A few people recently raised the question “why is A-Soc celebrating Darwin Day? It is just an excuse to have a go at religion?”
Of course, it isn’t. But it could seem to many people that were are advocating the link between Darwinism and atheism which Dawkins seems to suggest.
This I believe is probably a misconception. Dawkins does talk a lot about evolution and atheism for two reasons. Firstly, learning about evolution was the thing that pushed Dawkins into atheism. It was the turning point that he renounced his Anglican upbringing and joined the ranks of the infidels. Secondly he believes that Darwinism allows you construct a coherent world view without a god (which was difficult to do before evolution). This does not mean however that he advocated an inherant link between the two.
But I’m getting off the point. The reason we celebrate Darwin Day is not because of any inherent link between Darwinism and atheism (for which I believe there is none, as I demonstraited in my speech evolution – it’s a fact showing how evolution could be reconciled with modern theology so it seems silly for us to argue over it).
The real reason is that Darwin represents somewhat of an ideal, at least in legend if not in reality, of an open minded free thinker. Despite the fact his work and research was leading him away from his beliefs he remained true to the principles of science and reason and kept his mind open to new possibilities. That, is what being a free thinker is all about.
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Tags: Leeds Atheist Soc
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Humanism, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.