Did Darwin Kill God?

Fanny Cradock

I'm not sure if anyone watched Did Darwin Kill God? on BBC 2 earlier this evening.

From early Christianity, members of the Church like Augustine had warned that the bible - specifically with regards to creation - were not always to be read literally. The programme then briefly followed the role that Bishop Ussher played in birthing the notion that the earth was approximately 6,000 years old, and against this backdrop, how Darwin's ideas were received. Apparently the notion of evolution was accepted by most Christians and it really wasn't until America in the 20's and the ridiculous Scopes v. The State of Tennessee trial that the line in the sand was drawn. More recently this divide has been widened by the very public scrap between creationists and neo-Darwinists.


If you are living in the UK you can watch it on the Beeb's iPlayer whenever they get around to putting it up. Sadly it's only available to Her Majesty's subjects, so the rest of you will have to wait until it gets put up on Youtube.

The Mad Hatter

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

From early Christianity, members of the Church like Augustine had warned that the bible - specifically with regards to creation - were not always to be read literally. The programme then briefly followed the role that Bishop Ussher played in birthing the notion that the earth was approximately 6,000 years old, and against this backdrop, how Darwin's ideas were received. Apparently the notion of evolution was accepted by most Christians and it really wasn't until America in the 20's and the ridiculous Scopes v. The State of Tennessee trial that the line in the sand was drawn. More recently this divide has been widened by the very public scrap between creationists and neo-Darwinists.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by neo-Darwinist?

If you are living in the UK you can watch it on the Beeb's iPlayer whenever they get around to putting it up. Sadly it's only available to Her Majesty's subjects, so the rest of you will have to wait until it gets put up on Youtube.

So about ten minutes after, then?

robindch

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I'm not sure if anyone watched Did Darwin Kill God? on BBC 2 earlier this evening.

Saw most of what must have been the last ten minutes or so where the presenter dissed the idea of memes in a splendidly pretentious piece to camera in some rather nice-looking library somewhere.

As far as I could establish -- in between clearing away dinner and propping up my two-year old and pointing out the monkeys and other animals that showed up from time to time in the doc -- Cunningham seemed to think that since memes explain religion's transmission from human host to human host (thereby "proving" that religion is false), and noting that Theory of Evolution is a meme too, he concluded that the Theory of Evolution had disproved itself and therefore, memes do not explain religion. It was cringe-makingly basic error to make and given that the polychromatic Susan Blackmore was on just before, he certainly had the opportunity to fact-check before he committed his error to film.

I seem to remember that he asked somebody (was it Michael Ruse?) whether Evolution disproved god like Cunningham said that Dawkins says it does. Well, Dawkins doesn't say that in the general sense and I'd have expected that basic error to have been picked up either by Ruse or by Cunningham.

Anyhow, from the two bits that I saw, Cunningham missed the point of meme theory, failed to understand what he referred to as "ultradarwinism" and misrepresented Dawkins. None of which are very rare things, but I would have expected better from the BBC.

.

Zombrex

robindch wrote: »

Anyhow, from the two bits that I saw, Cunningham missed the point of meme theory, failed to understand what he referred to as "ultradarwinism" and misrepresented Dawkins.

So he would fit in well around these parts :pac:

PDN

Did God kill Darwin?

postcynical

PDN wrote: »

Did God kill Darwin?

Survival of the fittest.

Soulja boy

Nietzsche beat him to it.

PDN

Soulja boy wrote: »

Nietzsche beat him to it.

I'm pretty sure Darwin predeceased Nietzsche. And both of them predeceased God.

But Darwin sure is easier to spell.

hivizman

PDN wrote: »

I'm pretty sure Darwin predeceased Nietzsche. And both of them predeceased God.

But Darwin sure is easier to spell.

Yep, Darwin died on 19 April 1882, while Nietzsche didn't die until 25 August 1900. Nietzsche apparently first stated "God is dead" ["Gott ist tot"] in his book Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (translated as The Gay Science), which was published in the year of Darwin's death, 1882 (though I haven't found the exact day of publication).

Nietzsche argued that "we" had murdered God in the sense that the concept of God as the creator and sustainer of cosmic order (in both a physical and a moral sense) was no longer tenable in an enlightened modernist world. Rather than this leading to nihilism, Nietzsche believed that humanity would be "free" to build morality on what he saw as a more fundamental basis, the "will to power".

