The different conclusions that we have come to actually are simply the fact that you hold atheistic beliefs as opposed to my theistic beliefs.
If your atheistic world view is accurate then obviously no deity is needed for morality. If however my theistic views are correct then a deity is required for morality to exist, and even for us to exist at all.
But basically your own argument eliminates the need for a deity for something that exists naturally.
To put it in other terms, we have the ID mentality that insists that science to include God in its equations. The problem there is that the natural universe will operate in exactly the same manner with or without that "God Term", so adding God to the equation is the same as adding Zero, therefore God equals Zero (not the result that they had wished for) which changes nothing. Trying that with a "God Factor", then God would equal Unity (1), which also changes nothing. Therefore, either way that ID insistence results in the same outcome: adding or omitting God changes nothing whatsoever.
The only difference that can make is to your own subjective sensitivities, but no difference to objective reality. Plus your own subjective sensitivities about "God" can be and most often are very different from millions/billions of others own subjective sensitivities about "God".
Objective reality is as close to universal as we can get. Billions of different individual subjective sensitivities about some kind of "God idea" seems to be as opposite from universal as I can imagine.
Good old Dad may in early life told young Tangle that stealing is wrong. That meme has been there ever since, and now you are years later out with a group that is encouraging you to shop lift. You have a decision to make. What dad said years before is still influencing you but you now have this new influence. What do you do. You can look at your brain functions all you want but that isn't going to tell you which choice you made. It is only your subsequent actions that give the answer.
Yes, parents teach their children so many things, both right and wrong, but also about right from wrong. That is the traditional mode of transmission of cultural values from one generation to the next. That's how it naturally works; nothing supernatural about it in its implementation.
Through the natural operation of a society, it collectively "learns" which behaviors work and which don't and which promote and strengthen the society and which weaken or even endanger the society. Over the generations, that creates a common wisdom about right and wrong which comes to be known as "morality". Society creates mechanisms to pass that common wisdom, that "morality", from one generation to the next. Most often, it's parents teaching their children well.
Often, those mechanisms become institutionalized and codified as a series of arbitrary rules and then incorporated into religion even though no god ever had anything to do with any of it.
And at that point, we lose all memory of why that rule is even necessary. And it loses all moral authority.
Also of course, if I am correct, then there is a god meme in there as well that is influencing you not to shoplift.
What would any god care about any merchant's profit margin?
But empathy, which is the basis of so much morality, would and should influence us much more.
Again, arbitrary rules don't mean anything outside of a God-driven fear of punishment. Feeling, if not yet understanding, how your behavior would affect others (AKA "empathy") means so much more.
A "god meme" is the promise of long-delayed punishment for wrong-doing. Empathy and morality is the realization of the consequences of all your actions. Which should have more influence?
That is one way of putting it. The "still small voice of God" is an influencer not a director, just as is parental guidance. I'm not sure what you mean though by directed evolution. I don't see it as being a part of physical evolution but actually much closer to Dawkin's ideas of social evolution.
There was an experiment in Finland. First the students were given dog puppies to raise and test. Then they were given wolf cubs to raise and test in the same manner they had learned. The experiences were entirely different. The puppies paid close attention to their humans, while the cubs couldn't care less. Eg, in tests involving treats hidden under bowls, the puppies watched the humans and where they were looking, but the cubs paid the humans no attention whatsoever. Eg, the puppies were very sensitive to the desires of the humans (eg, get off the furniture) whereas the cubs couldn't care less (eg, they'd be on top of the tables and couldn't get scooted off).
That means that you not only have to evolve a social order, but you also have to evolve a biological inclination towards following that kind of social order. That means that cultural evolution can only work if the physical evolution to support it has already evolved. Or more accurately both the cultural and physical evolution have coevolved.
For example somewhere along the line a parent has learned that honesty is a positive attribute that we should adhere to. That parent influences his/her children with that gene and maybe passes it on to others as well. Hopefully that gene is then passed on exponentially through others around them. I am saying that it is the same for a god meme. None of this can be determined by a brain scan.
Uh, no. That is biology. What does any "god meme" have to do with that?
If it makes you feel better, then indulge yourself but do not inflict yourself on others. We already know that any "goddidit" dicta being imposed on natural systems just end up as "God = Zero". So what's your point?
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