To Spring...

To Spring:

I have numbered some of the topics I hope you will address.

“I assure you people dont need God imprinted on their hearts to be good.”
Can you define what is “good” and how you arrived at that conclusion? Are things good based on utility? In other words, is it good to be kind only so far as kindness brings results? Or, is it intrinsically good to be kind?

Regarding Evolution:

“Its extremely clear from your last post that you do not understand it, as you have difficulty understanding self-sacrifice. Also, besides other factors, evolution has not failed if the individual has been reproductively successful before they gave themselves to the situation.”

I’ve always thought that I’ve had adequate knowledge regarding evolution in order to reject what it suggests about Morality. However, I am open to the idea that I certainly do not know enough. By virtue of the fact that you have recognized this epistemic deficiency in me, I’m assuming that you have the knowledge that I am lacking. Therefore, please enlighten me on the following:

1) You asserted that I have difficulty understanding self-sacrifice. Please help me understand then. I see self-sacrifice as an act that has no selfish motivation, one in which is not concerned about perpetuating self, but rather, the other. Explain to me then how this utilitarian perspective, that “the greatest good for the greatest number” of the species, somehow trumped the idea of self-survival, making the desire for self-survival subservient to the desire to preserve a species.

2) In a situation where a primitive mind has the option of saving himself, or another primitive mind at the risk of his own life, what would happen to his primary instinct of self-survival, if he chooses the latter? If every instinct in us from my apparent misinterpretation of evolution is survival of self, why on earth would I feel any obligation whatsoever to perpetuate the society? Here you may say, “Primitive Agents understand that looking out for everyone else is what is in their own best interest. Therefore, we help others because it primarily helps us.” This somehow doesn’t seem satisfying considering that in a moment where “common sense,” as you purported, would suggest that we should clearly save ourselves; we somehow suppress that desire in order to save someone else. In other words, our primary objective for why we initially wanted to work with others somehow disappears.

Let’s consider some implications of what this would mean:

3) From an evolutionary standpoint, selfishness or cowardice cannot be condemned. If hunters agree that in their selfish attempt to survive, they need each other, how can they oppose someone who decides to act for himself in a time of crisis, say war? As all the hunters are fighting, if one of them decides to run away from battle in order to save himself, while stealing all the other fellow hunter’s food, how can that person be condemned – for they are acting in the same way that all the other hunters are primarily acting – out of selfishness, or the need to survive? Therefore, if the other hunters objected to the selfishness of the hunter who ran away, wouldn’t it be emotively driven and an invalid critique?

4) You say that evolution is a success if one has “reproduced.” That may be true for the process. However, that is a claim you can make in retrospect. Reproduction, once again unless I’m mistaken, does not appear to be at the heart of the Agent involved – it is survival of the fittest.

“It has no meaning other than changes over time.”

5) You are right. From a naturalistic perspective, things only have meaning insofar as we attribute meaning to it. Therefore, someone is by no means obligated to respect the rights of others or perpetuate society – for that would be imposing a humanly determined subjective opinion upon them. There is no meaning in love, or in honesty. These things help us insofar as they produce results for us. Therefore, if honesty does not produce the best result for me, I am by no means, from a naturalistic perspective, obligated to be honest.

“Complex neurological abilities give the first ability to even understand morals, let alone to hold and build on them. While evolution has favored those changes which have allowed us to hold such neurological complexity, it stops there in terms of being some sort of moral explaination.”

6) Although this may very well be due to my lack of understanding regarding evolution, would you mind unpacking how “complex neurological abilities give the first cause the ability to understand morals,” implying that morals are something that can be observable/understandable with the senses? Please elaborate on how science arrived at this conclusion, and then how this process works.

Also, since I’m being enlightened, and I really don’t mean that sarcastically, could you explain from an evolutionary standpoint:

7) How an amoral impersonal first cause, through a “non-moral” process, becomes moral and personal, while still claim that there is no transcendent moral objective law?

8) Oh, and one more thing – there is often the assumption that the theist places faith in lack of evidence. Now, please tell me how you, as an evolutionist, have worked through controversies to evolution, such as, “the Cambrian Explosion, the Missing Link,” and the fact that through millions of years and countless species, there is not even one piece of evidence that proves that a bat and a whale share the same ancestor? I ask because, considering my possible misperception that there is lack of evidence, it appears that there is an element of faith fundamentally required by the evolutionist as well.