Thanks, by the way, to Fanny Cradock for reminding me of this programme, which I shall be able to watch on BBC iPlayer.

And a quick bout of self-congratulation as this is my 400th posting on boards.ie.

Fanny Cradock

robindch wrote: »

Saw most of what must have been the last ten minutes or so where the presenter dissed the idea of memes in a splendidly pretentious piece to camera in some rather nice-looking library somewhere.

As far as I could establish -- in between clearing away dinner and propping up my two-year old and pointing out the monkeys and other animals that showed up from time to time in the doc -- Cunningham seemed to think that since memes explain religion's transmission from human host to human host (thereby "proving" that religion is false), and noting that Theory of Evolution is a meme too, he concluded that the Theory of Evolution had disproved itself and therefore, memes do not explain religion. It was cringe-makingly basic error to make and given that the polychromatic Susan Blackmore was on just before, he certainly had the opportunity to fact-check before he committed his error to film.

I seem to remember that he asked somebody (was it Michael Ruse?) whether Evolution disproved god like Cunningham said that Dawkins says it does. Well, Dawkins doesn't say that in the general sense and I'd have expected that basic error to have been picked up either by Ruse or by Cunningham.

Anyhow, from the two bits that I saw, Cunningham missed the point of meme theory, failed to understand what he referred to as "ultradarwinism" and misrepresented Dawkins. None of which are very rare things, but I would have expected better from the BBC.

.

Funnily enough, Robin, you popped into my head the moment he mentioned meme theory. I thought this was by far the weakest part of the programme and not something that was dealt with effectively.

I feel that the entire subject matter (and all the side stories) could have been teased out to a much greater extent. The interviews with impressive minds like Dennet, Collins and Ruse cried out for an in-depth discussion instead of the 3 minute wonders they turned out to be. There was certainly enough for 2 or 3 episodes here - covering the likes of memes and ID in far more detail. Still, despite the obvious deficiencies, it certainly brought a fresh perspective to a tired old debate.


@ The Mad Hatter

I meant to say ultradarwinism

line6

isnt god just father christmas for grown ups?

Fanny Cradock

No, now contribute something useful or see yourself out.

Handsome Bob

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

The interviews with impressive minds like Dennet, Collins and Ruse cried out for an in-depth discussion

Funnily enough when I was watching it I was thinking to myself what a shame it was that it wasn't a series rather than a one off episode, because as you said, there was a need for an in-depth discussion.

Kipperhell

I was pretty disappointed in the show. He had a whole hour to discuss a debate that has been going on for at least 2 years;)

I had heard of the concept of memes before at it is pretty much the same idea as believing make something real which most kids films have.

The ending of the doc seemed so fundamentally simple and flawed. The minute memes were mentioned it was pretty obvious that you would apply evolution to memes. Everybody considers that ideas and concepts develop as does the presenter but he suddenly considers all memes to be mutually exclusive and unable to change.

Fanny Cradock

Yes, but it did tackle the notion that evolution and religion are at odds - something I haven't seen in the mainstream media in before. Judjing it simply on how it fell down on memes doesn't do its overall contribution justice.

Tim Robbins

I saw it. I thought the Presenter was like someone who walked off the Lord of Rings' Council of Elrond - with his austere voice and quasi pompous demeanour.

I didn't get one good point out of it. I always knew most Christians didn't have a problem with Darwin now. Darwin not the primary intellectual reason why most people are atheists, he's the primary reason why the bible cannot be read literally.

Why couldn't the Bible just explain Darwinism and then all this fuss would never have even happened? The sooner we knoew about Darwin the sooner we would have understood its implications on how we treat disease.

I just don't buy this hole there's a "deeper meaning" in scripture. In fact what's so good about one deeper meaning in one scriputre over another religion's with another deeper meaning in its scripture? Whose deeper meaning is better?
How do you even ascertain if you have the correct deeper meaning?

I have more sympathy with someone who just admits they like going to Church and / or praying but admits they can't fully explain it rather than someone who goes to great lengths misunderstanding memes, the selfish gene theory and reduces atheism to just Darwinism.

It was Russell, Philosophy and the problem of evil that really convinced me and many other atheists, not Darwin.

Fanny Cradock

The problem of evil? What about the problem of good?

Tim Robbins

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

The problem of evil? What about the problem of good?

