Morality is a Logical Consequence of Evolution, not Creation

Hello Slevesque, Just so you don't feel so lonely, I also posted a similar view in the forum 'What was God's plan behind creation and why does He need one?', in the faith & belief section, Starting from post #91 onwards. Hope this helps.

Hello Jumped up Chimpanzee,Sorry for not contributing anything to this thread yet, though I have been following it. The posts in this topic are long aren't they, especially for my tiny brain to take in I think there is a distinction that needs to be made between good & bad, right & wrong, and morality. I see good & bad as purely subjective things that we determine, based on what we like or dislike, or what brings us pleasure or pain, and I would not call this morality. Right & wrong seems to me to be closer in meaning to describe morality, as an objective set of laws governing our behavior. Therefore your topic wording, that morality is a consequence of evolution, seems nonsensical to a christian mind. Good & bad being a consequence of evolution is a feasible theory, but morality, as defined by christians, is certainly not.When I mentioned discussing good & evil, I had in mind C.S. Lewis and his book 'Mere Christianity'. Lewis presents the idea that the fact that we argue with each other over who is right or wrong, presupposes that there actually exists an objective standard of right & wrong. If there is no objective standard of what is right or wrong, then it is pointless to argue, as we only argue to show the other man is wrong, which only works if you both believe that right & wrong do actually exist, and can hold each other accountable to it, which only works if it is objective.If you believe there is no objective standard for right & wrong, then it is ultimately a subjective thing, and whoever has the biggest club then determines what is right & wrong. But the one with the biggest club who dictates what is right & wrong, only does so to suit his particular likes & dislikes. So it cannot really be called 'morality', in the christian sense.

Hello Jumped up chimpanzee, Good question. One reason is because they matter. Let's say you are a doctor, and you notice in a maternity ward that another doctor who washes his hands between each delivery, has far fewer mothers & babies die after delivery, than other doctors who did not wash their hands. Even though you cannot prove it at that point, you are convinced there is a link. But when you ask all the other doctors to wash their hands between deliveries, you are met with refusals & mocking. In that situation I would be frustrated, heartbroken, and angry, that other doctors would not even humour you & do something so simple as to was their hands, when so many lives were potentially at stake. You are either right, which could save many lives, or you are wrong, and a few doctors wasted a little time for a lttle while testing this theory.I believe that whether you are right or wrong matters, that lives hang in the balance. So because of this, we do attach emotion to right & wrong. Christians believe that getting it right means eternal bliss, but getting it wrong means eternal damnation. I'd like to use another analogy of a designer and his creation to explain this. Say an person designs & builds a car. This car was designed to be operated in a certain way for best performance & reliability. Now this way of operation, would be called by the designer the correct or right way. Now say if somebody tried to open a window by throwing a brick at it, this would be called the wrong way.As God made this world and us, He would know what is the best way for us to operate, for our own benefit & others. God has told us how we should behave, and our belief in His set of regulations, and our attempts to follow them can be called our 'morality'. Sometimes our desires conflict with these regulations, but we are learning that any deviation from these regulations, always causes problems.So getting to your fork in the road analogy. Taking the right way, means reading our owners manual (Bible), and finding out what our manufacturer states is the right way. To choose any other way is the wrong way, regardless of how good or right it looks or feels.

Hello Jumped up chimpanzee, Our views might appear to be the same, but they are actually worlds apart. You feel that something is considered good if it has a benefit to the human race, which then has emotional attachment. I believe that something is objectively right because God has said so, regardless of how we feel about it. I presented the maternity scenario only to demonstate that right & wrong matter. What I was trying to say, is that whatever God said is right or wrong, matters. It still matters and is still right even when we cannot see how, and even if it causes us discomfort, and even when there is no emotional attachment, or even when we have a negative emotion towards it. I was not implying that deviating from only a few regulations always cause problems. I said that 'any deviation from these regulations, always causes problems. ' This means all of them. Whether we sin by telling a small lie, or by murdering many in an act of genocide, the result is the same. It comes between us & God. Some sins may cause us harm. Some may harm others. Some may cause no perceivable change. But they all harm our relationship with God. Many of Gods rules are contrary to our desires. I personally suffer from the sin of lust. Seeing a beutiful woman stirs up lots of emotions within me that I would call good. Evolutionary theory might also say that lust is a good instinct & is beneficial to the survival of the human race. But God has said that unless this woman is your wife, the act of looking at this woman and the thoughts & feelings that follow, are wrong. As I believe God is right, my emotional attachment is to the rule being right, even though my desires are in opposition to this.I hope you can now see a distinction between instinct/emotionally driven & derived good & bad V's revealed right & wrong. If God is an invention of man, then why don't all the rules pander to mans desires, and agree with your sense of right & wrong? Why would man invent the very concept of objective right & wrong, if all that really mattered was subjective good & bad governing our evolution?

