Evolution And Morals

Ok, in reply to your arguments against the theory of evolutionary morality, im not going to quote every single one, but address the points directly as a whole by displaying why the theory is by no means incorrect.

Etiquette is a code of behavior that influences expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group. What im talking about here has nothing to do with it.

Some evolutionary biologists believe that morality is a product of evolutionary forces acting at an individual level and also at the group level through group selection (though actually occurs is a controversial topic in evolutionary theory). Some sociobiologists contend that the set of behaviors that constitute morality evolved largely because they provided possible survival and/or reproductive benefits (i.e. increased evolutionary success). Whats important here is that Humans consequently evolved "pro-social" emotions, such as feelings of empathy or guilt, in response to these moral behaviors.

In this respect, morality is not absolute, but relative and constitutes any set of behaviors that encourage human cooperation based on their ideology. Biologists contend that all social animals, from ants to elephants, have modified their behaviors, by restraining selfishness in order to make group living worthwhile. Human morality, though sophisticated and complex relative to other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive individualism and foster human cooperation.

Thats as much of a sum up on the theory put as simply as possible. And yes, it is just a theory, but it is a very common belief of 'socio - biologists' so should not be discredited as wrong. Or flawed, to say that it invalidates the argument is completely incorrect.

I am somewhat addressing you personally, ofc there are teachings in the book that are morally acceptable, even beneficial for people. But honestly, if a person need a book to tell them that killing is bad, then they are obviously suffering from mental problems to not have picked up on the basics of morality from their own internal moral sense. I trust you are intelligent enough to recognise cultures throughout the history of our world that had no need of a Bible, or had no idea of its existance, who still grow up to be morally just. They do not kill their neighbour, etc. The bible is not needed, which brings me onto my main point here; you dont need the bible, it is irrelevant.

You dodge its other advocations of genocide like they dont matter, which obviously leads me to believe that you take it as a book of philosophy. Which leads me to wonder why you would feel a book of such philosophical crudeness and contradiction is needed in our society, when there are far better means to put across such messages of kindess that dont also involve the crushing of all religious opposition. Or other, unsavoury things...

That is correct, the purpose here is survival, and the mutation achieves just that. (First point)

Yes, as does this mutation.

This is incorrect, morals are not arbitrary in the betterment of our species, as i said; animals modified their behaviors, by restraining selfishness in order to make group living worthwhile. Human morality, though sophisticated and complex relative to other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive individualism and foster human cooperation.

You dont understand the theory.

Allowing a species to cooperate together is by no means weakening it, to even sugget that makes me feel like you have no idea on the subject >.<. A internal sense of what is right and wrong prevents individualism, it assists in the betterment of the species through such restrictions.

Regardless i would argue that the moral reprecusssions of such spiritual beliefs were bad, not good for the groups.

Circumscision....

'Holy wars' against other tribes....

Thats the problem with religion here, by definintion its followers are encouraged that all other religions are false. Its like giving people a sword and saying 'that guy over there is following a belief that is incorrect - they're gonna go to hell, but please, stop them from following false idols'

People are gonna get gibbed, we could do with out.

Doing what wrong?...

I am also a firm believer of free though...

I agree that you should never do something just because a book or priest tells you so...
I fail to see how this is relevant to my argument about how some Christians view atheists as immoral. Of which was never aimed at you guys, because i know you guys dont believe atheists are. - That covers one of your points too Kurai xD.

The ones who are so brainwashed to think that innocent people will spend an eternity in hell are deeply immoral.

Evolution according to the theory i am suggesting has everything to do with morality. See above.

Fortunatly some tigers are smart enough to hide their stripes..... You know, the ones that roll around... in muddy water..

I have nothing against people personally. But i just cant swallow the injustices of what some people follow full heartedly without justification.

You shouldnt need to, you already know basic morals. There are better books of philosophy, better teachings of peace and love that are not biggoted or based on hatred of other 'false religions' than the bible. Why must you follow such a book?

From a young age, i, (and many other children) morally knew everything the bible even had to say! And i also knew that not every other religion is false and this one is correct. And thats from without even reading the damn thing. When i first came to look at its teachings i was like, wow, you know, this thing is just stating the obvious.
People shouldnt have to look to such a contradictory book for such simple teachings. I learned better from childrens TV. You can argue that they are based on Christian teachings. But you know what? No, they're based on the whole lot of religious moral teachings.

Whats most funny here, is if you even imply that other teachings from other religions are not 100% false then by the word of your beliefs you will go to hell, just like me.