Good man Fanny. I think the "selfish gene" theory answers both the problem of good and the problem evil. Even though reading the book even sends a cold chill down my spine as there's so many nihilistic tones in it.

Goduznt Xzst

Tim Robbins wrote: »

the book even sends a cold chill down my spine as there's so many nihilistic tones in it.

what's wrong with nihilism

prinz

Tim Robbins wrote: »

I didn't get one good point out of it. I always knew most Christians didn't have a problem with Darwin now. Darwin not the primary intellectual reason why most people are atheists, he's the primary reason why the bible cannot be read literally.

Why couldn't the Bible just explain Darwinism and then all this fuss would never have even happened? The sooner we knoew about Darwin the sooner we would have understood its implications on how we treat disease.

I just don't buy this hole there's a "deeper meaning" in scripture. In fact what's so good about one deeper meaning in one scriputre over another religion's with another deeper meaning in its scripture? Whose deeper meaning is better?

Why couldn't Darwin explain the Bible :rolleyes: ? Religion and Darwin aren't imo at loggerheads. I love Darwin's studies. It's fascinating. It really explains the how....... but it can't really explain the why. You can't really blame Genesis for the way it is, frankly it hits the nail on the head, in a fairly concise manner, thousands of years before people began to study this. The one thing Darwin cannot explain is life........ why are we alive? If you think about the Bible story of life on earth, then a cataclysmic flood destroying most life and the rebirth of the planet.... and then think about the dinosaurs, global extinction, etc, these things DID happen. So what if the Bible isn't 100% spot on accruate history. It was meant for largely uneducated desert-dwelling nomads. It did a pretty good job.

I love Darwin for the how. I love the Bible for a why. Nothing that Darwin teaches can disprove the theory of original intelligent design.

robindch

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

what's wrong with nihilism

Er, nothing?

Zombrex

prinz wrote: »

Why couldn't Darwin explain the Bible :rolleyes: ? Religion and Darwin aren't imo at loggerheads. I love Darwin's studies. It's fascinating. It really explains the how....... but it can't really explain the why. You can't really blame Genesis for the way it is, frankly it hits the nail on the head, in a fairly concise manner, thousands of years before people began to study this. The one thing Darwin cannot explain is life........ why are we alive? If you think about the Bible story of life on earth, then a cataclysmic flood destroying most life and the rebirth of the planet.... and then think about the dinosaurs, global extinction, etc, these things DID happen. So what if the Bible isn't 100% spot on accruate history. It was meant for largely uneducated desert-dwelling nomads. It did a pretty good job.

I love Darwin for the how. I love the Bible for a why. Nothing that Darwin teaches can disprove the theory of original intelligent design.

What does Genesis "hit on the head"?

Is there any part of Genesis that if taken literally is correct?

Goduznt Xzst

robindch wrote: »

Er, nothing?

I agree

Kipperhell

prinz wrote: »

So what if the Bible isn't 100% spot on accruate history. It was meant for largely uneducated desert-dwelling nomads. It did a pretty good job.

Given these two points it is pretty straight forward not to trust as a way to guide one ethically/logically in a modern world.

To ask what the "why" is to assume there is one. If there is no soul there is no after world we know there is no soul. God only exists if there is a soul.

PDN

robindch wrote: »

Er, nothing?

Rats! Beat me to it.

prinz

Wicknight wrote: »

What does Genesis "hit on the head"?

Is there any part of Genesis that if taken literally is correct?

That God created the everything and that we should appreciate it and live in wonder at His creation, at how beautiful, awe inspiring and diverse it is.

PDN

Kipperhell wrote: »

Given these two points it is pretty straight forward not to trust as a way to guide one ethically/logically in a modern world.

To ask what the "why" is to assume there is one. If there is no soul there is no after world we know there is no soul. God only exists if there is a soul.

Not at all. Human nature remains the same whether you are a desert nomad, a kid in a shanty town slum, or part of the privileged minority that live in affluence in what we think is 'a modern world.'

Also, God would continue to exist whether we had a soul or not. And, contrary to your claim, we don't know that 'there is no soul'.

Tim Robbins

prinz wrote: »

Why couldn't Darwin explain the Bible :rolleyes: ?

That question makes no sense. As for the why versus the how?
There's two problems with the answers he gave that he didn't cover last night.
1. Firstly, philosophically all this problems fail by infinite regression.
2. He's no more evidence for his hypotheisis than I have for mine that I can talk to dogs. All he has is a book of mysticism which has massive cultural biases. That's meaningless to me.

prinz

Kipperhell wrote: »

Given these two points it is pretty straight forward not to trust as a way to guide one ethically/logically in a modern world.

