Lecture 15: Darwin and Religion PDF

Lecture 15: Darwin and Religion Some people think of Darwin as a sort of saintly figure. Pope Darwin. As the pope of science. Whereas others see him very differently. As Hitler with Wallace beside him (like a devil). In the book, Parsons, 30 second theories in 2010, Darwin punching God “The theory o...

Lecture 15: Darwin and Religion Some people think of Darwin as a sort of saintly figure. Pope Darwin. As the pope of science. Whereas others see him very differently. As Hitler with Wallace beside him (like a devil). In the book, Parsons, 30 second theories in 2010, Darwin punching God “The theory of evolution by natural selection is a knockout punch for religion. It’s able to explain the emergence of complex organisms that were previously thought to require a Creator”. Creation (2009) 🡪 scene with Huxley, Hooker and Darwin (this movie is made up, Darwin did not kill god Darwin’s background ● Darwin was born in a middle-class English family. ● Mother – sincere devout Christian a sort. But from a Unitarian church, more concerned about personal beliefs and feelings rather than the details. ● Interesting thing – his father is a free thinker, quite unusual those days. ● Grandfather is free thinker too, may be even atheist. ● Darwin was baptised. A proper member of a church of England, The Parish Church of St. Chad’s, seen in The Parish Register of Christenings and Burials gives the following entry for 15 November 1809 ● The Unitarian Chapel, Shrewsbury. Darwin was taken to church here by his mother until her death in 1817. ● Darwin went to Christ’s college, Cambridge with intention to become clergyman in church of England. His destiny. In fact, even his father’s idea. ● Respectable profession The Beagle voyage ● Never took the divinity route. ● During his voyage, he was perfectly orthodox in his Christian beliefs ● “Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves orthodox christian) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality.” ▪ He even quoted the Bible during the Beagle ● At the end of his life, he is not conventional religious believer. ● What made him change his mind? What it changes to? This are what is being debated. Anne Elizabeth ‘Annie’ Darwin (1841 – 1851) , Darwin’s second child ● For many years this is held up as the explanation. The death of his favourite Child, Anne. She died when she was ten. (FALSE ASSUMPTION, THIS DID NOT MAKE DARWIN LOSE HIS RELIGION) ● This led to the theory that her death killed Darwin’s faith. ● She suffered a lot and finally died. Darwin and his wife very devastated. ● The explanation of his daughter’s death – does not appear anywhere for a century. Should make us suspicious of this explanation. ● First suggestion that Annie's death did it: a 1982 remark of historian James Moore, apparently conjecture: ▪ "Perhaps it was the "bitter and cruel" death in 1851 of ten-year-old Annie, his favourite child, just a month after he had read the moral challenge to that doctrine in Francis Newman's "excellent" spiritual autobiography, Phases of Faith, that prompted Darwin, as he later said, to give up Christianity once and for all." ▪ Where do this view come from? ▪ The word ‘perhaps’ ● Darwin did read that book. A full statement of this Annie theory came in 1989, in a Moore book chapter: Of love and death: Why Darwin ‘gave up Christianity’. ● In the book, there was 2 reasons on why Annie’s death was the key to Darwin’s apostasy (renounce of one’s faith) ▪ 1) Proximity of Annie and religion in the Autobiography ▪ 2) Darwin was still reading books on religion in the 1840s and 1850s (he assumed that Darwin reading about religion means he is still religious) 🡪 no, as Darwin was still reading about religion a year before his death ● Now it is not a suggestion. But presented as a fact. ● He points out the close discussion of Annie and religion in Darwin’s autobiography ● He argues that Darwin couldn’t be irreligious if he is still reading books on religion till Anne’s death The 1991 biography by Desmond and Moore ● Full mature of this view that Annie made Darwin no longer religious is in this book. ● “For him, the death marked an impasse and a new beginning. It put an end to three years’ deliberations about the Christian meaning of mortality; I opened a fresh vision of the tragic contingency of nature. Annie’s cruel death destroyed Charles’s tatters of belief in a moral, just universe.” ● A large burden of conjecture rests on questionable interpretations of so few facts… In the years since no fresh evidence has emerged… ● Nowhere in the millions of written words by Darwin that survive did he ever indicate that Annie's death had anything to do with his loss of faith… ● This biography was dramatic and moving so it become popular When did Darwin begin to have doubts about Christianity? ● Darwin was never very religious in the first