Ultraconservatives pretend homophobia/racism doesn't exist

Post Reply New Topic

Yes, Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist. Not everything he says is related to that matter.



This proves my point that you were begging the question. You are also inferring a supposition that that fine-tuning argument argument does not make. Since the fine tuning argument puts forward the idea that the universe was fine-tuned for the existence of life. It therefor holds that yes, white sharks are included too, since they are alive. The fine tuning argument alone does not account for the existence of man, but taken together with other arguments does.

I would suggest not going too much further down this road. It will splinter the discussion too much.



This argument is mutually exclusive. Arguing that Incest is not useful is subjectively true but this does not make it wrong. For something to be wrong it must exist in the objective sense. There are no subjective grounds for describing something as wrong simply because one has evolved an aversion to it. To do so would be an objective value.



Inuyasha has you beat there.

Other humans determine that they are immoral.

Yes but they would contend that they are moral. You have no grounds from such a supposition. As I stated above, such arguments are contradictory. Arguing that the dictator is wrong or immoral does not make it so. Stating that their actions are nonconstructive or an impediment for your social development only makes those things the case; it does not make it wrong. For it to be so it would have to be objectively true; as in true regardless of what the dictator of the citizen believed.

[quote="Inuyasha"

I never said that Atheists are animals. However, if God doesn't exist where do we get our rights as human beings from?[/quote]

Rights are social conventions. However, we are genetically inclined to be social animals. It is virtually impossible for humans to live in an isolated atomic fashion. You might say our inclination to formulate rights (or at least laws and customs) is biologically wired in. However the specific laws and customs depend on the particular circumstances. Humans are, by instinct, customizers and convention makers.

ruveyn

Likewise, not everything Dennett says is about philosophy.



saying that human morality comes from humans is not begging the question; it is describing a source that happens to have the same modifying descriptor as the subject being identified. Secondly, a fine-tuning argument that is generalized for all life (the Universe is >99.99% inimical to all life, not just human life, btw) would imply a morality that is applicable to all life, meaning either that lions are mass murderers of antelope and humans are mass murderers of cows, or that killing other life forms is not immoral.



My tendency is to perseverate; however, I'll shut up if you'll give me the last word.


I can only assume that you do not understand the basic tenents of evolutionary psychology. If a behaivor is detrimental to the survival of one's offspring and/or one's great offspring, evolutionarily determined hardwiring will tend to discourage that behavior b/c those that naturally avoid it will have greater reproductive success. The fact that incest has both real-world negative consequences and is aversive across almost all human cultures is pretty good evidence that the moral feeling of disgust when contemplating incest is hard-wired due to evolution.

The dictator would not be objectively immoral in a way that the entire universe would recognize; he would be immoral in the context of human society, and by the judgment of his citizens and the rest of the humans on the planet.

Even if the dictator/sociopath/whatever thinks that what they are doing is fine (because they are either mis-wired or operating on software that was designed for the chieftain/king of a small tribe rather than the leader of a country), it is the judgment of the people who can eject him from the community that matters.

You're still saying that the ends justifies the means and there is no such thing as morality. LKL no matter how much you try to argue your way out of it, facts are the facts.

If there is no God, then that means that there is no such thing as moral goodness and anything goes. According to you whoever has the power determines right and wrong, that includes dictators. Dictators kill, torture, etc. dissendents and their families which can be as a good thing for the species... You can also argue that eugenics and even the holocaust was okay because it was purging the species of invalids.

The fact there is a God, means that there is such a thing as good and evil. While bad things can and do happen (primarily cause we have something known as free will), it doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. Can people tell what good is if there isn't also evil in the world?

BS.
Maybe you're just misunderstanding what I've written, but please try not to put words in my mouth that I didn't write, ok? It's dishonest at best.
I'm saying that there is no such thing as objective, universal morality for humans that come from any source besides human hard-wiring, not that morality does not exist. I never said anything about the ends justifying the means.



That is your religious claim; it is not a fact.


Again, don't put words in my mouth. I have never argued for might-makes-right, social Darwinism, or any other straw-man canard you choose to duplicate here. Please try to read what I'm actually writing. I have said, several times, that dictators are wrong, and yet you keep on claiming the opposite. Are you incapable of comprehending what you read in general, or just incapable of comprehending that I'm not saying what you think I'll say?


That's an opinion, not a fact.


Again, opinion rather than fact.


While the argument from the existence of evil is a strong argument against the existence of gods, I have not brought that up on this thread and I have to wonder why you did... maybe your own faith is not as secure as you think it is.


*snort*
People can tell the difference between pain and lack of pain from stubbing their toe; they don't need to be crushed in car accidents, bleed out of their eyes from ebola, or drown by the tens of thousands in tsunamis to understand that their lives are good.

In order to link morallity and good/evil to God, you must be working on faith. There exits no empirical evidence of this linkage.

Again, who determines what is good and what is evil if there is no God? There is no one with the moral authority to do that if God does not exist.

That determination can certainly be made by the human brain. Morals also tend to change with the times. Some people think the 10 commandments are a little out of date. I would put less emphasis on taking the lord's name in vain and more emphasis on not raping people, but maybe that's just me. Even so, God had nothing to do my thoughts on the subject. But then again, maybe he did, either way, there exists no proof.

Again, you're saying that morality is a figment of our imagination and everything is relative. And you can't make the determination about morality in the human brain, because what one person thinks is perfectly acceptable another might not and vice versa.

Recognizable kinship groups still exist. An Englishman will be closer genetically to another Englishman than to a German; closer to a German than to a Serb; closer to a Serb than to an Afghan; and closer to an Afghan than to a Bantu.

The fact that we no longer live in small tribes is irrelevant to the general point, which is: genetic continuity is the "ultimate interest" of living beings; thus each member of a genetic kinship group has a genetic interest in the preservation of that kinship group; thus kinship is the natural basis for altruism; and thus kinship groups whose members practice "moral universalism" put themselves at a disadvantage in a world largely populated by kinship groups that practice moral particularism. I don't really see how you can deny this.

The logical conclusion about individual thought is that each brain is unique, both biologically (is that a word?)/chemically, and by environmental influence. Chemical reactions in the brain cause certain deeds to have a "feel good" kind of feeling. To bring God into it is a leap of faith. You cannot "know" something that is unknowable. I personally believe that goodness does have something do with God, but this is a personal belief. I could never prove it. I do not, however, subscribe to religion.

I apologize for my poor articulation of my point - I'm having a very "mommy-brain" kind of day.

Saying that it's in our brains is not equivalent to saying that it's a 'figment of our imaginations;' perhaps with all of the god-talk, you are projecting. The blind spot due to the backwards-wiring of the retina only exists in our perceptions, but that doesn't make it a figment of our imaginations; it's a consequence of how we're wired. How WE are wired, not just individual humans. Where morality moves beyond wiring, it is based on consensus, not on individual whim.

We do. Either collectively or individually. Just like the gods, good and evil are constructs that were created by human beings. Without human beings there is no good or evil.



Morality is not hardwired into human beings. Morality is an individual set of values that is usually influenced by the social contracts we human beings have made in order to progress as an intelligent social animal. Anything you view as 'good' or 'bad' are symptoms of nurture, not nature.