Morality! Thorn in Darwin's side or not?

This is a fascinating old thread, and sorry to revive it so late on but I didn't see anyone cover my issue with the argumentfyi - i believe in evolution and creation (not the biblical version).Perhaps altruism evolved as a survival trait which causes the development of morals within a culture.Morals vary from culture to culture proving there is no inherent universal morality.What is moral according to one religion (human sacrifice of Aztecs, worship of statues in Hinduism) is immoral to another (Christians and Muslims).Morality is determined by the authority of the traditions from which they emerge,The ultimate moral authority is always a God or an earthly representative of deity such as divine emperor or pharaoh. In the absence of religion a society derives its morality from another source (the only eg. i can think of is the state in communist countries)Since a party or its leader a human, their authority is fallible and the foundations of the morality they create are questionable. In the absence of a god what reason do i have to behave according to anyone's so called morality?'Without God everything is permitted.' - DostoyevskyEdited by Adminnemooseus, : Reset to remove spam signature, which was deleted from profile

Not necessarily depending on the dogma of the religion in question. A metaphorical religion that holds the interpretation of divine law by the priesthood to be sacred is therefore infallible, anything they say is by definition right.You are basically responding to my point that human authority is fallible by claiming that divine authority is essentially human. From a theological perspective, that argument holds no weight. Muslims believe Muhammad's words are the words of god, so they are indistinguishable.Responding to someone else's point:Too often i see the answers from atheists saying "i don't need god to be good" - "I have empathy" i am compassionate" etc etcthis avoids the root of the question of what is good, what is moral. Existentialist atheists like Sartre have looked to social justice and even Marxism as a quasi religious pursuit, something to fill the painful void of existence and give it meaning. This is a falsehood though, it doesn't bring you any closer to authentic existence or understanding an objective "good" than following any made up religion.When an Aztec priest sacrificed someone, it wasn't because they lacked empathy or weren't good, it was because they were good according to the morality of their culture at that time."What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome." Friedrich Nietzsche - a very anti-Christian thinker, but not necessarily anti-theist.anyway, his transvaluation of all morals wasn't about reviving empathy (i know Dr. Adequate wasn't the one who mentioned empathy here, it was someone else).My point is that empathy not make good. altruism does not = good. To think these things is a very post-enlightenment western perspective.