Roots of Human Morality

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
601

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

So the determining factor if an act is moral is solely the intention of the person acting?
[/quote]

No. Some acts are intrinsically evil.***

You’ll appreciate this example: The Aztecs. They’d built an enormous, thriving, powerful society, hundreds of thousands strong, who collectively accepted and even exalted living human sacrifice, dismemberment, and cannibalism.

No matter what they thought about the atrocious manner in which they conducted their civic and religious obligations, no matter if they felt obligated or exhilarated, they were the authors of one of the most evil, grandly immoral societies this world has ever seen.

Another one: child rape and/or murder. No matter what kind of screwed up mind-state the perpetrator happens to be in, intention or not, raping a 5 year old girl, ripping her body open in the process, and discarding her in a ditch is evil. Pure, simple, unadulterated Satanic evil.

I’m feeling all kinds of deja vu right now.

***At the risk of getting into this with you again, these acts are where we discover that morality either is absolute or it doesn’t exist at all. You’ll almost never find someone who will honestly argue that there are certain situations where raping a child is NOT am immoral act. It will always be immoral, and we all know it. No matter how many lives it saves, no matter how many people sanction it, it will still be evil. Nothing relative about it. [/quote]

In this case the question wasn’t leading us up to the point of absolute vs relative morality, I just wondered what your answer would be.
[/quote]

Well that’s a relief, hahah. :slight_smile:

602

[quote]therajraj wrote:

Not rape.

But I would argue there are several situations where murder and lying are not immoral. In fact I would go as far as saying the most moral thing you can do in some situations is murder and lie.[/quote]

Point is, you can draw distinctions, which assumes a standard.

603

It is unfortunate that many arguing against natural selection favoring morality fail to have a strong understanding of evolution. I am all in favor or an argument where all parties are concerned with finding the truth and having their consciousness raised… with that being said it is irritating that a significant portion of people arguing in this thread simply want to be heard and have little intention of listening.

Whenever science is unable to provide an answer to a problem people assume that the problem is with science itself. Sometimes it’s okay to understand that just because we don’t understand something fully now doesn’t mean we won’t understand it in the future. An example is cell metabolism, for decades we knew that cellular respiration occurred in the mitochondria but we still did not know how this process generated ATP. Then finally about 9 years ago some very smart Japanese researchers figured out how the protein ATP synthase worked and we now understand it. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for, “Well science can’t figure out so by default it must be God.”

Creationists tried to used the intricacies of the eye and the flagellar motor to disprove darwinian selection with no success. Although a little more abstract, the same thing will happen with morality. Altruism is not exclusive to humans. It is present in many, many species because in the long run it ensures success of a species. Kin selection very easily demonstrates how selection of “moral” traits in humans is beneficial. It can even be used to explain the presence of homosexuality… But let’s not open that can of worms.

The idea that our morality is God given is not a simplistic answer… It just makes the problem more complicated. And even if morality were God-given where do we dig up this morality? From the Bible? In that case I’m an abomination if I eat shellfish and if I stray from the faith I should be stoned to death. “You’re looking at it too literally”. Am I? How do we decide which passages to put significance on? We can’t. Soon the entire book breaks up into an interesting work of literature that’s only message is allegorical at best.

Before I get any religious members telling me I’m ignorant, I would like to say that I have read the entire Bible, New Testament and Old Testament. I have also spent many, many nights staying up late reading scripture from the other Abrahamic religions as well as the religions of the East. Despite being an atheist, it’s somewhat of a hobby of mine to read religious scripture… I find them fascinating.

604

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

You can believe in a secular moral system and not be a moral relativist.[/quote]

No, you can’t. In a secular “moral” system, “morasls” are simply “suggestions as to how I think you should behave”. Definitionally, they would not be morals.[/quote]

No.

I do not think morality changes across cultures. Just because a society says female genital mutilation is good doesn’t mean it’s good. It’s still wrong. I am okay with moral absolutes in a limited context. Within the context of the situation and primarily we’re dealing with human beings and thinking minds.

These things are all dependent on physical laws and while we may not know everything and we may not be able to assess the consequences of every situation right off the bat, that doesn’t mean we don’t know anything. If you start saying that in your mind it’s morally correct to go around slaughtering people, I have to question by what you mean by moral because by anything by which we would consider moral, we can demonstrate running around slaughtering people does not lead to a positive result for the societies that allow this or the people being slaughtered.

