Atheism: Jonathan Miller’s Brief History of Disbelief - Shadows of Doubt
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2250104590805018608#
A BBC Special
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3473983875617762630#
Lee Strobel: Case for Christ
[quote]ephrem wrote:
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”
Seneca
[/quote]
I regard that statement as petrified bullshit.
[quote]BackInAction wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]BackInAction wrote:
[quote]BBriere wrote:
[quote]BackInAction wrote:
[quote]BBriere wrote:
I think atheists can be very moral. Your religious preferences don’t determine how moral of a person you are although if you consider yourself religious then it should. I don’t know of any religion that preaches immorality, but I’m sure there are a few.
The question of morals in atheists though raises another question. Where do atheists get their morals? Christians, Muslims, etc. say their morals come from God therefore there is a a clear cut right and wrong. An atheist who says there is no God and people are just the process of evolution is left to decide if there is a right or wrong. If so, then where does it come from?
I would never vote for a person based on their religious beliefs. Afterall, I would bet the majority of the “Christian” leaders of the nation are just nominally Christian. [/quote]
I’ll answer this one. My morals come from my own experiences and the experiences of interacting and observing those around me. If I see that something causes suffering to another, I will see this and note that this is an incorrect action.
And yes, I do think Atheists can be very moral people. I do a lot of things I consider good: trying to become vegetarian, volunteer at old peoples homes, try to give advice and help when asked, help animals that are injured, put worms in the grass (ones on pavement) after a rain storm, etc.[/quote]
That’s very interesting on where your morals come from. I believe that most people would say the same. Let me ask you this; if there is no God you would have to concede that there is no universal right or wrong though would you not? I mean what’s right for you may be wrong for me. If we are just a chance happening of carbon based compounds that form life then we are no different than any other animal except that we have thought. So what causes us to think that one thing is right and another wrong? [/quote]
We are social beings. We can relate to those around us. Let me ask you this: If you saw someone molesting a woman or child, would you stop them? I don’t believe people need a God to do good in the world. We all want to protect those around us from suffering.[/quote]
Ok, but why?[/quote]
Perhaps it’s programmed into us. Perhaps we can relate to the suffering of others. I really don’t know.[/quote]
Sympathy for others in many cases is counter productive to the survival of the fittest. It helps the weak survive. So I don’t think it’s programed…
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]
Now have you ever seen a successful society that encourages human sacrifice on a grand scale? No. Because doing so is counter-productive to continuing a society.[/quote]
As you said, the Aztecs had a society. And according to some, modern warfare has only carried on the practice of human sacrifice. But now, for the blessings of Democracy, capitalism, socialism, or whatever -ism. [/quote]
Yes, I guess some would say that.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”
Seneca
[/quote]
I regard that statement as petrified bullshit.[/quote]
That is because you do not understand the Romans.
They rarely bullshitted, unless they adressed the unwashed masses of course, because bullshitting is so… undignified?
It shows that you actually give a damn whether someone else agrees?
Anyways, bullshitters they were not, they had an efficient army though.
Since this thread has gone the way of morality for the moment, I throw this in for discussion. It has it’s own thread, but I think it fits here for purposes of morality discussion.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100826/ap_on_re_us/un_un_congo
So, is this an apparent lack of the “moral gene”, a lack of religious instilled morality, a lack of socially instilled morality, or just plain evil?
[quote]cueball wrote:
Since this thread has gone the way of morality for the moment, I throw this in for discussion. It has it’s own thread, but I think it fits here for purposes of morality discussion.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100826/ap_on_re_us/un_un_congo
So, is this an apparent lack of the “moral gene”, a lack of religious instilled morality, a lack of socially instilled morality, or just plain evil? [/quote]
No, that is just genetics.
Apparently, if you can believe US sources, the male negro is a migratory animal that forms “packs” and then starts to rape indiscrimenataly.
Even Prof X is afraid when it comes to this phenomenon.
[quote]BBriere wrote:
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]BBriere wrote:
The problem is that the idea of good and bad has to come from somewhere. Otherwise it’s just all relative.[/quote]
As I and others have explained, certain personality traits that favor a strong group/society/community get passed on by our DNA.
I can argue that religion makes ideas of right and wrong relative. To a Muslim who strictly follows the Koran, killing an infidel, defined as anyone who is not Muslim, is perfectly acceptable. And no, I’m not being a bigot - it says this in the Koran, or words to that affect. So, ideas of right and wrong are relative based on your particular religion. Sure, we can argue about which religion is the true religion, but ALL religions claim to be the one, true religion. So, which one should I believe?
