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The Existence Of Morality


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Part of me thinks this direction is fruitless.You can show examples of a 'moralness' in an animal's behaviour.I can show examples of the same animal with actions that make the motive for their actions more pavlovian than thoughtful.Since we can't really ask an ape...do we really gain anything by going in this direction?
It simply shows that behaviour is driven by multiple inputs. Maslow (sp?) and his heirarchy of needs gives a simplistic explanantion as to why you get variation in human behaviour.People will react with empathy being a primary factor on some occasions and will ignore it in others. The fact that animals follow the same pattern strengthens the argument that altuistic (if you discount emotive rewards) behaviour is biological in it's source.What we gain by going in this direction is shooting another hole in the God gave us morals theory.And it allows me to show this video
which is really sweet
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Here is a very interesting study on the neural basis of human moralshttp://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v6/n10/abs/nrn1768.htmlAbstract:"Moral cognitive neuroscience is an emerging field of research that focuses on the neural basis of uniquely human forms of social cognition and behaviour. Recent functional imaging and clinical evidence indicates that a remarkably consistent network of brain regions is involved in moral cognition. These findings are fostering new interpretations of social behavioural impairments in patients with brain dysfunction, and require new approaches to enable us to understand the complex links between individuals and society. Here, we propose a cognitive neuroscience view of how cultural and context-dependent knowledge, semantic social knowledge and motivational states can be integrated to explain complex aspects of human moral cognition."Washington post article on the studyhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...52701056_2.html"The results were showing that when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable. "Receiving emotive rewards for empathy based behaviour? Looking more and more like a biological source for morals to me

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But at a much, much greater percentage of the time by atheist. Who make up such a tiny percentage of the populationSo you are saying that with a massive number of people, there are a lot of scumbags..unless they are atheist, then you don't need as many people to find the scumbagsActually this is wrong. All studies on the subject show that athiests commit crime at a much lower rate than theists. Much lower.The also get divorced at a lower rate and have higher IQ'sAll round much nicer people us athiests.
Another lie by the atheist designed to create an impression that denies the reality. Twist a number, ignore a large group, use numbers instead of percentage, and viola, you suddenly have create a false reality.Year 2000 study in Great Britain.38,531 Christians in jail122 atheist62 agnosticsThese number seem to support your theory, and are used by Hitchens and the other peope writing books that you guys hold as gospel.But there are also 20,639 prisoners who claim no religionAnd this was not simply a case of people falling through the cracks or refusing to provide an answer; the Inmate Information System is specific enough to distinguish between Druids, Scientologists, and Zoroastrians as well as between the Celestial Church of God, the Welsh Independent church, and the Non-Conformist church. It also features separate categories for “other Christian religion,” “other non-Christian religion,” and “not known.”So 31.6 percent of the prison population claims no-religion, compared with 15.1 percent of Britons who checked no religion, atheist, agnostic or heathen in the 2001 national survey.So atheist/people who hold to no religion at all are 4 times more likely to commit a crime than a Christian.They also die younger, are more likely to be childless and unmarried, and smoke, abuse alcohol and be depressed.
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err.. so you don't think the gospels are in agreement about major issues? you think matthew and luke were copied from Q? (etc) obviously those are most or all just things you think are wrong, not arguments against misstated christian positions. :club:
Not even 1/10th, from just his god is not great book, but this thread isn't about the validity of the Bible or even how badly your side understands what the Bible says.
you've spent a lot of time in this thread arguing that modern human morality couldn't have come from "pure darwinian evolution" or "survival of the fittest" (via genetics), which is a straw man.
I have stated that the two are going in opposite directions, so to imply that they were in action simultaneously to achieve the current conditions of evolved mankind and evolved morality doesn't fly.I understand that the changing of a fin to a foot is not the same thing as the change of accepting the death of your child sacrificed to Ra, to holding children's lives valuable.
