Morality! Thorn in Darwin's side or not?

You mean you'd like proof of a moral by seeing one?
Can you see morals? No, so they don't exist right?
Can you see your brain? No, but it's there...Why would you expect science - the minds of men - to find and understand their maker? It is like a clock knowing the clock maker - he does not exist - as far as the clock can prove anyway.If morals don't exist how come they are the only thing that can properly guard the physical and spiritual values of a society?
Ten simple laws with tremendous results.The trouble is that people are so desensitized to morality that they have dispensed with it altogether and made up their own standards.
A thief justifies his actions by saying he only steals from the wealthy.
A murderer justifies his actions by saying it had to be done to improve his world.
An adulterer or fornicator, justifies his actions by the pleasure he gets.But evolution is all accommodating to vice, non judgmental and accepting to all, that's the kind of god we want isn't it?So could evolution be the thing we developed to help us overcome the hindrances of moral law and allow full indulgence of whatever feels good, without any consideration of anyone else except self?Narcissism, sociopathy...

It looks like I'm going to have to slow down.Believing in evolution (which is, itself a nonsense - you don't 'believe' in evolution anymore than you believe in gravity, but let it go) does not mean that you can't believe in God. Hundreds of millions of people believe in both. All it means is that some of the stories in some of the books that some people believe aren't literally true aren't.I'm accusing the God that YOU believe in of supposedly doing immoral acts in order for YOU to understand that YOUR god is immoral and I'm asking you to explain how that is possible. Exactly how wrong do you want to be? I'm an atheist. God doesn't exist. There, I CAN do it. Weird statement - I'm not complaining about god, I'm complaining about the things that people say about what god says - like morals need gods and are absolute. I suggest you re-read what I say, put aside your preconceptions and just think.Evolutionist does not equal atheist - stop conflating the two. There is such a thing as good and bad and all people of all beliefs and none know these things instinctively. They are also taught in homes and schools - hence they can also be learnt.

Well duh. But of course the perfect atheist would live in a perfect world where theists weren't intruding their incoherent beliefs into civil society. When we talk about your God, we're not acknowledging the existence of any such being. Neither are we making that concept part of our reality. We are simply using semantic shorthand to describe your beliefs.Since your gods are the creation of your own minds, our pointing out their immorality and incoherence is just another way of describing you, the believer. We would have no reason to do this if you acted responsibly and ran anti-virus software in your brain. Interesting use of the word "so". Was it your impression that you had made a point of some kind that led to this bizarre non sequitur?What on earth gave you the idea that morals have something to do with theism? It seems self-evident that theism is, to borrow Harris' phrase, just one of the "first and worst" attempts to explain the morals we had evolved earlier in our history. "Physical and social consequences" are precisely the subject that morals are intended to address. What else could there be? Or perhaps your somewhat crude version of theism has degraded your ability to understand the implications of the word "social". ...an instinct that manifests as identifiable physical and social consequences we have chosen to label as bad. ...and those behaviors manifest as identifiable physical and social consequences we have chosen to label as bad. To borrow another phrase (from someone whose name I can't recall): language isn't your first language, is it?KP

No, evolution doesn't proscribe any morality at all. There is no answer "according to evolution" at all.Like, what would be the answer "according to gravity"? That's nonsense. No, not everything an individual does has an impact on the fitness of the population.Individuals do not evolve. Not necessarily. For example, drinking beer provides nice feelings that are not hormonal responses. Huh? What is there besides chance and circumstances? There's still room for independent behavior. If there wasn't, then behaviors could never change. Being natural doesn't have anything to do with accountability.And as you point out, you are accountable for your actions, not whether or not you had any say in doing them.

Can you show us exactly who this evolution entity is?Can you show us where you read or heard that any of what you said is actually a description of anything supported by the Theory of Evolution. According to colbard, if you went to school it was not when science was taught, and specifically not when evolutionary theory was taught. That is one thing that is clear from this thread, and the others where you have posted.You are a sad example that sometimes education fails.