Secular moral systems require you to analyze and assess complex scenarios. You base your morals on evidence and the consequences of those actions. You start with very basic things like life is preferable to death and you build. When we talk about morals we’re really talking about rules of thumb and general guidelines, and assessing each situation individually.

I liken it to a chess game. You can ask a 1000 chess masters what the best move in the middle of a game is and they may all give you the same answer for situation x. However in game Y you may get a bunch of different answers. Some will be correct, some will be wrong and you may get even different answers that are equally correct because they both lead to good outcomes. But to look at that and say you don’t know what’s correct therefore we shouldn’t play the game is absurd.[/quote]

I’m okay with moral absolutes within a limited context.

605

[quote]therajraj wrote:

I’m okay with moral absolutes within a limited context.[/quote]

Oh, everyone is.

606

[quote]TigerTime wrote:
Finally, why is the entrance fee to Heaven simply to believe in Jesus’ “martyring”? Given what you said, would the price not simply be to love unconditionally, even if the result is death? Which brings up another question, would god exclude an otherwise loving man from heaven simply for not being Christian?[/quote]

Yes I always wondered this part too. More than half the world is born into non christian countries. Do they simply miss out on going to heaven because they don’t have the chance to learn Christianity? Seems kind of unfair.

607

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

Mak, you’re down on the relative morality of liberals?

What manifestations of ‘morality’ do you have in mind?
[/quote]

I dislike when they compare bombing a suspected weapons facility (which turns out to be something else) to a terrorist act. The fact that intentions are largely ignored frustrates me greatly.[/quote]

Shouldn’t the consequences of an act determin the morality of the act, and not the intentions?[/quote]

There is such a philosophy called act utilitarianism. I believe Jermey Bemtham and John Stuart Mill were philosophers who held that view. Check it out though to see if i got it correct or somewhat correct.

608

[quote]TigerTime wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
It is analogous. If you really believe hitler was a christian, there’s nothing I can do about it. I mean, people still believe elvis is alive…
[/quote]

No, it’s not. Your analogy could only work under the assumption that your position is true. So either this is another blatant logical fallacy on your part, or it’s just a poor analogy. A Dog is not a human just because he eats human food for several reasons. 1, “Human” food and “dog” food aren’t always mutually exclusive. 2, the dog still has canine DNA. 3, the dog is visibly still a dog.

In Hitler’s case, we have someone explicitly who claims to be a Christian and several millions of people following him, all of whom see him as a Christian. Actually, there’s no record of Hitler actually killing anyone himself, which means all those millions who died in WW2 died at the hands of people who undeniably considered themselves and their leader Christian. I see no reason to think Hitler was anything but a Christian and you’ve done a damn good job of holding up a conversation about this topic without actually saying anything more complex than “nu-uh!”, but this point is ultimately moot.

If you really believe hitler wasn’t a christian, there’s nothing I can do about it. I mean, people still believe in bronze-age fairy-tales…

And I shook my head and face-palmed

[quote]
Now, do you have a question on the table, or an argument to make about something? [/quote]

Things like, God flooding the earth and killing nearly everything, fitting two of every animal on a boat, and basically anything that suspension of disbelief wouldn’t cover. [/quote]

You’re wasting my time. Do you have an argument to make about somehtin, or are you just hooked on massacring history with no apparent purpose?

609

[quote]Ghost16 wrote:
It is unfortunate that many arguing against natural selection favoring morality fail to have a strong understanding of evolution. I am all in favor or an argument where all parties are concerned with finding the truth and having their consciousness raised… with that being said it is irritating that a significant portion of people arguing in this thread simply want to be heard and have little intention of listening.

Whenever science is unable to provide an answer to a problem people assume that the problem is with science itself. Sometimes it’s okay to understand that just because we don’t understand something fully now doesn’t mean we won’t understand it in the future. An example is cell metabolism, for decades we knew that cellular respiration occurred in the mitochondria but we still did not know how this process generated ATP. Then finally about 9 years ago some very smart Japanese researchers figured out how the protein ATP synthase worked and we now understand it. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for, “Well science can’t figure out so by default it must be God.”