I agree that the idea that humans evolved from non-living elements is hard to imagine. The universe is hard to imagine. But just because something is hard to understand doesn’t prove the existence of a god. This idea of “it’s hard to understand” is the basis of just about all religions. That combined with the fact that we want to think that we’re special creatures watched over by a benevolent being, and we want there to be a universal moral code. Well guess what - I too want these things. But we don’t always get what we want, and I refuse to go running to the nonsense of religion just so I can feel special and loved.
[/quote]
So your claim is that no only do physical traits evolve (which I concede in micro-evolution) but that spiritual traits evolve as well. That would point towards some sort of spiritual being inside of us then. Where does that come from? There is nothing in our DNA that is anything but physical. And still that would leave morals subjective. It’s only dependent on what we perceive as right or wrong. Yet usually you don’t have to tell someone it’s terrible to hurt another living thing. Where could the information of morals be stored?[/quote]
This is in response to both you and Pat, since Pat asked a similar question: whether morality is somehow encoded onto our DNA. Well, sort of. I’m no expert on neuroscience, but here’s what I can tell based on my limited knowledge. Our sense of morality is linked to our emotions. We protect those we care about because we love them. When we do good things for others we feel “good.” Bad things produce feelings of guilt, sadness, fear. Our emotions are controlled primarily by chemicals in the brain - neurotransmitters - and to some extent by other hormones and chemicals. Fear, for example, involves production of adrenaline and epinephrine. Love involves a more complex mix of chemicals: oxytocin, serotonin testosterone, dopamine, probably a little epinephrine tossed in. Although love is complex, it is still essentially chemical-based. During our evolution, it made sense that we sought those situations that produced feel-good chemicals and avoided those that produced feel-bad chemicals.
The idea that “killing is wrong” probably came out because way back one tribesman probably saw a fellow tribesman mauled and killed by an animal. This produced feelings of fear, anger, probably sadness. This reaction, although it produced bad feelings, ultimately helped this human to survive. Witnessing this frightening act taught this early human to avoid this animal, or at least taught him to not walked around without a weapon. Now, it’s possible that some humans didn’t get this response - they may have even found the situation amusing to watch. Not many of them lasted, however, because they never learned to avoid this animal. Eventually, a majority of early humans had the same chemical response when witnessing death. This same response was produced when a human killed a fellow human without any justification. Thus was born the notion that killing another human with justification was wrong.
The bottom line is that our emotions have a physical basis - there is nothing “spiritual” about it. And this is not limited to humans. For instance, scientists have discovered that elephants exhibit a kind of sadness when they witness the death of another elephant.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]wfifer wrote:
You can believe we’re all connected by energy and be an atheist. You can believe in some form of a soul or spirit and be an atheist. [/quote]
Yeah, but you kind of lose the entire reasoning behind choosing to be an atheist. [/quote]
It feels like you’re projecting your own personal beliefs onto the meaning of atheism. It’s not a philosophy in and of itself. It doesn’t matter how you arrive at the conclusion that there is no god, or even whether you’ve arrived there at all! We’re born atheists. There’s no reasoning behind it.
[quote]wfifer wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]wfifer wrote:
You can believe we’re all connected by energy and be an atheist. You can believe in some form of a soul or spirit and be an atheist. [/quote]
Yeah, but you kind of lose the entire reasoning behind choosing to be an atheist. [/quote]
It feels like you’re projecting your own personal beliefs onto the meaning of atheism. It’s not a philosophy in and of itself. It doesn’t matter how you arrive at the conclusion that there is no god, or even whether you’ve arrived there at all! We’re born atheists. There’s no reasoning behind it. [/quote]
The reasoning behind atheism centers on a lack of empirical evidence for the existence of a diety or dieties. To entertain the existence of a soul throws that out the window. A person might indeed label himself an atheist, yet hold out on the existence of the soul. But such a person would then be in a stalemate with the religious.
Atheism is a very broad term. If you decided to flip a coin and said that if it showed tails you would believe in supernatural spiritual beliefs and the other side is not believing in supernatural spiritual belief and it landed on heads you would be atheist.
