Darwin's Religious Background
Charles Darwin was born during the Napoleonic Wars and grew up in their aftermath, a conservative time when Tory dominated government closely associated with the established Anglican Church of England repressed Radicalism, but when family memories recalled the 18th century Enlightenment and a multitude of Non-conformist churches held differing interpretations of Christianity. His Whig supporting extended family of Darwins and Wedgwoods was strongly Unitarian, though one of his grandfathers, Erasmus Darwin, was a freethinker, and his father was quietly a freethinker but as a physician avoided any social conflict with his wealthy Anglican patrons. While Darwin's parents were open enough to changing social pressures to have Charles baptised in the Church of England, his pious mother took the children to the Unitarian chapel. After her death when he was only eight he became a boarder at the Shrewsbury School, an Anglican public school.
Read more about this topic: Religious Views Of Charles Darwin
Famous quotes containing the words darwin, religious and/or background:
“The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
“It is the responsibility of every adult—especially parents, educators and religious leaders—to make sure that children hear what we have learned from the lessons of life and to hear over and over that we love them and they are not alone.”
—Marian Wright Edelman (20th century)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)