Do you know why people read the tales of Hans Christian Anderson, the Grimm Brothers or the German Struwwelpeter to children? They deal in ethics,logic,morals and common sense. Should we now not trust these to teach our children anything?

p.s. I am not comparing the Bible to these works, other than to say they both have the capacity to teach us something worthwhile.

prinz

Tim Robbins wrote: »

That question makes no sense.

Well he cannot despite all the insights and things he learned about the natural world, biology and evolution, explain how/why life began. His theory is sound, but it neither proves nor disproves the concept of God creating the world and developing life.

I think that question makes more sense than why the Bible didnt explain Darwinism.....

Tim Robbins

prinz wrote: »

Well he cannot despite all the insights and things he learned about the natural world, biology and evolution, explain how/why life began. His theory is sound, but it neither proves nor disproves the concept of God creating the world and developing life.

You don't need God once you have replicating DNA. Do you accept that fact of evolution?

And if you accept that, can you then frame your question properly.
Is it, Darwinism cannot explain the origin of replicating DNA so we need another theory for that the origin of replicating DNA?

Or is, Darwinism cannot explain the origin of the Universe so we need another theory for that?

Right now, your question is unspecific and cannot be dealt with intellectually.

Rev Hellfire

Wicknight wrote: »

Is there any part of Genesis that if taken literally is correct?

Apples are delicious and women can't be trusted

Goduznt Xzst

Wicknight wrote: »

Is there any part of Genesis that if taken literally is correct?

Men will agree to anything if it means avoiding an argument with the missus

prinz

Tim Robbins wrote: »

You don't need God once you have replicating DNA. Do you accept that fact of evolution?

No, a thousand times no.Never.

prinz

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

Apples are delicious and women can't be trusted

Men are happier when they're with a naked woman

AtomicHorror

prinz wrote: »

Why couldn't Darwin explain the Bible :rolleyes: ?

What does this question mean? Why would Darwin want or need to explain the bible? Should he have taken a shot at the other religious texts also?

Tim Robbins

prinz wrote: »

No, a thousand times no.Never.

Well then you don't understand evolution. Suggest read up on it a bit more.

prinz

AtomicHorror wrote: »

What does this question mean? Why would Darwin want or need to explain the bible? Should he have taken a shot at the other religious texts also?

No I was merely referring to an earlier post which lamented the fact that the Bible didn't explain darwinism... Why should the Bible want or need to explain Darwinism.

Kipperhell

PDN wrote: »

Not at all. Human nature remains the same whether you are a desert nomad, a kid in a shanty town slum, or part of the privileged minority that live in affluence in what we think is 'a modern world.'

Also, God would continue to exist whether we had a soul or not. And, contrary to your claim, we don't know that 'there is no soul'.

Actually human nature has changed dramatically since then. We don't see woman as property for example this fundamentally changes the nature of humans.

If you believe in a supreme being called god I am sure you would think he would exist anyway without the existence of a soul. Brain injuries, surgery , chemical in balances etc.. prove we don't have a soul. Your soul is essentially your personality and that can be changed or more importantly you may have no control over it. No soul. If there is no soul there is no point in a god to be worshipped. You know that whole belief that god abandoned us and left the devil in charge makes more sense

prinz wrote: »

Do you know why people read the tales of Hans Christian Anderson etc...

Pretty sure they were read for entertainment and if you believe it is just a moral code it makes little difference it states itself as more important than that. It is heavily relied on for many religions as truth They are even particularly great moral stories either. Offer your wife and daughter to a mob rather than let a man be raped, great moral story.

prinz

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Well then you don't understand evolution. Suggest read up on it a bit more.

Look I agree with the theory of evolution. However I also believe that something happened to start the ball rolling so to speak, i.e. that God played a part in the beginning.So no, for me there will never be a time when I don't need God because of science.

prinz

Kipperhell wrote: »

Brain injuries, surgery , chemical in balances etc.. prove we don't have a soul

Want to explain that?

Kipperhell wrote: »

Pretty sure they were read for entertainment .

Yes they are entertaining, but they were written and consumed for more than that. They teach us something. I still read them. I'm 24 and I still learn something new, or apply a lesson a new way each time I read H.C.A.

