Thanks for the reply BD,
First, if you are atheist, then you believe this innate sense of morality was simply a selected for trait, and that those who were moral had a selective advantage over those who were immoral?
Yes, I think that is likely.
That certainly doesn't seem true, because there are immoral people all over the place
Immorality can also give one an advantage and that would be why it would be selectively selected for in certain circumstances. Don't mistake a selective advantage for a moral imperative though.
On balance I think that it is obvious that morality provides the greatest advantage for the greatest number. That gives us a good reason to be moral.
plus how could morality be a survival advantage over brutality? In the rest of the animal kingdom world, brutality, or the threat thereof rules.
This is untrue, other primates possess a sense of fair-play.
quote:
Monkeys have a sense of justice. They will protest if they see another monkey get paid more for the same task.
Researchers taught brown capuchin monkeys to swap tokens for food. Usually they were happy to exchange this "money" for cucumber.
But if they saw another monkey getting a grape - a more-liked food - they took offence. Some refused to work, others took the food and refused to eat it. Scientists say this work suggests that human's sense of justice is inherited and not a social construct.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Monkeys show sense of justice
quote:
Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days.
Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior - The New York Times
Even if they only possess the rudiments of morality, these results show that our moral notions are not entirely unique to humanity.
You said that cheating would only serve a short term goal of results, but I think that is the only goal one would see as an atheist, because any longer term goals are unforeseeable- if there is no innate justice in the world, short term gains are all you can really hope to gain.
Long term goals are foreseeable, long term realities, less so. That doesn't mean we can't try. Besides, even as a believer, you are no more able to see into the future than I.
Also, if there is no innate justice in the world (which I agree with), that is all the more reason to strive for a positive and productive moral system ourselves; no-one else is going to do it for us, humanity as a whole must guide our own destiny in this respect.
By contrast, if morality is God's business, this leaves us with little impetus to sit up and take control of own morality.
Well, I believe there is a force which connections all of life-therefore I believe my sense of morality is connected to all other living things.
I wouldn't put it in quite those terms, but I too believe that we are all connected, both biologically and dialectically. Our actions affect others, often whether we mean them too or not. That is sufficient reason to go about our interactions with others in a reasonable and moral way.
There also could be karmic implications to that, in that if I am moral, I at least feel validated in wishing good things for myself (if not expecting of them), whereas were I not moral, I would feel no sense of deserving of good.
First, I really don't think that is what is meant by the word "karma". Second, this can be expressed simply in terms of "having a conscience". This is an intrinsic feature of the human mind, reinforced and guided by our social conditioning. There is no need to resort to the supernatural in order to explain it.
But I believe your first observation is most telling. You don't really have a choice about feeling a sense of morality-it just is. And that came from somewhere.
Unless you have some kind of compelling reason to believe that you know what that "somewhere" is, this is a non-point.
And one question-do you honestly never get the sense in your life that some things are not being controlled by you?
Huh? Do you honestly imagine that i think I control everything? What are you asking?
Don't you ever get the occasional feeling that some aspects of your life are simply inevitable? I think this is what some people would call a sense of faith.
Of course some things are inevitable; so what? I fail to see what this has to do with faith, the existence of deities or anything else.
Mutate and Survive
"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod
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