Creationists tried to used the intricacies of the eye and the flagellar motor to disprove darwinian selection with no success. Although a little more abstract, the same thing will happen with morality. Altruism is not exclusive to humans. It is present in many, many species because in the long run it ensures success of a species. Kin selection very easily demonstrates how selection of “moral” traits in humans is beneficial. It can even be used to explain the presence of homosexuality… But let’s not open that can of worms.

The idea that our morality is God given is not a simplistic answer… It just makes the problem more complicated. And even if morality were God-given where do we dig up this morality? From the Bible? In that case I’m an abomination if I eat shellfish and if I stray from the faith I should be stoned to death. “You’re looking at it too literally”. Am I? How do we decide which passages to put significance on? We can’t. Soon the entire book breaks up into an interesting work of literature that’s only message is allegorical at best.

Before I get any religious members telling me I’m ignorant, I would like to say that I have read the entire Bible, New Testament and Old Testament. I have also spent many, many nights staying up late reading scripture from the other Abrahamic religions as well as the religions of the East. Despite being an atheist, it’s somewhat of a hobby of mine to read religious scripture… I find them fascinating.[/quote]

Ghosty buddy…

No one here cares about that kind of stuff.

Possibly try nuttying it up a bit.

610

[quote]Ghost16 wrote:
It is unfortunate that many arguing against natural selection favoring morality fail to have a strong understanding of evolution. I am all in favor or an argument where all parties are concerned with finding the truth and having their consciousness raised… with that being said it is irritating that a significant portion of people arguing in this thread simply want to be heard and have little intention of listening.
What does creationism vs. evolution have to do with it? I don’t expect you have read all the pages of this thread, nor would I expect something like that, but that factor was address early on. And careful on your assumptions, Christian does not mean ‘creationist’.
I have not seen you around here, I am not certain how you can draw conclusions about people here?
Whenever science is unable to provide an answer to a problem people assume that the problem is with science itself. Sometimes it’s okay to understand that just because we don’t understand something fully now doesn’t mean we won’t understand it in the future. An example is cell metabolism, for decades we knew that cellular respiration occurred in the mitochondria but we still did not know how this process generated ATP. Then finally about 9 years ago some very smart Japanese researchers figured out how the protein ATP synthase worked and we now understand it. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for, “Well science can’t figure out so by default it must be God.”
[/quote]
You propositioning a ‘God of gaps’ mentality and that’s not what’s going on. Most people here aren’t saying ‘If you don’t know why, God did it’ Second, nobody has alluded to the fact that science is a problem, or it broke down. The assertion is simply that morality has some fixed base tenets. Morality itself is a purely metaphysical entity. Acting morally is not essential to our evolutionary progress, if anything it’s more of an impediment since ‘good’ moral actions often prop up the weak and move them beyond their evolutionary determinant.

True altruism doesn’t really exist, it’s an ideal. But it’s not a matter of evolutionary components. Perhaps evolution could have given us the potential to tap into morality, but a critical component of morality is ‘freewill’. You cannot evolve freewill. And since your making assumptions I’ll go ahead and make the idea of freewill non-existent to you as a atheist since most are deterministic. If your actions are foreordained for whatever reason, you have no freewill, without freewill you remove culpability, without culpability an act is neither moral or immoral., they are just merely pleasant or not pleasant.

Morality exists, we simply tap into it. It may or may not be given by God, it’s not a one degree of separation from God as things that would descend directly from him would have to be. But taking it through the exercise of regression will end it up there.

I agree they are fascinating, and I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Now just as an fyi, some folks have made such a claim yet the claim breaks down when they demonstrate no knowledge of the scriptures at all save from some sundry quotes that are ironically on every atheist propaganda website. Therefore, I have a natural skepticism to that claim as a general rule.

611

I’ve thought long and hard on freewill versus determinism and I’ve held both stances in the past. In the end I’m honest I’ll admit that I don’t know what my opinion is and I don’t really care. Even if I knew the answer it wouldn’t change how I live my life. I’m not sure I understand why you’re saying morality depends on freewill.

Yes, many forms of altruism in nature are reciprocal. True altruism towards close relatives does occur as well because it improves fitness of close relatives. We are gifted as a species to have the brain capacity to take these evolved traits and apply them to other people who are not related to us… and that for me is morality. Just because the traits were evolved doesn’t mean they are any less significant than if they were divinely given to us.

612

[quote]Ghost16 wrote:
EDIT[/quote]

I saw it, jerk.

