Ethics without God ? - Canada by Adam Deen

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ATHEISTofPEACE said:
Unless we evolved a set standard of ethics and morality.
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Tell me more how ethics and morality might have evolved.

Personally, I favour this version of events:
The Lord declares "I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds"

peace :)
 
glo said:
Tell me more how ethics and morality might have evolved.

Personally, I favour this version of events:
The Lord declares "I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds"

peace :)
Click to expand...

Our survival was interlinked with the survival of our tribe. The members of our tribe were family and shared our genes. Not killing them hekos you survive. Not killing them helps your gense survive. So a gene that made us not kill people would help its own survival.



It gets used in a different way now.
 
ATHEISTofPEACE said:
Our survival was interlinked with the survival of our tribe. The members of our tribe were family and shared our genes. Not killing them hekos you survive. Not killing them helps your gense survive. So a gene that made us not kill people would help its own survival.



It gets used in a different way now.
Click to expand...

Are you trying to say that a gene controls the conscious act of murder? A bit deterministic huh? But atheism is, after all, pure determinism.
 
ATHEISTofPEACE said:
Our survival was interlinked with the survival of our tribe. The members of our tribe were family and shared our genes. Not killing them hekos you survive. Not killing them helps your gense survive. So a gene that made us not kill people would help its own survival.



It gets used in a different way now.
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That sounds a little simplistic to me.

Much as I understand the concept of ensuring the survival of one's own family/tribe/people, how did we evolve to think it is also morally wrong to kill those outside our own family/tribe/people?
Why do we (at least sometimes) show compassion to our enemies?
Why do we (at least strive to) extend human rights to people of other nations and tribes?
Why do we (at least consider) sharing wealth and resources with foreigners in need?
 
another very simple explanation from that point of view:

because they make us happy. so in the end, we are still selfish.

I'll remind you of old japan. Akira kurosawa writes in his "something like an autobiography" about the suicide of a hundred million. he tells how everyone were serious and determined, with their blades unsheathed and waiting for the emperor to order their deaths. he adds that, he also would kill himself that day. also adds that he can't quite understand now, how they were seasoned so much that they would take their own lives by a word of an emperor.

no jihad, no nothing. people can throw their lives away, for an emperor. for their lovers. for anything they believe worthy.
 
ATHEISTofPEACE said:
Our survival was interlinked with the survival of our tribe. The members of our tribe were family and shared our genes. Not killing them hekos you survive. Not killing them helps your gense survive. So a gene that made us not kill people would help its own survival.



It gets used in a different way now.
Click to expand...

Peace, AoP

Your explanation is flawed. Why would I show mercy to a member of an opposing tribe who tried to kill mine, without asking anything from him or seeking any type of gain?

Why then, if genes are all about benefit, why would I not murder a decrepit old man, who's gonna die soon anyways, to get his valuables, even if absolutely noone would know about it?

It would benefit me, it wouldnt harm society, seems like a win win huh?


I wouln't ascribe morals to genes if I were you. Giving them an arbitrary basis like that is dangerous. What if someone messes with those genes? Can we blame people with faulty "moral genes"? Why shouldn't we then make those genes better? Obviously alot of our morality is burdensome such as not killing of severely disabled people and deformed babies.
 
burdenofbeing said:
another very simple explanation from that point of view:

because they make us happy. so in the end, we are still selfish.
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So people may act altruistically purely to make themselves feel better.
After all, what other benefits are there for me to help an old lady across the street or to give money to charity?

It still leaves the question of why would it make us feel good to help others?
Would it not be more logical to be happy about getting home sooner, rather than helping the old lady?
Or be happy about spending money on myself, rather than giving it away?
From a survival/evolution standpoint surely being selfish should be more beneficial than being selfless.

