A proposed solution for Young Earth Creationism

[Wildswanderer]

But animals do. You need to brush up on your ethology.

Isn't it obvious where it came from? Don't you understand natural selection?
For millions of years the most altruistic individuals, the ones with the strongest group solidarity, created stronger, more successful communities. More children survived than among the selfish, and the trait increased in the population.

It's now hard-wired, as in other social animals.
Your apparent sociopathy is a birth defect.

Why do you judge me to be a sociopath? Is that moral behavior on your part, or selfish behavior?
And no, I don't buy the whole society development from us being apes. By now you should know I don't believe we developed over billions of years. Nice fairly tale though. Kinda reminds me of something Disney would put out.

 

[Polymath257]

That doesn't make sense. What about being an adult human should make me inherently moral in a universe where survival of the fittest is the only law?

The term 'fittest' in this context simply means 'being able to survive and pass on genes'. It does NOT necessarily mean 'strongest', 'meanest', 'fastest' or anything like that.

For a social species, fitness is best when cooperating with others in the society. Getting banned from the society tends to not lead to survival.

In such a world it would seem that Neichze was right and compassion would be a weaknes.
Thank God we don't live in that universe.

And Nietzsche was wrong about that. For social species, it *promotes* survival to get along well with others in your society. Individuals are generally safer and survive better when the risks are spread out among those in the society.

 

[Polymath257]

You should be a preacher, nice sermon

Not a sermon. This is based on the evidence.

 

[Polymath257]

You need to ask why that is true of most people.
If they have some innate morality, where does it come from? Why would I even have a conscience? An animal would not.

Wrong. Social animals do. Morality is simply about how to get along in a society.

 

[Polymath257]

Why do you judge me to be a sociopath? Is that moral behavior on your part, or selfish behavior?
And no, I don't buy the whole society development from us being apes. By now you should know I don't believe we developed over billions of years. Nice fairly tale though. Kinda reminds me of something Disney would put out.

Who cares if you buy it or not? The evidence and the science show it to be the case.

As for psychopathy, the key property of psychopaths is that they do what they want *until* some authority they fear tells them not to (unless they think they can get away with it). If you don't understand why people should be moral whether or not there is a deity, that points to a lack of a true moral sense.

 

[Polymath257]

Not saying this at all, I could agree all day long on the principles of right living but in my freedom and if it feels good do it got me in trouble and also found I had intense desires that I couldn’t control on my own. So yes I needed and found that God had the ability and gave me the power over these desires that were causing me problems. I was sick and He healed me. You don’t need a doctor or healing. You’re good

Your *belief* in a God is what gave you the strength to change. And if that is what it takes for you to remain moral, then please continue to believe.

 

[ElishaElijah]

Not a sermon. This is based on the evidence.

BS, you can’t prove anything happened millions of years ago

 

[ElishaElijah]

Your *belief* in a God is what gave you the strength to change. And if that is what it takes for you to remain moral, then please continue to believe.

And you know this how? Thing is you don’t know but I do. It always is amusing to me that people speak about someone else’s life and experience like they know something.

 

[Polymath257]

BS, you can’t prove anything happened millions of years ago

Of course you can. There is still a LOT of evidence from that time, since it is very recent on a geological time scale. We can know species that lived then, some of their behaviors, what they ate, etc. We also know genetics in many cases.

To deny that we can know things from this time seems to be simply denialism; a claim that knowledge isn't possible about the past. And *that* is what is BS.

 

[Polymath257]

And you know this how? Thing is you don’t know but I do. It always is amusing to me that people speak about someone else’s life and experience like they know something.

I believe you believe that. What I question is your interpretation of your experiences. You believe it was from a deity, but the reasons for that belief are nowhere close to justifying that belief, as opposed to being a form of self-programming.

 

[ElishaElijah]

I believe you believe that. What I question is your interpretation of your experiences. You believe it was from a deity, but the reasons for that belief are nowhere close to justifying that belief, as opposed to being a form of self-programming.

You believe doubt all you want but you can’t speak of spiritual matters if you haven’t a clue

 

[Polymath257]

You believe doubt all you want but you can’t speak of spiritual matters if you haven’t a clue

And the point is that neither can you. You have your beliefs and experiences. But do the experiences justify the beliefs?

As a thought: what *could* justify the belief in a deity?

 

[ElishaElijah]

And the point is that neither can you. You have your beliefs and experiences. But do the experiences justify the beliefs?

And yes I can and have, I do know and can see spiritual forces at work in people and not blind to them like I was in the past. I’ve found that spiritual weapons not fleshly weapons are what’s needed to overcome these forces.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Who cares if you buy it or not? The evidence and the science show it to be the case.

As for psychopathy, the key property of psychopaths is that they do what they want *until* some authority they fear tells them not to (unless they think they can get away with it). If you don't understand why people should be moral whether or not there is a deity, that points to a lack of a true moral sense.

You don't understand how a relationship with God changes a persons motivation if you think it's all about fear.

And science has some serious limits when it comes to explaining reality.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Wrong. Social animals do. Morality is simply about how to get along in a society.

I've been around social animals most of my life. They don't have " morals".
They do what God made them to do.
If you think a cow or sheep makes moral decisions, you are giving them way too much credit. They have no understanding of morality.

 

[Tiberius]

A Star Trek fan in general understands that it is a fictional show, so no, not a religion.

If you worship the sun it would be a religion.

Ah, so now you are agreeing that something needs to be MORE than just a belief system for it to count as a religion.

Now, you mentioned sun worship, and I agree that would be a religion. Tell me, does a belief system need worship of some kind before it counts as a religion?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Really? It’s not moral to honor your parents?

I repeat: "The first 4 have nothing to do with morals and everything with Jawhe's psychological insecurity, pettyness and jealousy."

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

People have a Facebook image

I don't. I don't have a single "social" media "image".
I stay away from those platforms of vanity and voyeurism.
They are psychologically damaging for the users and the owners rape about every rule concerning privacy in existence.

and who they really are. The true measure of a person is who they are when no one is watching or in private.

Maybe.
Not that that matters in this conversation though, as morality is about how you treat others.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So it’s ok to disrespect people?

Respect is not something that is granted by default.
Respect is something that must be earned.
Disrespect is no different.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Well you just proved my point. In this case the higher authority is the law.

First of all: bystanders, police officers, government... these are not a "higher" authority. These are your fellow humans. The law is not a "higher" authority either. These are rules made up and agreed upon, again, by your fellow humans.

Secondly, conduct a second experiment and this time make sure you don't break the law.
Treat people like absolute sh!t. Lie. Cheat. Backstab. Manipulate. Provoke. Act like a condescending jerk all the time.

Then after a while, look at your life.
Count your (non-existing) friends. Consider how many times people ask you on a date, invite you for dinner or a movie or any other social happening.

The fact is that if you live like that, you'll likely die alone with everybody you know thinking you're a *********.

And how would it benefit me to randomly smack people with a bat, anyway?

Maybe you enjoy it.

However, you see this kind of behavior quite often today if there's no consequences.
You also see people shooting rival gang members.

Right, right, because being part of a violent gang is "the standard" of common human behavior.

Take away the authority and you see many people acting in violent ways, and others encouraging them.

And you also see many not do that at all.