C
Chronologic4
Guest
But only preceding mankind, not in it.
- Status
C
Chronologic4
Guest
And even then, not really.
F
Fatima-Crusader
Guest
It makes them made, because its there mate.
F
Fatima-Crusader
Guest
The aristotelian view would say morality is habit formed from rational judgement
F
Fauken
Guest
There are polyandrous societies where one woman has multiple husbands (although they’re more rare than polygamous societies). They don’t get mad at the other men.
Last edited:
A
Aquinas11
Guest
You have that backwards - killing the tribe would mean getting to rape the women. That’s the “ethics” of evolution aka “the spoils of war”. Not exactly consistent w Christian ethics. And from evolutionary standpoint it’s not only permissible but required - these men who just won the battle obviously have superior genes thus raping the women only reinforces the continuation of their superior genes. That’s how sick & twisted the ethics of evolution are - they not only rationalize rape but require it
Last edited:
C
Cruciferi
Guest
The status of the man in the tribe would determine the response.
Also you have to consider the time period and culture.
Also you have to consider the time period and culture.
T
Trishie
Guest
The Church’s answer to your question, from The Catechism of the Catholic Church
[1776] "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths."47
I. THE JUDGMENT OF CONSCIENCE
[1777] Moral conscience,48 present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil. It also judges particular choices, approving those that are good and denouncing those that are evil.49 It bears witness to the authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the human person is drawn, and it welcomes the commandments. When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking.
[1776] "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths."47
I. THE JUDGMENT OF CONSCIENCE
[1777] Moral conscience,48 present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil. It also judges particular choices, approving those that are good and denouncing those that are evil.49 It bears witness to the authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the human person is drawn, and it welcomes the commandments. When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking.
Last edited:
O
o_mlly
Guest
Yes and no. Atheistic evolutionists identifying only self-interest as the motivating force can explain only good communal behaviors.
One must allow a transcendent being who is all good as the motivating force to explain morality that recognizes heroic behavior as good, and self regulation e.g., continence, chastity as good behavior. How many dramas in the format of heroic or self-sacrificing behaviors moved you, made you feel good? Jesus Christ is a total mystery the atheist morality.
One must allow a transcendent being who is all good as the motivating force to explain morality that recognizes heroic behavior as good, and self regulation e.g., continence, chastity as good behavior. How many dramas in the format of heroic or self-sacrificing behaviors moved you, made you feel good? Jesus Christ is a total mystery the atheist morality.
P
phil19034
Guest
Sure. That’s why I said “start reaching biological adulthood.” Girls typically reach that around 10-12 years old.phil19034:
I wish that were true.
The kids I went to school with could be plenty judgey.
Wrong clothes, wrong hairstyle, not up on the latest television shows and fads or being funny looking could all get you isolated real fast.
So by 9 - 10 years old, they are reaching biological adulthood (esp girls). Boys by 13-14.
God bless
B
Bradskii
Guest
Self interest on its own wasn’t good enough. It had to also benefit the group. If I keep sharing and Joe keeps taking and not giving then eventually he’s not included into the group. If I help Joe and he doesn’t reciprocate then eventually he’s not included in the group. If I stand up for members of the group in an agressive situation and Joe doesn’t, then eventually he’s not included in the group.
Now why am I doing these things in any case? You can look on my actions and say that I am sharing and caring and courageous because they are good things to be. But underneath it all, subconsciously we are looking after ourselves. We don’t want to be alone. We don’t want to be shunned like Joe. We don’t want people to think of us as liars or cheats or lazy or cowardly.
We want to be part of the group. We thrive on positive feedback and we shun the negative. And this doesn’t need a belief in God for it to be true. People have been acting this way for hundreds of thousands of years. But if you are a Christian you can certainly say that God has ordained it to be so.
Jesus was pointing all this out all the time. Look ar the parable of the good Samaritan. The story only works because we have two bad guys with which to compare the good guy. Jesus was saying, in effect: ‘Do you really want to be like the first two? Do you want to be someone that everyone thinks is a low life?’
