Evolution Brought About Morality ?

Originally posted by DeepThought
I don't think that there's even a particularly convincing explanation for why all biological molecules are left handed. But I don't think that the theistic objection is against any particular faculty evolving, but against the notion that matter can become animated without some divine spark, this is the real threat that science poses to the theists, at l ...[text shortened]... erent - so I don't think altering the tetrahedral structure of Carbon represents a small change.

I don't think science is a threat in the least. I do think you are acknowledging some of the
points I think about rather nicely too even though I'm willing to bet we disagree on the
common ancestor still. The spark of life was my point early on in this discussion, even if
we put together all the parts for a human life in place would that automatically mean there
would be human life?

I also see you've started looking at some of the factors I was addressing too, it isn't just
having all the parts to make life in the right place, the universe has to support it from
gravity down the way protons behave. On top of that, supporting life over time requires
not only everything being there, but there in such a manner nothing is disrupted that
would knock out life being supported.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
This thread only has 11 pages...

It was the Absurd Escapism thread, and that mistake was caused by having multiple tabs open.

Originally posted by divegeester
But you will not accept anyone else's definition of 'morality" so it is impossible to talk about it within a common frame of reference. Why don't you start with your defnition of morality?

But you will not accept anyone else's definition of 'morality" so it is impossible to talk about it within a common frame of reference. Why don't you start with your defnition of morality?

The sense of behavioral duty, behavioral obligation, what one Ought to do, what one Ought Not to do. Sense of ethical indebtedness to some principle.

This is not to be confused with ability or failure to live up to these standards.
I am speaking to the mere sense of a standard.

Originally posted by sonship
The sense of behavioral duty, behavioral obligation, what one Ought to do, what one Ought Not to do. Sense of ethical indebtedness to some principle.

This is not to be confused with ability or failure to live up to these standards.
I am speaking to the mere sense of a standard.

So if you Ought to brush your teeth once a day, or Ought to wash your hands after using the loo, you would call those behaviours 'morality'?

Originally posted by twhitehead
So if you Ought to brush your teeth once a day, or Ought to wash your hands after using the loo, you would call those behaviours 'morality'?

My definition of morality could use some refinement.

Things like mercy, justice, love, forbearance and the duties to have such attributes is more what I mean.

If we re-ran the picture of Evolution and we evolved in a completely different way, might all these duties to "be just" and to "be faithful" and to "be honest and loving and truthful" have developed totally differently ?

If your evolutionary process is really blind with no goal might a creature have emerged (if it happened all again) completely different that we might judge as "immoral" to our present frame of reference ?

Or would be some coincidence that other emergent creature share the same characteristic devotions to our morality ?

Originally posted by sonship
Or would be some coincidence that other emergent creature share the same characteristic devotions to our morality ?

It appears you didn't bother to read my earlier posts. Morality stems from cooperative behaviour. All creatures that exhibit cooperative behaviour exhibit morality very similar to our own except without all the excessive theorising about it. Note also that the cooperative behaviour in such creatures, as well as in humans, is strongly tied to biological relationships - something predicted by evolution, but not by theology.

Morality as in cooperative behaviour is distinct from 'right' and 'wrong' and what we 'ought'. Whether we 'ought' to behave morally is a different question from what is moral. That is why your definition was not so good because you tried to define it in terms of 'ought'.

Originally posted by KellyJay
One of my daughters is type 1, I know her moods can be changed by her numbers. That does not really get us off the starting block though in my opinion, talking about a fully
functional person and seeing changes in behavior due to a site change or a shot, isn't
the same thing as having a life form think or reason for the first time and make a moral
choice.

I empathize with your daughter. I was diagnosed 15(-ish) years ago with type 1. It's important to have people around who know about the condition and can take steps to minimize certain issues. I've been on an insulin pump for about 18 months now and the difference is night and day, my A1c's now are the lowest I've ever had. The mood swings have also stopped because I no longer have super highs or lows. I've always had a 'love-hate relationship' with insulin, but we've settled into a comfortable understanding now. Look into a pump if she doesn't already have one. Best decision I ever made. I wish the best for her... it's not the easiest condition, but it can be tamed.

Originally posted by Suzianne
I empathize with your daughter. I was diagnosed 15(-ish) years ago with type 1. It's important to have people around who know about the condition and can take steps to minimize certain issues. I've been on an insulin pump for about 18 months now and the difference is night and day, my A1c's now are the lowest I've ever had. The mood swings have also sto ...[text shortened]... on I ever made. I wish the best for her... it's not the easiest condition, but it can be tamed.

Thank you!