Kipperhell wrote: »

and if you believe it is just a moral code it makes little difference it states itself as more important than that. It is heavily relied on for many religions as truth They are even particularly great moral stories either. Offer your wife and daughter to a mob rather than let a man be raped, great moral story.

Do you believe in morals? Are you a moral person? Once again pulling semi-ideas and half-stories out of the Bible is no argument to anything.

Zombrex

prinz wrote: »

Well he cannot despite all the insights and things he learned about the natural world, biology and evolution, explain how/why life began

How is that "explaining the Bible"?

The Bible doesn't explain how or why life began either. It just says God did it and then gets all the details wrong

And while Darwin didn't explain how life can begin (he knew little about chemistry) we know know quite a bit more about that. But again "God did it" doesn't actually explain anything, particularly when you guys say that what he is described in the Bible as doing isn't actually what he did.

Fanny Cradock

Kipperhell wrote: »

Actually human nature has changed dramatically since then. We don't see woman as property for example this fundamentally changes the nature of humans.

Human nature has changed? We would have to agree on what is exactly entailed by the term 'human nature'. I suggest that a male's perspective on a woman is more to do with social conditioning rather than a shift in the nature of our species. Try having the same debate with someone in sub-Saharan Africa or wherever and they might not share you enlightened opinion.

Kipperhell wrote: »

If you believe in a supreme being called god I am sure you would think he would exist anyway without the existence of a soul. Brain injuries, surgery , chemical in balances etc.. prove we don't have a soul. Your soul is essentially your personality and that can be changed or more importantly you may have no control over it. No soul. If there is no soul there is no point in a god to be worshipped. You know that whole belief that god abandoned us and left the devil in charge makes more sense

Oh! Not again. I may actually sticky a definition of the word 'proof' at the top of the forum. In the mean time, please familiarise yourself with what the word proof actually means.

There is no proof for the soul proof just like there is no proof against it. How brain injuries or chemical imbalances impact upon the notion of the soul is simply your opinion, and it's not to be confused with anything other than that. I've no idea where surgery fits into the soul debate.

Tim Robbins

prinz wrote: »

Look I agree with the theory of evolution.

You don't understand the theory of evolution if you think God is required once there is replicating DNA. The complete process is absolutely Godless from that point.

The only saving grace for God is that he might have come up with the idea of replicating DNA, that mutated and was selected.

That's a very a short succint description of it and it could that have easily have been clearly stated that clearly somwhere in the volumnous texts in the Bible. But it wasn't. Instead we get all these ambiguous allegories and mysticism. I wonder why?

Personally, I could take the bible seriously if somewhere it said:
I [God] came up with idea of replicating DNA. I designed this DNA so that when it replicated it had a very low probability of mutating. The best mutations would reproduce the most. After time and after many mutations, a species that were once able to reproduce with each other would speciated and divide into disparate species.

prinz

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Personally, I could take the bible seriously if somewhere it said:
I [God] came up with idea of replicating DNA. I designed this DNA so that when it replicated it had a very low probability of mutating. The best mutations would reproduce the most. After time and after many mutations, a species that were once able to reproduce with each other would speciated and divide into disparate species.

Personally I could take Darwin more seriously if it was actually definitively proven to be 100% correct. As you pointed out yourself..........theory. Quite good, makes sense, but still a theory.

tbh you have some serious issues if you think the Bible should have been written to suit you.

There are a lot of things I could take seriously if it said x, y or z. But it doesn't... I'm not going to whine about why it doesn't suit me, I am not that self-centred an individual.

prinz

Wicknight wrote: »

The Bible doesn't explain how or why life began either. It just says God did it

So it does explain.


Seriously Darwin could promote evolution and "survival of the fittest" - ( AFAIK that's not even his term ) all he wanted, but he still couldn't explain how or why life started. Therefore imo the answer to 'Did Darwin Kill God?' is no.He didn't / couldn't.

Tim Robbins

prinz wrote: »

Personally I could take Darwin more seriously if it was actually definitively proven to be 100% correct. As you pointed out yourself..........theory. Quite good, makes sense, but still a theory.

Well you definetly don't understand evolution. In fact you definetly don't understand the principles of Science.

There are no proofs in Science as Science uses inductive logic. You only have proofs with deductive logic as in Mathematical proofs.