place even though he wants to be a clergyman. ▪ ‘I do not think that the religious sentiment strongly developed in me’ – using phrenologist language ● He did write in his autobiography that after the voyage he began to think deeply about religion. ▪ In his Autobiography, Darwin reported that it was in 1836-9, after his return from the Beagle that he began to think deeply about religion: ● ● ● ● ▪ "During these two years I was led to think much about religion." ▪ But these dates were dismissed by Moore as a mistake In 1838, Darwin wrote in his Journal: "All September read a good deal on many subject: thought much upon religion. Beginning of October ditto." James Moore dismissed these statements. ▪ He claims that the standard version of his autobiography, the dates don’t appear. (published by Nora) ▪ Darwin’s son Frances Darwin wrote that these 3 years were 1836 to 1839, Moore thought it was unreliable but it appeared in Darwin’s notes The Autobiography, as published by Nora Barlow in 1958, omits these dates that Darwin wrote in the original manuscript In Darwin’s autobiography 🡪 The fact that Darwin's views had shifted from "orthodox" to "doubts" by 1838 is clear as he recalled from a conversation with his father: ● “Before I was engaged to be married [November 1838], my father advised me to conceal carefully my doubts.” ▪ He obviously has some serious doubts about religion that his father tells him to conceal it. ▪ Because his father had seen how a disbeliever husband and believing wife cause a lot of problems ● BUT Darwin did tell his doubts. He was very open and transparent. ● We have her letters to him. But not his letters to her. ● Emma’s letters show he did not conceal. She regretted that ‘our opinions on the most important subject should differ widely” and she refers to Darwin’s ‘honest and conscientious’ doubts. ● A big clue: ‘danger in giving up revelation’. Revelation means the bible, believing that the bible is the message revealed by God for humanity. ▪ This means Darwin did consider giving religion up in 1838 but his daughter died in 1851 Biblical criticism (biblical scholarship) 🡪 important background lect 12/13 ● Late 1700s to early 1800s ● People like Darwin learned that what these scholars said is true. ● They were not saying the bible is disproved but the message is that intellectuals were saying “it’s all more complicated than we thought”. ● Darwin is in the more sceptical side. ● Most of the reasons Darwin gave in his Autobiography for his loss of faith were about evidence and comparative anthropology: ▪ His awareness of the wide variety of religious beliefs both spatially around the globe and chronologically across human history. He thus took a universal and general, as opposed to local or Eurocentric, view towards religious beliefs. 🡪 mind is blocked if you think that human is superior ▪ This is consistent with his study of species across space and time and his frequent remarks in his private notes of humans being just another species. ● Darwin was well read and well-travelled. ● His view of species influenced. Everyone think the same way about religion, my religion is the true one. Why should my religion be special? Why should man be special species? ▪ Darwin was dethroning human beings as superior (the same way he is dethroning his religion) The reasons Darwin listed why he was losing faith / loss of faith: ● Most of the reasons Darwin gave in his Autobiography for his loss of faith were about evidence and comparative anthropology ● 1) “The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me. ● 2) By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite (required) to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported ● 3) That the more we know of the fixed law of nature, the more incredible (uncreditable) do miracles become - influence of the tradition of natural laws. ● 4) That the men at that time (time of new testament) were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us ● 5) That the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events (views of the biblical scholarship) ● 6) That they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitnesses. ● 7) 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”. ▪ Harshest thing Darwin anything would have written ▪ Darwin’s wife was religious 🡪 unitarian (didn’t believe that there is an afterlife) ● 8) “By such reflections as these, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.” ● 9) “Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct.” ▪ His daughter death was very distressing 🡪 but in this line he said not distressing ● One of the harshest things Darwin write. ● What is this ‘conclusion’? ● What he doesn’t believe is not stated. ● Chambers, Herschel, etc are all into this new religion – the law of nature. ● The wife did not like Darwin’s harsh view to be publicly published. When did Darwin