613

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Ghost16 wrote:
EDIT[/quote]

I saw it, jerk.[/quote]

Would you believe me if I told you my little brother wrote that while I was taking a piss?

614

[quote]Ghost16 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Ghost16 wrote:
EDIT[/quote]

I saw it, jerk.[/quote]

Would you believe me if I told you my little brother wrote that while I was taking a piss?[/quote]

LOL!! Okay, no problems… we’re good :slight_smile:

615

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TigerTime wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
It is analogous. If you really believe hitler was a christian, there’s nothing I can do about it. I mean, people still believe elvis is alive…
[/quote]

No, it’s not. Your analogy could only work under the assumption that your position is true. So either this is another blatant logical fallacy on your part, or it’s just a poor analogy. A Dog is not a human just because he eats human food for several reasons. 1, “Human” food and “dog” food aren’t always mutually exclusive. 2, the dog still has canine DNA. 3, the dog is visibly still a dog.

In Hitler’s case, we have someone explicitly who claims to be a Christian and several millions of people following him, all of whom see him as a Christian. Actually, there’s no record of Hitler actually killing anyone himself, which means all those millions who died in WW2 died at the hands of people who undeniably considered themselves and their leader Christian. I see no reason to think Hitler was anything but a Christian and you’ve done a damn good job of holding up a conversation about this topic without actually saying anything more complex than “nu-uh!”, but this point is ultimately moot.

If you really believe hitler wasn’t a christian, there’s nothing I can do about it. I mean, people still believe in bronze-age fairy-tales…

And I shook my head and face-palmed

[quote]
Now, do you have a question on the table, or an argument to make about something? [/quote]

Things like, God flooding the earth and killing nearly everything, fitting two of every animal on a boat, and basically anything that suspension of disbelief wouldn’t cover. [/quote]

You’re wasting my time. Do you have an argument to make about somehtin, or are you just hooked on massacring history with no apparent purpose?[/quote]

^ See, this is how I know you’re full of shit, Pat. If I ask you for your perspective on something BEFORE making an argument, you ignore the question and go about obfuscating the issue. However, if I go ahead and make my point BEFORE clarifying your position, I can’t trust that you aren’t inventing your position ex-post facto.

I know you WANT me to make my arguments without knowing what you believe, because then if you find yourself backed into a corner, you can always call “stawman” and scurry away. I know your game, Pat. You’re a cowardly weasel, and given this view of you, your tactics become transparent.

Did God literally flood the Earth, killing nearly all life on it, yes or no?

616

[quote]Ghost16 wrote:
I’ve thought long and hard on freewill versus determinism and I’ve held both stances in the past. In the end I’m honest I’ll admit that I don’t know what my opinion is and I don’t really care. Even if I knew the answer it wouldn’t change how I live my life. I’m not sure I understand why you’re saying morality depends on freewill.

Yes, many forms of altruism in nature are reciprocal. True altruism towards close relatives does occur as well because it improves fitness of close relatives. We are gifted as a species to have the brain capacity to take these evolved traits and apply them to other people who are not related to us… and that for me is morality. Just because the traits were evolved doesn’t mean they are any less significant than if they were divinely given to us. [/quote]

Freewill, choice, good and evil all comprise morality.
For an act to be either good or bad, the person or entity had to have the option to choose different. Your ‘yes’ doesn’t mean anything if you did not have he option to say ‘no’.

You have to be able to make a decision and had equal option to choose differently. If you don’t have a choice then the action doesn’t have a moral basis. For instance, if you walk into a school to shoot up the place, one would assume that’s an immoral act, but if you really didn’t have a choice, it’s tragic, but not immoral. This scenario of course implies for what ever reason, you really didn’t have a choice.

A decision has to be able to be either a good action or an evil action. That’s not to say that the opposite of a good act is an evil act. But one of the two have to be on the table. For instance, it would be a good act to give a homeless person some money, but it would neutral to no give him anything. It would be evil to shoot up a school, but it’s neutral to not shoot up a school. I don’t shoot up schools everyday, that doesn’t make me good.

I am a freewill advocate, but under strict philosophical definitions, I would be called a ‘soft determinist’ A label I disagree with, but I hold the opinion, that there are a lot less choices in life than there appear.
I disagree with the label because even if an exercise of freewill existed only once, it’s still a real thing and not all things are determined.

