Summations Only

But you know that the belief in your team winning is simply a hope that they will - just wishful thinking. If you insist on the analalogy, you also base your belief that they will win on real events in the past that you have verifyable evidence of - their playing record. If they had lost their previous twenty games, but you still believed they'd win the next one, you'd be delusional. It's not a truth, but the desire to get along with others in a decent way is (almost) universal. Non sequitur and an unnecessary leap. We know now that 'morality' is an emotion - empathy actually - and that it has evolved to various levels in many animals living together. It's a necessary instinct for successful group survival. That's another non sequitur. It actually means that morality is developmental, which is demonstrably true - we can track its changes throughout written history. The morality we have now is not the morality on 2,000 years ago. There is no reason to suppose that it won't continue to develop. Arguably we're not still evolving in the classical Darwinian sense in that we have evolved to the point of desiging out the mechanisms that force change - scarcity, competition and selection. (Although some minor traits are still changing.)But our sense of morality is undoubtably changing as we develop better institutions and fairer societies. I'm sure we'll look back on this time in 500 years and think that our pursuit of economic growth at the expense of the climate and individual inequality was grossly immoral. And we'll look back at the primitive superstitious beliefs of the various world religions and recognise that they too were just another developmental step for an immature race. Yet another non sequitur. Why should there be an ultimate good? We make the 'good' ourselves by making better societies to live in for everyone equally. Sorry GDR, you do not understand god any more than I do. This is just pulpit driven codswallop. I have several hundred years of scientific study behind me that has failed to find evidence of a single miracle. Conversely, every time a miracle has been claimed, it has been shown to be either a natural process or a fraud. Show me a miracle and I'll believe. In fact I won't need to believe, I'll know. I don't need proof that they can't exist, if you claim that they do - show me one. We don't ever experience them. Ever. Pffnnrrr.....this is not an excuse to believe anything you like. Western society has already attempted to wipe out other societies many times and presumably thought it for the best - we look back on those events now with horror. We've become better people. Not all societies/religions think the same, some are still in that primitive mode. The direction of travel over the centuries is clear though, we are improving our institions and societies and when we do that, human wellbeing increases - which is what morality is. As above.

I don't see it - if we have knowledge about something we don't need belief. Belief only exists in the absense of knowledge. (Or the denial of knowledge.)

All such discussions resolve to 'what do you mean by mean?' Monty Python pseudo-philo nonsense. We know things about our world and we guess about what we don't - then attempt to test it. Sometimes our knowledge turns out to be partial or even wrong, but as soon as we find that out it increases knowledge. Philosophy's attempts to produce knowledge just by thinking hard about it has proven to be strictly limited and/or non-useful. Belief has exactly the stigma it deserves - it's been responsible for most of the worst events in human history and I don't mean just religious beliefs. Oh come on, that's pure cobblers. Knowledge/facts are independent of popular wisdom, just because I don't understand how a computer's chip functions but can talk about it as if i did, doesn't negate the real underlying information. All the things we think we know can ultimately be tested by the doubter - given the brain power and the application. For those who lack both, which is most of us on most subjects, we rely on the accumulated wisdom of generations. That is not a belief issue, it's a trust issue and the trust is based on prior evidence and the practical outputs from the knowledge gained. I don't need to believe that electricity makes my iMac work. It doesn't rankle in the slightest. The consensus position on science being probably correct is just that - the best we have. That's a million miles distant from an irrational belief in the healing powers of pyramids or deities that answer prayers if you grovel enough.The difference between knowledge derived from empirical study and belief derived from wishful thinking, superstition and mythology needs to be defended. If we allow it to get blurred for whatever compromising reason, we risk losing the progress we've made.

In any case, your belief is based on real world evidence - it's knowledge of their ability evidenced by their past performance and that of their opponents that informs your belief that they'll lose. It's not equivalent to a belief in supernatural activity. That kind of belief, the type you are talking about should have a capital B. You keep using this argument from incredulity as if you've never heard all the supporting evidence for it. You say it even though you accept evolution. You accept that these same 'mindless molecules' as your repeatedly say as though it has some negative weight, have created all the life forms on earth. But for some reason you can't accept that the same process can create the means by which groups of organisms can co-operate. Why is that?My own take on it is because your religious beliefs require the emotion of empathy to be god given and incapable of emerging naturally in the way all other emotions have. But if you accept the rest of evolution - for example that it can create bonds in many orders of animanls that allow them to co-operate to raise a family and defend the newborn against attack - what is so special about empathy that make it incapable of evolving? Do you deny that this emotion is also found in other primates? But it's not a belief we DO know that evolution created all the organisms on earth and all their traits and behaviours - including Homo. It is simply not rational to say that evolution could create everything else we see, but not that one thing. Altruism has been explained to you several times before, you simply ignore it as though it hasn't. Do I need to do it again?

