lpetrich

That's the old view that religion is desirable as the Opium of the People. Yes, desirable as that.

A view which has had such eminent advocates as Plato and Machiavelli.

Brahma's atheist

from what I've learned Darwin was a Christian. He was really worried about publishing his work. A contemporary had been labelled the Devil's Chaplain and he didn't want to be labelled this. He had trained to be a cleric but I think he gave it up. He delayed publishing for almost 30 years. After his daughter died he became disillusioned and that was one of the things that spurred him to publish. Also his ill health, he might not live to publish.
His wife was a Wedgewood and she was veery Christian. His friend the sea captain(Arrr!) on the Beagle was very Christian and ended up killing himself partly over Darwins theory.

Brahma's atheist

I just read my post, a bit incoherent.

lpetrich

True, he had once tried to become a clergyman, but he reportedly had gotten bored by theology.

But in his later years, his writings suggest that he had become a deist/agnostic, with scattered references here and there to a "Creator" who does not do very much, and whom Darwin does not try to worship.

davidH

Ah yes, the usual arguement.
Darwin's "family" deny the death bed conversion.

You have been stating here that Henrietta Lichfield denied Darwin's conversion. In my previous post I address some of what she said in her book "The Scotsman".

"Denied by Henrietta Lichfield in "The Scotsman" that there was such a thing as a summer house in Darwin's garden.

But Sir Hedley Atkins said there was a summer house - he should know because he was the curator of the Down House Museum and Darwin lived at Down's house.

"There was a summer house at the end of the sandwalk on Darwin's estate."

"Perhaps Henrietta was carried away by her indignation."

Caught out by the curator. So why did Henrietta want to deny the story at all costs?
Would she lose something if people rejected her Father's theory because he rejected it?
Would it damage her reputation?

Another thing - when you quote from Darwin's family - have you any evidence from the wife of Darwin that he didn't become a Christian?

Also some of seem keen to play down Darwin's involvement in missionary work.

"He had nothing against them" etc.

But someone else posted up something else that Darwin had written (NB this was in his younger years - before he is said to have become a Christian.

And yet Darwin after writing all this is willing to support the work of Christian missionaries?
Maybe you don't quite realise how much he supported them - in 1867 his support started with a donation of £5 (that is more than £300 in today's money!)

Why would Darwin want to promote a religion that he himself had left and seen as lies.
"that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us"
And yet here we have Darwin giving £300 today's money in aid of the missionaries?

I think you will find that Darwin's ways and views were slowing changing. His support for the missionaries - his wife was a Christian - would therefore have gone to church. Was probably good friends with Lady Hope.
Darwin hated alcohol, Lady Hope was the leader of a group that tried to get people off drink. She worked in his village - no doubt Darwin got to see her.
His wife Emma writes about people becoming Christians at meetings (members of their household) and is supportive of it.

Darwin had plenty of oppurtunities to change his way - I believe that he did.

Granted that it is hard to tell which group is telling the truth. It is true that the Bible teaches Christians not to lie - but I cannot be sure without meeting Lady Hope where she stood.
Henrietta his daughter could be telling the truth but she could also be lying (I don't think she was a Christian). However since she was shown to be lying about the summer house by the fellow who worked there a question mark has to be put up.
However granted too that the curator himself could be lying in order to promote the story.
I have little time to research this more - though maybe sometime I will.
But I do consider Darwin's support of the missionaries as vital - and also what he says about them as I put in my last post. For that is evidence that is true and not false since the letters are there.

Darwin saying that he wouldn't have thought all the missionaries in the world being able to accomplish the task that was being done - I think is vital.
Darwin did stay with these people and so I think know that he would have witnessed the natives changed from their ways and also the churches there. I think Darwin saw God at work and that is why he said what he did.
Darwin also seemed glad with the work the missionaries were doing and that wouldn't be characteristic of him if he thought they were teaching lies.

I put it to you - would you give £300 to a missionary society?

It's maybe worth thinking about.

Also what do you think about Darwin saying this:

This is supported by Darwin's other statements about regretting the way people viewed his theory.

Did you know:
That Darwin was involved in the occult?
In 1857 he consulted a clairvoyant and in the years that followed he took part in seances and met mediums.

Whenever Darwin first visited a clairvoyant, she shrank back in terror and exclaimed that she could see within him "a most appalling picture of horrors".

I wonder if she saw the Nazi extermination camps, those that were killed by Karl Marz under the communist regeme....

Evolution was used in a terrible terrible way - it leads one to wonder that if Darwin and your other man had not published anything whether history would have been drastically changed.
Christianity was used in a similar way in the crusades against the muslims.

Anyone here read Dr Crofts book on Darwin becoming a Christian?

LordSnooty

Darwin was most definately NOT a Christian, as anyone who watched the recent BBC documentary on him would know.

This documentary examined his loss of faith, and at no point mentioned any reconversion. I think the BBC are rather more trustworthy than some Christian fundamentalists, desperate as they are to soil the good name of anyone that contradicts their faith.

The same thing happened to most of the famous agnostics following their death. Lying for Jesus has become quite a sport.

Paul

davidH

Then again the media are never biased are they?

If you look at my post on page 2 Paul you may find some things that maybe where not on the documentary. I myself never saw it - when was it on and what channel?

lpetrich

What editorial policy do you think the BBC has that would make it deny that Darwin had reconverted?

Except that that is totally out of character with the way that Darwin had worked. He had worked on evolutionary biology for something like 15 years before he decided to publish anything -- and that was out of fear of being scooped by Alfred Russel Wallace. And what he published, the Origin of Species, was an "abstract" that was 1/4 of its intended length.

DavidH, did you know that, before publishing the Origin of Species, Darwin had spent eight years writing four big tomes on barnacles?

And before that, he had occupied himself by writing about his Beagle voyage and about the formation of oceanic-island coral reefs.

So it was TOTALLY out-of-character for Darwin to publish theories without giving much thought to them. And what Darwin deplored was might-makes-right ideologues using his theories as support for their views. He compared such things to saying that Napoleon was right, and that every cheating businessman was right.

lpetrich

Chapter and verse, please.

Also, there has been a long history of pious fraudulence. Consider largely-fictional medieval-saint biographies and the superabundance of fake relics from back then. The Shroud of Turin was only one of many such objects.

And consider the "Donation of Constantine", that the Pope used to justify his temporal sovereignty over Rome and nearby areas, the "Papal States". That document has anachronisms that indicate that it had been composed some centuries after its alleged time.

And, of course, numerous deathbed recantations that had never happened.

So Lady Hope would only be carrying on a long tradition of pious fraudulence.

[ December 01, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

Daggah

I think from davidH's pathetic defense of his initial fraudulent claims that it can only be concluded that he is a liar.