I cannot express what it was like watching her go through the shots, she was taking about
seven a day before the pump. Some times she'd cry when taking the shots it was painful
for her and I wanted to die watching her suffer. The pump is night and day better, we have
only had to go to the hospital once with it, the needle bent and we didn't notice, scary
stuff. She was 12 when we found out, she is 18 now, now the her life seems to revolve
around art work and crafts and teaching instead of needles.

Originally posted by twhitehead

It appears you didn't bother to read my earlier posts. Morality stems from cooperative behaviour.

I don't deny that there is some truth to that. Even if morality does come from cooperative behavior it would be a genetic fallacy to say because of that there are objectively true moral laws.

So you could have group cooperative effort arriving at the DISCOVERY of true universal laws of moral behavior. Just because the group collectively discovers such principles does not mean they invented them.

Then we would have to ask - "What was there already to be discovered by cooperative consensus. And what is the source of these standards that the group emerged to adopt as normative. "

That is where God would come in. Group cooperative behavior doesn't necessarily negate the existence of an eternal Source of morality to which they moved towards and arose to.

All creatures that exhibit cooperative behaviour exhibit morality very similar to our own except without all the excessive theorising about it. Note also that the cooperative behaviour in such creatures, as well as in humans, is strongly tied to biological relationships - something predicted by evolution, but not by theology.

Evolution though is about survival benefit of selected mutations. It would not be concerned with the truth, but only whether a trait enhances survivability.

We intuitively know that certain things are really objectively true morally.
The knowledge that they are true is as certain to us as our sensory perception of the world.

The raping of babies is wrong. It is true that it is wrong.

Evolution should not be concerned with truth but only what causes survival.

Morality as in cooperative behaviour is distinct from 'right' and 'wrong' and what we 'ought'. Whether we 'ought' to behave morally is a different question from what is moral. That is why your definition was not so good because you tried to define it in terms of 'ought'.

I acknowedge I my way of expressing some things will contain weaknesses. And they have been expressed better by others. This does not turn me back though from theism and God as the good.

Now I believe I asked, (I think you) that if Evolution could be started all over again, might beings evolve in a totally different way with a totally different sense of morality ?

What is preventing Evolution from developing again a higher level being who deems the raping of its offspring as noble, right, beautiful and faithful? I am talking about some evolved creature emerging to the intellectual level of mankind.

What I am asking is - Is the raping of the offspring and children objectively wrong ? Or is it only wrong in this particular cycle of Evolution as to how man has emerged ?

Running the Evolutionary program again over a 13 billion year cycle, could higher beings such as us deem the rape of children was something they morally ought to do ?

Originally posted by sonship
I don't deny that there is some truth to that. Even if morality does come from cooperative behavior it would be a genetic fallacy to say because of that there are objectively true moral laws.

So you could have group cooperative effort arriving at the DISCOVERY of true universal laws of moral behavior. Just because the group collectively discovers such principles does not mean they invented them.

You appear to be contradicting yourself - although you are somewhat vague as to what you are trying to say.

Then we would have to ask - "What was there already to be discovered by cooperative consensus. And what is the source of these standards that the group emerged to adopt as normative. "

That is where God would come in.
No, that is not where God would come in. The requirements of cooperation brings about its own rules, and as I have noted a number of times, the rules we observe, fit cooperation, but do not fit theology.

Evolution though is about survival benefit of selected mutations. It would not be concerned with the truth, but only whether a trait enhances survivability.
Correct. Hence religion.

We intuitively know that certain things are really objectively true morally.
The knowledge that they are true is as certain to us as our sensory perception of the world.

The raping of babies is wrong. It is true that it is wrong.
But not objectively true.

Evolution should not be concerned with truth but only what causes survival.
Correct. Hence, humans and other animals do rape babies. This points towards evolution and not theology. Theology tries to explain it as either 'evil' - without explanation as to why evil thinks raping babies is right - or a 'curse' by God which is never really explained, or 'free will' (well we should be allowed to rape babies even though its wrong).

Now I believe I asked, (I think you) that if Evolution could be started all over again, might beings evolve in a totally different way with a totally different sense of morality ?
And I answered, and you appear not to have listened as usual. You are so blinded by your desire to push your religion that you do not read my posts.

What is preventing Evolution from developing again a higher level being who deems the raping of its offspring as noble, right, beautiful and faithful?
We essentially already to just that to chickens and cows. But that would not be called 'morality'. You don't seem to want to get my point that morality is not equivalent to 'right' and 'wrong'.
If there were a genetic advantage to raping babies, then I assure you, it would be a widespread practice and would be considered the 'right' thing to do. What we now call 'child rape' (sex with teenagers) was standard practice in the not too distant past (and is approved of in the Bible).

