Was Darwin against the Bible or against churches ,as institutions?

Darwin took a degree in theology, but by his death was an agnostic. This was not due to his scientific work, but grief over the death of his favorite daughter. His friend Thomas Huxley coined the word agnostic.

I do know that Darwin was afraid to publish his findings for fear of upsetting Victorian Society. Not personal fear, but a caring fear. He never expressed doubts about his theory, not even on his deathbed. His adult children verified this, as they were present. But lies trump facts any day for creationists.

I confess I read more of Darwin than I read about Darwin. It is his prose and findings which fascinate me, not his personal life.

No. In fact, although he was not an enthusiastic student, his degree was in theology. And even though his work pushed him towards agnosticism, he never tried to harm churches or believers. His wife was very religious, as was most of his family. Only his grandfather, Erasmus, shared his agnosticism.

David M: If you read the works left by Erasmus and some of Darwin's letter, you can see that they doubt if the existence of God could ever be truly known. What would you call that? Newton called his new mathematics "the science of fluxions", but Leibniz called it Calculus. Is there any doubt they were both working from the same principles? If I describe certain zen writings as existential or nihilistic, is it invalid only because those terms didn't exist when the zen masters wrote? Its my opinion and you understand it more quickly because I use terms we are familiar with. You may disagree, but at least you know what I mean.

Darwin, after a very robust youth, became a hypochondriac. Or was he? At the time, diagnoses like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome hadn't been identified. Doesn't that mean he couldn't have had it?

If he called himself agnostic it was only right at the end of his life. The word was not even invented when he wrote the Origin of Species.

Erasmus his grandfather was an agnostic?? How the heck do you get that when he died in 1802 and Huxley coined the term agnostic in 1869? It's bad enough with living atheists who are scared to admit it pretending that the nonsense idea of agnostic being a middle ground between theism and lack of theism has any merit, when clearly there can be no such thing, without people retroactively claiming it for dead people who can never have even heard the word any more than they heard the word "cybersex".

No he was not. When he got back from his voyage of the Beagle he contradicted everything he found. He was very disturbed by his findings and didn't know what to do. He soon read Lyell's and Hutton's work and then decided to publish his theory on Evolution in his book The Origin of Species. But his daughter died shortly after and he thought that no god could be so cruel and take away like that. This is when he (if anything) we against the bible. Also, he didn't make this up. He got all evidence of the evolutionary theory from his findings, mostly in the Galapagos Islands.

Darwin was a great scientist. He had nothing to do with religion or any of that hocus pocus mumbo jumbo. He simply dealt with the facts and sought out the truth you nutter.

Apparently he wasn't a fan of the church at times, because the church as an organisation was pretty damn corrupt in the Victorian era. However, this had nothing to do with his scientific work.

Why does he have to be against something? Maybe he just believed in evolution and didn't try to be against anything else?

I believe that war is wrong, but I will not protest war, I believe in love and peace and will bring those energies to those of violence, anger and hate......So you cannot say I am against war, I am just for love and peace. I also believe in the theory of evolution and that God created it and everything. I am not against God!

He lost his faith when his daughter died- evolution theory wasn;t his way of getting back at the church, God or whatever- he simply saw the evidence and made up his mind. People who aknowledge the fact of evolution don't neccessartily not believe in God, just not the two faced psychopathic blood lust monster described in the Bible

Darwin was against ignorance and a seeker of knowledge,,,even on his deathbed he had doubts of his own theory.

he was a scientist, so he probably didn't even think about the religious aspect and just focused on documenting what he observed, like any good scientist would.