Morality and Darwinism

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

However, an urge that is reproductively unsuccessful more often than not would tend to disappear.

It has only become reproductively unsuccessful in the 20th century, no?

I'm arguing it's always been reproductively unsuccessful. There are only a few days a month a woman can conceive, so it often takes a sustained effort to get her pregnant (although this could be an argument for serial rapists, but how many of those do you think there were in small bands of humans).

Before the agricultural revolution, there were no flocks (animal husbandry is agriculture), hence no wealth to be traded. As far as we can tell, there is no evidence of humans as property before the agricultural revolution.

Not true. You are tying agricultural revolution to animals and it's not true.

Vagabonds and wanderers have always kept stocks and flocks. Take for example the bushmans in north africa and the beduins in Israel.

Agricutlure refers to both plant and animal farming. Animal husbandry begins at nearly the same time as the agricutural revolution. You can't tame animals until you have something to tame them with, i.e., extra food.

While the two lifestyles are not mutually exclusive, people living on marginal land had to be nomadic since the animals would eat up all their food. Plus, Bushman and Beduin didn't exist 25,000 years ago.

Also consider that the children of rape were likely to be exposed or killed with the mother.

Not always.
A child is another hunter. A mother wouldn't always complain. Heck, even now most women don't complain.

In the age of women as property, men were unwilling to spend resources and energy raising another man's child. Another hunter is also another mouth to feed and a competitor with your children for your property. The whole point of making women into property was to control reproduction. If you arent going to control it, then you have no reason for marriage or harems.

[Ramo]

In other words, only if there is a God who is Himself ultimate Goodness and Justice is there any ultimate moral grounding for the law. And if there is no God, Leff argues, then nothing and no one can take His place. Nothing else can function as the grounding of morality--no person, no group, no document--because all of these can be challenged. All of these are susceptible to the defiant challenge you hear kids say to their parents or on the playground: "Sez who?" Everything except an infinite God is susceptible, he says, to "the grand sez who?"

Suppose there is an omniscient, omnipotent diety. How is his morality based on any firmer ground than mine? 'Cuz it's not.

[BeBMan]

If he´s omnipotent, he could make you believe it

[Ramo]

I suppose he could, but he's apparantly to lazy to do that.

[Az]

Since morality is nothing else that a recipee for a good life, I think that following the instructions of a omnipotent omniscient entity will help you to get on his/her better side.

[Ramo]

Morality is a recipe for good social interactions, not life (if I stole a billion dollars from a bunch of poor people, my life would be better, but I wouldn't consider that moral).

[Elok]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Lincoln, I think it's really strange that the people who are most likely to preach and practice an objective morality are atheists and agnostics - they're called "objectivists" and libertarians (except for those pro-choicers ). Not most of these religious folks...

Well, duh. We're a complacent majority, and since religion has been continuously devalued the average Christian isn't taught any more than the very basics of what he/she believes in. Most of our exposure to religious doctrine is in the form of garbage like Dante's Inferno that gets read in school. No real theology is presented to the average joe, possibly because that would be understandable and might actually arouse a reader out of spiritual torpor. In that kind of environment, all you really can do is make it up as you go along, no matter how good your intentions are.
And MtG, I don't mean that constructed reality doesn't happen, I'm just saying that the idea that we should encourage subjectivity as an ideal is ridiculous, and I can't imagine that somebody actually said as much without getting laughed out of his job. It sounds like a low-budget, watered-down Timothy Leary.

[Az]

your life wouldn't be better, since you'd get busted or killed.

seriously, morality is not about a single person. It's about a community of individuals.

[Ramo]

Not if I hijack the state first.

And morality isn't necessarily about a community, just more than one individual.

[Berzerker]

Elok -

Well, duh. We're a complacent majority, and since religion has been continuously devalued the average Christian isn't taught any more than the very basics of what he/she believes in.

Well duh, these people can't pick up a Bible and read what Jesus taught? How tough is it to apply "do unto others" to life?

Most of our exposure to religious doctrine is in the form of garbage like Dante's Inferno that gets read in school.

Back to this hatred of Dante? Have you ever read "Hamlet's Mill"? Try it before making judgements about Dante. Btw, I didn't know Dante was more widely read than the Bible.

[Elok]

The bible isn't the complete Christian faith. It's a set of rules and guidelines. It's the basics. Theology books exist for a reason. Now don't be ridiculous.
And unless Hamlet's Mill somehow reinterprets Dante so that he doesn't depict the IRS Judgment delusion, which is a pretty tall order seeing as the book spends most of its time describing gruesome punishments for specific infringements, I'm not interested. I don't question its artistic merit, but as an actual representation of the Christian faith or philosophy The Inferno is useless.

[Japher]

You also have President John Paul the CCXXVI or whatever number we're on...

[chequita guevara]

Christianity is all bunk.

[Lincoln]

Thanks everyone for posting here. I have a headache at the moment so I will get back later. But the point of this thread (which Jack the bodiless and some other's grasped) is the natural foundtion of morality we are left with when we take Darwinism (or whatever you choose to call it MTG ) to it's logical conclusion.

True, religion confuses morality because of it's many forms but there is still a foundation in theism which is the moral being even if we do not comprehend him. Materialism on the other hand leaves us with what? So far Jack, I think, is generally on track but I will have more to say later.

[Japher]

True, religion confuses morality because of it's many forms but there is still a foundation in theism which is the moral being even if we do not comprehend him. Materialism on the other hand leaves us with what?

Yeah, I don't get it