Sciences vs. Religion

[mal4mac]

There is letters, diary entries, etc. that show the importancy of Anne's death on Darwin's resolution, how this moved his foward to abandon all religiosity and embrace firmly the research since he knew Anne disease was genetical. Certainly, both the theory and the skepticism were there before, but It is Anne's death that changes his spirt and then, it was easier for him to rationalize and do this "futher reflecting".

Maybe Anne's death spurred him on to become more public about his disbelief. He was notorious for keeping his opinions to himself, not publishing "Origin" until long after his views were formed, and only under pressure from friends who were afraid that Wallace would steal his thunder. Note that his wife refused to have some parts of his autobiography published after his death, so it's likely she influenced him not to speak about his beliefs before his death.

The wikipedia article says "His faith in Christianity had already dwindled away and he had stopped going to church." before the death of Anne. There is a strong sense of his belief dwindling away as he repeatedly looked at the poor evidence of the scriptures, and other sources, and finding no good evidence for God or the Christian "revelations". The moral impact of Anne's death might have had a "final straw" aspect that drove him to become more public, but all the evidence is that lack of evidence in the Christian revelations were the main factors in his disbelief, and certainly this is more in the character of the man. He was the "scientist's scientist" who spent decades doing pain-staking research to provide incontrovertible evidence of evolution by natural selection. Doesn't it seem likely that his disbelief came from similar pain staking research into the evidence for Christian revelation - and that his rejection of Christianity came form him not finding anything like sufficient evidence? He wasn't some romantic fool who reasoned "My child is dead, therefore God doesn't exist," on some kind of swooning whim.

[JCamilo]

Maybe Anne's death spurred him on to become more public about his disbelief. He was notorious for keeping his opinions to himself, not publishing "Origin" until long after his views were formed, and only under pressure from friends who were afraid that Wallace would steal his thunder. Note that his wife refused to have some parts of his autobiography published after his death, so it's likely she influenced him not to speak about his beliefs before his death.

Darwin never went public about anything. He crumbled down under pressure and Anne death wasnt more public than anything. His wife didnt pressure him, he had a limited circle already. Anne death was just too much form and his formal rupture with religion. His wife's censorship shows more she was protecting Darwin image than changing his tougths.

The wikipedia article says "His faith in Christianity had already dwindled away and he had stopped going to church." before the death of Anne.

There is his questioning, Anne death was the decisive factor. Not his research.

There is a strong sense of his belief dwindling away as he repeatedly looked at the poor evidence of the scriptures, and other sources, and finding no good evidence for God or the Christian "revelations".

It is not about evidence of god, which he never found to the end of his life yet, still considered it possible. Darwin was questioning christian morality, organized religion not god's existence.

The moral impact of Anne's death might have had a "final straw" aspect that drove him to become more public,

He didnt became public. You should read more biographies about Darwin.

but all the evidence is that lack of evidence in the Christian revelations were the main factors in his disbelief, and certainly this is more in the character of the man.

There is no evidence that what turned him was the lack of evidence. Quite the contrary, he died claiming there was no evidence to believe or disbelieve and supporting agnosticism. You are confusing that Darwin found evidences (not lack) that natural selection dismissed a ID God - which is what he claims - to extend it to a more spiritual/moral god, which is what he believed or considered and that Anne's death changed his view. The ID God (or the Jaheh like god) was done, but a spiritual god remained.

He was the "scientist's scientist" who spent decades doing pain-staking research to provide incontrovertible evidence of evolution by natural selection. Doesn't it seem likely that his disbelief came from similar pain staking research into the evidence for Christian revelation - and that his rejection of Christianity came form him not finding anything like sufficient evidence? He wasn't some romantic fool who reasoned "My child is dead, therefore God doesn't exist," on some kind of swooning whim.

Except only creationist strawman will claim natural selection disproves God. It does not, So obviously Darwin work as scientist cannot be the reason your claim. And his change of posture with Anne, more clear questioning and mentioning that one of the reasons behind his research was to give men knowledge to avoid pain like Annes shows her importance.

By the way, Evolution is romantic, he is the guy who considered his wife's reaction before publishing and 20 years research. Darwin is a romantic fool.

