Charles Robert Darwin must have imagined, from the beginning, that his Theory of Evolution was going to fall like an explosive bomb on the established foundations of the Christian faith. Was Darwin an atheist? In the following Supercurioso article we will try to answer this question and to get a more accurate idea of this scientist's thought.
Evolution is one of the scientific concepts that most collide with the church, so when Charles Darwin published in 1859 "About the origin of the species" , one began to see, with perplexity, that there was a certain similarity between his theory and what the Bible explained. It is understood, by that theory, that Darwin has a non-religious view of the world but in reality what Charles Darwin had was a complex vision of religion, which leads us to wonder if he was an atheist Darwin.
Was Darwin atheist or did he want peace over belief?
Charles Darwin He was always an extremely introverted man. The only indications of feelings are in the form of private letters that he sent and received from admirers, critics and his wife, Emma. His wife Emma was a religious, who strengthened that faith when the daughter of the couple of only 10 years old passed away. Darwin never hid his wife's opinions about her faith and, although the letters he sent her have not survived over the years, hers can show us their feelings about it:
"My reason tells me that honest and conscious doubts can not be a sin, but I think it would be a painful void between us. I sincerely appreciate your frankness with me and I do not want to have the feeling that you hide your opinions. For fear of causing me pain ... my dear Charley now we belong and I can not help being honest with you ".
In 1878, four years before his death, a young man asked him to explain whether evolution could destroy the existence of God . Darwin replied: "The strongest argument for the existence of God is the instinct or the intuition that we all feel must have been an intelligent principle of the Universe, but then comes the doubt and the difficulty of whether such intuitions are trustworthy ... No a man who does his duty has something to fear, and can expect what he wants. "
Over the years they had softened their opinion of religion, but was he still an atheist Darwin? Two years later, in 1880, with another reader, he was not so generous: "Dear sir," he wrote, "I'm sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, and therefore not in Jesus Christ as the son of God. " We still extract more clues from letters sent to your friends in the following years. The pro-Darwinist evolutionary atheist Edward Aveling, wrote: "Always It has been my goal to avoid writing about religion , and I have limited myself to science. However, I may have been unduly predisposed by the pain I would give to some members of my family if it helped in some way to directly attack the religion. "
In other words, if it was Darwin atheist, I was not ready to tell the world about it . For him it was more important to maintain peace than to profess his beliefs.
Faith versus evidence
Science is the result of the exercise of reason, of evidence, while faith, by its own definition, is something irrational, is to believe without evidence, to follow what can not be seen or demonstrated.
At the end of his life, Darwin surely became more agnostic that in non-believer, as they gather their words: "In my most extreme fluctuations, I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God". On one occasion he wrote: "I think that in general (and more and more as I get older), being an agnostic would be the most correct description of my mood."
This feeling is shared with some important scientific figures as agnosticism becomes popular among scientists, because science requires that the trial be withheld before all the evidence is inside. So, since faith is outside the scope of evidence, many people consider agnosticism to be the most scientific stance. As good examples of this affirmation we have a Albert Einstein , who was similarly complex in his views on religion, or Carl Sagan and Neil DeGrasse Tyson , astrophysicists who declared themselves openly agnostic.
Although the theory of evolution and religion can sometimes clash, Charles Darwin himself was not someone who was openly against religion, as they were often separated by very thin lines. What Darwin would have never imagined is that, in the midst of the 21st century, 150 years later, the flames of this controversy have not yet died down.
What do you think about Darwin and his Theory of Evolution? Do you consider yourself a believer, an atheist, an agnostic? What thought do you feel most identified with?