Evolution Brought About Morality ?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
And a computer is a prime example of something that was designed right?

No, not really. And is that relevant to anything being said?

Originally posted by twhitehead
No, not really. And is that relevant to anything being said?

Why not? If the brain has the same characteristics as a computer, why would a computer be designed and not a brain?

Originally posted by divegeester
Would you say that God's law as written in the bible is the basis for a robust, unchanging, authoritative moral framework?

Would you say that God's law as written in the bible is the basis for a robust, unchanging, authoritative moral framework?

Yes. But the ritual ordinances changed. Some ritual ordinances were of a symbolic nature and when Christ came to fulfill all the symbolism these ordinances were dropped.

Do you know that they righteousness of God was manifested apart from the Law. That is because Righteousness of God is God Himself.

" But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, witness being borne to it by the Law and the Prophets. Even the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ to all those who believe, for there is no distinction;"

Apart from he Law of God, God Himself is righteousness. Christ Himself is righteousness. Righteousness is not merely an attribute of God. It is God Himself. It is Christ Himself.

Whatever God is in His justice and rightness constitutes His righteousness. All that God is in His rightness God Himself. All that God is in His justice and rightness is actually God Himself.

The righteousness of God is a Person, not merely a divine attribute. The of God manifests God's righteousness. But apart from the Law all that God is in Himself is His Person as rightness, justice, and righteousness.

And Christ imparted into man joins man to righteosness, joins man to God Himself in eternal justification. This is why the New Testament says that Christ Himself is made unto us righteousness from God.

" But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom to us from God: both righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

That as it is written, 'He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord." (1 Cor. 1:30)

Righteousness is the Triune God Himself. Righteousness is God Himself. Righteousness is Christ Himself. And God joining sinners to Christ justifies them because Christ Himself becomes their righteousness from God..

Justication is for God to wrought the Son into man. The Son becomes the forgiven sinner's very righteousness before God.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Why not? If the brain has the same characteristics as a computer, why would a computer be designed and not a brain?

Because we know a computer is designed and we don't know a brain is. Just because things are similar does not imply everything about them is the same. A brick used to build a house is designed. It is very similar to rock. that does not mean rocks are designed.
Many many man made products are designed to be near replicas of things found in nature. That does not mean that the things they are designed to replicate were also designed.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Because we know a computer is designed and we don't know a brain is. Just because things are similar does not imply everything about them is the same. A brick used to build a house is designed. It is very similar to rock. that does not mean rocks are designed.
Many many man made products are designed to be near replicas of things found in nature. That does not mean that the things they are designed to replicate were also designed.

Show me a perfectly rectangular rock and we can talk again.

Originally posted by JS357
Whether the premises are correct matters not to whether the analysis is rational.

Pigs can fly
Ari is a pig
So Ari can fly

Computers do not think, they do not rationalize, they calculate! If we put in a set of proper
inputs and outputs we can make them do what we tell them and sometimes that is what we
want.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Computers do not think, they do not rationalize, they calculate! If we put in a set of proper
inputs and outputs we can make them do what we tell them and sometimes that is what we
want.

Your original query was how a chemical reaction can produce reason. Now it.finally comes to mean think. Moving goalposts.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Show me a perfectly rectangular rock and we can talk again.

I could easily do so, but I won't because you haven't explained why doing so would be reason to talk again. Your logic is flawed and you know it. Finding a perfectly rectangular rock isn't going to help your case.

Originally posted by vivify

Whether evolution happened via unguided process or with some deliberate action from some sort of intelligence, it doesn't change that evolution happened, and has been witnessed, documented, tested and even used by humans for the benefit of society (breeding livestock, the science of genomics, etc.).

This is why when I use "Evolution" I specify what i call the Blind Watchmaker thesis theory. I am not talking about the evolution of dog breeding or finch beaks varying in size. I am not talking about these changes which have been witnessed.

By the Blind Watchmaker thesis I am talking about the unwitnessed belief that an unguided, unintelligent, goalless, purposeless process is resposible for every single last living thing in all their varieties in the world.

This is not the same as "We bred different size dogs." or "We bred fruit flies with different numbers of wings." or "We see some germs which are more resistant to some chemicals". I am not referring to those laboratory experiments under the label of "Evolution".

What has also been witnessed, is the evolution of humanity's ideas. Humans went from believing the world existed on the back of a giant turtle, to believing the world was the center of the universe, to knowing it's just one of countless world's in a vast, ever-expanding void.

The world is the center of the universe in a sense OTHER THAN physical.
We are looking constantly for a world LIKE the earth.
We are not AS MUCH constantly looking for a world like, say, Neptune. Why?

We consider the Earth rather than Neptune to be central to our concerns. Don't we ?

The physical center does not have to dictate the moral, spiritual, or philosophical center. Do you see as much excitement at NASA when they discover a planet like Venus or Jupiter? But if they detect another Earth, they are truly overjoyed.

Look, Sure, a little humility is good. But the EARTH is still the center of the universe.
Um, Do you see the environmentalists and climate change watchers as concerned about preserving conditions on Mars ?

Vivify,

Morality has similarly evolved. Mankind invented religion to explain the world and legitimize morality, and has more and more come to the conclusion that religion is not only unnecessary to legitimize morality, but most likely false.

