I was really not sure where to do with this last concept blog, so I decided to step outside of my comfort zone. Let me explain. My mother was a Catholic and my father a protestant. Their children were baptized as Catholics and attended all of the Catholic rights. By the time they adopted me (I am the eldest child of their son) my mother had left the Catholic Church and she and my father had joined a local Southern Baptist church. They were zealous to say the least. Growing up there were very clear belief systems set up for me. I never had to think about what I believed, I just accepted it. I never (even as a teenager) questioned anything, I blindly accepted everything as fact and would defend it to a fault. When I was 23 I met my husband, who is Catholic but would never blindly believe anything. He began to challenge my beliefs, not in an effort to change them, but in an effort to help me feel and think on my own, to create a defense for those beliefs that wasn’t memorized.
So, this blog because another challenge for me. I decided to explore Charles Darwin (I hear my mother from 150 miles away snarling). Since the last several years have been dedicated to my journey of self discovery, I thought this would be an opportunity to explore one of “Christians’” the most despised scientists Charles Darwin.
I could not believe what I was reading. He was good man. Charles Darwin was smart and wise. His parents, although with church ties, encouraged him to be a free thinker (imagine that). He grew up in the church and going to Anglican schools. When Charles Darwin went on the Beagle, he often quoted the bible and told his comrades that a God was the lawmaker and the authority on morality. Through most of his life he believed that God used the principle of evolution for continued creationism. As he grew older and researched religion and science, his view began to change. He never denied that God was the ultimate lawmaker, but did not see evidence of “design” in the world around him. In his later days his family attended church and he took long walks, but remained close friends with the vicar. The Church of England did not always agree with Darwin’s theories or findings, but never accused him of any form of heresy. There were more liberal members of the clergy that found validity in his research and thought that his ideas and the Christian beliefs systems could complement each other.
After a life dedicated to research and discovery of the truth, Darwin struggled with the suffering he say amongst he species and began to question God as a deity (most of us can relate with the question “Why would an all powerful God allow such suffering?”).He never claimed himself as an atheist but wrote in 1879 “I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. – I think that generally ... an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.”
Today the world stands divided on the ideas and theories of Charles Darwin. Scientists hold him as influential, groundbreaking, and setting into motion modern science. The church (specifically Christian Churches) preaches that he was wrong, and encourages their congregation to dismiss his ideas as false. Some scoff at his name and hold tight to creationism.
I think there is room for both. I think that God is the creator and evolution/natural selection the vessel. I am learning that not everything is “black and white”, there is a lot of gray. Charles Darwin was an amazing man, good friend, loving husband, and very dedicated father. His children grew up to be free thinking and education. England honored him by burying him next to Issac Newton in Westminster Abby (a church).
In the great and eternal debate of evolution versus creationism there is no clear winner. Science and religion have the capacity to greatly complement each other. This is not a battle for “survival of the fittest”. (Another snarl from my mother)
This trailer is for a movie not released in the US, yet is shows a very human side of Darwin, likable.
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