Believers, Non-Believers & Morality

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
[b]"My morality bank is filled with genuine currency, while yours is Just an IOU from a non-existent deity." Ghost.


"How do you get this? Do you really think this? Does this include all theists?" Suzianne


I was speaking to Romans directly, so no, I don't apply that to all theists. - My point was that his morality was 'borro ...[text shortened]... lose all concept of time. Fashion your own watch and you're in control of your own timekeeping.[/b]

An atheist’s morality, however flawed, is not difficult to maintain in a comfortable environment.

Place an atheist and a Christian in an extremely stressful or dire circumstance. There’s the test.

My morality is not “borrowed from an outside agency.” It exists within me and is as much a part of me as anything else.

You studied theology and don’t understand that God’s Holy Spirit indwells Christians? That God’s Holy Spirit is as much a part of a Christian as his or her feet and legs - more a part, actually, as the feet and legs can be removed.

Originally posted by @romans1009
Shouldn’t the wealthy population, viewed from an evolutionary standpoint, favor a “survival of the fittest” response?

What point in human development are you talking about? 2,000,000 years ago, 500,000 years ago, 50,000 years ago, 5,000 years ago, 500 years ago?

Originally posted by @romans1009
You studied theology and don’t understand that God’s Holy Spirit indwells Christians?

The study of theology equips its students with the knowledge that Christians like you claim that "God’s Holy Spirit indwells Christians".

Originally posted by @fmf
Communal survival creates the need for moral capacity to develop countless tens of thousand years ago > family level > village level > tribe level > ethnic group level > national level > trans-national level > global level... a.k.a. common humanity. Cultures propagate moral information. Human faculties and capacity make this possible.

Do you think an evolutionary process is driven by self-interest? In other words, if a deviation or mutation is advantageous to a species, the deviation or mutation tends to stay and develop, while if it’s not advantageous, it tends to fall away?

Originally posted by @fmf
The study of theology equips its students with the knowledge that Christians like you claim that "God’s Holy Spirit indwells Christians".

Why don’t you allow Ghost to answer for himself?

Originally posted by @fmf
What point in human development are you talking about? 2,000,000 years ago, 500,000 years ago, 50,000 years ago, 5,000 years ago, 500 years ago?

Obviously I would have to be referring to a very current time as a human population that lived very far away from another human population would be unlikely to know or hear of a devastating earthquake half a world away.

Originally posted by @romans1009
Upon what is the determination made that the change is bad or appropriate/good? If there is no universal standard of morality, then the change is neither bad nor good. It is just a change.

The determination is made by whoever is examining it from a moral point of view.

There is no "universal standard of morality".

Yes indeed, some change is probably neither bad nor good, it depends on who perceives it.

Relative to other cities in Indonesia, homosexuality is more tolerated where I live. This has been the result of a perceptible change that's occurred over the amount of time I have known this city.

The decrease in discrimination that this has resulted in has been morally sound to my way of thinking but it has been seen as morally unsound by people more conservative than me.

People just have to - and do - decide for themselves, guided by their moral compasses.

Religious dogma informs you and your moral compass.

It does for me too, but to a lesser, kind of 'second hand' degree.

Through the political mechanism, one view or the other [of the status of homosexuals, for example, in the country where I live] can become enshrined in law.

People perceive laws as being moral and immoral - and amoral, of course.

There's clearly nothing "universal" about it.

Originally posted by @romans1009
Obviously I would have to be referring to a very current time as a human population that lived very far away from another human population would be unlikely to know or hear of a devastating earthquake half a world away.

So then your scenario is a bit silly, isn't it? Do you really think that the elaborate moral codes that have evolved in cultures all across the world are still, hundreds of thousands of years later, driven by concerns about basic daily existential threats and wildlife-documentary type 'survival of the fittest' incidents? No, of course not.

Originally posted by @romans1009
Why don’t you allow Ghost to answer for himself?

I am allowing him to answer for himself. How can I possibly be seen as 'disallowing' him anything? Meanwhile, you seem to have dodged ~ surprise, surprise ~ my response to the really rather daft thing that you said.

Originally posted by @romans1009
Do you think an evolutionary process is driven by self-interest? In other words, if a deviation or mutation is advantageous to a species, the deviation or mutation tends to stay and develop, while if it’s not advantageous, it tends to fall away?

A combination of self-interest and communal interest. I think in almost all instances, broadly speaking, self-interest is best achieved by furthering communal interest. Long ago more especially, rather than now where all manner of safeguards and contingencies are in play.

I would imagine that groups of humans that failed to develop sufficiently robust moral codes, and impose social order on themselves based on them ~ something that religious institutions have done right down through history ~ would be more likely to collapse or be weak in the face of more disciplined adversaries, and therefore 'die out'.

In that sense, if we say those collectives with weak governance of social interactions were the deviations/mutations, so I'd say no, they'd not be the ones to "stay and develop".

Originally posted by @fmf
So then your scenario is a bit silly, isn't it? Do you really think that the elaborate moral codes that have evolved in cultures all across the world are still, hundreds of thousands of years later, driven by concerns about basic daily existential threats and wildlife-documentary type 'survival of the fittest' incidents? No, of course not.

Then on what basis did they evolve beyond a motivation of self-interest?

Originally posted by @romans1009
Place an atheist and a Christian in an extremely stressful or dire circumstance. There’s the test.

And what are the results of this "test"?

Give an example of "an extremely stressful or dire circumstance" and some indication how this "test" has been handled by atheists and Christians in reality, so I can see the validity of your assertion, or - in fact - see what the details of the assertion you are making are.

Originally posted by @fmf
I am allowing him to answer for himself. How can I possibly be seen as 'disallowing' him anything? Meanwhile, you seem to have dodged ~ surprise, surprise ~ my response to the really rather daft thing that you said.

I haven’t dodged anything nor do I dodge questions so your “surprise, surprise” comment is dishonest.

Originally posted by @fmf
And what are the results of this "test"?

Give an example of "an extremely stressful or dire circumstance" and some indication how this "test" has been handled by atheists and Christians in reality, so I can see the validity of your assertion, or - in fact - see what the details of the assertion you are making are.

I made no assertion beyond one’s morality is easy to maintain in a comfortable environment but is put to the test - and therefore its genuineness or lack thereof is revealed - in extremely stressful or dire circumstances. That is where the authenticity of one’s morality is tested.

How could you possibly disagree with any of that?

Originally posted by @fmf
I am allowing him to answer for himself. How can I possibly be seen as 'disallowing' him anything? Meanwhile, you seem to have dodged ~ surprise, surprise ~ my response to the really rather daft thing that you said.

<<I am allowing him to answer for himself. How can I possibly be seen as 'disallowing' him anything?>>

Reword my question as either, “Why do you feel compelled to answer questions addressed to Ghost?”