Alien826
No religious beliefs
I want to make one point only, as I agree with the idea that who brought you up is more "family" to you than some traveling salesman that your Mom happened to fancy one day long ago.
Actual paternity and maternity is critical in nature. A male lion that takes over a pride will kill the young of the previous male. The females then come into heat almost immediately and he gets to father a new generation of his own offspring. That happens because the genes that code for that behavior won out over the genes that didn't, and I mean won out in the sense that there are now more of them in the gene pool.
That's at the gene level though, which has little regard (metaphorically) for the well being of individual creatures that they create, other than their ability to "serve" the genes. The good news is that we don't have to follow those rules.
Actual paternity and maternity is critical in nature. A male lion that takes over a pride will kill the young of the previous male. The females then come into heat almost immediately and he gets to father a new generation of his own offspring. That happens because the genes that code for that behavior won out over the genes that didn't, and I mean won out in the sense that there are now more of them in the gene pool.
That's at the gene level though, which has little regard (metaphorically) for the well being of individual creatures that they create, other than their ability to "serve" the genes. The good news is that we don't have to follow those rules.