I'm really not. I do genuinely understand why you say this but you're hoping for a loophole that isn't there.We can get the agency/why thing out of the way quite easily by agreeing that the why question of life itself is not answered by the ToE. Science quite readily aknowledges this and doesn't yet have much of a clue about the abiogenesis thing - it's all 'watch this space' stuff. So put that to one side.For whatever reason, you say God I say natural processes, the 'process' of evolution starts and we get to where we are today with millions of differentiated species of animals plants and micro-organisms.? So.... Having accepted evolution - albeit using the word 'believe' wrongly - you can't then say 'except for homo'. Evolution is, as you say, a process, a process that starts with a single replicating chain of chemicals and finishes, we know not where, but does not exclude the primates of which we are one. So we've accepted that we don't know why, what we're discussing now is how. And the how is the process of evolution. We know that many kind of animal species live in groups have developed altruistic behaviour - many organisms like insects can have no possible clue that the behaviour they exhibit in helping others of their species - ie, it's instinctive behaviour. But others like the higher order primates appear to have similar emotions to us and behave in deliberately altruistic ways.You are avoiding this point - that the emotion that we call morality (empathy) evolved in the same way as other functions. The Catholics escape from this awkwardness by claiming that god set evolution off on its way and when homo came along he inserted a soul. Utter nonsense of course but it is at least a get out of jail play. How do you escape it?This is not confusing agency and process; evolution has created altruism as part of the same process that created wings and lungs. Science says that the answer to why? altruism exists in mankind - and other species - is because it has survival advantages and is selected for in the usual way. The why? of morality is answered by the ToE. The why of life existing at all is not answered by the ToE.

The original cause of causes is not at issue here - the thing we're grappling with is understanding the origin of morality in people. Science's position, which is supported by the evidence, is that it evolved in the same way as all other organs, emotions and instincts. So far you have not described how morality evolved in people, you're just raising questions about how it has evolutionary advantage in some extreem human situations, which I'll attempt to answer below.But you have so far failed to accept the logic that the evolution of altruistic behaviour has survival advantage generally and that it exists in many animal species. It would help if you agreed with those general statements. If you can agree with those points, what we're then concerned with is not that altruism can't be something that originates in natural processes - including Homo - but something else. (Which I'm not clear about yet.) It's the emotion of empathy. We feel empathy for all living creatures once we witness their suffering. Our feelings are greater for familiy and close friends and we would always protect them from harm before helping a stranger but we would still attempt to help a stranger in trouble. It's an instinct, an emotion - we can't help but feel it. Only those with damaged brains or mental illnesses are devoid of this basic feeling of empathy. People lived in small groups and that instinct to help the individuals in the group would have obvious survival advantage. As society developed our small groups increased in size until now we have knowledge of the suffering across the globe. The instinct is there, it's triggered by any form of suffering, all that's happened is that we're now aware of more of it. And we obviously do both, depending on the circumstances. That is not a problem for evolution, it says that a species will do whatever makes sense for its own survival, sometimes this is altruistic behaviour, sometimes it's 'red in tooth and claw'. The existence of suffering and evil, is a problem for religion to answer - and it can't. That is not true. The evidence for the evolution of altruism is very strong and is an accepted biological tenet. Here is a readable summary of the science: Biological Altruism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) And I teach peace and love to my kids too but I'm not a Christian. It is absolutely not the case that morality only exists in Christianity or that it didn't exist before Christ. Empathy is universal regardless of belief and exists in many animal species, that's the issue you need to address. You are at liberty to say 'god did it' but you have to then say when, where and how and why he gave it to ants and apes too.