stop attending church? ● Darwin was an active member of his village and committees. For his social class, is normal and shows us that he is not anti-church. Randal Keynes, Annie's box (2001) 🡪 book by someone writing about Darwin stopped attending church ● Randal is a great great grandson of Darwin. (Retired civil man of UK) ● He found a box kept by the family. Which inspired him to do his research. ● He introduces a new part of the story. After Anne’s death, Darwin stopped attending church. Popular view but not true ● He claims that “After Annie’s death, Charles set the Christian faith firmly behind him. He did not attend church services with the family; he walked with them to the church door but left them to enter on their own and stood talking with the village constable or walked along the lanes around the parish”. ▪ Sounds plausible but a problem. There is only one piece of evidence. Yes, his family continue to go to church but to say it is after Annie’s death is saying something more. ● The only source is a recollection from a village constable. ▪ The man did not come to the village until 20 years after Anne’s death. ▪ This man was a free-thinker himself Darwin saw his own loss of faith as part of a social context in which: ● “Nothing is more remarkable than the spread of scepticism or rationalism during the latter half of my life.” – his loss of faith was similar to friends and family in late Victorian Britain ▪ Common thing at the end of the century that people were losing their faith ▪ Typical amongst men that there is some crisis of faith. ▪ No sudden crisis of faith for Darwin. ● According to Darwin it was his gradual appreciation that his former beliefs were not supported by sufficient evidence and indeed that the available evidence of many kinds allowed for the belief in a creator as first cause but that as far as could be demonstrated by science, “Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.” ▪ Laws of nature (darwin’s belief) ● Darwin’s experience is not unique or special. ▪ One reason for his disbelief 🡪 my father, brother and best friends (he wrote in his reasons that many people like him did not believe in Christianity) Was Darwin an atheist? (Absence in belief of deities / Not believer of god 🡪 atheist is a dirty word in that time, lowest form of scum) In a letter in 1879 to John Fordyce, an author of works on scepticism, Darwin wrote: ● “[My] judgment often fluctuates…. Whether a man deserves to be called a theist (believe in a God) depends on the definition of the term … In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. — I think that generally (and more and more so as I grow older), but not always, ● ● ● ● ● ● — that an agnostic (unsure if there is a God) would be the most correct description of my state of mind.” (first published in 1883) ▪ Fordyce tried to make Darwin say he is an atheist. ▪ But Darwin used the word wrong 🡪 he is NOT an agnostic (not one way or another) His view of God – deistic. Deism – there was a supernatural being who might have created universe and the laws. Nothing he said is original that has not been said by others. Darwin does not believe in God (in terms of Christianity), but he believed in a supernatural being who created nature and the Laws of nature Darwin believed in the form of intelligent design. Darwin is comparing belief in god to an inherent instinct. By inculcating children to believe in God, it becomes an instinct. 2nd time Darwin called himself an agnostic in his Autography Theist or agnostic? Are they the same thing? ‘Agnostic’ a term coined in 1869 by T. H Huxley ● ‘Agnostic’ a term coined in 1869 by Huxley, one feels one cannot know one way or the other. ▪ I don’t have knowledge to know god exists but I don’t have evidence to know god doesn’t exists 🡪 a clever way to say “I know better than you” on whether god exists or not ▪ Even Darwin has used this word ● Huxley is fiery argumentative intellectual. ● But he is a freethinker/sceptic. ● saying he have insufficient evidence to believe. Nostic 🡪 knowledge ● Mid Victorian period – the word atheist is the most negative word to attribute to a person. No one called themselves an atheist. They use other words like free thinker, disbeliever, sceptic etc… ● Not respectable title. Most respected title is orthodox belief. ● Huxley was on the most sceptical side of the spectrum. ● He wants to think of a new name that is respectable. Means I wash my hands from this debate. I stand above it. Very clever move. Caught on with people of similar persuasion. But over years the meaning changes. ● Another aspect of Darwin’s belief is a philosophical issue. The existence of pain in nature. How do you reconcile pain and disease in nature with ….? ● Letter from Huxley to Darwin, he drew a sketch of the German scientist that want to worship Darwin at his feet The Edward Aveling (first atheist in