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→Reply to Conservative
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REPLY TO Ray:
Ray, I saw today that you are back at Conservapedia. I understand that you and TK (the Sysop/Admin) are battling regarding the Darwin atheist/agnostic issue. I wanted you to provide the Mayr quote so we could say in the Darwin article that the Prominent evolutionist and Harvard biologist Ernst Mayr said ".........................." and provide the footnote so this way TK could not easily dispute the matter. I do believe that Conservapedia should be rule based and that material pointing to Darwin being a closet atheist should not be squelched out of a conservative encyclopedia merely because a Sysop/Admin (namely TK) doesn't like the material. As far as me saying Mayr never said Darwin was a atheist I merely asked for a quote so this way the whole TK vs Ray issue could be diffused. As far as me believing that Darwin was an atheist earlier, I think we should set aside this issue of what I believed or disbelieved and focus on factual matters in regards to issue at hand and that is: Was Darwin an atheist or a agnostic.
'''I believe the case is extremely stronger for Darwin being a closet atheist who at times found it hard to maintain atheistic thinking than for Darwin being a agnostic.''' I say this based on what I strongly suspect Mayr said {which I wish you would provide a small quote for if possible) and the following material regarding Darwin which I read today:
"Ernst Mayr’s recent book on Darwin, One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Evolutionary Thought, Harvard, 1991, also acknowledges that Darwin’s references to purpose were to appease both the public and his wife. His early, private notebooks show his materialism well established. For instance, in one of them he addresses himself as, ‘O, you materialist!’ and says, ‘Why is thought, being a secretion of brain, more wonderful than gravity as a property of matter?’ He clearly already believed that the idea of a separate realm of the spirit was nonsense, as is further shown when he warns himself not to reveal his beliefs, as follows:
‘to avoid saying how far I believe in materialism, say only that emotions, instincts, degrees of talent which are hereditary are so because brain of child resembles parent stock.’ [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1877]
I also cite a review of a book written in the British Journal for the Philosophy (Volume 47,1996, page 641) saying: "I have no doubt that Darwin was a materialist and mechanist...." [http://www.jstor.org/view/00070882/ap020188/02a00130/1?frame=noframe&userID=80cdbf39@buffalo.edu/01cce4405c00501c2c38a&dpi=3&config=jstor]
I also cite this material from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
"In 1885, the Duke of Argyll recounted a conversation he had had with Charles Darwin the year before Darwin's death:
In the course of that conversation I said to Mr. Darwin, with reference to some of his own remarkable works on the Fertilisation of Orchids, and upon The Earthworms, and various other observations he made of the wonderful contrivances for certain purposes in nature—I said it was impossible to look at these without seeing that they were the effect and the expression of Mind. I shall never forget Mr. Darwin's answer. He looked at me very hard and said, “Well, that often comes over me with overwhelming force; but at other times,” and he shook his head vaguely, adding, “it seems to go away.”(Argyll 1885, 244] [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/notes.html] [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 16:56, 2 July 2007 (EDT)
== I created an article at another website ==
== I created an article at another website ==