The word "theory" has a different meaning in science than in common - speak. This is actually a big problem as it causes many misunderstandings, like in your case.

For something to be a "theory" in science, it has to fullfill a wide range of criteria. It has to be:
1. Able to tested
2. Have all evidence consistent with it.
3. Be falsifiable

And a number of other things such as peer reviewed.

No theory in Science has come under as much scrutiny as evolution. And while technically not prooven as no theory, including gravity can ever be prooven in a strict logical sense, there's a whopping amount of evidence which makes it conclusive. Most particularly DNA, which wasn't known about in Darwin's time.

In fact, the selfish gene theory uses a lot of DNA as the concept of genes is very evident in DNA. So Dawkins has taken Darwin further then he ever could.

I get the impression you've decided to have opinions on evolution with doing f all research.

tbh you have some serious issues if you think the Bible should have been written to suit you.

I don't see why I should believe anything that has no evidence. If God wants to only reveal himself through mystic prose, so be it. But my brain is incapable of believing mystic, ambiguous prose as objective fact.

Sorry God.

Kipperhell

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Human nature has changed? We would have to agree on what is exactly entailed by the term 'human nature'. I suggest that a male's perspective on a woman is more to do with social conditioning rather than a shift in the nature of our species. Try having the same debate with someone in sub-Saharan Africa or wherever and they might not share you enlightened opinion.

If you want to argue the point like that then the moral stories aren't about human nature they are about social constructs. As the bible is actually about a limited world knowledge and the existing social constructs of the day it follows it has less relevance today. So it is not about human nature but human social interaction which has now changed it even different in other countries.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Oh! Not again. I may actually sticky a definition of the word 'proof' at the top of the forum. In the mean time, please familiarise yourself with what the word proof actually means.

There is distinct proof that the brain determines people's emotions and thinking. There is proof that chemicals effect the brain. There is proof that damage to the brain changes personality. Decision making about things is determined by this piece of meat. Your soul is your thoughts. This proves no soul. If you could explain how the soul exists independently of your actions and thoughts then you are effectively saying it doesn't matter what you do as the soul doesn't have any bearing on your actions so why should it be the other way around. The whole notion of a soul requires ignorance. Not that everybody who believe in a soul is ignorant just devoured by the concept.

prinz wrote: »

Do you believe in morals? Are you a moral person? Once again pulling semi-ideas and half-stories out of the Bible is no argument to anything.

LOL if the story is from the bible and it proves dubious morals you certainly can. I believe morals exist but I chose to believe that the moral constructs of a limited culture could even comprehend moral issues of the present let alone mean what some people these days believe them to mean.

darjeeling

prinz wrote: »

Personally I could take Darwin more seriously if it was actually definitively proven to be 100% correct. As you pointed out yourself..........theory. Quite good, makes sense, but still a theory. [...]

This again. Have a read of the Wikipedia entry (here) on what constitutes a scientific theory. The entry contains Stephen Hawking's Popperian description, which sums it up quite well.

Stephen Hawking wrote:

A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.

[...]

Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory.

So while evolution can never be finally proven right, as a scientific theory it has great explanatory and predictive power, and has not been proven wrong.

prinz wrote: »

[...] Nothing that Darwin teaches can disprove the theory of original intelligent design.

Intelligent design has no predictive power, explains nothing, and cannot be falsified. It is not a scientific theory.

Zombrex

prinz wrote: »

Personally I could take Darwin more seriously if it was actually definitively proven to be 100% correct. As you pointed out yourself..........theory. Quite good, makes sense, but still a theory.

Given that Fanny is on a roll with the misuse of the term "proof" I think I will direct you to his post and hope that he mod-slaps you for that horrendous use of the term "proof" and "theory"

Zombrex

prinz wrote: »

So it does explain.

No. That would require an explanation.


I could say "nature did it", the very first question anyone would want to know is what did nature do.

Saying "God did it" is as useful as me saying "it just happened"

prinz wrote: »

Seriously Darwin could promote evolution and "survival of the fittest" - ( AFAIK that's not even his term ) all he wanted, but he still couldn't explain how or why life started.

He couldn't explain electromagnetism either or quantum gravity. I'm not really seeing how you think this is an issue. He explained what he explained.

prinz wrote: »

Therefore imo the answer to 'Did Darwin Kill God?' is no.He didn't / couldn't.

If a process for life appearing naturally is what is required to kill God I think God died a good few years ago.