think I misunderstood something somebody said. Fencing with windmills! Sorry.