617

[quote]TigerTime wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TigerTime wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
It is analogous. If you really believe hitler was a christian, there’s nothing I can do about it. I mean, people still believe elvis is alive…
[/quote]

No, it’s not. Your analogy could only work under the assumption that your position is true. So either this is another blatant logical fallacy on your part, or it’s just a poor analogy. A Dog is not a human just because he eats human food for several reasons. 1, “Human” food and “dog” food aren’t always mutually exclusive. 2, the dog still has canine DNA. 3, the dog is visibly still a dog.

In Hitler’s case, we have someone explicitly who claims to be a Christian and several millions of people following him, all of whom see him as a Christian. Actually, there’s no record of Hitler actually killing anyone himself, which means all those millions who died in WW2 died at the hands of people who undeniably considered themselves and their leader Christian. I see no reason to think Hitler was anything but a Christian and you’ve done a damn good job of holding up a conversation about this topic without actually saying anything more complex than “nu-uh!”, but this point is ultimately moot.

If you really believe hitler wasn’t a christian, there’s nothing I can do about it. I mean, people still believe in bronze-age fairy-tales…

And I shook my head and face-palmed

I just want you to make an argument…You ask a question you think is based on scripture, but it’s not, then you get all pissed off and spend the next 10 pages bitching and moaning and calling me all sorts of names because I won’t answer a loaded question that isn’t actually based on the the scripture you think it is. Move on… It’s not hard.

Then you claim all this intellectual wizardry and you didn’t even know the question you were asking wasn’t based on what you thought it was.

Then you claim to be debating, I an trying to figure out what they hell your debating? Other than level insults and call me names, you haven’t said anything. What am I supposed to debate you on? The names you call me?
If you want to debate, then put forth something to debate about. If I don’t know what the debate is about, I cannot debate you. I mean I can call you names too, but it has no meaning in the end, the proof is in the pudding. I cannot debate a ‘nothing’.

As far as Noah, I believe there was a flood, I believe it was a big one, I believe a guy named Noah existed and there was an ark he was on. Whether it was world wide, I don’t know. I do find it interesting that other societies have a flood account from roughly the same time period, but I don’t know how big the actual flood was.
I am not a biblical literalist, the point of the Noah story and it’s importance in salvation history is bigger than the flood. How balls on accurate the account is I don’t know, but I am pretty cure it’s based on real events.

618

Chalk it up to biological predispositions so we can call each other x-phobics for the next 25 pages.

619

[quote]pat wrote:
I just want you to make an argument…You ask a question you think is based on scripture, but it’s not, then you get all pissed off and spend the next 10 pages bitching and moaning and calling me all sorts of names because I won’t answer a loaded question that isn’t actually based on the the scripture you think it is. Move on… It’s not hard.

Then you claim all this intellectual wizardry and you didn’t even know the question you were asking wasn’t based on what you thought it was.

Then you claim to be debating, I an trying to figure out what they hell your debating? Other than level insults and call me names, you haven’t said anything. What am I supposed to debate you on? The names you call me?
If you want to debate, then put forth something to debate about. If I don’t know what the debate is about, I cannot debate you. I mean I can call you names too, but it has no meaning in the end, the proof is in the pudding. I cannot debate a ‘nothing’.
[/quote]

Lolwut? Other than “weasel”, what have I called you? When it comes to insults, you’ve expressed a far more colourful vocabulary.

I’ve had an exchange with pretty much every Christian on this site. You are the only one in which every conversation goes nowhere and I’ve seen the same happen with your other conversations aswell. It’s not me, it’s you.

[quote]
As far as Noah, I believe there was a flood, I believe it was a big one, I believe a guy named Noah existed and there was an ark he was on. Whether it was world wide, I don’t know. I do find it interesting that other societies have a flood account from roughly the same time period, but I don’t know how big the actual flood was.
I am not a biblical literalist, the point of the Noah story and it’s importance in salvation history is bigger than the flood. How balls on accurate the account is I don’t know, but I am pretty cure it’s based on real events. [/quote]

Hmm… why do you doubt that it is an entirely literal story?

620

Yes, it is true that many different cultures across the world speak of a great flood happening… regardless of whether you’re religious or not this is very interesting.

And I will admit that despite being atheist Jesus was a pretty cool dude lol.