"Chip Bartholomay" wrote in message
...
RW wrote:

Odd that nowhere in these exerpted passages does he actually
state that he
did
not believe in any god or gods. He was at most an agnostic,
leaning more
towards deisim than atheism.

Unbelievable.

Maybe the quotation was a little too long for you to follow. Here's
an
excerpt:

"Thus 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 for a single second that my conclusion was correct. 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...."

He couldn't have been more clear.

Yep. He was writing about Christianity. That is quite clear. Of
course,
Christianity is not the only religion, nor does an apparent
rejection of
Christianity automatically mean that he was an athiest. As I said,
he was
probably at best an agnostic leaning towards deism.

Stevie doesn't read very well. Don't be surprised if he still doesn't
get it.

But what does it matter? How do his personal beliefs alter in any
way his
theories, theories that have been modified over the intervening
years by
incorporation of new data, but that still stand as the best and
most plausible
explanations for the mechanisms of evolution?

Correct, none of it matters within the context of his work. This
little subtext is a debate begun when I responded to Chas Wade's post
in which he pointed to Galileo and Darwin as examples of the putative
discord between science and religious orthodoxy. I pointed out that
both actually had a lot of clerical support even in their own times,
and that most religious organizations today don't have much of a
problem with evolutionary theory. Stevie, who doesn't read very well,
and argues even more poorly, responded characteristically by doing a
tarantella, in several parts, on his dick. You'll get used to it
after a while.

Wolfgang