My last post today! In a message dated 5/27/2014 10:49:52 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes in "In search of the religious Gene": "[Wade] quotes Darwin as writing, “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 an inherited effect on their brains not yet fully developed, that it would be as difficult for them to throw off their belief in God.” “Perhaps an inherited effect”? How very unDarwin of you." And then, predating all this, was Locke -- Grice's _second favourite philosopher --. In sections 7-17 of Essay Concerning Humane [sic] Understanding, the Oxford philosopher Locke (after whom the Locke lectures that Grice delivered were named) discusses the “innateness” of the idea of a deity: I iv 7-17 Is the idea that the deity is to be worshiped an innate one? If so, then the ideas of a deity and of worship must be innate! But there is no universal idea of worship. -*I iv 8 Locke claims that the idea of “God” is not innate: “if any idea can be imagined innate, then the idea of God may, of all others, for many reasons, be thought so; since it is hard to conceive, how there should be innate moral principles, without an innate idea of a deity; without the notion of a lawmaker, it is impossible to have a notion of a law, and an obligation to observe it.” But, Locke notes, there are whole “nations” which lack the idea which the continental rationalists rely upon here! -I iv 9 Moreover, Locke notes, even if all human being had the idea of a deity, this would not prove that the idea was innate. “...the visible marks of extraordinary wisdom and power, appear so plainly in all the works of the creation, that a rational creature, who will seriously reflect on them, cannot miss the discovery of a deity....” Finally, in I iv 14 Locke contends that the “idea of a deity” varies amongst human beings Yet, it should be pointed out that Wade's idea is the 'faith instinct' -- which seems v. popular, in various formats, in his alma mater of Eton, as per: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1288053/Inside-Muslim-Eton-Their-day -starts-3-45am-goes-disciplined-20-hours-Their-aim-produce-Muslim-elite-lead ers-.html Cheers, Speranza ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html