My point is that the reason doesn’t matter why you don’t believe in supernatural spiritual beliefs only that you don’t. Different atheist will have different reasons for not believing in God/gods/spirits/soul/etc.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]cueball wrote:
Since this thread has gone the way of morality for the moment, I throw this in for discussion. It has it’s own thread, but I think it fits here for purposes of morality discussion.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100826/ap_on_re_us/un_un_congo
So, is this an apparent lack of the “moral gene”, a lack of religious instilled morality, a lack of socially instilled morality, or just plain evil? [/quote]
No, that is just genetics.
Apparently, if you can believe US sources, the male negro is a migratory animal that forms “packs” and then starts to rape indiscrimenataly.
Even Prof X is afraid when it comes to this phenomenon.
[/quote]
Ha, yes. However, I’m not really inclined to believe that particular US “source” on the matter.
So, do you think they lack the “moral gene” that Mike is selling us? Did this groups ancestors enjoy watching their fellow tribesmen get slaughtered by the animals, leading to an “evil gene”?
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]BBriere wrote:
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]BBriere wrote:
The problem is that the idea of good and bad has to come from somewhere. Otherwise it’s just all relative.[/quote]
As I and others have explained, certain personality traits that favor a strong group/society/community get passed on by our DNA.
I can argue that religion makes ideas of right and wrong relative. To a Muslim who strictly follows the Koran, killing an infidel, defined as anyone who is not Muslim, is perfectly acceptable. And no, I’m not being a bigot - it says this in the Koran, or words to that affect. So, ideas of right and wrong are relative based on your particular religion. Sure, we can argue about which religion is the true religion, but ALL religions claim to be the one, true religion. So, which one should I believe?
I agree that the idea that humans evolved from non-living elements is hard to imagine. The universe is hard to imagine. But just because something is hard to understand doesn’t prove the existence of a god. This idea of “it’s hard to understand” is the basis of just about all religions. That combined with the fact that we want to think that we’re special creatures watched over by a benevolent being, and we want there to be a universal moral code. Well guess what - I too want these things. But we don’t always get what we want, and I refuse to go running to the nonsense of religion just so I can feel special and loved.
[/quote]
So your claim is that no only do physical traits evolve (which I concede in micro-evolution) but that spiritual traits evolve as well. That would point towards some sort of spiritual being inside of us then. Where does that come from? There is nothing in our DNA that is anything but physical. And still that would leave morals subjective. It’s only dependent on what we perceive as right or wrong. Yet usually you don’t have to tell someone it’s terrible to hurt another living thing. Where could the information of morals be stored?[/quote]
This is in response to both you and Pat, since Pat asked a similar question: whether morality is somehow encoded onto our DNA. Well, sort of. I’m no expert on neuroscience, but here’s what I can tell based on my limited knowledge. Our sense of morality is linked to our emotions. We protect those we care about because we love them. When we do good things for others we feel “good.” Bad things produce feelings of guilt, sadness, fear. Our emotions are controlled primarily by chemicals in the brain - neurotransmitters - and to some extent by other hormones and chemicals. Fear, for example, involves production of adrenaline and epinephrine. Love involves a more complex mix of chemicals: oxytocin, serotonin testosterone, dopamine, probably a little epinephrine tossed in. Although love is complex, it is still essentially chemical-based. During our evolution, it made sense that we sought those situations that produced feel-good chemicals and avoided those that produced feel-bad chemicals.
The idea that “killing is wrong” probably came out because way back one tribesman probably saw a fellow tribesman mauled and killed by an animal. This produced feelings of fear, anger, probably sadness. This reaction, although it produced bad feelings, ultimately helped this human to survive. Witnessing this frightening act taught this early human to avoid this animal, or at least taught him to not walked around without a weapon. Now, it’s possible that some humans didn’t get this response - they may have even found the situation amusing to watch. Not many of them lasted, however, because they never learned to avoid this animal. Eventually, a majority of early humans had the same chemical response when witnessing death. This same response was produced when a human killed a fellow human without any justification. Thus was born the notion that killing another human with justification was wrong.
The bottom line is that our emotions have a physical basis - there is nothing “spiritual” about it. And this is not limited to humans. For instance, scientists have discovered that elephants exhibit a kind of sadness when they witness the death of another elephant.[/quote]
True, emotions don’t have to be taught. If morals became ingrained over time in our DNA, however, why not other learning? You say that people learned killing was wrong so they think about it as wrong. Wouldn’t people have leanred other things that they would pass on? How about speaking a language, cooking food, and other things people have needed to learn to survive? Those seem important enough to have also become part of the DNA if concious learning can be passed down from generation to generation.
