Reply #22: Oh crap, not THAT myth again...

[onager]

To see exactly where the BS about Darwin and his deathbed conversion originated, do a google on "Lady Hope."

You'll have to search for an OBJECTIVE version. There are lots of lying Xer websites that try to polish this dried-out old turd with the usual "Maybes" and "What ifs."

The facts:

1. Lady Hope was a British evangelist (what a surprise!). When she visited the U.S. on a lecture tour, she stopped off at Dwight Moody's famous Xian spookatorium and wowed the students with her accounts of visiting Charles Darwin on his deathbed.

2. She claimed that Darwin confessed his regret in releasing The Origin of Species "in haste" when he was "still a young man." As even dumbasses like me know, Darwin was over 50 when he published the book and had already waited over 20 years to do so. Not exactly "in haste."

3. Lady Hope also got a few other minor details wrong. Like, er, the month and year Darwin died.

4. Naturally, the story of Darwin's deathbed conversion soon became a staple of Xian proselytizing.

Unfortunately, it was refuted over and over by the people who really were sitting with Darwin when he died--his own family.

Darwin's daughter said flatly that she doubted Lady Hopeless had ever even met her father, and that he certainly didn't recant evolution or anything else on his deathbed. He died as he had lived most of his life--a happy agnostic.