Attenborough, Darwin, God

YouTube offers this clip of Mark Lawson discussing with Sir David Attenborough his resistance to religion - fuelled by what the ever-courteous Sir David describes as some "very interesting correspondence" with religious creationists...

Comments

[Simon Peter]

David Attenborough rightly states that all societies have had the need to find an explanation of how humans came into the world.

He mentions two ancient beliefs (1,2) and then speaks more fully about "a tribe of people in the Middle East, who thought it was a garden in which the first woman was made from a rib of Adam" (3).

Then, David Attenborough tells us his own belief. "I find it far more awesome, wonderful that creation, our appearance in the world, should be the culmination of 3,000 million years of organic evolution" (4).

This is what he believes in, and he finds it more wonderful than "a kind of conjuring trick of taking a rib out of a man's side in a trance".

He continues, "I can't believe that each species was brought into existence by a merciful God, who cares about human beings....I can't believe God brought parasites into being in order to torture young children."

What Attenborough believes in and, indeed, what he finds awesome and wonderful, is the arrival of mankind after 3,000 million years of evolution.

It is clear from this interview with Mark Lawson that David Attenborough is a believer!

He has confidence in, puts his trust, his reliance in one account of how makind came into existence, and has no confidence or trust in the other three he has mentioned.

Now, according to the ordinary use of the English language, "to believe in" something is the same has "having faith in" that something. A believer is a person who has faith in something, that it can be trusted and relied upon.

David Attenborough chooses to put his confidence, his faith, in organic evolution operating over a period of 3,000 million years and resulting in human beings coming into the world.

None of these 1-4 explanations of how humans came into the world can be tested scientifically, because science requires that human beings are there to observe, to devise tests to be carried out in the here and now, to use instruments of various sorts to test their hypotheses.

No lab work nor field work can take place where there are no human beings in existence in the world so, therefore, no science.

Where there are no human beings, there can be no science! Where and when there have been no human beings, there can be no retrospective science, even if scientific jargon is used to describe an historical past.

No human beings existed during, say, 99% of the 3,000 million years of organic evolution to observe and put to tests what was happening during that long period of time, because mankind only came into existence in the last 1% or so of that period.

So, Attenborough is being correct to use the word "believe" as in "I can't believe that each species came into existence by a merciful God..."

Explanations 1,2,3 & 4 all require faith. You have to put your trust and confidence in one or other of these explanations, because science cannot help you distinguish between them. Science could only begin and could only operate once human beings were in the world, and explanations 1-4 are about how human beings got there in the first place, ie the process before science could exist.

We can conclude, therefore, that David Attenborough is a man of faith.

True, not of religious faith for he tells us emphatically that he has never had religious faith. His faith in what happened in the past, up to the time human beings came into the world, does not require the existence of God. His faith is, therefore, a-theistic and not theistic.

Like so many of us, Attenborough wants an explanation as to how human beings came into the world. He wants to make the non-human past into a reality for himself. He cannot do this by science, so he does it by faith.

His atheistic faith makes the unseen past a reality to him. By means of his faith, the whole of the past is "awesome and wonderful" to him.

He has such complete confidence in evolution culminating in the appearance of human beings in the world over 3,000 million years, that he can see it actually happening in the imagination of his mind.

This is what faith does! It causes what cannot be seen to be become visible to the mind's eye, and it is a very wonderful psychological experience and intellectual tool.

So! Evolutionism is the faith of atheists! Creationism is the faith of theists!

David Attenborough has done a wonderful thing for us all, whether Evolutionist or Creationist, in bringing the natural world into our living rooms with vividness and reality. We are grateful to him!

Some of what he has said in these programmes, however, has been an expression of his Evolutionist faith.

It is no wonder, then, that some Creationists are removing the comments relating to his atheist faith from his documentaries, and continuing to show the brilliant work that he and his cameramen have provided for us.

[Coel]

Simon Peter writes: "It is clear [. . .] that David Attenborough is a believer"

It is silly to conflate "belief/faith based on evidence" with the sort of evidence-free leaps of faith common in religion. The fact that the same English word is used doesn't make them the same.

"None of these 1-4 explanations of how humans came into the world can be tested scientifically"

False; the evolution account has been and continues to be tested scientifically; so far it has passed every test and only got stronger.

"because science requires that human beings are there to observe,"

A totally false statement.

"No lab work nor field work can take place where there are no human beings in existence in the world so, therefore, no science."

You have absolutely no idea about science.

"Where and when there have been no human beings, there can be no retrospective science"

You are utterly and profoundly ignorant.

"Explanations 1,2,3 & 4 all require faith. [. . .] because science cannot help you
distinguish between them."

Oh yes it can!

"We can conclude, therefore, that David Attenborough is a man of faith."

We can conclude that when it comes to science you have no idea what you are talking about.