[quote]BBriere wrote:
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]BBriere wrote:
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]BBriere wrote:
The problem is that the idea of good and bad has to come from somewhere. Otherwise it’s just all relative.[/quote]
As I and others have explained, certain personality traits that favor a strong group/society/community get passed on by our DNA.
I can argue that religion makes ideas of right and wrong relative. To a Muslim who strictly follows the Koran, killing an infidel, defined as anyone who is not Muslim, is perfectly acceptable. And no, I’m not being a bigot - it says this in the Koran, or words to that affect. So, ideas of right and wrong are relative based on your particular religion. Sure, we can argue about which religion is the true religion, but ALL religions claim to be the one, true religion. So, which one should I believe?
I agree that the idea that humans evolved from non-living elements is hard to imagine. The universe is hard to imagine. But just because something is hard to understand doesn’t prove the existence of a god. This idea of “it’s hard to understand” is the basis of just about all religions. That combined with the fact that we want to think that we’re special creatures watched over by a benevolent being, and we want there to be a universal moral code. Well guess what - I too want these things. But we don’t always get what we want, and I refuse to go running to the nonsense of religion just so I can feel special and loved.
[/quote]
So your claim is that no only do physical traits evolve (which I concede in micro-evolution) but that spiritual traits evolve as well. That would point towards some sort of spiritual being inside of us then. Where does that come from? There is nothing in our DNA that is anything but physical. And still that would leave morals subjective. It’s only dependent on what we perceive as right or wrong. Yet usually you don’t have to tell someone it’s terrible to hurt another living thing. Where could the information of morals be stored?[/quote]
This is in response to both you and Pat, since Pat asked a similar question: whether morality is somehow encoded onto our DNA. Well, sort of. I’m no expert on neuroscience, but here’s what I can tell based on my limited knowledge. Our sense of morality is linked to our emotions. We protect those we care about because we love them. When we do good things for others we feel “good.” Bad things produce feelings of guilt, sadness, fear. Our emotions are controlled primarily by chemicals in the brain - neurotransmitters - and to some extent by other hormones and chemicals. Fear, for example, involves production of adrenaline and epinephrine. Love involves a more complex mix of chemicals: oxytocin, serotonin testosterone, dopamine, probably a little epinephrine tossed in. Although love is complex, it is still essentially chemical-based. During our evolution, it made sense that we sought those situations that produced feel-good chemicals and avoided those that produced feel-bad chemicals.
The idea that “killing is wrong” probably came out because way back one tribesman probably saw a fellow tribesman mauled and killed by an animal. This produced feelings of fear, anger, probably sadness. This reaction, although it produced bad feelings, ultimately helped this human to survive. Witnessing this frightening act taught this early human to avoid this animal, or at least taught him to not walked around without a weapon. Now, it’s possible that some humans didn’t get this response - they may have even found the situation amusing to watch. Not many of them lasted, however, because they never learned to avoid this animal. Eventually, a majority of early humans had the same chemical response when witnessing death. This same response was produced when a human killed a fellow human without any justification. Thus was born the notion that killing another human with justification was wrong.
The bottom line is that our emotions have a physical basis - there is nothing “spiritual” about it. And this is not limited to humans. For instance, scientists have discovered that elephants exhibit a kind of sadness when they witness the death of another elephant.[/quote]
True, emotions don’t have to be taught. If morals became ingrained over time in our DNA, however, why not other learning? You say that people learned killing was wrong so they think about it as wrong. Wouldn’t people have leanred other things that they would pass on? How about speaking a language, cooking food, and other things people have needed to learn to survive? Those seem important enough to have also become part of the DNA if concious learning can be passed down from generation to generation.[/quote]
I agree with this. Having morality as a part of our genetic make-up gives us other issues too. If it’s how we’re made, then someone who commits atrocities then has a physical, medical, reason for doing it. A defect in or lack of the moral gene. It’s not that they knew better, or could choose one way or the other, that’s just “how they were made”. At that point is it really their fault? Should they be punished for not having the same genetic make-up as most others?
[quote]wfifer wrote:
It doesn’t matter how you arrive at the conclusion that there is no god, or even whether you’ve arrived there at all! We’re born atheists. There’s no reasoning behind it. [/quote]
True, my daughter was an “atheist” already at the age of four. She liked the activities in sundayschool, but found the religious stuff stupid. Her brother again was somewhat religious at the same age. And nothing has really changed, the other is still a hardcore atheist and the other slightly religious.
