We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
We have already seen that, agnostics themselves being judges, man must have a religion, and that if he makes the material universe the highest object of veneration this must be to him his God, while if he is content to take humanity as his highest ideal, he must look for the best possible manifestations of human nature, else his religion can have no elevating power. To the theist the universe is not in itself God, but may testify to God as its Creator; to the Christian the noblest ideal of humanity along with divinity is the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is evident, however, that the current Darwinian and Neo-Lamarckian forms of evolution fall entirely short of what even the agnostic may desiderate as religion.
If the universe is causeless and a product of fortuitous variation and selection, and if there is no design or final cause apparent in it, it becomes literally the enthronement of unreason, and can have no claims to the veneration or regard of an intelligent being. If man is merely an accidentally improved descendant of apes, his intuitions and decisions as to things unseen must be valueless and unfounded. Hence it is a lamentable fact that the greater part of evolutionist men of science openly discard all religious belief, and teach this unbelief to the multitude who cannot understand the processes by which it is arrived at, but who readily appreciate the immoral results to which it leads in the struggle for existence or the stretching after material advantages.
It is true that there may be a theistic form of evolution, but let it be observed that this is essentially distinct from Darwinism or Neo-Lamarckianism.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
