Morality! Thorn in Darwin's side or not?

In fact, I would take this one step further. Can he prove that humans make choices at all? Personally, I think choice is just a necessary illusion, and without taking this topic too far afield, Cedre's insistance that morality requires a choice begs the question, in my mind.

No, Sammyjean just doesn't accept the same lawmaker as you do. I accept the lawmaker as all of us, not some mystical being in the sky who only thinks his special tribe is worth anything, and anyone who disagrees with how he runs things is not worth anything. Why do you think they should be? All life is special, and precious, and just as fleeting and tenuous as human life is. One could argue that we're special because of our unique ability to understand, and our ability to control large swathes of the planet through agriculture and construction. But that just makes us stewards of life, and again, makes us no less worthy of preservation than any other life form. That's exactly right. What gives anything worth? The society or individual who is beholding it. To one person a scuffed up, torn dirty teddy bear is the most precious thing oin the world, to another person, it's a bit of trash that should have been thrown out years ago. Worth is not an inherent attribute of anything, worth is given to something on an individual basis. The usual reason we have for granting more worth on one thing over another is rarity, and one could argue that an individual is the rarest thing of all and is thus worth the most.I don't need anyone else to tell me my life has worth, that's something I give it myself, and because I can empathise with others, I grant them the same worth as I grant myself. I see them as kin, as equals. If I didn't view them as such, I would probably grant them less worth than I grant myself. Everyone does this, even you. You're exactly right, that's why people were able to do those things, and the people who did them considered what they did to be morally right. We have a different definition of morally right, and by default, I think my morality is better than theirs, but if you'll notice, the way people can decide that is by convincing themselves that the people they're subjugating aren't really people. So the question comes down to how you define a "person" not how you define morality. People have no inherent meaning or purpose in life. That's the way it is and railing against it won't make it any less true. The only meaning we have in life is what meaning we give it, so make sure to give yourself a good reason to live, a good meaning for your life, and then strive to reach your purpose. Moralities do not negate each other. If I like apples but loathe oranges, and my friend like oranges but loathes apples, do those two conflicting views negate each other? No, they just don't apply beyond the person making the subjective observation. That's the whole point of saying morality is subjective, it only applies to the person. When that person tries to live in a society, his morality is still different, everyone on this board will have a slightly different take on what they consider moral, but we all conform on enough points to make all the different moralities coexist peacefully. When one person's morality is in great conflict, that person is either left out of the society, or taken out of the society by force, either through incarceration or death.The fact that you see yourself as worthless without someone else to give you a meaning speaks more about who you are than about what humanity is. I give myself meaning, I would hope you could do that for yourself as well.Edited by Perdition, : Spelling, it's important. ;-)

