Abiogenesis, evolution and morality

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
If you live in the UAE like I do you can avoid taxes 😀

At least for now death is an absolute. Interesting that you blame theists for being too imaginative 😛

Would you care to enlighten me on what it actually means to be an atheist?

Isn't avoiding taxes non-biblical?!

'Then Jesus said to them, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." And they were amazed at him.' (Mark 12:17)

An atheist has no belief in God. That's it, finito.

A theist usually struggles with this and will want to label atheism itself as a belief system or even a religion. They imagine that not believing in God leaves a massive hole in an atheist's life which he will try to fill with evolution etc or that he will be completely bereft of morality or purpose. All these things are incorrect. (No, really).

I do not believe in God. I do not believe in Bigfoot. Lack of belief in either of these two things does not leave a hole in my life that I compelled to fill. (No, really). The loss of something I do believe in may indeed leave a hole in my life, but something I don't believe in has no impact on my life whatsoever. (No, really). I totally understand that for a theist, who does believe in God, to suddenly lose Him in their life would leave an unfillable hole, but it is a mistake to transpose those feelings onto a person who has no belief in God. - I would also point out that, even as an atheist, I have a very strong sense of morality, a human derived conscience and think life is full of purpose and meaning. - I also do not think I have rejected God. I just remain unconvinced by the evidence that he exists. (Have I rejected Bigfoot as a result of not believing he exists?)

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
So for you it would never be morally wrong to steal a large sum of money for instance?

According to my moral code that would be wrong in most circumstances.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
According to my moral code that would be wrong in most circumstances.

I would be interested to know which moral law you subscribe to and why?

Originally posted by finnegan
KN did not say he had no moral code. He said it was not "absolute."

Would be interested to know what a moral code is like that is not absolute. Sounds a lot like acting out of personal preference to me.

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
Isn't avoiding taxes non-biblical?!

'Then Jesus said to them, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." And they were amazed at him.' (Mark 12:17)

An atheist has no belief in God. That's it, finito.

A theist usually struggles with this and will want to label atheism itself as a belief system or even a religion. They i ...[text shortened]... y the evidence that he exists. (Have I rejected Bigfoot as a result of not believing he exists?)

The country I live in is tax free. United Arab Emirates. The government does not require its residents to pay tax.

I do not doubt that what you are saying is true. I have many friends that are atheists. They are nice people and they seems to have good morals for the most part by their own standards at least. All I'm trying to figure out is whether an atheist believes in the concept of good and evil. If so how do you explain the existence of these concepts? Furthermore, how do you differentiate between good and evil?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
The country I live in is tax free. United Arab Emirates. The government does not require its residents to pay tax.

I do not doubt that what you are saying is true. I have many friends that are atheists and they seems to have good morals for the most part by their own standards at least. All I'm trying to figure out is whether an atheist believes in t ...[text shortened]... in the existence of these concepts? Furthermore, how do you differentiate between good and evil?

Your question is a valid one, but I would first disagree with the premise that without God morality is one of preference. I base this on the fact that my inner conscience, which fuels my morality, is not one of preference. (For instance, it is not a preference whether or not to feel guilty about something i have done or to feel empathy, compassion). Where you say good or evil, I say right or wrong. This sense of right or wrong is based on my upbringing, experiences and influences. General rightness or wrongness is also a collective, a social, thing. It is not by chance that the majority of people think murder or stealing is wrong.

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
Your question is a valid one, but I would first disagree with the premise that without God morality is one of preference. I base this on the fact that my inner conscience, which fuels my morality, is not one of preference. (For instance, it is not a preference whether or not to feel guilty about something i have done or to feel empathy, compassion). ...[text shortened]... ocial, thing. It is not by chance that the majority of people think murder or stealing is wrong.

Does science, or an atheist, have an opinion where this 'inner conscience' originated? Or if it can be attributed to atoms, molecules, brain function, etc., meaning something that can be a tangible physical object?

Just asking, because I personally view the conscience, emotions, feelings, etc. as somehow part of 'design'.

Originally posted by chaney3
Does science, or an atheist, have an opinion where this 'inner conscience' originated? Or if it can be attributed to atoms, molecules, brain function, etc., meaning something that can be a tangible physical object?

Just asking, because I personally view the conscience, emotions, feelings, etc. as somehow part of 'design'.

See my first post in the thread as well as contributions by others.

Originally posted by twhitehead
See my first post in the thread as well as contributions by others.