What I am asking is - Is the raping of the offspring and children objectively wrong ?
Nothing whatsoever is objectively wrong. But it is objectively morally wrong. There is a difference.

Or is it only wrong in this particular cycle of Evolution as to how man has emerged ?
It is always morally wrong because it is not cooperative. It is only intuitively wrong in this particular cycle and we can see in other species examples of animals eating their own babies, and killing babies is far from unheard of in humans - and in some societies considered 'right' in certain circumstances.

Originally posted by twhitehead

You appear to be contradicting yourself - although you are somewhat vague as to what you are trying to say.

I may not appear to be 100% consistent. But that still doesn't make your case right. it just shows i am not the best debater on the matter.

me:
Then we would have to ask - "What was there already to be discovered by cooperative consensus. And what is the source of these standards that the group emerged to adopt as normative. "

That is where God would come in.


tw: No, that is not where God would come in. The requirements of cooperation brings about its own rules, and as I have noted a number of times, the rules we observe, fit cooperation, but do not fit theology.

You may have asserted what is wrong more than once. You may have asserted what cannot be entirely true a number of times.

I think you are begging the question by assuming up front naturalism.
I think you are begging the question by assuming up front atheism.
Both are your presuppositional stances from which you work.

As I work through this response I will see if you answer the question about the RULES being completely different IF Evolution had it to do all over again. Possibly you replied. But I am working down through the post.

me:
Evolution though is about survival benefit of selected mutations. It would not be concerned with the truth, but only whether a trait enhances survivability.
Correct. Hence religion.

This makes no sense to me. "Hence religion" ?
Brief, but not too meaningful.

me:
We intuitively know that certain things are really objectively true morally.
The knowledge that they are true is as certain to us as our sensory perception of the world.

The raping of babies is wrong. It is true that it is wrong.
But not objectively true.

This too makes little sense to me.
It sounds like going back to facts for you can be of things not true.

me:
Evolution should not be concerned with truth but only what causes survival.

Correct. Hence, humans and other animals do rape babies.

The fact that some depraved humans rape babies does not justify it.
Objective moral standard does not mean that that standard is always lived UP to.

And just because animals do something is no excuse that humans should do all the same things. We could not tolerate a society in which we excuse all our crimes because we can find some vague parallel in the animal world.

Seeking to be wise you dehumanize people.
Is everything that animals do something that we human beings should also do ?
I say NO.

We should not try to justify some very poor acts of morality just because some intellectual can point to animals doing something of the same thing.

tw:
This points towards evolution and not theology.

What you have written, i think points to some kind of anarchy in which we should behave as animals. Theology at least recognizes that though man is a part of the living world he no doubt occupies the highest place among all other creatures.

There is simultaneously, with Christian theology, a humility and a sober recognition that we ARE special. The TWO aspects of human reality can exist together.

We are OF the other creatures. Yet we are also transcendent above them all also.
It is a pity that some forms of atheism dumb down this appreciation of man's place among the other creatures.

Theology tries to explain it as either 'evil' - without explanation as to why evil thinks raping babies is right - or a 'curse' by God which is never really explained, or 'free will' (well we should be allowed to rape babies even though its wrong).

It is evil because it is over indulgence to the uttermost. it is against all limits of the decency scope within which sexual pleasure should be sought.

There exists boundaries which men innately are intuitive of.
A man may seek romance, pleasure, sexual fulfillment.
But a man may not do so with absolutely NO BOUNDARIES of what is decent.

Greed should not so totally overwhelm a human being that he throws off all conceivable constraint to only meet his own need SELFISHLY with no regard whatsoever for the defenseless, such as a child.

I would say the sense of the perversion of child rape is as secure as the sensory perception that gravity will pull us down to the ground.

I would say that if a man is not clear that he should not rape a baby it is as crazy as a man who jumps to his death ignorant of the concern for falling.

I knew a man who stepped off a ledge to his death under the influence of mind altering drugs. He was temporarily made insane. It would be the same for a man who rapes a baby. It would be an act of moral insanity.

Your philosophy really renders ethics illusory. Morality under your system is only an aid to survival. So your socio-biological pressures and the herd mentality is all that matters.

So Nazism is the socio-cooperative invention of Germany under Adolf Hitler. But I think most of the world's people would recognize the objective truth that the Holocaust was objectively morally wrong.

One of the leading convicts in the Nuremberg trials said only that the other societies had no position to condemn Germany for what they did to the Jews. He said Americans did much the same to the Native American Indians.

I noticed that he did not state that what the Nazis did was right. He said that what the Nazis did is what OTHER societies did, so that they were in no position to pass judgment.