[mortalterror]

Hardly. The number of declared atheists in Scotland has risen from 27% to 37% in the last decade, and remember that Scotland used to be a stronghold for extreme protestantism. To get an idea about what Scottish religion was like in the 18th century try reading "The View from Castle Rock" by the new Nobel prize winner Alice Munro. From that situation to 37% atheist... it gives me hope that places like USA might get to 37% in the not too distant future.

Actually Mal4mac, 37% of Scotland is non-religious, which usually means that they eschew the formal institutions but often retain a personal non-denominational spirituality. Your interpretation that they are all atheist is a misreading of the statistics. For purposes of comparison, America has a demographic of 16.1% Unaffiliated. Of that unaffiliated group 1.6% is atheist, 2.4% is agnostic, 6.3% is secular unaffiliated, and 5.8% is religious unaffiliated. Non-religious does not necessarily mean Atheist. For instance, there was a study of prison inmates that found an unusual number of non-religious prisoners, in spite of the incentive they have to lie and claim to be religiously reformed:

In the federal prisoner statistics, a full 20% of the respondents either answered "none" or provided no response to the question on religious affiliation. Based on response patterns to similar questions on nationwide surveys, it is likely that all or nearly all of these persons would be in the "nonreligious" category (or the "atheists" category, to use the terminology from the atheist web page itself). Even without adding the ".209%" of the population that specifically identified themselves as atheists, the segment of the prison population which self-identifies as non-religious is approximately twice as large as found in the general population.
http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison.html (Based on a study by Denise Golumbaski, who was a Research Analyst for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The data was compiled from up-to-the-day figures on March 5th, 1997.)

But that doesn't mean that 20% of American prison inmates are atheists.

[mal4mac]

Actually Mal4mac, 37% of Scotland is non-religious, which usually means that they eschew the formal institutions but often retain a personal non-denominational spirituality.

I don't think it "usually means that" at all, and certainly not in a Scottish context.

"Spiritualty" is a term used by atheists to mean "higher aspects of the mind". So that 37% might still be thought of as atheists even if some define themselves as "spiritual". Actually "non-religious" is a stronger term as it means they aren't Buddhists, or members of some other non-God based religion. But not many Scots were ever Buddhist, so I think 37% atheist is probably a pretty good estimate from the fact that 37% ticked the non-religious box. England and Wales aren't far behind "In the 2011 Census, 14.1 million people, about a quarter of the entire population (25%) of England and Wales, said they had no religion, a rise of 6.4 million since 2001."

Your interpretation that they are all atheist is a misreading of the statistics. For purposes of comparison, America has a demographic of 16.1% Unaffiliated. Of that unaffiliated group 1.6% is atheist, 2.4% is agnostic...

If you read Russell and Dawkins you will see that the broadest definition of "atheist" includes what others might consider agnostics. So what definition of atheist was used in that list?

Actually across the EU, in 2010, only 51% said yes to the question, "Do you believe there is a God?" (This is heavily skewed by the big Catholic countries.) Given this, and the rate of people becoming atheists, it might be that atheists are now a majority in Europe!

[mal4mac]

It is not about evidence of god, which he never found to the end of his life yet, still considered it possible. Darwin was questioning christian morality, organized religion not god's existence.

Another quote from the autobiography:

"At the present day (ca. 1872) the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons. But it cannot be doubted that Hindoos, Mahomadans and others might argue in the same manner and with equal force in favour of the existence of one God, or of many Gods, or as with the Buddhists of no God...This argument would be a valid one if all men of all races had the same inward conviction of the existence of one God: but we know that this is very far from being the case. Therefore I cannot see that such inward convictions and feelings are of any weight as evidence of what really exists."

Summary: Darwin saw no evidence for the existence of God.

Being a good scientist he would never bluntly state, "there is no God", just as he would not state, "there is no tooth fairy", as evidence *might* turn up. But, by the everyday definition, I'd call him an atheist.

"... he died claiming there was no evidence to believe or disbelieve and supporting agnosticism. You are confusing that Darwin found evidences (not lack) that natural selection dismissed a ID God - which is what he claims - to extend it to a more spiritual/moral god, which is what he believed or considered and that Anne's death changed his view. The ID God (or the Jaheh like god) was done, but a spiritual god remained.