Thanks, but my question is not how the conscience may have evolved, or how it benefits us.....I'm asking if there is anything about the conscience, emotions, or feelings that can be physically measured or tested by science. And, if the answer is no, then how can origin be known? These are not tangible objects as far as I know.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
I would be interested to know which moral law you subscribe to and why?

My own, because it's awesome.

Originally posted by chaney3
Thanks, but my question is not how the conscience may have evolved, or how it benefits us.....I'm asking if there is anything about the conscience, emotions, or feelings that can be physically measured or tested by science. And, if the answer is no, then how can origin be known? These are not tangible objects as far as I know.

The answer is "yes."

Originally posted by chaney3
Thanks, but my question is not how the conscience may have evolved, or how it benefits us.....I'm asking if there is anything about the conscience, emotions, or feelings that can be physically measured or tested by science.

I am not certain how we were expected to read that into your previous version of the question.
The answer is yes, almost everything about them can be physically measured or tested by science in numerous different ways.

They can also be directly manipulated in numerous different ways.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
I would be interested to know which moral law you subscribe to and why?

I realise that this is a discussion between you and Kazet I'm butting into, but I think the following might add something. Bernard Williams was one of the, in not the, preeminent moral philosophers of the twentieth century, in his book he distinguishes between ethics and morality, and this is a distinction that may be relevant here:

Here and earlier I have mentioned "moral" considerations, using that word in a general way, which corresponds to what is, irremovably, one name for the subject: moral philosophy. But there is another name for the subject, "ethics", and corresponding to that is the notion of an ethical consideration. By origin, the difference between the two terms is that between Latin and Greek, each relating to a word meaning disposition or custom. One difference is that the Latin term from which "moral" comes emphasizes rather more the sense of social expectation, while the Greek favours that of individual character. But the word "morality" has by now taken on a more distinctive content, and I am going to suggest that morality should be understood as a particular development of the ethical, one that has a special significance in modern Western culture. It peculiarly emphasizes certain ethical notions rather than others, developing in particular a special notion of obligation, and it has some peculiar presuppositions. In view of these features it is also, I believe, something we should treat with a special skepticism. From now on, therefore, I shall for the most part use "ethical" as the broad term to stand for what this subject is certainly about, and "moral" and "morality" for the narrower system, the peculiarities of which will concern us later.

Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Bernard Williams, Routledge Classics 2011 ed. p7

Stanford University is putting out lots of material that might help. It shows what a struggle it is even to define the term morality.

the term “morality” can be used either

descriptively to refer to certain codes of conduct put forward by a society or a group (such as a religion), or accepted by an individual for her own behavior, or
normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.

Which of these two senses of “morality” a theorist is using plays a crucial, although sometimes unacknowledged, role in the development of an ethical theory.

If one uses “morality” in its descriptive sense, and therefore uses it to refer to codes of conduct actually put forward by distinct groups or societies, one will almost certainly deny that there is a universal morality that applies to all human beings. The descriptive use of “morality” is the one used by anthropologists when they report on the morality of the societies that they study. Recently, some comparative and evolutionary psychologists (Haidt 2006; Hauser 2006; De Waal 1996) have taken morality, or a close anticipation of it, to be present among groups of non-human animals: primarily, but not exclusively, other primates.
...
In the normative sense, “morality” refers to a code of conduct that would be accepted by anyone who meets certain intellectual and volitional conditions, almost always including the condition of being rational. That a person meets these conditions is typically expressed by saying that the person counts as a moral agent.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/

There is no requirement for a moral code to be "absolute."

There is no requirement for a moral code to be based on or produced by religion. That is only one of the avenues available and only one of the forms of morality encountered in studies of human societies.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
The country I live in is tax free. United Arab Emirates. The government does not require its residents to pay tax.

I do not doubt that what you are saying is true. I have many friends that are atheists. They are nice people and they seems to have good morals for the most part by their own standards at least. All I'm trying to figure out is whether an ...[text shortened]... in the existence of these concepts? Furthermore, how do you differentiate between good and evil?

Times they are a changing, even in your country. Have you tracked what is happening in Saudi? They realize they cannot live anymore on fossil fuel sales which are way down in price from just a couple of years ago. So they are stopping the subsidies that everyone lived on and they are going to be taxed and they want to transition from a fossil fuel economy to regular business and even (shudder) tourism which is not allowed right now.