 

I am wrong to harbour hatred for a book that states im going to burn in hell for eternity? Oh, but it has so many good teachings? Im supposed to take the few good things it says despite them being found in goddamn childrens books in this age of science and understanding and just let that slide? The contradictions? The advocation and responsiblity for mass genocide.
Im sorry, but the crude teachings are not worth the suffering it is responsible for, the teachings do not redeem it in my eyes, or the eyes of any sensible atheist. Nor should they in yours.

Incorrect, mankind would not randomly kill their tribe members upon birth, this could indeed be down to the fear of the harm it would cause their species causing mutation and thus evolution in their ability to cooperate, i address all of this more appropriatly in my first point.

It invalidates your interpretation of my argument... a interpretation that does nothing but display you as being ill decided and uneducated on the theory of moral evolution.

Word limit...

Also - dont grade the opponants argument when you are not aware of his full argument, its just patronising and wrong, like jumping to a conclusion.

If you're gonna grade something grade the graphology of the post.

 

Well nevermind.

I guess I was being offensive and I apologize.

 

Ahhh, **** man you dont need to apologise for anything .

If anything i should apologise for calling you deluded a while back!

So erh., sorry.

 

Why is it that it's always the moderators who dissect a post and reply with fine detail...I won't even bother with this thread because... well... you all know why...

The one thing I will say though, is that the Bible is a book. Since it was written so long ago, humans have to recopy those hundreds of pages by HAND to a different book. Whenever they do that, mistakes occur, like in DNA replication. Those mistakes sometimes don't get corrected and therefore get accepted as truth within the person who receives the Bible. And of course, when someone copies something, they might just exaggerate that one little feat someone accomplished. This exaggeration could build up on itself throughout all the time is had to be copied to a different book. PLUS mistranslations could occur in the ones that had to be translated.

So personally, I don't think the Bible is a reliable source of proof that God exists, but it's just my opinion. Nothing to kill a person over.

 

The bible is a philosophy book that serves as the guide for the christian faith and its flexible in how its teachings can be interpreted because. Christians interpret these beliefs based on their own internal moral compass, not any "external compass" you've been prattling about. That's why you don't see Christians selling their daughters off into slavery or killing people for working on Sunday. But hey, if someone is stupid enough to read the bible like a science book then it's best that that person renounces any kind of religion altogether.

Says who? You? I happen to find that most Christian organizations are beneficial for the community. There are always Church functions that help the poor, etc. I assume you'll just keep glazing over this fact along with the rest of the militant atheist community, but still.

 

@aedus, im not religious nor an atheist, but i do see your second argument is flawed; You assume that these people only help people because they are christian, while the number of christion beneficiary organaziation is as great as the number of non-christian beneficiary organization, taking into account the amount of christians and non-christians though.

 

The Bible is very accurate. Not only are there the most manuscripts of this Bible then any other book of a religion. But you have no know how scribes copied the book. Scribes prided themselves and accuracy, if something is unclear they would right it as a foot note on the paper. Each scribe would copy the last scribes notes and then add any more if they think they see an error. Today after having thousands of manuscripts written by scribes of the Bible, remember thees scribes prided themselves on their accuracy by even keeping notes of previous scribes. The Bible can be said , with all certainty, that it has no errors form when it was first written.

 

actually, at least one error was discovered lately: the number of the beast in the current version is 666, while in earlier versions its 616

 

Yes but how many manuscripts have that? All of them? Some of them?

 

basically all of them now
none of them back then

 

I'm sorry I'm still stumped, how can the ancient manuscripts be right and what we made form those be wrong? If what we made from those is exactly what they said.

 

The problem is that it might not be exactly what they said. If it was done manually some mistake might've occured during rewriting.

 

Like I said before, in the past when there were scribes who wrote everything by hand they wrote down all foot notes explaining if something looked unclear, including handwriting. Each scribe would copy all comments of the past. There are thousands of copies of the Bible from this time and we know it's accurate because there are thousand of copies to compare to each other.

 

and as before i give the 666/616 example to show that mistakes can still be made

 

Who says that they found the mistake though/?

 

yeah, i heard that, too. 616 is the bad number, not 666. dunno why it's 616 tho, or why it'd be 666. i mean, 6 is the number below 7, the number of perfection, but then why isn't regular 6 or 66 bad? it confuses me

 

Remember though the mark of the beast, which we are talking about right now, is a symbolic number anyways. It doesn't literally mean that there's someone out there with a stamp stamping everyone with that number.

 

Because three and seven were special numbers in the Hebrew mythos. Because of this, three sevens (777) was considered the perfect number (fun fact: that's why a slot machine jackpot is 777, because it's a 'perfect' spin). The Devil tries to imitate all of God's works, but never succeeds and always falls short. Therefor, 666.