Of course, not everyone plays by the ‘rules’. Put enough people together and some of them will work out that you can swing the lead and get away with it (see the Prisoners Dilema for more on that).
The sense of what is right and wrong and therefore why we do what is considered to be right and wrong is an evolutionary product. It enabled us to get where we are now. But having reached a point where groups eventually formed societies, other forces come into play. The old instincts are still there but they have to compete against different forces. Different values.
Therein lies the problem. And to a certain extent, religion helps in that it tends to re-emphasise and promote what got us here. Except that it doesn’t acknowledge where it came from. It can’t because I don’t think it knows.
I don’t mean this to be derrogatory to Christianity in particular because it holds for all religions. Their answers are quite simplistic: It is written, therefore act this way.
The reason why we do is a lot more complex and nuanced than scripture would have you believe.
Last edited:
O
o_mlly
Guest
Self interest extended to include others who contribute to one’s own welfare still is self-interest. We are social by nature and, therefore, need others to flourish as human beings. Contributions to the common good insure our own needs are met. When we use others as instruments for our own well-being instead of ends in themselves, we act out of self-interest. Contributions to the common good that are purely other-oriented do not arise out o self interest.
A basic tenet of evolution is survival of the fittest. Survival is not only not a motivator to self-sacrifice, but can be a motivator to sacrifice the other where the other is not instrumental to one’s own well-being.
B
Bradskii
Guest
Nothing with which to argue in your first paragraph. But remember the good Samaritan? You may have walked past yourself. Who was to know? But when Jesus tells the story and asks who is the good neighbour, would you be the one to hold up your hand to admit you’d pass by? Are you going to admit to be like Joe? Always looking after Number One?
The answer to that is no. Because we feel the need to be accepted by the group. Those on their own stood less chance of survival.
And helping others is part of the deal with reciprocal altruism. On average, you are better off helping others than if you didn’t help them (and those that don’t reciprocate, like Joe, generally get filtered out). This is very common throughout nature. And it’s generally not a conscious decision. You don’t help little old ladies across the street because you think there may be something in it for you. And you certainly don’t do it because you are a Christian.
If you ask anyone why they did it, you’d get a wooly: ‘Well, it’s just the right thing to do’ or something similar. I always remember my mother using phrases like ‘It’s the Christian thing to do’. And even when I was quite young that never rang true. Surely it’s right whether you are Christian or not.
Now I know why we do it. And if you want to claim God instills these feelings into us, then I’m fine with that. Just like evolution can be the process whereby He brought us to this point, empathy and reciprocal altruism are the means by which He gets little old ladies across to the other side.
‘God did it’ is never a satisfactory answer. I much prefer ‘I know how God did it’.
Last edited:
O
o_mlly
Guest
I do not doubt that an atheist evolutionist has the same impulse as the theist to lay down his life for another. We were both designed by the same Designer who loves and works withing us regardless if we believe in Him or not.
What I do argue is that evolution cannot explain that love for another to the point of self-sacrifice. Yes, we all have the capability to do so but evolution does not explain how. The good Samaritan did not act out of a need to be accepted by the Jews. And certainly his act did not improve his acceptance by other Samaritans. He acted out of compassion. Evolution does not explain the root of compassion. Deus est Caritas does.
B
Bradskii
Guest
Evolution tended to weed out the lazy. The cowardly. The liars. For obvious group orientated reasons. Being lazy and cowardly and a liar doesn’t have much impact on us in isolation. In fact, being a liar and being lazy and being a coward can have great benefits. But it’s being known as those things within a group which is to be avoided. Just trying calling someone a liar or a coward in a social environment and you’ll get quite a response.
You actually have to work hard to hide those characteristics. Whereas there is a tendency to flaunt your work ethic and your truthfullness and your heroism. It sounds trite to claim that we prefer to known as heroes as opposed to cowards but evolution has guided that preference. We feel the need to avoid shame and to encourage being thought well of. We want people to think of us as being honourable.