Sure we can. We can distinguish between moral behaviour and immoral behaviour, can't we? We might not agree on whether the behaviour is moral or immoral, but we can still see the morality or lack of morality. Well, they do exist (see above). Morals evolved. Behaviour that "works" for our species - e.g. helping each other - is generally considered moral. Behaviour that endangers our species - e.g. killing each other - is generally considered immoral.We have learned what morals work and what morals don't work - and as situations change, we have to change our morals to suit the situation, to keep them working for us. That's a cute idea for a story. Somebody should write a book about it.But reality isn't simple. Sometimes we "need" to kill members of our own species to protect other members of our species. Even the craziest fundamentalists interpret the Ten Commandments pretty loosely, because you have to. Evolution is practical, not dogmatic.

Liar, liar pants on fire.Understanding that evolution is fact and that we are simply evolved, not more evolved than chimpanzees, apes has absolutely nothing to do with a belief in the existence of God or being a Christian. Even the Pope has acknowledged that evolution is a fact.You can of course say something like "The Pope is not a Christian" which would just be another of you lies or you might say "I don't believe the Pope is a Christian" which may well not be a lie but just another example of your willful ignorance. More utter bullshit at best and most likely just another of your chain of lies or examples of your willful ignorance.A evolutionist can most certainly teach morals at home or too their children and even as you can see here on this board to the ignorant, deluded or lying Creationists.

You need to stop imposing your thoughts and beliefs on me. You can't see a moral - it's only a word to descibe an action. Well of course I don't because I'm an atheist, remember? Watch my lips - morality exists. Why are you so confused about this? Evolution isn't atheism, isn't moral or immoral and certainly isn't god. You're all tangled up aren't you? As I said earlier, you need to take some time out and start thinking. There's no hinderence by morality, without it we we destroy oursekves - morality is a handy survival mechanism that allows us to live together mostly contentedly. Neither have we developed evolution, we discovered it. Nor does the discovery that life evolved allow us to do whatever we feel like - this is easy to prove because we can't and we don't.

So good and bad is defined by what the majority in any situation believe to be.So if you are in a country where they are about to burn alive a former wife because they want a new model, then that's good, because the majority consent to it, and have made it their rule or morality?And somehow evolution is not a belief as such, but stands alone from all the different belief systems as a standard of what? truth?.

This is what I was getting at earlier. Is this not an objective base for morality? What 'works' can be seen in hindsight.

Physical and social issues as I have pointed out in earlier posts, are things we may or may not want to address, and name morals, which in the process of evolution are only issues relative for the time, and can not be intrinsically right or wrong - they can only be "whatever is." Nothing more or less.
Ultimately, whatever overcomes us is the winning species, be it bacteria or a machine, and regardless of whether we think it right or not, it is ordained by the destiny of chance and survival of the fittest.Now go and do whatever you have to, but at the end of the day you are nothing better than an expanded worm.

There is no such thing as accountability in evolution, accountable to what or who?If you are part of evolution you have no accountability, and no one has the right to hold you to any accountability even though it can be enforced by the majority.
You have the opportunity to develop a means by which you can exterminate all your oppositions, and rise above them in excellence.
But even then, that does not make you righteous, because if it turns the other way, it is the way of physics and natural consequence, which has no morals or intent, or accountability.What is more, you cannot demand, at any time or circumstance, the accountability of others towards you. They have their own role in the process of evolution based on chance and circumstances.Accountability implies purpose, and evolution has none.If it does then you have created a god with mind and personality to which you bow.

Nothing is sad about evolution, sad too bad, may the better survive and flourish.Who is this evolution entity? you ask,
I did not even suggest it was one, but go ahead, tell me about the one you adore.

So we do have morals, of course we do, our morals defined by us and not anything outside of us.The intelligent species has developed a means of enforcing its ideals onto others by rules, and the one with the most power makes the rules, right?Then we have different ideals, politics, religions, the powers that put their stamp on society...And what does all this idealism lead to? A dream of some kind of global utopia?A new global kingdom?Most certainly as predicted - the last empire. But then what would God know about the future, especially since he does not exist, and the Bible is rubbish and contradictory because religions have proven its unreliability, even though it exposes them, as well as every global move in politics.

Who's the fool for talking with me then?Edited by Colbard, : No reason given.