The difference between a human and a rock

In the book "Last Chance to See" by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine there is a story about their visit to the island of Komodo, where a dragon ran off with one of the local's chickens. They followed it and watched it take its last bites. Adams writes that they felt as though they'd watched a murder. Did the chicken deserve to live? Or did the dragon? The point is, you can't get away with anthropomorphising everything as much as you seem to do.I smash rocks and I eat chickens, and I don't particularly feel like I've deprived either of anything it "deserved" in doing so.

The further you take this line of thought, the more unpleasant each stage becomes - to a human being. You are correct that if I had to twist the chicken's head off myself, I would find it a less than pleasant experience. That is not evidence that a supernatural being gave me the morality that makes such a thought repugnant. It is only evidence that we with our larger brains and complex social structure have developed guidelines which we (mostly) adhere to, called morals. I agree wholeheartedly with this, but would extend it a step further to say that we ARE beasts, and the only thing that separates us in these respects from other animals is a long history of intelligent debate about exactly what is right and wrong. The "moral zeitgeist" is a shifting one - what is considered moral by 16th century standards might well be considered reprehensible by today's.As others have pointed out as well, morals are not black and white.You may have heard of Hauser's moral dilemmas.In one hypothetical scenario there is a runaway trolley on a railway line which threatens to kill five people. If you were in a position to divert the trolly onto a siding thereby saving the lives of five people, you would undoubtedly do so. But what if the only place you could divert it was onto a siding where one old lady would be killed? Would you divert it, thus saving 5 lives and killing 1? Many can agree that, as horrible a decision as this is, it would be the right thing to do. (I'd like to hear a fundamentalist's response, as I suspect that in their mind the act of diverting the train and killing the 1 is murder, a violation of the ten commandments.)Similarly, there are 5 patients in a hospital who need organs with haste or they will die. In the waiting room is a healthy young patient with a minor ailment who happens to be the right blood type to serve as a donor to the previously mentioned five. Would the doctor be making a "moral" decision to forcefully execute the one man in the waiting room and take his organs in order to save the 5 in need? Of course not... this would be murder.As the specifics of these conundrums are expanded upon, there is more and more uncertainty as to exactly what the most "moral" course of action would be.For a thorough treatment of the Darwinian origins of altruistic behaviour you should read "The Science of Good and Evil" by Michael Shermer. Likewise there is a chapter in Richard Dakwins's "The God Delusion" that discusses Darwinian rationale for morality. In that are listed no less than four Darwinian bases for altruistic behaviour.

I'd have to disagree with most of your post. There is some empirical evidence on the side of a Darwinian explanation for altruism, and none on the side of creationism. If you disagree, I would ask you again, as have Granny Magda, RickJB and Coyote, to provide this empirical evidence that you keep mentioning. I think you'd have to first come up with a non-anthropic definition of "moral" and "immoral". The ambiguous nature of "moral vs immoral" when used in any way not directly related to human behaviour prohibits you from adequately defining them outside the human experience. What "morals" does a rock have? What "morals" does a paramecium have? Meanwhile, can the creationist side give any empirical evidence showing another plausible answer to the origins of altruism or "moral behaviour"? Also, how do you explain the shifting moral zeitgeist within the human species? This demonstrates a lack of understanding of the zest with which a great many scientists around the world pursue these questions. "Well there you go, no more proof needed!" sounds like a statement from a religious fundamentalist who finds his answers through ancient texts as opposed to any activity remotely resembling research, not a scientist. If you wish to imply that these specific studies were biased, that can and does happen, but any such bias is quickly spotted by the many other scientists working on the same thing who would be thrilled to "catch someone out" and replace their results with something more robust. I am, however, not in a position to address any possible bias in this specific study.Science is a work in progress, but it is the ONLY method by which to understand nature that doesn't involve pixie dust or "chocolate sprinkles" as someone fondly described it in another thread.I can only suggest further reading on your part, and a bit less of a defensive stance. We are still waiting for that empirical evidence of yours that you've mentioned, and we've pointed you to some sources for ours.

That may very well be so, and given the logical nature of the atheist posters in this thread, I would have to have a step back and rethink what I have said. I think the only point I was trying to make in this context is that, if morality is innate and unavoidable, then it is not constant but rather shifting in nature.Example: Gender - In Biblical times (and even today in some cultures) women were considered property. If you had lived in Biblical times (or in Saudi Arabia today) you would quite probably feel (or have felt) this way yourself. Chances are you don't feel this way, and instead consider it a reprehensible attitude. It was, nonetheless, the norm in ages past. This view of women is immoral by today's standards but would have been considered moral then.Another example: Race - Even Abraham Lincoln, whose Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the states, had this to say... In his time these comments would have been viewed as acceptable, and probably as "not harsh enough". Uttered in our time, they are disgusting and their speaker would be admonished.Edited by Briterican, : One dare not make typos when quoting Lincoln.