Trawling through the blogs on Darwin Day, February 12th, the 202nd anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, I came across a photograph of someone proudly flying an atheist flag -- white with a big red "A" -- and started to wonder just how appropriate this action was. Don't get me wrong. If someone wants to fly a flag saying "Bring Back George W. Bush," I am all for their right to do so. But it doesn't mean to say that I am terribly keen on it, and I am not sure that I am terribly keen on atheist flags on Darwin Day. (To be frank, I am not terribly keen on Darwin Day itself -- it is a bit too parallel to Christmas Day for my tastes. Celebrating the birth of the founder of our religion and that sort of thing.)
Let me say the following things. First, Charles Darwin himself would be embarrassed greatly by atheist flags associated with him, especially atheist flags flown in celebration of his birthday. He was an upper-middle-class, English gentleman, and one simply did not flaunt religion, for or against, in that sort of way. I think the Darwin family always found Thomas Henry Huxley a bit vulgar because of that. Certainly, on a day-to-day basis, Darwin's best friend was the local vicar. They may have disagreed, but they were fellow gentlemen and being rude in public about the beliefs of the other was simply not done. In later life, Darwin did not conceal his thinking but he was certainly not about to make a spectacle of it.
Second, Darwin never became an atheist. He started as a sincere member of the Church of England, accepting the thirty-nine articles, and intending himself to become a parson. His beliefs started to change and fade during the Beagle voyage, and for many years -- including the years of writing and publishing the Origin -- he was some kind of deist, accepting a God who set things in motion and who did not then interfere. Darwin became more and more alienated from Christianity, mainly (with many other Victorians) on theological grounds. He could not accept the doctrine of eternal punishment for non-believers. Later in life, certainly the last decade, Darwin became an agnostic. But that was the limit of his non-belief.
Third, there is no doubt that by the time of writing the Descent of Man, in 1871, Darwin was pretty unconvinced that any religion around today really would work or be true. He spends a lot of the Descent not just accepting morality but trying to show how it came about through natural selection, and why overall it is a good thing. Religion also gets a naturalistic explanation, but basically as a side-effect of the evolutionary process. Darwin likens religious belief to the mistakes that his dog made in thinking a parasol blowing in the wind is alive. Darwin stresses that this doesn't necessarily make religion false but he certainly leaves the impression that he doesn't rate it highly. I would say that his treatment of religion is about at the level of Dan Dennett in Breaking the Spell. (I am not now making a personal judgment on either Darwin or Dennett.)
Fourth, I personally agree with Richard Dawkins. After Darwin and only after Darwin was it possible to be an intellectually respectable atheist. Before Darwin the argument from design simply could not be ignored. After Darwin showed how, thanks to natural selection, you can get design-like effects without a designer, that was the end of the argument -- and attempts at revival by physicists through the so-called anthropic principle are doomed to failure. I don't think that showing that the argument from design doesn't work now means that one should be an atheist. But I do think it makes it possible to be one.
So I guess in the end I think that if someone wants to fly an atheist flag on Darwin's birthday -- I mean specifically in celebration of Darwin's birthday -- there is some reason why it is appropriate to do so. But I wouldn't, because I think the issues are more complex and should not be glossed over. Although I will say that if some evangelical calls to congratulate me on making a wise choice, I shall be hauling out a bed-sheet and that old, red, flannel nightgown and making my own flag. Ultimately, I am just not a gentleman like Charles Darwin.
Roy Speckhardt: Celebrating Darwin Day
Charles Darwin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online
Darwin | American Museum of Natural History
A Nationwide Day for Honoring Charles Darwin, but Handled With Caution
I find some atheists, like some homose*uals or some puritans of any idea, purely PER*VERTS, with pathological insecurities that are also found very much among religious preachers of all sort...the pathological need for CONVINCING others or CONVERTING others to a belief no matter how right we may be. That said, not all or most atheists are that way, that's for sure.
In everything I have read about Darwin, he steadfastly resisted any and all religiously influenced interpretations on any topic. Simply by omitting references to God in the first draft of Origins he took a firm atheist stand against the norms of the time. Openly admitting or even giving the appearance of atheism was asking for trouble in those days, and I'm sure Darwin did not want the reception of his science undermined by such scandal. I don't think we know with anything like the certainty expressed here that Darwin was not an atheist.
Actually there is a bit of mythology surrounding Darwin, now that I think of it. It's the mythology of anti-evolutionists who claim that the scientific community worships Darwin.
So, where does that leave God? And, who or, what is God in the first place? Children know God by natural instinct and don't need to "led to the Lord" by anyone because God is within each of us. It's just that people who have lost their faith (adults) drive the God concept out of their children in order to conform to the "ways of the world" which is a "dog eat dog" mentality.
Somewhere along the line we start to intellectualize God; start to think of God as something we need to "search for". Native Americans know God as "The Great Spirit" and that's all you need to know. The rest is a waste of time. But, money grubbing thieves will find a way to make a buck by selling the God concept to anyone foolish enough to listen.
But, belief in God is not enough in some ways because, there also is evil in the world. That's something God gave us to make life "interesting" - and deadly. So my overarching question to God is, what's the point?
Because neither theists nor atheists are capable of proving their OPINIONS on the subject. But at least theists are honest with themselves about it...and call their beliefs a "faith".
Kudos to Prof. Ruse for pointing out the logical fallacy that so many atheists engage in. Just because have a model that describes a way that something can occur without a Creator, does not mean that a Creator must therefore not exist.
That is as flawed an argument as insisting that just because you can get plants to grow without gardeners or farmers that therefore gardeners and farmers must not exist either.
The God question is simply not objectively solvable. The problem is not religion...it is that so many people treat their religious OPINIONS (including the decision NOT to believe) as if they were FACTS, rather than an unprovable-but-strongly-held opinion.
"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time." -Bertrand Russell
Sometimes opinions are drawn from conclusions, not from elitist thinking but logic.
If plants can grow without a gardener (God), then a gardener is irrelevant, redundant.
"FACTS, rather than an unprovableÂ-but-stronÂgly-held opinion". No argument for God stands up to scrutiny.
Because what one is resisting is still being given rent-free space in one's head.
There is still no better way to explain a path from biological simplicity to complex diversity than evolution by natural selection.
Maybe the guy is proud to be an atheist.
I am an atheist, but when I lived in TN/GA I was not going to put any type of Darwin/Atheism Emblem on my car because of vandalism.
When I worked in TN, I got an email from the company saying there was a prayer meeting. Ugh