[quote]cueball wrote:
Since this thread has gone the way of morality for the moment, I throw this in for discussion. It has it’s own thread, but I think it fits here for purposes of morality discussion.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100826/ap_on_re_us/un_un_congo
So, is this an apparent lack of the “moral gene”, a lack of religious instilled morality, a lack of socially instilled morality, or just plain evil? [/quote]
Plain evil.
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]BBriere wrote:
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]BBriere wrote:
The problem is that the idea of good and bad has to come from somewhere. Otherwise it’s just all relative.[/quote]
As I and others have explained, certain personality traits that favor a strong group/society/community get passed on by our DNA.
I can argue that religion makes ideas of right and wrong relative. To a Muslim who strictly follows the Koran, killing an infidel, defined as anyone who is not Muslim, is perfectly acceptable. And no, I’m not being a bigot - it says this in the Koran, or words to that affect. So, ideas of right and wrong are relative based on your particular religion. Sure, we can argue about which religion is the true religion, but ALL religions claim to be the one, true religion. So, which one should I believe?
I agree that the idea that humans evolved from non-living elements is hard to imagine. The universe is hard to imagine. But just because something is hard to understand doesn’t prove the existence of a god. This idea of “it’s hard to understand” is the basis of just about all religions. That combined with the fact that we want to think that we’re special creatures watched over by a benevolent being, and we want there to be a universal moral code. Well guess what - I too want these things. But we don’t always get what we want, and I refuse to go running to the nonsense of religion just so I can feel special and loved.
[/quote]
So your claim is that no only do physical traits evolve (which I concede in micro-evolution) but that spiritual traits evolve as well. That would point towards some sort of spiritual being inside of us then. Where does that come from? There is nothing in our DNA that is anything but physical. And still that would leave morals subjective. It’s only dependent on what we perceive as right or wrong. Yet usually you don’t have to tell someone it’s terrible to hurt another living thing. Where could the information of morals be stored?[/quote]
This is in response to both you and Pat, since Pat asked a similar question: whether morality is somehow encoded onto our DNA. Well, sort of. I’m no expert on neuroscience, but here’s what I can tell based on my limited knowledge. Our sense of morality is linked to our emotions. We protect those we care about because we love them. When we do good things for others we feel “good.” Bad things produce feelings of guilt, sadness, fear. Our emotions are controlled primarily by chemicals in the brain - neurotransmitters - and to some extent by other hormones and chemicals. Fear, for example, involves production of adrenaline and epinephrine. Love involves a more complex mix of chemicals: oxytocin, serotonin testosterone, dopamine, probably a little epinephrine tossed in. Although love is complex, it is still essentially chemical-based. During our evolution, it made sense that we sought those situations that produced feel-good chemicals and avoided those that produced feel-bad chemicals.
The idea that “killing is wrong” probably came out because way back one tribesman probably saw a fellow tribesman mauled and killed by an animal. This produced feelings of fear, anger, probably sadness. This reaction, although it produced bad feelings, ultimately helped this human to survive. Witnessing this frightening act taught this early human to avoid this animal, or at least taught him to not walked around without a weapon. Now, it’s possible that some humans didn’t get this response - they may have even found the situation amusing to watch. Not many of them lasted, however, because they never learned to avoid this animal. Eventually, a majority of early humans had the same chemical response when witnessing death. This same response was produced when a human killed a fellow human without any justification. Thus was born the notion that killing another human with justification was wrong.
The bottom line is that our emotions have a physical basis - there is nothing “spiritual” about it. And this is not limited to humans. For instance, scientists have discovered that elephants exhibit a kind of sadness when they witness the death of another elephant.[/quote]
That’s a very simplistic view. If I could introduce the same electro chemical cocktail in to the same area of your brian vs. mine we would experience very different experiences.
Morals are not intrinsicly tied to feelings. Sociopaths have no emotional component in their brains but do have consciousness enough to choose to do evil of good with proper instruction. What is unknown is whether the phenomenon acts on the brain or the brain acts on the phenomenon.
Further, you simply cannot looks at the chemical make up of a brain and determines ones feelings.
The electo-chemical make up does not necessarily correspond to mood, situation, etc. Actual happiness more than a chemical reaction. If it were not we could truly make a brave new world.