In the above quote he dismissed all Gods (Christian, Islamic, Hindu, etc, ...) because the "inner beliefs" held by these believers cannot all be correct at the same time. What is this "spiritual god"? Have you a quote of him expressing belief in such a thing?

By the way, Evolution is romantic, he is the guy who considered his wife's reaction before publishing and 20 years research. Darwin is a romantic fool.

Given the intense discrimination against atheists at that time he was hardly a fool, just very cautious.

[mortalterror]

You accept things without sufficient evidence, scientists receive years of training which encourages them to not do this. I can't see how they can compartmentalise their life into an "evidence based" aspect and "tooth fairy" aspect without doing great damage to their psyche. Fortunately only 3% of them attempt this.

Mal4Mac, I'm looking at your numbers and they don't add up. I'm afraid you are misreading your statistics again. It's true that there is a distinct difference in percentage of scientists who believe in God versus the percentage of the general public, but your numbers are way off. I'd need to see the actual survey questions that got Dawkins to that 3% figure but I'm guessing that it was a result of push polling and too narrowly defining questions or definitions. In point of fact, the majority of scientists actually practice some form of religion. Consider this pew research poll:

A survey of scientists who are members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in May and June 2009, finds that members of this group are, on the whole, much less religious than the general public.1 Indeed, the survey shows that scientists are roughly half as likely as the general public to believe in God or a higher power. According to the poll, just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. By contrast, 95% of Americans believe in some form of deity or higher power, according to a survey of the general public conducted by the Pew Research Center in July 2006. Specifically, more than eight-in-ten Americans (83%) say they believe in God and 12% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. Finally, the poll of scientists finds that four-in-ten scientists (41%) say they do not believe in God or a higher power, while the poll of the public finds that only 4% of Americans share this view. http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/s...ts-and-belief/

Alright, now lets look at what the scientists actually believe.

Given their much lower levels of belief in God or a higher power, it is not surprising that the percentage of scientists who are unaffiliated with any religion is much higher than among the general public. Nearly half of all scientists in the 2009 Pew Research Center poll (48%) say they have no religious affiliation (meaning they describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular), compared with only 17% of the public. Thus, it follows that most faith traditions are represented in smaller numbers in the scientific community than in the public as a whole. For instance, the scientific community is far less Protestant (21%) and Catholic (10%) than the general public, which is 51% Protestant and 24% Catholic. And while evangelical Protestants make up more than a fourth of the general population (28%), they make up only a small slice (4%) of the scientific community. One notable exception is Jews, who make up a larger proportion of the scientific community (8%) than the general population (2%).

http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/s...ts-and-belief/

Okay, so looking at this graph, we can clearly see that 17 percent of scientists are atheists which is a significant departure from the 2 percent of the general population who are atheists. What is really interesting is that this religious attitude gap hasn't grown or shrunk in almost a hundred years.

The recent survey of scientists tracks fairly closely with earlier polls that gauged scientists’ views on religion. The first of these was conducted in 1914 by Swiss-American psychologist James Leuba, who surveyed about 1,000 scientists in the United States to ask them about their views on God. Leuba found the scientific community equally divided, with 42% saying that they believed in a personal God and the same number saying they did not.

More than 80 years later, Edward Larson, a historian of science then teaching at the University of Georgia, recreated Leuba’s survey, asking the same number of scientists the exact same questions. To the surprise of many, Larson’s 1996 poll came up with similar results, finding that 40% of scientists believed in a personal God, while 45% said they did not. Other surveys of scientists have yielded roughly similar results. http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/s...ts-and-belief/

The answer to that is possibly because scientists tend to view science and religion as non-overlapping magisteria and not in conflict with one another.

The Pew Research Center poll of scientists also found that levels of religious faith vary according to scientific specialty and age. For instance, chemists are more likely to believe in God (41%) than those who work in the other major scientific fields. Meanwhile, younger scientists (ages 18-34) are more likely to believe in God or a higher power than those who are older.

Unless scientists lose their religion in old age, then this newest generation may actually be getting more religious, and we may see a trend in that direction. But what the poll also shows is how different scientific subjects are an indicator of how religious the scientists might be. This shows that scientists religious beliefs are less likely to be swayed do to pure reason and scientific method than by a culture of their peers.