My point is the even this Nazi knew of the objectively wrongness of the Holocaust.
You are coming along with your Atheism and Evolution and saying that it was evil, is not truth.

me;
Now I believe I asked, (I think you) that if Evolution could be started all over again, might beings evolve in a totally different way with a totally different sense of morality ?

tw: And I answered, and you appear not to have listened as usual. You are so blinded by your desire to push your religion that you do not read my posts.

Maybe I didn't see the answer yet.

You desire to push your religion of scientism, to push your naturalism, to push your athiesm.
That is why you frequent the Spiritualiy forum to tout your godless Atheism and your Scientism as your deepest spiritual sentiments.

" I have replaced God with this ...." is basically your boast here over the years.

Unfortunately, as seen above it dehumanizes even yourself.

me:
What is preventing Evolution from developing again a higher level being who deems the raping of its offspring as noble, right, beautiful and faithful?

We essentially already to just that to chickens and cows. But that would not be called 'morality'. You don't seem to want to get my point that morality is not equivalent to 'right' and 'wrong'.

You don't seem to want to accept that human beings are qualitatively not chickens and cows. Why does Atheism always dehumanize us ?

I embrace Christian theology because I want to have the courage to be a man. If I am going to be a man I am going to be a man created in the image of God.

Your case is severely hampered apart from me using theology. Even without theology there is nothing else on the planet quite like a human being. I bet you would even argue against this too.

How come Evolution only produced ONE such being on the earth as human beings ?
The next level of life is FAR below in so many aspects.

if there were other creatures, non-human, who shared this level of spiritual, moral, intellectual ascendency then you might have more of a case. But there is NOTHING else in the whole realm of living things like a human being.

It is realism to recognize this.

If there were a genetic advantage to raping babies, then I assure you, it would be a widespread practice and would be considered the 'right' thing to do.

How can you "assure me" ? You haven't witnessed this.

It is impossible to really condemn any evil act in your world-view.
Nor can you really praise love, brotherhood, self-control.
All things are permitted in your religion, in your "Spirituality" which you constantly preach on this Forum.

So we know that for twhitehead there is really nothing wrong with raping someone.
Why such behavior goes on all the time in the animal kingdom, so humans are justified.
That's your Spirituality here offered as an alternative to belief in God. This I would consider sick.

The rapist is only acting unfashionably in your view. The child rapist is simply going against the herd.

So if Evolution would produce a different herd mentality, whose to say that it already has not done so ? So if one nationality "evolved" to exterminate another, whose to say that is objectively wrong ? Then to condemn the Holocaust is just unwarranted bias towards one branch of the evolutionary tree against another.

We cannot practically live in such a world.

What we now call 'child rape' (sex with teenagers) was standard practice in the not too distant past (and is approved of in the Bible).

Lying is also frowned upon. And by saying the Bible approved of rape in any sense, let alone child rape is your lie.

That is one reason why I don't read some of your posts, They contain lies.

Nothing whatsoever is objectively wrong. But it is objectively morally wrong. There is a difference.

According to your view Theism then is not objectively wrong, for "Nothing whatsoever is objectively wrong."

I don't believe that. I believe Theism is objectively right or objectively wrong.
That God exists is objectively right.
That Atheism is true is objectively wrong.

You claim that [b...

Twhitehead:

Nothing whatsoever is objectively wrong. But it is objectively morally wrong. There is a difference.

Is this statement objectively right ?
is the opposite of this statement expressing the contrary, objectively wrong ?

is it objectively wrong to say here "There is not a difference" ?
is the statement "There is a difference" objectively right ?

Originally posted by sonship

Bad typo.

I meant to write:

I don't deny that there is some truth to that. Even if morality does come from cooperative behavior it would be a genetic fallacy to say because of that there are NO [edited] objectively true moral laws.

Originally posted by twhitehead

. Note also that the cooperative behaviour in such creatures, as well as in humans, is strongly tied to biological relationships - something predicted by evolution, but not by theology.

Do you live then a good and decent life ?

According to your own view you really do not. You just (I assume) go along with the herd.

You don't live a decent and moral life. You just don't like to act unfashionably against the herd morality. So are you ready to simply admit that you don't live a really decent and good life ?

Of course you can formulate a system of ethics without theology. That's not the point here. Your system of ethics formulated without belief in God, is not really objectively moral good, is it ?

I would like to see you write it out here for everyone that you are not REALLY a decent and good person twhitehead.

How committed are you to your philosophy ? Then tell us that REAL decency and REAL objective moral goodness do not apply to your behavior here.

And let all the atheists who follow your belief likewise be bold enough to tell us you all are not REALLY good people.

But then again those Christians in Salem Mass. who burned 13 or so witches, were not REALLY behaving badly in any objective sense. They were just acting unfashionably apart from the herd cooperation. Right ?