What are Emotions?

[Dislekseyuh]

How about ALL THE OTHER EMOTIONS other than fear?

Say two alpha males are on the top of a cliff. To become leader, one alpha male would have to kill the other, but one of the alpha males feels guilt and hesitates to attack his brother. The other one pushes the guilty male off the cliff.

Or, say a retarded child is crossing the street in front of oncoming traffic. A man is filled with bravery to save the child and pushes him out of the truck, which in-turn kills him.

Or, someone falls in love with a sickly person, and loves them in spite of their faults. So their children have sickly genes while arrogant and shallow people marry each other, producing stronger genes.

The fact is that morality IS NOT CONDUCIVE to evolution. It just doesn't make sense. We live in America, so we have this blind facade that all successful societies are moral ones, when America is one of the few that were founded as such. America is the anomaly! Most organized civilizations followed the laws of survival, not the laws of morality.

Morality exists IN SPITE of our desires and ambitions, that is what is so dumbfounding about it.

The difference between us and animals is that we're a sentient species. We have far more control over our emotions and what not. Guilt is an emotion, and it could have very well saved his life if things had turned out differently. The guy feeling guilty was a good thing, but the guy full of rage and pride wasn't. It can work both ways.

Nothing wrong with self-sacrifice if it's for a truly worthy cause. I wouldn't be the one saving a retarded child, but that courage is admirable. You seem to take these emotions, and put them in some very awkward gray area situations. What if the person about to be hit was a great surgeon or something? Courage is admirable, but we'd all do different things in different situations. It can be beneficial.

People fall in love with whoever. You're thinking too hard into this. You don't know how the kids will turn out, but that's life. I wouldn't fall for someone like that, but that's me. There are kids in good homes who turn out nasty, and vice versa.

Morality exists, but it is still objective. If it wasn't objective we would arrive to the same conclusions all the time. It's really all situational.

 

[logician]

Societal morality comes from man's laws, not from religiious ones. We pass laws(supposedly) to allow society to function, w/o laws we have anarchy and society disintegates into a free for all.

 

[tomspug]

Societal morality comes from man's laws, not from religiious ones. We pass laws(supposedly) to allow society to function, w/o laws we have anarchy and society disintegates into a free for all.

Actually, there is a significant realm of thought that all modern morality is derived from religion, not from culturally accepted norms. You forget that we exist in Western Civilization, which is defined by 1) the Christian church, 2) the Rennaissance, 3) the Enlightenment, and 4) the Reformation of the Christian church. Are you going to deny that these are the foundations of Western Civilization?

 

[Willamena]

Actually, there is a significant realm of thought that all modern morality is derived from religion, not from culturally accepted norms. You forget that we exist in Western Civilization, which is defined by 1) the Christian church, 2) the Rennaissance, 3) the Enlightenment, and 4) the Reformation of the Christian church. Are you going to deny that these are the foundations of Western Civilization?

And on what are they founded?

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Actually, there is a significant realm of thought that all modern morality is derived from religion, not from culturally accepted norms. You forget that we exist in Western Civilization, which is defined by 1) the Christian church, 2) the Rennaissance, 3) the Enlightenment, and 4) the Reformation of the Christian church. Are you going to deny that these are the foundations of Western Civilization?

I would say that religion and culture are so intertwined that the influences on each other are only minutely dissected.

And you forgot the influence of the Romantics in response to the Enlightenment.

 

[logician]

Actually, there is a significant realm of thought that all modern morality is derived from religion, not from culturally accepted norms. You forget that we exist in Western Civilization, which is defined by 1) the Christian church, 2) the Rennaissance, 3) the Enlightenment, and 4) the Reformation of the Christian church. Are you going to deny that these are the foundations of Western Civilization?

I hope you are not implying that one must be religious to be moral, because it just ain't true.