[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]Quasi-Tech wrote:
They have no reason to feel guilt and can simply enjoy whatever they like. As Titan stated, its only “our God” that’s limiting us.
As animals - from an evolutionary standpoint - have no issue with doing whatever suits them or meets their instinctual needs, there are clearly no limitations on atheists. Morals are for religious folk. Just do what feels good for you. True freedom.[/quote]
All social primates feel a form of guilt or shame if they act out of accordance with the rules of the group. Fear of retribution for misdeeds and anticipation of rewards for “correct behavior” is as much a feature of societies of Celebes macaques, Sumatran orang-utans, mountain gorillas, chimps and bonobos as they are in our own societies.
Sexual behavior is highly regulated in these societies as well, even among the famously promiscuous bonobos. Even in these societies brother-sister incest is frowned upon, and in the more strongly patriarchal societies of macaques and chimps, adultery is not tolerated: you don’t fuck the boss’s wife without severe consequences. This is not to say that adultery never happens.
I once watched a pair of macaques, the boss macaque’s young mate and one of her young lovers, sneaking behind the bushes out of sight of the boss for some afternoon delight. They started going at it, but every fifteen seconds or so there would be a rustling in the bushes, and the female would freeze, with a look of absolute guilt and fear on her face. Her boyfriend would wait until she had realized that her husband wasn’t going to burst out of the bushes, then they’d start in again. Until another snapping twig would interrupt their fun once again.
At another time, I watched a family of orang-utans playing out a hilarious love triangle drama worthy of a TV sitcom. The family consisted of Dad, Mom, Junior (a six-month-old baby) and Auntie (Mom’s younger, hotter sister). The story begins with Dad, trying to relax under a tree. Junior comes bounding over wanting to play. Dad clearly wants nothing more than to get a few more minutes of sleep, but Junior is insistent.
“Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Let’s play, Dad! c’mon, Dad! Dad!”
“Uggghhhhh. Not now. Go away.”
“But Daaaaaad…”
At this point Mom intervenes.
“Why won’t you play with your son? Are you going to just lie around all day?”
“Ughhh. I don’t need this shit.”
“Come on, Junior. Leave your father alone. He’s too busy to devote any time to us right now!”
Fifteen minutes later, with Junior and Mom off doing something else, Dad is up in a tree with his wife’s sister. Auntie is smoothing Dad’s hair, caressing him, soothing his temper.
“It’s okay. I know, my sister can be a bitch.”
“She didn’t used to be this way. It’s like, ever since the kid came along, that’s all she cares about.”
“Well, if you ever get lonely, you can always swing by my place.”
He caresses her face. He’s just about to kiss her when he hears Mom and Junior approaching.
“Oh, shit. Shit! They’re coming. Look, I gotta go. I’ll see you, though. Soon.”
Dad swings down and goes off with Mom and Junior. Auntie watches wistfully, then sighs and starts masturbating.
This actually happened. The dialogue, of course, I imagined, but it was clear by gesture and facial expression that this was going on.
I have no idea what Macaque or Orang-utan religion is like. I don’t know the names of their Ape gods, nor have I read the holy Ape scriptures which command them not to commit ape-dultery. What I do know, though, is that they adhere to (or pretend to adhere to) very strict sexual mores, which mirror human mores very closely (or more accurately, ours mirror theirs).
The only difference is, they probably don’t believe that their morality and laws came from anywhere but the consensus of the group. [/quote]
So, where do you think this moral code comes from? Was it put into us by ourselves, or maybe a creator?
[/quote]
Our moral code is simply the rules that have allowed us to interact with each other in groups since our earliest beginnings.
Our moral code is more refined than that of a chimp, because we have a more sophisticated social structure than a chimp has. But the same basic Commandments that define our moral code (thou shalt not kill, steal, covet or commit adultery) seem to be rules that govern their society as well. The difference is that what we call in ourselves “morality”, we call in chimps “behavior.” Can’t call it instinct, because a baby chimp has to be taught the rules and taboos of social interaction within his society, same as a human.
And in chimp society, the wages of sin are very often death. [/quote]
So maybe the 99% of all species ever created that are now extinct did not have that code? I think it is more than that. I believe we are created by God, and God put that moral code into His Creation.
I doubt it was by accident.
[/quote]
Definitely not by accident. Nothing in nature is an “accident”. Everything happens deliberately, and even predictably. Just not always the way we’d like it to.
We have a sophisticated moral code, with intricate sexual taboos (even people who have never heard of Yahweh, Jesus or Muhammad), because we have a complex social structure. We have a complicated social structure because we are social predatory animals who live in close proximity to one another. We are this way because we have intelligence and the capacity for oral and visual communication. These things are a result of our large brains, the positions of our larynges and the workings of our forelimbs. Which we got from these traits being naturally selected over hundreds of millennia.
Did a creator set this all in motion? Maybe. Probably. If so, then I suppose one could say that our moral code, such as it is, came from such a creator… but only insofar as the works of Shakespeare came from the Phoenecians, who gave us the genesis of our alphabet.
