sleepy jack

Well part of the reason we got off track on morality is because we were more dealing with Objectivism and Inuzuka accused me of approaching morality different than I approach religion, which means I'm "turning off the logic-switch" and "irrational". Even though I've been trying to explain to him that I approach religion (and claim its false) based on science/historic knowledge and if you look at history than you'll see morals change from culture to culture and century to century...which doesn't lend any credibility to morality being "objective." Than when I went at it (barring the gene thing) from a scientific study angle he told me that was a bad way to go about it because humans aren't objective. Which struck me as odd since we were talking about the human idea of morality* and if humans aren't objective than how can their ideas on right and wrong be objective either? Basically in approaching morality the same way I approach religion I find that it isn't objective.

Now I've said before (I believe when I went on that long rant in the Morality and the Bible thread) that I don't doubt that morality is a selected trait and that certain societies have had members who didn't act in the best interests of their group (and acted maybe in the best interests of themselves instead or were just lazy or something) and as a result their entire group failed to survive. I think, as you said, that true Altruism is impossible (though admittedly I did not approach that from a biological perspective more from my interaction with humans) but I think operating in absolutes and extremes when it comes to human ideals is just foolish because it's not realistic. You're never going to find someone who lets themselves be violently sexed up because their "selfless."

I did talk to great lengths about morality being adaptive (I believe in the morality and bible thread again.) As I said above (and you have too) ethical standards and moral norms change at different paces and in different places and in some cultures this is okay but in some cultures it's not. If you get very specific though you'll find within that culture that the general society of course isn't all going to agree what is moral and what isn't. To look at the farmer example, what if there's a farmer who is very loyal to the empire (and since in many cases marriage is just a property thing, something which nowadays we generally view as immoral) just views killing his wife as killing a cow and doesn't really care? That sounds cold but I think you get what I'm saying. The sense of right and wrong changes from person to person, there is no objective sense of it. I mean even now, there are plenty of people who are for the death penalty and consider it fair punishment but I find it horribly immoral and I am against it in all circumstances.

One of the reasons I'm so passionate about Atheism is because I believe that morally religion is detrimental to society. As I've said before if you accept faith or Jesus as a moral arbitrator than logically you have to accept the Qu'ran as a moral arbitrator as well. Which means accepting the abuse of woman it also means accepting acts like 9/11 as strictly moral acts because they're only playing by your rules, as unreasonable in my mind as they are.**

I really just wish we could grow past this idea that morality is something concrete. I believe we need to see it as an ongoing human discussion with an unattainable but beautiful goal nonetheless (world peace and rainbows and all that.) As times change we need to adjust our ideas (and we do.) Even Christians just base the morality their morality off of what is secular and then just go back and use the bible to justify it. I've said before if you asked Jesus about cloning or any of our modern issues he'd have no idea if it was moral or not because he wouldn't even know what cloning was!

*I'm ignoring the rest of species in the world because if we widen our scope to a certain extent this isn't going to get anywhere. I mean you could see morality in the animal kingdom, for instance how wolves operate as a pack, or how a mother takes care of her young, etc. Not that I'm condemning your gene argument, I believe it and it makes sense. I just believe because of our intelligence the human idea of morality is beyond the animal one even if I'd basically define the general goal similarly. Which is that I believe there needs to be a balance between protecting personal liberties and benefiting the society as a whole.

**I do want to add I'm not just attacking Islam here I do believe religion as a whole teaches some very nasty things, particularly Christianity. Masturbation is not something that should make people feel ashamed and you shouldn't feel ashamed over natural impulses either. Lust is normal and I don't believe it is a sin. I also don't believe every situation can be judge strictly as "right" or "wrong" and I think teaching that kind of thing almost condemns independent thought. I also believe teaching children these things at a very impressionable age is immoral. No matter how much my rational mind tells me lust isn't shameful I still believe it is, though logically I know it isn't "sinful." That is psychological damage I don't think can be undone and it was done by a church. I also believe the externalization of blame to be a damaging thing, people need to accept their mistakes. I could go on and on but I'll stop now as this post is already very lengthy.

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