Another interesting fact is that doctors tend to be more religious than the general population.

The first study of physician religious beliefs has found that 76 percent of doctors believe in God and 59 percent believe in some sort of afterlife. The survey, performed by researchers at the University and published in the July issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that 90 percent of doctors in the United States attend religious services at least occasionally, compared to 81 percent of all adults. Fifty-five percent of doctors say their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine. http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050714/doctorsfaith.shtml

Physicians are educated, intelligent, trained scientists but their job often requires things like compassion, morality, empathy, and charity which synch up well with a religious lifestyle.

[mal4mac]

Mal4Mac, I'm looking at your numbers and they don't add up. I'm afraid you are misreading your statistics again.

It's you misreading forum posts again. As I said, the 3% figure relates to FRS scientists, and is correct. It's mentioned in the "The God Delusion", with details. That said, for really eminent American scientists (NAS members, equivalent to FRS) Dawkins quotes a figure of only 7% believing in God, quoted from a paper in Nature.

Your figures include the views of mediocre scientists, who may just be "going along with" the general population for an easy life. I've been around mediocre scientists for much of my life, and their general intellectual ability isn't anything to write home about. FRS and NAS levels scientists are, generally, in an entirely different league.

[JCamilo]

Another quote from the autobiography:

"At the present day (ca. 1872) the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons. But it cannot be doubted that Hindoos, Mahomadans and others might argue in the same manner and with equal force in favour of the existence of one God, or of many Gods, or as with the Buddhists of no God...This argument would be a valid one if all men of all races had the same inward conviction of the existence of one God: but we know that this is very far from being the case. Therefore I cannot see that such inward convictions and feelings are of any weight as evidence of what really exists."

Summary: Darwin saw no evidence for the existence of God.

Only if you do not know how to read. He says "Inteligent god" and ends with " evidence of what really exists.", which is not the same "what not exist as you claim".

Darwin clearly argued evolutionists could believe in god, since his theory had no bearing on its existence, and you are trying to imply it is the reason behind his lack of faith. Of course, makes a lot of sense. The motive that lead him to not believe in God is motive that he see as not enough to stop others from beliving in god. Good Logic.

Being a good scientist he would never bluntly state, "there is no God", just as he would not state, "there is no tooth fairy", as evidence *might* turn up. But, by the everyday definition, I'd call him an atheist.

Good, so Dawkins is a bad scientist?

In the above quote he dismissed all Gods (Christian, Islamic, Hindu, etc, ...) because the "inner beliefs" held by these believers cannot all be correct at the same time. What is this "spiritual god"? Have you a quote of him expressing belief in such a thing?

He didnt dismissed a single god there. The last sentence is agnostic as it gets. He leaves an opening "I do not know" And he is specifically talking about meddling active god.

Given the intense discrimination against atheists at that time he was hardly a fool, just very cautious.

He was a romantic fool. Being Atheist is a romantic foolishness.

You clearly want to find a tale of Darwin's that does not exists. He was a deist, he dismissed ID God figures or OT god, with constant interference even before his research, as he was inspired by Lyell, his friend, which already disproved biblical literalism. But he remained with questions - and accepting God part there - about afterlife, mortality, the human part, evil and good. A typical deist intelectual position of his time. Those questions will end after Anne death (it was not a cosmic event, that just turned him in one day but a long grieving process) Darwin no longer question those positions. There is no afterlife, no Hell, nothing as this. And that have nothing to do with his research, as Natural Selection cannot change anything about it, as Darwin reckons.

As this what lasted was the question of universe begin, which Darwin didn't had a position, which is basically why he called himself agnostic. But it is pretty much, what makes Darwin show no signal of faith ever again, was the experience with Anne. Not a result of scientific research or materialism. Darwin's spiritualism ended there. And you quoting Wikipedia about him specifically mentioning ID God will not change it.

[Volya]

Why can't religion and science co-exist? To believe otherwise is stupidity really, and is the kind of attitude that arrogant, militant atheists take. You can be a Christian and believe in evolution, the Big Bang, all that kinda stuff; and similarly you could be an atheist and still believe the world is flat.