I'm going to list the things that I am assuming we can agree on. I've asked you some of these before, but you've avoided aswering me which doesn't make for a useful debate.1. biological altruism is an accepted fact in science
2. it's found in many species that live in groups from ants to apes
3. evolution is a fact
4. people are an evolved species that live in groupsIf you agree those things it's impossible to avoid the conclusion that people have inherited some form of biological altruism through the process of evolution. In fact, it would be very surprising to find the opposite. Are you with me so far?Your issue now seems to be that it's not 'true' altruism.The article you quoted agrees with you, an ant or bee is not a conscious being and is not making a calculation when it helps its group. But as explained, this fact does not help you. The ant's altruism is instinctive - it's a reflex that it can't control. People have similar - but different instincts. 'Normal' people - that is those people that are not mentally ill or suffering from a brain injury - have instinctive, reflex reactions to suffering. We can't help ourselves feeling sorry for people who suffer and wanting to help them. It's a response that can be seen happening in the brain with fMRI scans when they are shown pictures of people in pain or babies crying and so on. Can you accept that? If so, you accept that5. human empathy is a reflexand because of agreeing the earlier premises you must consider that this is the next logical conclusion6. because people are an evolved species, the reflex of empathy in people is also evolved functionNo-one is claiming that human atruism is the same as that shown by say, an ape. Ours is far more advanced, modified by our culture which is a function of our conscious brain and our social development. But equally, because we can show that when our brains lack that reflex the people who are otherwise 'normal' simply don't understand why they should help others we can say that altruism is simply another evolved function - at least at the basic level. Not a god given special quality that religious minded people want it to be.

I think he's just messing with you and you're biting.On a more reasonable level, the atheists views is the humanist one where the notion of god is replaced by that of humanity. So he's just saying that is a silly and provocative way.This is the humanist society of Britain's take on it (and mine):

It's not 'the Christian' message - it's a universal feeling, common to all humanity; people of all religions and none. We've already agreed that we can never know whether some intelligence was behind all this at the beginning. I'm trying to get you to follow the logic of the science that altruism is another naturally occurring phenomenon, like other evolved traits, not something injected supernaturally only into Homo sapiens 200,000 years ago. I know what the Christian message is. it's fundamentally the same as all religious messages, only the supposed messenger and his employer differs You can suggest anything you like. You can say with equal certainty of belief that the tooth fairy did it. The differene between us is that I've presented you with a logic flow, each step of which can be evidenced. And the weird thing is, that you don't disagree with it, you just get to the end of it and say 'well, anyway, I believe this other thing that has nothing to support it.' But if you were born in the Hindu Kush you wouldn't believe that, you'd believe something else.Don't you get how utterly irrational all that is? So why are you arguing? For God's sake man, that is not the conclusion. The fact that altruism is a naturally occurring phenomenon does not determine the prime cause.

Are you expecting to see chimpanzees and Homo habilis in heaven? At what point in human evolution did this god given alruism get injected? Or is it done on a case by case basis? If so, why did some people miss out on it? Of course you have, you've just decided to deny it. Therefore this 'still small voice of god' is actually an evolved biological function like all the rest. If those functions are damaged otherwise normally functioning people are unable to feel empathy. Those people are called psychopaths - their brains are different. These people have to learn how to behave socially because they can't do it naturally and we know how many of these unfortuante people end up. How do you explain this?Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Obviously you've just made this up, but even so.....you realise that if Chimpazees can be 'saved' they must have souls? So there's nothing special about man. This is getting quite bizarre. I don't know what a non-physical consciousness is - if you just mean our consciousness then you'd be correct and also correct that it is influenced by the environment that the individual is brought up in. In other words it's part instinct, part learnt behaviour. That's not a subjective belief, it's evidence based. Well yes, just like when we test the effects of drugs, we find someone who is using the drugs. (???) Hells bells! These are neuroscientists at the National Academy - do you think that they don't know how to use an fRMI scanner and do proper tests? I'll look the paper up if I get time. Why are some people 5 feet tall and some 6 feet 3? But I'll ask you back, why, if it's god given, is it so unevan (if it is?) Why are there psychopaths? The brain is an evolved organ is it not? We can see that parts of the brain that are doing the work when an act of altruism is being considered. Why could alruism not have evolved like every other emotion?

Well I disagree, the solution is to rid the world of all those divisive books, and we're making reasonable progress towards it by finding improved secular mechanisms for understanding ourselves and our world. Religious beliefs are gradually moderating and becoming anachronistic, replaced by secular institutions concerned with law, politics, social justice and so on.If we're not taken over by the rediculous fundamentalists, religious beliefs will be a minority interest a dozen generations.