Well, that religions are invented, I would not dispute.

Now you say in essence "We invented religion in our evolutionary development because morality needed to be legitimized." This sounds to me like as man is evolving his CONSCIENCE begins to bother him about some things. So religion needed to be invented to make certain decisions morally valid.

Let's say caveman Og clubs caveman Oogama with a club and breaks his skull. Now last year that was OK. And Og had no feeling of any wrong doing in the act. One day Og clubs another caveman Uga with a club and something says "No, I REALLY should not have done that."

So he gets busy to invent "Religion". Maybe he invents a god or someone. But that his conscience bothered him to begin with indicates he bumped up against some transcendent objective standard of morality.

Where did that come from. Why is it there? This is before any invention of "religion." First came a bad moral act (according to your theory) and THEN followed the need to invent religion. it was not the other way around was it?

Why was this objective standard of moral OUGHTNESS out there for him to evolve towards vivify?

To summarize, evolution is all around, including the evolution of morality.

Your theory suggests that as man evolves he arrives at a point in which he is AWARE of moral absolutes. So is he becoming more aware of the moral absolutes that exist eternally? And bumping up against them he finds the need to invent religion ?

Originally posted by sonship
Yes. But the ritual ordinances changed. Some ritual ordinances were of a symbolic nature and when Christ came to fulfill all the symbolism these ordinances were dropped

Originally posted by sonship
This is an unchanging moral standard from an unchanging Divine authority.

Reply by divegeester
Would you say that God's law as written in the bible is the basis for a robust, unchanging, authoritative moral framework?

Subsequent reply by sonship
Yes. But the ritual ordinances changed. Some ritual ordinances were of a symbolic nature and when Christ came to fulfill all the symbolism these ordinances were dropped.

No that is not correct; the punishments for breaking the laws also changed under the new covenant. It became no longer required to stone a woman for adultery for example.

So in your opinion, which was morally correct: to stone a woman for adultery, or not to stone a woman for adultery?

And therefore how do your explain you claim of an "unchanging moral standard"?

Originally posted by JS357
Your original query was how a chemical reaction can produce reason. Now it.finally comes to mean think. Moving goalposts.

What part of this don't you get? I can move stones or pieces of wood on strings and do
math, but reasoning and justification is a thought process in action. Computers do not
reason they simply do the math!

The only place I'm aware of that this happens is in a mind. The goal posts are not being
moved they are clearly being identified and defined. So when you have a chemical
reaction that produces reason, what is it we are looking at? Can we do this in a lab is
there something more to it than putting hardware together? The evolution of morality is
a cool sounding subject, but it sounds more like how is good and bad defined with and
without something more than earthy material being thrown together to form a body.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Computers do not think, they do not rationalize, they calculate! If we put in a set of proper
inputs and outputs we can make them do what we tell them and sometimes that is what we
want.

Suppose a computer program were to be written that faithfully simulated a human brain down to whatever scale is necessary to capture all the essential features if necessary tracking individual molecules with ~10^26 or so particles in the simulation). The simulated brain has inputs from a simulated environment. Would the simulation be capable of thought and if it is not thinking then what is it doing?

There are various real attempts at doing something like this with varying degrees of detail. They have modeled the complete nervous system of a type of nematode worm, but did not manage to get all the behaviours, probably because they weren't correctly modelling the neurones and synapses correctly. As well as some progress on parts of the brains of small rodents - so this is a practical question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_simulation

Originally posted by DeepThought

Suppose a computer program were to be written that faithfully simulated a human brain down to whatever scale is necessary to capture all the essential features if necessary tracking individual molecules with ~10^26 or so particles in the simulation).

Well one thing is for sure. The idea would make a blockbuster Sci Fi movie.


Move over Colossus - The Forbin Project !
Move over The Matrix !

The simulated brain has inputs from a simulated environment. Would the simulation be capable of thought and if it is not thinking then what is it doing?

There are various real attempts at doing something like this with varying degrees of detail. They have modeled the complete nervous system of a type of nematode worm, but did not manage to get all the behaviours, probably because they weren't correctly modelling the neurones and synapses correctly. As well as some progress on parts of the brains of small rodents - so this is a practical question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_simulation

Well, you do have the problem that all this would have to be worked out by, guess what? Intelligent Design.

Go back to the drawing board now and eliminate any intelligent engineering and intelligent programming, and propose your parallel. I'll have to sit up and take notice.

We're talking about Evolution - no purpose, no goal, no plan, no anticipation, no ability to look ahead to target a "desired" direction or "avoid" a undesireable one.

Work on your analogy in view of genuine Blind Watchmaker Evolution. Control Data Corp electrical engineers or Microsoft programmers not allowed.

Originally posted by divegeester

No that is not correct; the punishments for breaking the laws also changed under the new covenant. It became no longer required to stone a woman for adultery for example.

How so ? Please explain.

So in your opinion, which was morally correct: to stone a woman for adultery, or not to stone a woman for adultery?

And therefore how do your explain you claim of an "unchanging moral standard"?

First before I respond, I'd like you to explain a bit further how you see the law about the adultery changed. I will then give you my thoughts here.