02/11/17 IN DARWIN’S OWN WORDS

02/11/17 IN DARWIN’S OWN WORDS

(7 denials of God’s word)

I read a portion of Charles Darwin's autobiography concerning his religious beliefs. This section of his book is actually titled, "Religious Beliefs." I did not take the time to record my observations concerning his beliefs, but as I continued to research, I came across others who did put his beliefs in summary.

The following overview is taken from an article (Darwin's Arguments Against God), written by Russel Grigg, in Creation Ministries International. I quote portions from seven of his nine points. These points are accurate, according to Darwin's own words.

This NOTE is intended to simply provide information and insight to Darwin’s anti-Christian world view. This is important to know, since Darwin is one of the main voices in Secular Humanism, and espoused by Public Education, raised against the Holy Bible and Christianity.

#1. Darwin rejected Genesis as true history.

Darwin asserted that different species originated by the extremely slow process of evolution. However, he knew that Genesis taught that God had created plants, animals and man by separate sudden commands. Both premises could not be true. So either his theory or Genesis was in error. Which? He wrote:

QUOTE ‘I had gradually come, by this time [i.e. January 1839, when he was 29—Ed.], to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow as a sign, etc., etc., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos [sic], or the beliefs of any barbarian.’4

#2. Darwin rejected the miraculous in Christianity.

Concerning ‘the miracles with which Christianity is supported’, he wrote,

QUOTE ‘[T]he more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become,—that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,—that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events,—that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses;—by such reflections as these … I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.’4

#3. Darwin resented the biblical doctrine of future judgment.

He wrote,

QUOTE ‘I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.’4

#4. Darwin thought that natural selection rendered design redundant.

He wrote,

QUOTE ‘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 has 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. … Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.’4,7

#5. Darwin thought that natural selection, rather than belief in God, could account for both the happiness and the misery in the world.

He wrote,

QUOTE ‘If the truth of this conclusion be granted [i.e. that there is more happiness than misery in the world], it harmonises well with the effects which we might expect from natural selection. If all the individuals of any species were habitually to suffer to an extreme degree they would neglect to propagate their kind … .’

He then added that many sentient beings ‘occasionally suffer much. Such suffering, is quite compatible with the belief in Natural Selection, which is not perfect in its action … .’

He continued,

‘A being so powerful and so full of knowledge as a God who could create the universe, is to our finite minds omnipotent and omniscient, and it revolts our understanding to suppose that his benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time?’4

(#s 6 and 7 were of little interest to this post)

#8. Darwin discounted man’s ability to reason.

Darwin acknowledged that a ‘First Cause’ was a more impressive idea than blind chance, but then wrote,

QUOTE ‘[C]an the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?’4

#9. Darwin thought that belief in God was the result of ‘constant inculcation’ of children.

He wrote,

QUOTE ‘[I]t would be as difficult for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a monkey to throw off its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake.’4