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I don't really understand the distinction. Let me elaborate to make it more clear. Here's a recent experiment with chimps. You have a pair of them in cages next to each other and they are trained to give up a rock they have for a small reward - a piece of cucumber. They do this and they also see their partner doing it. In some cases, their partner gets a bigger reward for doing the same thing (hey, unfair!). When that happens, the chimp who received the unfair reward stops trading the rock with the experimenter and begins various protest behaviors. (Note how amazing this is because they are giving up a small reward just to protest the unfairness. Interestingly, the degree to which they tolerate unfairness changes with how well they know the other chimp. If their partner is from their close-knit group, they don't mind the unfairness as much. You may not consider this "morality", but the experiment shows that the monkeys are keeping track equity and adjusting their behavior accordingly. As I wrote above fairness is one of the five moral categories, and apparently we didn't invent it. It's born out of the needs of living in a social situation. Since we share some social structure with these animals we also share some of the "rules".
That's actually really interesting about the chimps.But my point isn't whether or not chimps have morality.I will even concede that some animals have some actions we consider morality.But a common Designer would explain why this is true on my side, and if man's morality evolved then having another species with similar traits would be expected as well.So are you arguing that an animal having a possible sense of morality somehow lends weight to the evolution of morality? Because if you are then we first must establish that my side doesn't believe that God gave them this instinct in the first place.I mean some people easily accept that the fish evolved into the mammals, I don't see why the idea of a chimp not letting his chimpmate get shortstacked on the biscuits be a real milestone.Nor does it add to the argument. I guess it's my bad for lending weight to this by not ignoring the flame and shoot techinque when this was first brought up.
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Here is a very interesting study on the neural basis of human moralshttp://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v6/n10/abs/nrn1768.htmlAbstract:"Moral cognitive neuroscience is an emerging field of research that focuses on the neural basis of uniquely human forms of social cognition and behaviour. Recent functional imaging and clinical evidence indicates that a remarkably consistent network of brain regions is involved in moral cognition. These findings are fostering new interpretations of social behavioural impairments in patients with brain dysfunction, and require new approaches to enable us to understand the complex links between individuals and society. Here, we propose a cognitive neuroscience view of how cultural and context-dependent knowledge, semantic social knowledge and motivational states can be integrated to explain complex aspects of human moral cognition."Washington post article on the studyhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...52701056_2.html"The results were showing that when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable. "Receiving emotive rewards for empathy based behaviour? Looking more and more like a biological source for morals to me
Hmm, so you are saying that God could not have created this process because the process is observable?I guess you probably win a lot of arguments with this style of debate.
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It simply shows that behaviour is driven by multiple inputs. Maslow (sp?) and his heirarchy of needs gives a simplistic explanantion as to why you get variation in human behaviour.People will react with empathy being a primary factor on some occasions and will ignore it in others. The fact that animals follow the same pattern strengthens the argument that altuistic (if you discount emotive rewards) behaviour is biological in it's source.What we gain by going in this direction is shooting another hole in the God gave us morals theory.And it allows me to show this video
which is really sweet
Again see above. The fact that something exists isn't proof that it exists seperate from God.But that video was kind fo cool, it would have been much better if that impala hadn't ended up dead and eaten by the croc.
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I have stated that the two are going in opposite directions, so to imply that they were in action simultaneously to achieve the current conditions of evolved mankind and evolved morality doesn't fly.
the trouble is that's a nonsensical statement. evolution is adaptation to changing conditions. there is no "direction". as fully self-aware animals with complex social structures humans have evolved under radically different conditions than whatever species you are taking your simple survival of the mate-stealing fittest example from. it's no surprise we tend to behave differently.
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Hmm, so you are saying that God could not have created this process because the process is observable?
Again see above. The fact that something exists isn't proof that it exists seperate from God.
last resort time apparently.
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But a common Designer would explain why this is true on my side
yes, in the same way as saying space aliens from alpha centauri are manipulating our brain waves to make us behave morally would explain it.
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Hmm, so you are saying that God could not have created this process because the process is observable?I guess you probably win a lot of arguments with this style of debate.