Even if the metaphysical were simply the result of the brain, the metaphysical objects are still in the realm of metaphysics and not the chemicals themselves.
[quote]BBriere wrote:
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]BBriere wrote:
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]BBriere wrote:
The problem is that the idea of good and bad has to come from somewhere. Otherwise it’s just all relative.[/quote]
As I and others have explained, certain personality traits that favor a strong group/society/community get passed on by our DNA.
I can argue that religion makes ideas of right and wrong relative. To a Muslim who strictly follows the Koran, killing an infidel, defined as anyone who is not Muslim, is perfectly acceptable. And no, I’m not being a bigot - it says this in the Koran, or words to that affect. So, ideas of right and wrong are relative based on your particular religion. Sure, we can argue about which religion is the true religion, but ALL religions claim to be the one, true religion. So, which one should I believe?
I agree that the idea that humans evolved from non-living elements is hard to imagine. The universe is hard to imagine. But just because something is hard to understand doesn’t prove the existence of a god. This idea of “it’s hard to understand” is the basis of just about all religions. That combined with the fact that we want to think that we’re special creatures watched over by a benevolent being, and we want there to be a universal moral code. Well guess what - I too want these things. But we don’t always get what we want, and I refuse to go running to the nonsense of religion just so I can feel special and loved.
[/quote]
So your claim is that no only do physical traits evolve (which I concede in micro-evolution) but that spiritual traits evolve as well. That would point towards some sort of spiritual being inside of us then. Where does that come from? There is nothing in our DNA that is anything but physical. And still that would leave morals subjective. It’s only dependent on what we perceive as right or wrong. Yet usually you don’t have to tell someone it’s terrible to hurt another living thing. Where could the information of morals be stored?[/quote]
This is in response to both you and Pat, since Pat asked a similar question: whether morality is somehow encoded onto our DNA. Well, sort of. I’m no expert on neuroscience, but here’s what I can tell based on my limited knowledge. Our sense of morality is linked to our emotions. We protect those we care about because we love them. When we do good things for others we feel “good.” Bad things produce feelings of guilt, sadness, fear. Our emotions are controlled primarily by chemicals in the brain - neurotransmitters - and to some extent by other hormones and chemicals. Fear, for example, involves production of adrenaline and epinephrine. Love involves a more complex mix of chemicals: oxytocin, serotonin testosterone, dopamine, probably a little epinephrine tossed in. Although love is complex, it is still essentially chemical-based. During our evolution, it made sense that we sought those situations that produced feel-good chemicals and avoided those that produced feel-bad chemicals.
The idea that “killing is wrong” probably came out because way back one tribesman probably saw a fellow tribesman mauled and killed by an animal. This produced feelings of fear, anger, probably sadness. This reaction, although it produced bad feelings, ultimately helped this human to survive. Witnessing this frightening act taught this early human to avoid this animal, or at least taught him to not walked around without a weapon. Now, it’s possible that some humans didn’t get this response - they may have even found the situation amusing to watch. Not many of them lasted, however, because they never learned to avoid this animal. Eventually, a majority of early humans had the same chemical response when witnessing death. This same response was produced when a human killed a fellow human without any justification. Thus was born the notion that killing another human with justification was wrong.
The bottom line is that our emotions have a physical basis - there is nothing “spiritual” about it. And this is not limited to humans. For instance, scientists have discovered that elephants exhibit a kind of sadness when they witness the death of another elephant.[/quote]
True, emotions don’t have to be taught. If morals became ingrained over time in our DNA, however, why not other learning? You say that people learned killing was wrong so they think about it as wrong. Wouldn’t people have leanred other things that they would pass on? How about speaking a language, cooking food, and other things people have needed to learn to survive? Those seem important enough to have also become part of the DNA if concious learning can be passed down from generation to generation.[/quote]
Morality is doing the right thing despite how you feel.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Atheism is a very broad term. If you decided to flip a coin and said that if it showed tails you would believe in supernatural spiritual beliefs and the other side is not believing in supernatural spiritual belief and it landed on heads you would be atheist.
My point is that the reason doesn’t matter why you don’t believe in supernatural spiritual beliefs only that you don’t. Different atheist will have different reasons for not believing in God/gods/spirits/soul/etc. [/quote]
I regard atheism as a spiritless belief. Once you start acknowledging spirituality in any form, it becomes a slippery-slope only staved off by bias and extreme hardheadedness.