Why do right?

Do you seriously not know this stuff?It is our having been made in the Image of God, remember? Then there was that little episode in the garden where the devil spoke, we became confused, and had the Compass Installation by eating of the Tree of Good and Evil.This is all myth and sybolic language. We have become so used to hearing these stories that they become insane rhetoric. Yet, they are quite sensible and can fit nicely into an evolutionary picture. If we have evolved from lesser animals, we have one way or another reached a point when our abilities and knowledge became so great that we were capable of breaking the barriers of instinct. We were forced to develope a morality that would preserve us from self-annihilation, yet, clearly, survival of the body is not the main function of this morality.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

So? Instincts we might call 'immoral' also evolved.Our brain is still hard-wired for the Pleistocene, and can fail us in this day and age. For example, while it would be ok to consume as much of the natural resources as you want back then with only scattered tribes, with the population and demands we have today, it can cause untold environmental damage. As another example, it would have been ok to eat as much as possible because food wasn't that common and it may be a day or two before your next meal, but with the plenty we have today, it can cause morbid obesity.Sometimes in history, for an animal or even a tribe to survive, it has to kill others. These days, things are not quite so dangerous, and we can usually find peaceful solutions, but we still maintain armies and police to protect us, often through killing of enemies and criminals, because the killing instinct still exists in us.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

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Then there was that little episode in the garden where the devil spoke

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"The devil", as in Satan, wasn't in Eden.It was the serpent.

Yeah, I know. My snake speaks to me too.

Nothing "clear" about it. Smoke and mirrors.The question is "Why do right?" and you have offered no answer at all.

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So, we are back again to being animals without choices. Humph. This is getting so repetitive. I have kept African Cichlids. They are hard-wired to consume as much as possible even to their own death, because in nature they eat but seldom.In one paragraph you have said that food was not that common, and that we had plenty of natural resources because we lived in small tribes. I guess eating was not a big deal for us tribes, eh? Now, are you saying that obese people have a brain mal-function and can't control their eating habits, when we know that this is false and metabolism is the key factor?Are you saying that eating junk is natural when we know to eat more healthy meals?Are you saying we are animals that have no choice? I sure hope you don't contribute to those threads which keep knocking the Israelites for their war crimes and slavery Or better yet, to those which bash the Crusades? Obviously those poor crusaders were only trying to protect their tribes! It was a brain mal-function, and the reverted back to hard-wired behaviors. Feeling Hitlerish?Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

My signature addresses my feelings on this issue. We can choose what we want, but we have no control over what we want to choose. There were plenty of resources like coal, oil etc, and to those I was referring when I said 'natural resources'. There was also plenty of animals and plants for food - you just had to find them and hunt them in order to use them, which was the main reason why they couldn't be used at the rate needed for a steady diet. The fatty and very sugary foods we tend to view as more appetising 'junk' are in fact good foods to eat if you aren't likely to get food for a while. Useful too, for such hunter-gatherers, is the tendency to store all available energy as body fat.And, neurological factors certainly play a role in some cases. Just look up adipokine, orexin, ghrelin etcEdited by Doddy Curumehtar, : Added some clarification

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

I guess some of us are hard-wired to want good things, and some aren't. I guess Mother Teresa is nothing special, since she had no choice but to desire a life of slaving away in the streets of Calcutta, caring for lepers and staying by them until they died. I guess Hitler had no choice but to desire the death of millions. Works for me. Yeah, I understand. But if we have no control over our desire to eat junk, the diet commercials are pretty much useless.

You haven't done much in the way of answers yourself, there. Easy to be the question guy. Ok, fine. I do good because it helps me or my species to survive. I do evil because it USED to help me or my species survive. Happy?

You try it. Good questions are a lot harder than bad answers.

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I do, I have learned from you. I think I also ask the most questions when I feel a person is spoutin' nonsense, something else I learned from you. Oh, and the smilies.Why oh why, do you judge us poor folk who keep religion because it helps us survive?Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

I don't judge, I question. I would like you to ask yourself how it helps you to survive, and what else might have the same effect.

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And how more praise-worthy would you find a person who practises altruism for no reward other than the reasoning that it is in the best interests of the human race. No salvation. No worrying about whether one has racked up enough brownie points to please the Big Guy. No fear of going to hell. Just the expectation that one`s example might be contagious. Or not.

Not very praise-worthy, I am thinking, at all. See, 'good' is in the eye of the beholder apparently. It is not absolute or real. Those who oppose abortion and homosexual marriage believe they are acting in the interests of the human race just as well as those who support such.

Religion keeps me so a'tremblin' at the gates of Hell that survival is all I can think of, and all I can wish for my fellows.