[SentimentalSlop]

She did said actually it is not his real body and blood, so she is saying the samething. Also, the church always said it was symbolic and breed and wine still the same. You are just firing at the wrong place.

That's not what I said. It is "literally" his body and blood. That is Catholic doctrine. Anyone who doesn't believe it should not receive the Eucharist at mass. This is emphasized relentlessly, and it's the sole focus of the service. That is why we bow before the tabernacle (where the consecrated host is housed) before getting in and getting out of the pews. We also have Eucharistic adoration where the consecrated host (Christ's body) is in an ornate structure called a monstrance where we can spend time in Christ's physical presence. It is by no means symbolic. It is Christ, according to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Mere symbolism of the bread and wine is a Protestant approach to communion. That is why they are not permitted to go up and receive communion at a Catholic mass.

@Cacian
Turning water into wine is not sorcery if it is through God. Christians believe in miracles, and we believe that when a Christian person performs a miracle, it is by God's power and not theirs, but God has only used them as an instrument to demonstrate his power at that moment when performing the miracle. Any miracle performed without the aid of God is devilish. The devil can perform miracles, too.

[Eman Resu]

That is why they are not permitted to go up and receive communion at a Catholic mass.

Non-Catholics who believe in the Transubstantiation, and who have the consent or dispensation from the Diocese, can participate in the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist, but it is, in part, for the protection of non-Catholics that they're not permitted to participate - see 1 Corinthians 11:29-30.

[SentimentalSlop]

Non-Catholics who believe in the Transubstantiation, and who have the consent or dispensation from the Diocese, can participate in the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist, but it is, in part, for the protection of non-Catholics that they're not permitted to participate - see 1 Corinthians 11:29-30.

That's true, but generally non-Catholics are not admitted to communion. If they believe in Transubstantiation, they're usually encouraged to become Catholic.

[mortalterror]

It's you misreading forum posts again. As I said, the 3% figure relates to FRS scientists, and is correct. It's mentioned in the "The God Delusion", with details. That said, for really eminent American scientists (NAS members, equivalent to FRS) Dawkins quotes a figure of only 7% believing in God, quoted from a paper in Nature.

Your figures include the views of mediocre scientists, who may just be "going along with" the general population for an easy life. I've been around mediocre scientists for much of my life, and their general intellectual ability isn't anything to write home about. FRS and NAS levels scientists are, generally, in an entirely different league.

But the methodology of the survey, and the questions which got them to the 7% figure are flawed.

Are you confused? How can scientists be so like other Americans in one survey and so different in another? We can find part of the explanation in the considerable differences between the questions asked by Gallup and those asked by Leuba.

The wording of questions in any survey can influence the results. Gallup's questions are quite straightforward, well designed to reveal people's attitudes towards evolution. For reasons that will become important later in this article, a question that requests an opinion on only one issue is superior to one which queries attitudes about two or more.

First, let's look at Leuba's questions, which are, to be charitable, ambiguous. The "personal belief" question attempts to ascertain belief not just in some sort of God, but a very specific kind of personal God.

1. I believe in a God in intellectual and effective communication with humankind, i.e., a God to whom one might pray in expectation of receiving an answer. By "answer", I mean more than the subjective psychological effects of prayer.

1. I believe in a [personal] God...
AM&WS NAS
1914 1998
27.7 7.0

Indeed, the percentage of "yes" answers in 1998 is strikingly lower than that in 1914. Does this mean that fewer scientists believe in God? Not necessarily. Consider how specific this question is. To answer "yes" to this question, one would have to believe that God is not only in communication with humankind, which many religious people do believe, but that God is in both intellectual and effective communication. What is the meaning of "intellectual" communication? "Effective" communication? Someone who believed that God communicated with humankind but not "intellectually" (whatever that means) would have to answer "no." Is "effective" used in the modern sense of the word meaning "something that works well", or in the more archaic (1914) use of the term meaning "to bring about"? Do scientists reading this question today interpret it in the same way as those in 1914?

The clause about answering prayers is also problematic.There are schools of theology that hold that God is personal in the sense of watching over and caring for humankind, but nonetheless, does not answer prayers. We do not know whether members of the general public would respond similarly or differently than scientists do to this definition of God: we do know that there is a wide variety of definitions of God.

