Today at 12:30 PM lucaspa said this in Post #43
What's "evolutionism"?
You do not have a dictionary? Perhaps you could use one on the internet. Evolutionism is a theory of biological evolution, especially that formulated by Charles Darwin.
Darwin as you may well know was a student at one of Englands best universities. He was studying Natural Theology. But on his voyage on the Beagle Voyage he said in his autobiography:
"I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation."
"Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can hardly be denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which we now put on metaphors and allegories."
"But I was very unwilling to give up my belief;"
It was at that point he began to believe in natural selection. Slowly his dream of becoming a pastor and the comfort associated with that, began to slip away from him. In a letter to a friend he writes:
Docked off Lima, Peru, Darwin catches up on letters home. His cousin and close friend William Darwin Fox writes about the bliss of marital life and his newborn child. It strikes a chord in Charles, now nearly four years into his voyage.
"My dear Fox,
I was very glad to receive a history of this the most important year in your life ... You are a true Christian & return good for evil ... to send two such letters to so bad a Correspondant, as I have been. God bless you for writing so kindly & affectionately; it if is a pleasure to have friends in England, it is doubly so, to think & know that one is not forgotten, because absent ...
This voyage is terribly long ... I do so earnestly desire to return, Yet I dare hardly look forward to the future, for I do not know what will become of me. -- Your situation is above envy; I do not venture even to frame such happy visions. To a person fit to take the office, the life of a Clergyman is a type of all that is respectable & happy: & if he is a Naturalist & has the 'Diamond Beetle,' ave Maria; I do not know what to say. -- You tempt me by talking of your fireside, whereas it is a sort of scene I never ought to think about. -- I saw the other day a vessel sail for England, it was quite dangerous to know how easily I might turn deserter ..."
Yet Darwin is excited about the round-the-world trip ahead, and tells Fox, "I look forward to the Galapagos, with more interest than any other part of the voyage."