Darwin Versus Christ
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Presentations / Evolution / Darwin Versus Christ

As Darwin explained (in 1876): “[There is an] extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist. This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I can remember, when I wrote the Origin of Species, and it is since that time that it has very gradually, with many fluctuations, become weaker. . . .

The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us, and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.”

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On September 28, 1881 (less than seven months before his death), Darwin was visited by Edward Aveling and Ludwig Büchner, who had come to London to attend the Congress of the International Federation of Freethinkers.

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After eating they adjourned to the smoking room.

“They lit cigarettes and Darwin, completely out of character, pitched in. ‘Why do you call yourselves atheists?’ In his dotage, forty years since his covert notebook days, he finally dragged the issue into

the open. He preferred the word agnostic, he said.”

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