Not only have there been changes in theology since 1914, which may be reflected in different Americans' definitions of God, but there have been improvements in survey research techniques. Experienced pollsters simply do not ask paragraph- long questions anymore because they know that they elicit contingent (and therefore difficult to interpret) answers!

Most educated, late 20th century Americans are "test wise" and know that the more components to a question, the more likely it is that the question is "wrong". I doubt that this was the case in 1914, when citizens 'were exposed to far fewer surveys than they are today. I surmise that modern survey-wise scientists would be more likely to answer "no" to a multi-component question like Leuba's number 1 than "yes".

What about Leuba's second question?

2. I do not believe in a God
as defined above.
AM&WS NAS
1914 1998
52.7 72.2

How might this question be interpreted? There is more than one way—which means it's not a good question.You might answer "true" if you did not believe in God at all, which is how Leuba, and apparently Witham and Larson, interpret the question; they describe these answers as demonstrating "personal disbelief." But you might answer "true" if you believed in a different kind of God than Leuba defined! A "yes" on question 2 would include both non-believers and those who believe in a less personal God than that of question 1.

Leuba's third question also allows for multiple interpretations.

3. I have no definite belief
regarding this question.
AM&WS NAS
1914 1998
20.9 20.8

Well, there has been no change in the number of "yes" answers over time, but what does the question mean? To me, a "yes" means "I don't think much about religion in general" rather than meaning, as Leuba, Larson and Witham conclude, "I have 'doubt or agnosticism'." Nonbelievers might very likely answer this question "false", because they do have definite views on this question! Most of the atheists and agnostics that I know have quite definite views about belief in God! Just as with the other Leuba questions, a "yes" answer reflects more than one possible opinion. Positive answers to this question include those who do not believe, as well as those who are not especially interested in the topic.

What one might conclude from the 1998 Larson and Witham study of NAS scientists is that belief in Leuba's definition of a personal God has decreased over time among scientists. The main problem, however, is that Leuba's questions are not well designed for investigating the religious views of scientists (or anyone else).

The Gallup questions, which deal with views of God's role in evolution, rather than general belief or disbelief in God, are far less ambiguous. When these questions were used (Larson and Witham 1997), the answers showed that a large proportion (40%) of prominent scientists believe in a God that is sufficiently personal or interactive with humankind that human evolution is guided or planned. http://ncse.com/rncse/18/2/do-scient...lly-reject-god

The manner in which the survey was conducted and it's subsequent interpretation shows a pronounced bias. It's designed to overestimate atheism.

[Eman Resu]

That's true, but generally non-Catholics are not admitted to communion. If they believe in Transubstantiation, they're usually encouraged to become Catholic.

They are as a general rule, but those not born into the Catholic Faith who genuinely do believe in Transubstantiation, but who cannot convert - either owed to Matrimonial vows outside the R.C. Church, or because of an inability to be Confirmed (e.g. a Christian not Baptised into Catholicism who cannot support the Vatican stance on abortion) - haven't (at least not since the Third Nicean Council, at the beginning of the eight century) been denied the Sacrament as far as I'm aware, solely on the grounds of denominationalism.

Beyond this, battlefield Communion for non-Catholics who profess belief in Transubstantiation and who are, "in imminent danger," has a relatively long history with Priests, as does the Sacrament of Extreme Unction in similar circumstances.

[mal4mac]

Only if you do not know how to read.

Nope, I think *you're* misreading that passage, or reading it in another way.

Darwin clearly argued evolutionists could believe in god, since his theory had no bearing on its existence, and you are trying to imply it is the reason behind his lack of faith. Of course, makes a lot of sense.

Nope, I'm arguing that he didn't see sufficient evidence for God.

Good, so Dawkins is a bad scientist?

Dawkins doesn't believe beyond all doubt that there is no God, read "The God delusion" to see his subtle view.

You clearly want to find a tale of Darwin's that does not exists. He was a deist,...

You are producing no quotes that show this, here's another direct quote from his autobiography, "the mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic." He's an agnostic in the same sense as Russell and Dawkins. Because Russell and Dawkins don't want to be labelled as wishy-washy, dithering agnostics they call themselves atheists (because their position is very near strict atheism).