No. I'm simply countering your point that morals could not have been developed through evolution, which apart from some smoke and mirrors wrapped around eugenics, you've provided no evidence for other than to repeat it over and over.It's not a "one or the other situation". There could be countless other possiblities that explain it. Therefore we should look at each case on it's merits and remove those that fail.The morals from the Christian "God did it" scenario fails to explain - lack of higher moral behaviour from Christians (not saying they are worse; just no better) - sociopaths - 'evil' in children - common patterns of behaviour between humans and (other) animals - empathetic reactions that weaken with 'distance' - physical injury resulting in morally related behavioural changes - instintive altruism - Catholic priests - etc etc etcAn evolutionary/biological/natural model doen't have these problems.Bring some others to the table and we can discuss those too, but we no longer need the "God did it" explanation as it doesn't meet with the facts
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Another lie by the atheist designed to create an impression that denies the reality. Twist a number, ignore a large group, use numbers instead of percentage, and viola, you suddenly have create a false reality.Year 2000 study in Great Britain.38,531 Christians in jail122 atheist62 agnosticsThese number seem to support your theory, and are used by Hitchens and the other peope writing books that you guys hold as gospel.But there are also 20,639 prisoners who claim no religionAnd this was not simply a case of people falling through the cracks or refusing to provide an answer; the Inmate Information System is specific enough to distinguish between Druids, Scientologists, and Zoroastrians as well as between the Celestial Church of God, the Welsh Independent church, and the Non-Conformist church. It also features separate categories for “other Christian religion,” “other non-Christian religion,” and “not known.”So 31.6 percent of the prison population claims no-religion, compared with 15.1 percent of Britons who checked no religion, atheist, agnostic or heathen in the 2001 national survey.So atheist/people who hold to no religion at all are 4 times more likely to commit a crime than a Christian.They also die younger, are more likely to be childless and unmarried, and smoke, abuse alcohol and be depressed.
Actually I don't refer to the British 'stats' as they are farcical. You probably not aware but there have been strong movements in the UK to disrupt census taking. Probably due to the fact that you get pulled over by road side police to have data 'gathered' here.To give you an feel for how ridiculous the census here is, 'anarchists' - for want of a better term started a movement to revolt against the religousity questions and answer 'Jedi' as your preferred religion. It was so successful that the 2001 you mentioned Jedi was actually listed as an official religion. Apparantly 1% of Brits are Jedi'sInterestingly enough it is also the only question in the entire census that is optional.No, the figures I were referring to were American.Of course it's all tongue in cheek anyway
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the trouble is that's a nonsensical statement. evolution is adaptation to changing conditions. there is no "direction".
Evolution very much does postulate a direction. Upwards in complexity, survivalibilty, intelligence and morality.to pretend otherwise is just a dodge similr to your definitions dodge you use so often.
as fully self-aware animals with complex social structures humans have evolved under radically different conditions than whatever species you are taking your simple survival of the mate-stealing fittest example from. it's no surprise we tend to behave differently.
Radically different conditions?What, on different planets?Pretty sure that the environmental necessity for change part of Darwianin evolution wasn't for isolated locals...Maybe I don't give you guys credit for the complexity of details that evolution can handle...randomly through accidental mutations.
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No. I'm simply countering your point that morals could not have been developed through evolution, which apart from some smoke and mirrors wrapped around eugenics, you've provided no evidence for other than to repeat it over and over.It's not a "one or the other situation". There could be countless other possiblities that explain it. Therefore we should look at each case on it's merits and remove those that fail.Bring some others to the table and we can discuss those too, but we no longer need the "God did it" explanation as it doesn't meet with the facts
So your argument for why morality evolved is that I can't prove it didn't?I've heard that arguement used before...
The morals from the Christian "God did it" scenario fails to explain - lack of higher moral behaviour from Christians (not saying they are worse; just no better) - sociopaths - 'evil' in children - common patterns of behaviour between humans and (other) animals - empathetic reactions that weaken with 'distance' - physical injury resulting in morally related behavioural changes - instintive altruism - Catholic priests - etc etc etc
Uhhh sin nature?
An evolutionary/biological/natural model doen't have these problems.
In fact, an evolutionary/biological/natural model doesn't have any problems because there is no benchmark of good or bad to judge these results by.
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Of course it's all tongue in cheek anyway
Tongue in cheek when I refute your original assertion that Christians are more likely to be criminals with data?Oh..I think your toungue in cheek comments should be qualified first...maybe with this:"This is not true, but I will state it to make the Christian side look bad..."Then no one will assume you really meant what you are going to misrepresent as fact.
