Atheism Cannot Rationally Explain Morals.

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Human culture is the result of human brain activity. If human brains are the result of evolution, then so is human culture.

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Evolution is certainly relevant to human culture, providing both the capabilities needed for it to exist, and influencing human psychology. But that is hardly the who,e story. The idea that culture is dictated - or even largely dictated by the course of human evolution is obviously wrong.

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How do you know that all human behaviour is not instinct?

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How do you "know" that it is ? You are the one making the claim. Are we to believe that your posts are just produced by unthinking instinct ? That there is no thought behind them at all ?

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William Provine believed that evolution means human beings have no free will.

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I suspect he refers to libertarian free will, and in that case I believe that he is wrong. Libertarian free will is a logical impossibility and therefore evolution is irrelevant to the question of whether humans (or anything else) could have it.

So a Christians who accepts evolution doesn't have to believe that he's worth the same as a bug. That's kind of interesting as atheists that accept evolution don't either. So we can now drop all that bollocks about having to can't we.

Such a simple idea so miserably twisted.The idea is that evolution as a theory and a worldview doesn't give any grounds for assessing a human being as any more important than a bug in the large scheme of things. Individual believers in evolution may not have such a view (although it does have to influence you whether you know it or not) but what individuals think isn't the point. All kinds of SUBJECTIVE views are possible but the point is that the theory itself, the worldview it promotes itself, gives no grounds whatever for assigning different values to bugs versus humans. this has been explained many times already. It's not difficult. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Such a simple idea so miserably twisted.

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And indeed you are miserably twisting it.There is no reason to expect the theory of evolution to give any objective grounds to prefer a human to a bug. Nor does the fact that it does not give us any reason to think that humans are not more valuable than bugs.It's not hard to see that it is irrelevant to the question.

Nobody "expects" it to give such a standard.And again, you can put humans above bugs, but it can only be a subjective valuation since evolution gives you no grounds for it.

All morals are subjective, which is partly why almost everyone in the world today is more moral than the God described in the Bible.

Simple minded is closer The ToE is a scientific theory; it's not a world view. The theory simply says that all life descended from other life. (And shows how.) Given that we also know that we are all made of the same stuff - from mushrooms to snails to aardvarks to people - this isn't terribly surprising really. I know of no-one that is of this view and neither do you.The absence of anyone that thinks he's no more important than a bug is rather devastating to your argument don't you think? Well apart from it not being a world view, you're absolutely correct. The ToE is totally mute on your point. It neither states nor implies that one organism is any better or any worse that any other. "this has been explained many times already. It's not difficult."Neither you nor I get our self-worth from the ToE. You have it as a God given thing, I have it as a human given thing. 'I think therefore I am.'This silly idea of the ToE as a worldview is purely a creationist idea, it's derived from the fact that it contradicts the literal interpretation of the bible. This contradiction is irrelevant to science. You will carry on spouting this nonsense - it seems nothing can stop you - just don't pretend it's correct or even relevant.

It is obviously not a worldview. As a theory, what you say of it is true but irrelevant. Yes, it gives us no grounds for assessing the relative importance of bugs and humans --- just like the theory of gravity doesn't, and the theory of thermodynamics, and the theory of quantum electrodynamics.This doesn't mean that these branches of science say that humans and bugs are of equal importance, it means that they don't say anything about the subject at all.Which means that --- good news, Faith! --- you can believe in gravity and still believe that you're better than a bug. As you do, Faith. When you understand why you can cheerfully and consistently do that, you will understand why I can too.

Come now, Faith, you don't really believe that things are only objective if they are grounded in the theory of evolution.

Can you prove this? It seems on the face of it to be flagrantly untrue. I can make nothing of this. Would you like to try again but make it a little less gnomic?

The thing about the ToE is that it defines a human being. It's not like the theories of the physical world, gravity or whatnot, it defines what a human being is. And people DO take it as a worldview and it does influence their views of how life should be lived. I'm sure it did mine. It has nothing to do with psychobabble concepts like self worth, it's about the nature of the human being itself. If we're animals that descended from animals why should we have any obligation to ...anything in particular? If we're animals there is also no objective moral authority. It's clear we have some kind of built in morality but it's all over the map, it's not like we have reliable instincts the way many animals do, so our nature leaves us a lot of leeway, thinking of ourselves as merely animals. Do whatever you can get away with is a moral principle that one could infer from this.Living by God's authority is something entirely different.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

No. We already knew what human beings were. Do you suppose that before the ToE people were going about looking at each other thinking "I wonder what that is? Could it be an aardvark? A tree?" No, people knew what humans were. But now we also know how they came to be. How is our descent relevant to our obligations? If I shouldn't kill people, I shouldn't do it whether my ancestors were australopithecines, or made by God out of dirt, or hatched out of an egg laid by a giant space chicken. Boy, God really dropped the ball there, eh?

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Nobody "expects" it to give such a standard.

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It seems that you do,

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And again, you can put humans above bugs, but it can only be a subjective valuation since evolution gives you no grounds for it.

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This makes no sense unless you assume that the theory of evolution is the only possible source of value (outside of supernaturalist beliefs, I suppose). But why should anyone believe that ?

Hi, Faith. Long time no see. Well, when our modern democratic republics overthrew the old feudal order, we decided that a person's ancestry is irrelevant in how we deal with them. We treat a person based on who she is. I don't see how evolution changes any of this.

Nope, it defines the theory of evolution. No it doesn't. By people you mean you and other creationists. No rational person considers the ToE when working out their world view. You're talking nonsense. There you go. That's correct, it hasn't, that's what we're saying. It's your side that's saying that our worth is equivalent to bugs. Because we have evolved a thinking brain. We are all agreed on that. We've argued that at length. Yes, we have consciousnes and thinking skills. Agreed. But that has got nothing whatsoever to do with the ToE.Admit it, the creationist's obsession with the ToE is purely because it contradicts a literal analysis of your book.