How Darwin caused atheism

ApostateAbe writes: Dennett is kinda the authority on the interplay between the theory of evolution and atheism (wrote the book on it), though he is not a historian, and being a historian is what would be required to do "very careful research." I don't know for sure if there was ever a historical study to answer the question on whether or not Darwin "broke the dam" for atheism, though historians really don't do it so differently from how the rest of us do it, except of course they would be a lot more thorough--examining all the evidence available, putting all explanations on the table, and choosing the explanation that fits best.I have made some specific historical claims, and you can just ask me which of them you would like me to prove if you like.

ApostateAbe writes: What I need are the specifics of which claim you want me to prove. You see, I made a series of claims which I propose leads to the conclusion that Darwin's theories allowed an increase in atheism. Here is what I said:

quote:

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Before Darwin, there was no very good way to explain life except with the gods. This made atheism a seemingly unreasonable position. After Darwin, life had a very good explanation without the gods. Therefore, Darwin's theory allowed atheism to rise, and we see it in the influence and popularity of such figures as Marx, Nietzsche, Ingersoll and Freud, we see it in the coining of the term, "agnostic," by TH Huxley and its widespread acceptance among scientists and the public. Before Darwin, we had belief in deism among philosophers--the belief in a creator God who remains distant from human society. After Darwin, there were no well known deists left. The belief was replaced by atheism.

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There are a bunch of claims there, and all of them I take to be common knowledge, but, if there is any single claim that you disagree with, then I would like to know. Maybe you find something wrong with the whole of the argument, and that would also be appropriate to mention. Thanks.