Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.
Charles DarwinRead
I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Darwin critiques the idea of eternal punishment in Christianity for non-believers.
In this quote, Charles Darwin expresses his profound discomfort with the implications of Christian doctrine, which posits that non-believers face eternal punishment. He reflects on the personal impact of this belief, as it condemns his loved ones, revealing a deep philosophical objection to a doctrine that seems to advocate for eternal suffering based on belief rather than moral conduct.
Themes
ChristianityBeliefPhilosophyPunishmentDoctrine
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about the morality of religious beliefs, this quote could support an argument against doctrines that promote eternal punishment.
More from Charles Darwin
All quotes βThe highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
Charles DarwinRead
I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science....It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw[s] & holes as sound parts.
Charles DarwinRead
We cannot fathom the marvelous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced this complexity is much increased. Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm--a little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars in heaven.
Charles DarwinRead
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.
Charles DarwinRead
we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps
Charles DarwinRead
Similar quotes
No one gets angry at a mathematician or a physicist whom he or she doesn't understand, or at someone who speaks a foreign language, but rather at someone who tampers with your own language.
Jacques DerridaRead
The whole art of war consists in getting at what is on the other side of the hill.
Duke Of WellingtonRead
A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
Thomas JeffersonRead
The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.
Alexander HamiltonRead
If your life is Christ, then your death will be only more of Christ, forever. If your life is only Christlessness, then your death will be only more Christlessness, forever. That's not fundamentalism, that's the law of non-contradiction.
Peter KreeftRead
The man who in view of gain thinks of righteousness; who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends - such a man may be reckoned a complete man.
ConfuciusRead