Re: Book recommendations


"Ray Martinez" <pyramidial@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:d7d61b62-d479-4426-910f-e3e2bea4b1fa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Sep 10, 2:00 pm, Therion Ware <autodel...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
snip


As Darwin said:

"I am bewildered. I have no intention to write atheistically. But I
own that I cannot see as plainly as others, and as I should wish to
do,evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems
to me much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a
beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the
Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the
living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice "

The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, New York, Basic Books, 1958,
vol.1 p105- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

The quote says "but I did write atheistically....God did not design or
create anything...."

That's your rather poor interpretation of the quote. Incidentally, the
quote is from Vol 2, of The Life and Letters, not volume 1.

Actually, Darwin goes on to say: (continuing where the last quote left off)

"Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was
expressly designed. On the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view
this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude
that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at
everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good
or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this
notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too
profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind
of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can. Certainly I agree with
you that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical. The lightning
kills a man, whether a good one or bad one, owing to the excessively complex
action of natural laws. A child (who may turn out an idiot) is born by the
action of even more complex laws, and *I can see no reason why a man, or
other animal, may not have been aboriginally produced by other laws, and
that all these laws may have been expressly designed by an omniscient
Creator, who foresaw every future event and consequence.* But the more I
think the more bewildered I become ; as indeed I probably have shown by this
letter."

(my emphasis added)


Darwin is specifically stating that he can't rule out the idea that God
designed humans, or that he designed natural laws. He doesn't see a
reason to assume the eye was expressly designed, much as LaPlace didn't
require the hypothesis of divine action, but Darwin is not hostile to the
idea of such. He states that his ideas are not "at all necessarily
atheistical" (something I've been trying to get Ray to understand for some
time).


DJT

.

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