How and why should we have evolved to 'feel good' about 'doing good'?
 
if you are familiar with the concept of evolution, you should find the answer easily.
people masses that do good to each other has a higher survival rate. it's been repeated numerously in this thread as well.

speaking of logic, why would people make children? it's nothing but trouble. and it has very little personal benefit. wouldn't it be more logical if we didn't make children? sure, it would make sure our genes don't transfer but... still.

and I don't understand where this debate is going. if the question is having ethics or being altruistic without god, only the example of bill gates should be enough.
 
burdenofbeing said:
if you are familiar with the concept of evolution, you should find the answer easily.
people masses that do good to each other has a higher survival rate. it's been repeated numerously in this thread as well.
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I understand a reasonable amount about evolution.
As I said in a previous post I can understand how we may have evolved to look out for and protect our own family/tribe/people.
But what about people outside that group?
Why should I care about a stranger in the street, or a starving child on the other side of the planet?
Why should I feel compassion for somebody who may politically be considered my enemy?
Those are the areas in which I struggle to understand how we may have evolved to such a level of morality and ethics ...

speaking of logic, why would people make children? it's nothing but trouble. and it has very little personal benefit. wouldn't it be more logical if we didn't make children? sure, it would make sure our genes don't transfer but... still.
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I am a mother of two teenagers, so you are touching a nerve here ... tempting, TEMPTING ...! :D

and I don't understand where this debate is going. if the question is having ethics or being altruistic without god, only the example of bill gates should be enough.
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Threads sometimes go that way - they take off at a tangent.
To be honest I just jumped right in, without checking how this thread evolved ...
The mods will sort out any threads which get too much out of hand. That's what they get paid for! (Or not :D)

Peace
 
burdenofbeing said:
if you are familiar with the concept of evolution, you should find the answer easily.
people masses that do good to each other has a higher survival rate. it's been repeated numerously in this thread as well.

speaking of logic, why would people make children? it's nothing but trouble. and it has very little personal benefit. wouldn't it be more logical if we didn't make children? sure, it would make sure our genes don't transfer but... still.

and I don't understand where this debate is going. if the question is having ethics or being altruistic without god, only the example of bill gates should be enough.
Click to expand...
:bump1:What he said. Thanks. though what was with the bit about bill gates?
 
I understand a reasonable amount about evolution.
As I said in a previous post I can understand how we may have evolved to look out for and protect our own family/tribe/people.
But what about people outside that group?
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When we evloved this altruistic tendency we were not dealing with such large groups of people. So the gene could/would just be misfireing. Also our in group has grown.
 
ATHEISTofPEACE said:
When we evloved this altruistic tendency we were not dealing with such large groups of people. So the gene could/would just be misfireing. Also our in group has grown.
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You are saying this with some confidence.

Is there any evidence which would suggest this?
Or is this just supposition?
 
glo said:
You are saying this with some confidence.

Is there any evidence which would suggest this?
Or is this just supposition?
Click to expand...

This is at the frindge of my understanding and reasrch. I am only a layman. I'll see what I can dig up. The thing is suppositions are fine. If there is a way it is possible then God is no longer needed.
 
ATHEISTofPEACE said:
When we evloved this altruistic tendency we were not dealing with such large groups of people. So the gene could/would just be misfireing. Also our in group has grown.
Click to expand...

Ah I see, so tell me, if having an altruistic tendency is an evolved trait, why should I practice altruism if I don't care about it.

You can't say "oh because it is a part of your human nature", I can deny parts of my human nature easily. Every hear of celibates or gays?

You're argument for the evolutionary nature of ethics will backfire on you. Nothing in your argument says WHY we should. And I can just as well override these evolutionary tendencies of mine and steal from my neighbor or push a little kid off a bike an laugh maniacally.
 
A moral sense is inborn in man and, through the ages, it has served as the common man’s standard of moral behaviour, approving certain qualities and condemning others. While this instinctive faculty may vary from person to person, human conscience has consistently declared certain moral qualities to be good and others to be bad. In assessing the standards of good and bad in the collective behaviour of society as a whole, only those societies have been considered worthy of honour which have possessed the virtues of organisation, discipline, mutual attention and compassion and which have established a social order based on justice, freedom and equality.
 
the Qur’an good is called Ma’rif (a well-known thing) and evil munkar (an unknown thing); that is to say, good is known to be desirable and evil is known not to commend itself in any way. As the Qur’an says:

Allah has revealed to human nature the consciousness and cognition of good and evil. (al-Shams 91: 8)
 
ATHEISTofPEACE said:
This is at the frindge of my understanding and reasrch. I am only a layman. I'll see what I can dig up. The thing is suppositions are fine. If there is a way it is possible then God is no longer needed.
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Yes he is. The mere fact that a "evil" man and a "good" man end up the same way in the end in an atheistic universe (whatever that means) is enough reason for me not to give a ****.
 

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