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yes, in the same way as saying space aliens from alpha centauri are manipulating our brain waves to make us behave morally would explain it.
Which is a higher possiblity according to some...right?
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Moral behavior is symptomatic of a social animal, such as dogs, primates (which, yes, includes us), dolphins, whales, etc. Why does your god grant morality to dolphins and such. Wouldn't he only grant morality to humans, since we are clearly separate and distinct from the rest of the animal kingdom. The idea that morality is passed on by religion only works when the religion in question has a moral base. Issuing ten commandments (one of which is Do not covet thy neighbors goods is the very reason capitalism works) and threatening an eternity of punishment for violating those rules (unless of course you ask for forgiveness before your death) or simply for not wanting or asking for the love of the savior does not make a basis for morality. Far from it, it permits behavior that is free of all morals and ethics. Kill in the name of god and it is okay. Hell, anything in the name of god is okay.

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Actually this is wrong. All studies on the subject show that athiests commit crime at a much lower rate than theists. Much lower.The also get divorced at a lower rate and have higher IQ'sAll round much nicer people us athiests.
Tongue in cheek when I refute your original assertion that Christians are more likely to be criminals with data?Oh..I think your toungue in cheek comments should be qualified first...maybe with this:"This is not true, but I will state it to make the Christian side look bad..."Then no one will assume you really meant what you are going to misrepresent as fact.
Uhh, now your just being childish. (and anyway you started it so nah nah nah nah nah)It's obvious the post above is a dig without substance...As king of the inflamitary trolling you should be able to take your medicine better. Or does "do unto others" not apply to you?
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So your argument for why morality evolved is that I can't prove it didn't?
No it isn't. Care to reread and try again?
Uhhh sin nature?
Oh please try and use that to explain all of the aboveplease, please, please :club:
In fact, an evolutionary/biological/natural model doesn't have any problems because there is no benchmark of good or bad to judge these results by.
Other than empathy?
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lol at the "British study" being your ace in the hole.Haha.Look at the crime rates in countries by number of citizens who are religious.lolWhat makes this all of this really entertaining is that you guys are so condescending about points where you are so very wrong. Enjoy your laughable place in history.You will be seen by later generations in the same way people who threw virgins into volcano's are seen by you.

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That's actually really interesting about the chimps.But my point isn't whether or not chimps have morality.I will even concede that some animals have some actions we consider morality.But a common Designer would explain why this is true on my side, and if man's morality evolved then having another species with similar traits would be expected as well.So are you arguing that an animal having a possible sense of morality somehow lends weight to the evolution of morality? Because if you are then we first must establish that my side doesn't believe that God gave them this instinct in the first place.I mean some people easily accept that the fish evolved into the mammals, I don't see why the idea of a chimp not letting his chimpmate get shortstacked on the biscuits be a real milestone.Nor does it add to the argument. I guess it's my bad for lending weight to this by not ignoring the flame and shoot techinque when this was first brought up.
OK then now I am unclear as to your position. You are saying that god imbued all living creatures with a sense of morality according to his value system? I thought you had been arguing that morality came from religion, so that a person without religion would not have a basis for morality. That's why the behavior of the chimps refutes this argument. If your position is the first, then atheists, christians, and chimps should be the same morally.
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Evolution very much does postulate a direction. Upwards in complexity, survivalibilty, intelligence and morality.
which explains why bacteria are the most successful adaptable living things on earth.any direction to change comes from adaptation to conditions. evolution is just a mechanism and doesn't postulate anything. for all we know humans might be an evolutionary dead end.
Radically different conditions?
when you're talking about evolution of social behavior social conditions are part of the environment.
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OK then now I am unclear as to your position. You are saying that god imbued all living creatures with a sense of morality according to his value system? I thought you had been arguing that morality came from religion, so that a person without religion would not have a basis for morality. That's why the behavior of the chimps refutes this argument. If your position is the first, then atheists, christians, and chimps should be the same morally.
Once a society begins to disregard the morality foundations laid down by religion...It's changing as parts of his argument are clearly shown weak.It isn't like it started off as some well defined, logically vigorous proposition. It is undeveloped, apologist tripe, I wouldn't expect much consistency.
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