How I came to believe (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, October 11, 2015, 12:31 (3114 days ago) @ David Turell

Perhaps this should be on the Darwin & Wallace thread, but we may as well stay here now!-David: I view Darwin as a person who fully opened up the discussion of evolution as a process to be studied. That is his claim to fame.
dhw: But you still refuse to condemn those who misrepresent his theory as an atheistic attempt to explain the origin of life.-DAVID: I admit that Darwin appears to have been an agnostic. His theory of chance evolution has provided ammunition for atheists. There is no misrepresentation. They are using his theory for their purposes.-In one breath you criticize Darwin for not dealing with the problem of the origin of life, and in the next you say that there is no misrepresentation when an author writes that Darwin's theory of evolution purports to explain the origin of life. Yes indeed, both theists and atheists misrepresent Darwin's theory for their purposes, and I remain mystified and slightly shocked that you continue to condone such distortions.
 
DAVID: Did Darwin ever say exactly what his firm beliefs were in his letters, which I have not reviewed?-He did not have firm beliefs. He fluctuated. That is because like the rest of us agnostics he saw both sides. Here is a helpful website:-	Darwin's views of religion: his agnosticism and...
www.victorianweb.org/science/darwin/religion2.htmlCached-QUOTE: In "Religion," the eighth chapter of The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, his son Francis claims that “in his published works he was reticent on the matter of religion — something not quite accurate because, as we shall see, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) does explicitly discuss this subject in relation to human evolution. But, as Francis points out, Darwin willingly explained his belief (or unbelief) in private letters and in the autobiography he wrote for his children. Thus, when asked about his views of religion by J. Fordyce, Darwin responded “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.” He then uses the term coined by T. H. Huxley, his follower and fierce advocate, when he continued, “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.” Similarly, when discussing the origins of the universe, he admitted, "I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.”