this module) interview ● Whether Darwin is agnostic or atheist? ▪ 1880, 2 years more to live. Very unlikely lunch guests. Include 2 atheists. Darwin 1 generation older than them. Darwin was a good sport 🡪invited local victor, which is the village priest to the lunch / interview with Aveling as well These men were pushing atheistic agenda. The religious views of Charles Darwin, 1883, Aveling The conversation after lunch ▪ Why do you call yourselves atheists? - Darwin ▪ Aveling told Darwin, an agnostic is a respectable way of saying atheist. Atheist is only agnostic in aggressive language ▪ Darwin asked – Why should you be so aggressive and if theres anything to be gained by forcing new ideas on people? Free thought is “all very well” for the educated, but are ordinary people “ripe for it?” ▪ Darwin admitted that Christianity was not ‘supported by evidence.’ – to Aveling’s delight, the man he worshipped (Darwin) said ▪ “I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age” (meaning stop going to church but still believes) 🡪 Aveling was delighted and relieved that Darwin said he gave up Christianity. ● He gave up his belief before 40 years old (maybe he meant he stopped going to church) ▪ Darwin’s son said Aveling’s record of Darwin was accurate / reliable (HE WAS IN THE ROOM) ● 1838, 1849, 1851 🡪 these were the end dates that people say he gave up Christianity Darwin’s view of religion is private. He never makes public comment. In SPECIES, he mentioned the creator many times. He really believes it. Aveling was not a respectable person. The word atheist was disrespectable. Aveling was a forger. Good at mimicking handwriting. Aveling married daughter of Karl Marx. After Marx death, he forged a few things to make money. For many years, it is believed Marx sent his book to Darwin to be dedicated to him. But it was Aveling who wrote it. But Darwin declined. Marx did send his book to Darwin. Darwin’s copy of Marx book not cut (not read), he was not interested. It was clear from the evidence that Darwin gave up on faith before Annie died, even before Annie was born. When he said, ‘I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age”, he meant when he stopped going to church. ▪ ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Old philosophical issue – the cruelty of nature, existence of pain and suffering in nature. ● Darwin reminded his readers not to overlook cruelty of nature – it was not just flowers and sunshine ● Darwin – his whole theory is about struggle, pain, conflict and suffering. ● Darwin very aware of this. The entire natural world, every single day is full of blood ● Darwin finds it impossible to reconcile it with the belief of a well-meaning God ▪ God intentionally plan to make nature this way??? 🡪 Darwin asked this (but he doesn’t think so) ● Darwin found it some consolation to regard the staggering amount of pain and suffering in the world as the result of laws of nature rather than the direct will of God. 🡪 it is laws of nature, not god that brings these suffering – Darwin’s take on nature ● But he also insisted that he was not an authority on religion. 🡪 he is a man of science ● Darwin did have a kind of faith that despite all these, the outcomes of law of nature is overall finally good. ● His ultimate faith on nature, despite of the deaths and pains, is overall, good. Because the diseased, weak preys are captured 🡪 filtering out pains and sufferings Burial in Westminster Abbey, 1882 ● Buried in Westminster Abbey. Head church of national church. ● A state funeral. 🡪 greatest honour bestowed upon (public way of church that is saying he is one of us) ▪ Long before this, fight against evolution was over ▪ Nowadays church of England still show him as important ▪ Shows how he wasn’t against church or religion (if not the church won’t honour him) ● NOT TRUE: Deathbed conversation of him converting back to Christianity ▪ What difference will that make evolution? No. Book wrote about it 🡪 the Darwin legend Common viewpoints by the 1870s-1890s ● God or a creator made the universe and the laws of nature which are so perfect that they need no further interference. 🡪 didn’t think that god interfered or changed the reality ● Darwin’s theory showed that biology too, like astronomy, chemistry, geology etc., was under the control of natural laws. ● Humans were descended from earlier forms like all other animals and plants. ▪ But perhaps God or a creator had then given humans something special? (some people thought) 🡪 how people reconcile their beliefs of evolution and religion ● But evolution, like gravity or the roundness of the earth, was established in science. ● Darwin accepted the first two points. ● Third point: Society accepted the first part. ● Evolution is now an accepted thing, just like gravity. ● Reverend Charles Kingsley: “he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.” 🡪