homosexuality

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Originally posted by Karl:
Most non-fundamentalist theologians find it more useful to see original sin in the sense of humans having a selfish imperative. Evolution, incidently, explains extremely well from a scientific POV exactly why that might be - the Australopithecus who gives someone else his food is less likely to be the one ancestral to H. habilis.....

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Not necessarily - evolutionary anthropology tends be explain the remarkable human quality of altruism rather better than the regrettable quality of selfishness. The genes of the caring sharing (no doubt left-wing liberal) Australopithecus are more likely to survive through the difficulties of existence in the long-term, even if she is inconvenienced short term. As she cannot see into the long-term far enough to identify that advantage, there may be another explanation for her altruism - it offers evolutionary advantage!Interestingly religion plays the same role - providing a people with rules which put long-term adavantage, however difficult it may be to see, over short term expediency. For example, the Hindu prohibition against eating cows ensures that the main source of protein (from milk and ghee), fuel(from dung) and draft labour is not sacrificed to short term expediency in time of hardship. It would be difficult to explain to a starving man why he should not kill his cow to feed his family on the basis that when the crisis is over he will need his cow if any who come through the crisis are to survive long term. A religious tabbo so strong that it would disgust him to contemplate it is very useful in such circumstances.The British, who disdained the logic of this, discovered its sense during the famine of 1942/3 - at the height of the war. They made the killing of cows a hanging offence, precisely because the lack of cows would have extended the crisis far beyond the point at which it might naturally have recovered.Religion and evolution playing the same roles - who would have though it?