Psychology experiments

[leskey]

"While it seems the inmates of the psychology forums frequently tire of playing with each other, please leave psychology experiments in the psychology forum where they belong, Pat and lw."

This should have read: "playing with themselves" - lol! Thank you Pat and lw for revealing your true intent...often perceived, seldom admitted so publicly.

[Profpat]

And thank you also leskey. By you deleting lw and my posts I was able to conclude my psychological studies. You were an excellent subject. Thank you for your time and honest responses.

Best,

Pat

P.S. I'm an open book leskey

[labelwench]

"While it seems the inmates of the psychology forums frequently tire of playing with each other, please leave psychology experiments in the psychology forum where they belong, Pat and lw."

This should have read: "playing with themselves" - lol! Thank you Pat and lw for revealing your true intent...often perceived, seldom admitted so publicly.

LOL.....I've been sleeping since I complained about one post, a seldom thing unless it's a spammer, as hanging around this place, I have come to accept that it takes two to tango.

What have I missed?

Obviously something is missing and something has been restated, when perhaps something else should also have gone missing.

Check the book folks.

There is an inherent timing to the incivilities that occur at this forum and the persistent parties, with a few alternates. Check the phases of the moon.

Same time next month?

Possibly.

Good Morning, Rascal.

Never fear, I'm out of here. Just got taken aback by a bit of flack during the wee hours. I was caught flat-footed and didn't see it coming. More interesting threads to ponder and it is the season of planting the vegetable garden, so I am off to start new life, later to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Good day to all.....

[Graybeard]

Here is some soap Greg to clean up your thread, for the people(S). People is already plural Greg so you can drop the s.

I have no understanding about the female species Greg. Having been married 3x you would think I should. But I never belittle them. You on the other hand, I will belittle.

Now that I have your attention, let us address your REPREHENSIBLE insinuation that Darwin's discovery was Design without a Designer. I pointed out to you on numerous occasions, using Darwin's own words, that he believed in an Intelligent Designer.

"The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection had been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws."

Charles Darwin.

But rather than changing the title of your thread you insist on perpetuating your lie. Why is that Greg? Only a very small person, would go to such lengths as to misuse a giant's intellect, to support their own little misbeggoten ideas.

In his 1871 book The Descent of Man Darwin clearly saw religion and "moral qualities" as being important evolved human social characteristics. Darwin's frequent pairing of "Belief in God" and religion with topics on superstitions and fetishism throughout the book can also be interpreted as indicating how much truth he assigned to the former.

In the introduction Darwin wrote:

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

Later on in the book he dismisses an argument for religion being innate:

"Belief in God — Religion. — There is no evidence that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent God. On the contrary there is ample evidence, derived not from hasty travellers, but from men who have long resided with savages, that numerous races have existed, and still exist, who have no idea of one or more gods, and who have no words in their languages to express such an idea. The question is of course wholly distinct from that higher one, whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the universe; and this has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed."

"The belief in God has often been advanced as not only the greatest, but the most complete of all the distinctions between man and the lower animals. It is however impossible, as we have seen, to maintain that this belief is innate or instinctive in man. On the other hand a belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems to be universal; and apparently follows from a considerable advance in man's reason, and from a still greater advance in his faculties of imagination, curiosity and wonder. I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for the belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent Deity. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture."

Fame and honours brought a stream of enquiries about Darwin's religious views, leading him to comment "Half the fools throughout Europe write to ask me the stupidest questions." He sometimes retorted sharply, "I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God", and at other times was more guarded, telling a young count studying with Haeckel that "Science has nothing to do with Christ; except in so far as the habit of scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting evidence. For myself I do not believe that there ever has been any Revelation.

As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities." He declined a request by the Archbishop of Canterbury to join a 'Private Conference' of devout scientists to harmonise science and religion, for he saw "no prospect of any benefit arising" from it.

In a letter to a correspondent at the University of Utrecht in 1873, Darwin expressed agnosticism:

I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an argument of real value, I have never been able to decide. I am aware that if we admit a first cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came from and how it arose. Nor can I overlook the difficulty from the immense amount of suffering through the world. I am, also, induced to defer to a certain extent to the judgment of many able men who have fully believed in God; but here again I see how poor an argument this is. The safest conclusion seems to me to be that the whole subject is beyond the scope of man's intellect; but man can do his duty.

In 1876 Darwin wrote the following regarding his publicly stated position of agnosticism: "Formerly I was led... to the firm conviction of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, 'it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind.' I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind."

Their talk turned to religion, and Darwin said "I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age." He agreed that Christianity was "not supported by the evidence", but he had reached this conclusion only slowly.

"By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported, — that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible, do miracles become, — that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us, — that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, — that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitness; — by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me. Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can hardly be denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which we now put on metaphors and allegories."

"Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last was complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct."

"I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine."

"The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection had been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws."

"At the present day (ca. 1872) the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons. But it cannot be doubted that Hindoos, Mahomadans and others might argue in the same manner and with equal force in favor of the existence of one God, or of many Gods, or as with the Buddists of no God...This argument would be a valid one if all men of all races had the same inward conviction of the existence of one God: but we know that this is very far from being the case. Therefore I cannot see that such inward convictions and feelings are of any weight as evidence of what really exists."

"Nor must we overlook the probability of the constant inculcation in a belief in God on the minds of children producing so strong and perhaps as inherited effect on their brains not yet fully developed, that it would be as difficult for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a monkey to throw off its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake."

Dear Pat .... its not often that I quote so much from another ... please consider ?

cool bananas ... greg