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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.
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The reason I am saying it isn't objective is because you aren't even using the word Objective right. Just because a million people believe something doesn't make it right. In the same way, just because all people believe a morality is right doesn't mean it is actually right. A morality is right because it is rational. If every human in the world chooses their morals irrationally, but they get the same morality then they are all wrong. Humans can get morality right by taking a rational and logical approach to it.
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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."
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You either put yourself above people or you put people about yourself. If you put people above yourself then you are selfless, which in turn means you put everyone above yourself because using your brain above others would be selfish. Everyone acts to their own self interests. If you fall in love with a girl you don't fall in love because it is for her own good and you like nothing about her. To have any values you must be selfish. If you have certain values then you are bound to like some people and dislike others. This dislike of others and love of others is a sign of selfishness because you are using your own mind to judge things. An altruist must never trust his own mind because he is concerning himself when he does this.
You can't be in the middle of either. It is like a true or false situation. You either use your mind to get you through life or you don't. If you use it sometimes and forget about it others then you are an altruist sometimes and a selfish person at other times.
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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.
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Again, just because people believe it doesn't make it objective. If everyone in one room has a drug trip, the trip isn't really reality. However there is a reality that they could all view if they used their reason and logic. Reason and logic are the only reliable ways of decoding reality.
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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.**
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My problem with the anti-religion view is that you are missing the root cause of why religion ruins society. It is irrational. Nonreligious people can go around murdering people just like a religious person. What is common in both? They are irrational. There is no conflict of interests among rational men. Also, believing Jesus as a moral person does not take any more faith than believing that Martin Luther King Jr. was a moral person (excluding the fact that Martin Luther King Jr. lived not long ago). We do have evidence of Jesus, however whether he is God or not there is no evidence. I would agree in that one who accepts the Bible must accept the Koran, but once I believe in a god I am already highly irrational and obviously don't care about my rationality. So for me to say the Koran is wrong would not be a huge step. Also, Jesus's message is much different than Islam's message. While you have heard that Jesus was just a get-out-of-jail free card, this is not the true message. His true message is to bring peace and love to the world and restore it to its original creation. There is no slave driver god telling people they must follow him. I have biblical evidence to support that there is no such thing as eternal damnation, Satan, etc.
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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!
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That really isn't argument against Christian morals. Christian morals are based off of loving your neighbor as yourself. If something isn't loving such as murder, then this is obviously against Jesus's morals. However, cloning can be used to save lives so why Jesus would be against it, I really don't know.
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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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I would argue that altruists who force their children to give to others are a reason why society is getting worse. I would argue that handicaps are damaging to society because they suck up the welfare that could be used on gifted kids (though I am against welfare in general). I also believe that societies teaching of materialism is wrong. Etc, etc, etc. I obviously don't agree with all of this stuff. because the handicap thing was a bit cruel. If you have a problem, feel free to speak out about it. No one has a problem with that. All I have a problem with would be you forcing me how to parent using the law. That is all people use these days. They whine to their politician and decide how my child, which I brought into existence should believe. You would be restricting my free speech. I know you didn't mention using the law, but I am just saying.