Extraordinary claims, zero testable evidence, 100% faith based ... (punishment, God, evolution)
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What we will do, though, is that we will point out the illogic of people like you, who believe in a god and believe that your god is a loving and benevolent being, yet this god is responsible for terrible suffering on earth,
If there is a god, then I suppose that god had reasons for the way things are. Just because one doesn't like the way things are, doesn't negate the reality of a god, if one exists.
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is happy to condemn human beings, whom he supposedly loves, to unimaginable suffering for all eternity,
That's an argument only against one subset of one religious sect.
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has the power to prevent all this suffering and chooses not to, and you still consider him the standard for all that is good.
If there are basic spiritual laws that are intrinsic to a spiritual existence, just as there are natural laws intrinsic to the physical existence, then it is what it is because it can be nothing else.
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I can tell you that if I read a book with a fictional character who does everything that is attributed to your god in your bible, I would consider him the worst villain in recorded history.
Just because people have attributed things to a god, does not make those things truth.
Morals are nothing more than codes of behaviour that keep our group/tribe/pack strong. We get them from the complex interplay of our genetics, our environment, and our experience. Morals are just what society deems to be acceptable in that if you don't conform with them then society won't accept you and humans are inherently social animals who work in groups to succeed. They are a combination of interactions between individuals and larger society shaping our behaviour or, more specifically, the enforcement of social cooperation in line with the interests of a social group rather than just individual achievement.
So, if one or more social groups determines that another social group is a threat to them and does everything in their power to exterminate said group, what gives anyone the right to say they are "wrong" to do so? There really is no such thing as "right and wrong" in a naturalistic world, is there?
So, if one or more social groups determines that another social group is a threat to them and does everything in their power to exterminate said group, what gives anyone the right to say they are "wrong" to do so? There really is no such thing as "right and wrong" in a naturalistic world, is there?
Well you could say that there is no such thing as "right or wrong" with regard to the morals of other social groups/cultures. For example, in our culture, having more than one wife or having sex with children is 'immoral' yet there are some lesser known tribes that consider neither to be so. Do we have the right to inflict our morals on these people. I don't think so.
Well you could say that there is no such thing as "right or wrong" with regard to the morals of other social groups/cultures. For example, in our culture, having more than one wife or having sex with children is 'immoral' yet there are some lesser known tribes that consider neither to be so. Do we have the right to inflict our morals on these people. I don't think so.
And if a society decides that exterminating a certain subset of their society is beneficial to their society as a whole, then no one should be able to inflict their morals on that society either?
Serious answers require serious questions. Guiding principles? For what, making coffee or determining the basis for a just war? If we you are asking what forms the basis of my moral principles, I would answer by saying that they are a combination of existing law, cultural tradition, and reasoned inquiry. As for why they are my guiding principles, well for the same reason that we all have them, socialization.
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Nature doesn't dictate morality of any kind,
Oh, on the contrary, what you call guiding principles, and which I call mores are dictated to a very high degree by nature. In fact I would argue that the most rudimentary of social mores are part and parcel to human evolution without which we, as a species, would have never survived.
As social creatures, the viability of the group is critical to our survival. Early humans could have never flourished without inter-group cooperation at every level, from hunting to child rearing. So to maintain that inter-group cooperation laws, mores and ultimately morality had to come into play to regulate inter-group behavior. A group that indiscriminately kills its own members can not long survive, the process for choosing mates for the procreation of new members must be developed and understood, rules that reduced inter-group disharmony are critical to any social species whether they are wolf packs, pods of whales or tribes of the first humans. All of this we can observe not only amongst social animals but also by disparate groups of humans who, untouched by the god of Abraham or his commandments, have, for all intents and purposes, the same basic moral code as those that have. Why, because such laws are as evolutionary critical to human survival as the any gene or chromosome (in fact they may be imprinted in our genes and chromosomes).
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what right do you impose your morality on anyone else?
I don't have a right to impose my sense of morality on anyone, but the group does, and within that group, be it family, community, state, country or the world, I have a moral obligation to play a part in the development of that morality.
Serious answers require serious questions. Guiding principles? For what, making coffee or determining the basis for a just war? If we you are asking what forms the basis of my moral principles, I would answer by saying that they are a combination of existing law, cultural tradition, and reasoned inquiry. As for why they are my guiding principles, well for the same reason that we all have them, socialization
Oh, on the contrary, what you call guiding principles, and which I call mores are dictated to a very high degree by nature. In fact I would argue that the most rudimentary of social mores are part and parcel to human evolution without which we, as a species, would have never survived.
As social creatures, the viability of the group is critical to our survival. Early humans could have never flourished without inter-group cooperation at every level, from hunting to child rearing. So to maintain that inter-group cooperation laws, mores and ultimately morality had to come into play to regulate inter-group behavior. A group that indiscriminately kills its own members can not long survive, the process for choosing mates for the procreation of new members must be developed and understood, rules that reduced inter-group disharmony are critical to any social species whether they are wolf packs, pods of whales or tribes of the first humans. All of this we can observe not only amongst social animals but also by disparate groups of humans who, untouched by the god of Abraham or his commandments, have, for all intents and purposes, the same basic moral code as those that have. Why, because such laws are as evolutionary critical to human survival as the any gene or chromosome (in fact they may be imprinted in our genes and chromosomes).
I don't have a right to impose my sense of morality on anyone, but the group does, and within that group,be it family, community, state, country or the world, I have a moral obligation to play a part in the development of that morality.
So, in a nutshell, a naturalist society bases it's guiding principles on survival? And on what should this society base it's decisions as to what is good/bad, right/wrong in pursuing survival? If a large majority of a certain society decided that the extermination of a certain group was beneficial to their survival, then that would make it right?
So, in a nutshell, a naturalist society bases it's guiding principles on survival? And on what should this society base it's decisions as to what is good/bad, right/wrong in pursuing survival? If a large majority of a certain society decided that the extermination of a certain group was beneficial to their survival, then that would make it right?
If you want to condense thousands of years of rational thought to a nutshell, so be it. You asked for the natural basis for morality and I gave it to you.
As for your sophistic strawman counter argument, the nutshell answer is no, because the extermination of a certain group is counter to the survival of the larger group, i.e., the human race. If we accept the morality of intra-species genocide as being valid, then where else can it lead except to the extinguishment of all human life.
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