Again, this is working away under the surface. We don’t need to consciously calculate the cost benefit of helping someone. That’s been done for us. Over millions of years. So the tendency to help a fellow traveller, even to the point of putting ourselves in danger, is always there. We can consciously override it but it’s there nevertheless.
Heroic deeds tend to be done on the spur of the moment. Even though I’m sure we can come up with counter examples, those are just us consciously becoming aware of what is there in any case. ‘It’s the right think to do’.
Did God cause it to happen that way? You are free to take that option. Otherwise it’s: Shazam! You will be good! Just like: Shazam! Here’s kangaroo!
O
o_mlly
Guest
I think you make my point.
But examine the motivation. If one acts only to achieve a reputation but is not as one seems then we call that one’s reputation a sham (as opposed to Shazam). No virtue here. Such a person deceives (lies to) the community in order to access communal goods. So much for evolution.
But the one who acts according to one’s true attitudes in order to belong to the community for the sake of others has virtue that is not explainable by evolution.
Don’t dismiss the counter examples so easily. If evolution explains all moral behaviors then it must do so for all types of virtues including self regulating and heroic virtue. So far we’ve seen no virtue in your examples, only chicanery. Those examples “talk the talk but don’t walk the walk>”
Evolution tells us: “If it feels good and doesn’t cause the community to expel me then I may do it.”
Evolution tells us: “Survival of the fittest also means elimination of the weakest.”
Evolution does not explain why parents of a Down Syndrome child expend extraordinary amounts of their time, talent and treasure for the child’s benefit. So does the community the child is born into. Nor do the parents or the community do so “on the spur of the moment”.
Last edited:
N
niceatheist
Guest
And yet even in atheist states like the Soviet Union, China and Cuba, people didn’t descend into jungle law. Heck, Yugoslavia didn’t explode until the fall of Communism, when the old ethno-religious lines reappeared quite rapidly, and Orthodox Christians went after Muslims with terrifying zeal.
The real secret to human behavior is two-fold. First of all, like most social species, we are evolutionary predisposed to having a group of common behaviors that assure any given population functions. Second of all, humans, like our closet relatives, evolved a pretty strong sense of tribalism, that rests on the notion of “kin groups”. In other words, you treat your kin differently than you treat strangers. It worked very well for early human societies; which were generally made up of fairly small tribes, or even family and extended family groups. As we built larger societies, that tribalism went along for the ride. You were a Babylonian, and then as that empire grew, it came to encompass wide swathes of the Fertile Crescent; common religion, commonality of language, commonality of laws and social structure. Beyond the confines of the Fertile Crescent were barbarians and enemy kingdoms, so tribalism still functioned, it’s just that we extended our kin group.
It even shows its face today. We’ll be outraged by a mass shooting in a Western city by some lunatic, but mass shootings happen frequently in other parts of the world, so we barely even notice, if we are even informed. They’re not part of our tribe, so at best we’re ambivalent.
G
goout
Guest
That’s not true. That’s a radically fundamentalist understanding of Christianity. (we have had this discussion before I think)
B
Bradskii
Guest
Feel free to expound.Bradskii:
That’s not true. That’s a radically fundamentalist understanding of Christianity. (we have had this discussion before I think)
G
goout
Guest
Christianity is definitively not a religion of the book. The book reveals God, the book is not God.goout:
Feel free to expound.Bradskii:
That’s not true. That’s a radically fundamentalist understanding of Christianity. (we have had this discussion before I think)
Fundamentalists tend to lose this perspective. They see morality as a mere adherence to the rules as written down.
Christianity is first of all adherence to a person in Jesus Christ. The source of good is objectively other, and the most radically other is person, not a book.
I do not look at a book and have any sense of relationship, right?
When I see another human being (and Genesis expresses this beautifully) I see an-other. Through and with another person I find my identity.
God is the ultimate other who is the good itself. We are called to seek the good in all moral evaluations because we have the durable promise of union with a person, God.
If it were the way you are saying above, that we act this way because it is written down, then the Old Testament is the summation of revelation. And Christianity is precisely the fulfillment of the Old Testament, in the person of the Son of the Living God,.
Last edited:
- Status