HI Cedre, I wasn't trying to get emotional, and no where did I employ and ad hominem attack, I never called you anything. I was merely pointing out that I find God's "morality" objectionable and would not consider his proclamations to be moral, so even if I did believe in him, I wouldn't think he was a great god. I thought it would be pretty obvious that this person was a child. Perhaps I should be more explicit in the future? My point, one that you failed to see throughout your post, is that worth is determined on an individual basis. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, has an inherent worth that we can all agree on. People can decide that, and there are people in the news every day who do. But, just because everyone can determine their own morality does not mean everyone else has to tolerate their morality. That's where society comes in. A society is made up of a whole host of moralities, indeed, one for every person in that society. This group determines norms of behavior and decides on things that it will overlook and things that will not be tolerated on a societal level. In our society, indeed in most societies, we have decided that taking another person's life without just cause (and just cause varies from society to society) is wrong. If your morality contradicts that norm, you will be expelled from that society in one way or another. No where did I say that all rare things should be regarded as valuable. I merely said that this was a common way of determining rarity. It's not the way it SHOULD be, it's just the way it often is. I'm not even saying that this is true in all cases. Often, disagreements over value stem from disagreements over rarity. A child sees her teddy bear as incredibly rare, it is hers after all. Someone else sees it as just another bear in a sea of such dolls. That's pretty much been everyone's point. You're the one who seems to think there should be an absolute morality. I have no problem with there not being one. Everyone thinks their morality is better than everyone else's. If you thought someone else's morality is better, wouldn't you change yours to be comparable to theirs? For example, if I think Bob next door has a better grasp on the value or worth of things and can better determine what is the "good" thing to do, wouldn't I try to match his views rather than just going along with my "flawed" morality? I'm not going to say that you should change your morality to mine, I'm just saying that my morality is better in my opinion because it is mine. That's very true, but people who feel others do not have worth are called sociopaths, and if they are noticed, they are removed from society. It happens all the time, whether by sending them to jail, killing them through capital punishment, or institutionalizing them. That's what you believe, I believe that is a purpose you have given yourself, but have misidentified the source. I really don't care if you convince yourself your purpose comes from yourself or some outside source. Your morality is a bit vague, though, so I hope what you find what makes you happy is not something that would conflict with the society you live in. You keep seeming to miss the point that people are also living in a society which, if you will, naturally selects the moralities that will better serve that society. Crushing oranges doesn't have much of an impact on the society, in most cases. Now, if you were on an ancient naval vessel and there were only a few oranges left, crushing one might lead to someone on the crew getting scurvy. In that case, the society on the ship may very well determine that crushing oranges is a very bad thing. Your friend would then see the effect of a moral thought being in conflict with a strong moral choice in the society.There is no absolute morality. If we find sentient life on another planet, the odds of them holding the same things valuable as we do would be very low. One could postulate that they will have some form of respect for their type of life, however broad or limited their definition of "their type of life" is because without that decision, they probably would not have survived very long as a sentient species. But, just because there is no absolute, that doesn't mean we can't, as a society, determine what fits in or not.You often jump straight to the worst in humans. Very few people would want to kill others in a general way, and those that do often come in conflict with their society, or find another one. I'm very proud of our armed services, but I know one person for sure who joined the military because he wanted to have the ability to kill other people. He found a society where it would be possible for him to follow his moral compass.TO give this an evolutionary theme, each morality is like a genetic mutation. It makes everyone different, but the morals that work best in the society are picked for, the ones that do not are selected against by having that person removed from society.

Many people have covered examples of where god acts in a way I find morally reprehensible. The first and biggest one, to my mind, comes from the first couple of pages.Blaming children for the actions of the father is a terrible thing to do. Why should the children be harmed because their father made a bad choice? How is this "lov[ing] your neighbor as you would love yourself?"

First of all, how do we know God is moral?1) God says he's moral, and just defines whatever he wants to do is moral. This makes morality subjective, it's just that God gets to make this subjective decision rather than each of us, as it appears.2) Objective morality exists in the Universe and God just happens to match this objective morality. If this objective morality exists, then we don't need God, we can find the morality on our own. Thus God is irrelevant to morality.Since I can't come up with another option, which of these do you think describes the actual universe?

Stop right there. How can God be evil, if there is no morality extant in the universe with which to judge him as such before he "creates" morality? According to you, they can't tell between right and wrong, they need God to tell them what is right and wrong. Do you know the term sadism? If you're a sadistic monster who enjoys inflicting pain or seeing people in pain, you don't want your subject to die. You want to keep him alive as long as possible. And if you're really sadisitc, you'll give him reprieves now and then, to keep hope up, and to make sure they feel the pain and fear as much as possible every time they are forced to descend into it again. But, if morality doesn't exist independent of God, then he's the one defining it. If he's defining it, he can define it however he wants, and surprise, surprise, he defines "good" as "whatever I like and want." Doesn't that sound like what everyone in that position would do? And it is very much subjective. It's arbitrary, and plucked clear out of nothingness.You seem to be trying to assert an objective morality that exists independent of God, that he conforms to, but that is impossible for us to recognize unless God shows us. Why would you think this is so? If it exists outrside of God, why do we need God to tell us what it is? Ok, so morality stems from god, god claims that anything that stems from his is good, therfore morality from god is good because god says everything from his is good. Don't you see the inherent circular reasoning here? How can we objectively know that God is moral if the onyl thing that shows it is God himself?If I create a Universe in my backyard science lab and I create life in that universe, and I say, that whatever I want is good, and I want you all to bow down and worship me, sacrifice your food to me, and kill people who disagree with you, does that mean these things are good, because I said they are, and I said that whatever I say is good?If it doesn't work for me, why does it work for God? If he's setting the rules, that makes them subjective, he just has enough power to impose them on all of us. Though he seems to do a very bad job of it, since, as you say, no one agrees 100% on what's moral, so either God's doing a poor job, or he doesn't want us to know what's really "good."Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.