Hello Jumped up chimpanzee, This is very speculative, and so is your whole premise. History however has demonstrated otherwise. Evolutionists such as Hitler & stalin show that those who want power over other people, do so by force, and have no problems killing millions to get their own way. Many evolutionists would explain their actions as being entirely consistent with evolutionary theory. You however attempt to show that morality can also be explained by evolution. If a person is selfish, bloodthirsty & lustful, evolution can explain that. If a person developes morality, don't worry, evolution can explain that too. Only problem though, a theory that can be twisted to explain everything, ends up explaining nothing. Ever seen the term 'Goddidit' on this site before? Perhapps I should invent a new term to explain your argument. How does 'Evodidit' sound? Perhapps the reason why there is not much interest in your forum, is because everyone else can see that there is no basis at all for morality in evolution. All the instincts and desires that we have are good things which God has given us. But any good thing can be used in a bad way, such as rape. Adam & eve didn't just discover sex one day by themselves and said 'this is fantastic, but lets not tell God, He's bound to be annoyed'. God was the one who created sex, and wants us to enjoy it. But if there were no limitations on sex or any other desire, then anarchy would reign.I believe evolution would lead to anarchy, not morality. Dawkins has similar views, as do other prominent evolutionists. Why are we wrong? This is similar to Larni's question about why couldn't God create a world without pain, which both presuppose that God does not know what He's doing, that He must be an idiot or something worse. God is not an idiot. Things are the way they are for a reason. I do not know the reason why God made us this way. Perhapps our sexual desires needed to be strong enough to overcome our desire to throw them (meaning female companion) out when they annoy us, and switching it off once we have chosen a mate might prevent us from ever procreating, which would be bad.Sorry but I'll have to answer the rest of your post later.Edited by Minority Report, : clarifying objectEdited by Minority Report, : Restating sentence for clarity.

Hello Jumped up chimpanzee, As I've said before in another topic, I believe God's rules come from His character. They are who He is, so to speak. They show us who God is, in the same way that you can tell alot about a person by what they care about.The rules also make us aware of our sin, to teach us what is right & wrong. Could God condemn us for offending Him, if He did not first tell us what He finds detestable?They are also there to keep the peace. As we are to live eternally with others & God, if we were allowed to 'do whatever seemed right in our own eyes', then people will end up hurting each other and God. Because God is perfect, Just and Holy. When we break a rule we are then blemished, impure & dirty. God cannot then remain in our presence. An analogy I can think of to explain this, is a Judge who had many friends over to dinner. One friend was a columbian drug lord. Another was the leader of a notorious bikie gang. Others were corrupt police officers, prostitutes etc. Would you have any faith in this Judge to deliver justice, or have respect of his authority? If our sins did not harm our relationship with God, then could we respect Him as a pure and holy lawgiver & judge? Because of a peculiar aspect of God's character, namely love, which He has also imparted into us.Edited by Minority Report, : No reason given.

Hello Jumped up chimpanzee, Sorry about that. I have ammended the post to better reflect what I meant.Will get to rest of your post later.

Hello Jumped up chimpanzee,Sorry for the delay. Had to go to the big smoke for training. I do not think we live in anarchy. I think we are precariously restrained from anarchy by the remenants of judeo-christian morality. I also think that we are restrained by God having created within us an instinctive sense of right & wrong.Dawkins may not have said the word 'anarchy' explicitly. I was simply making a one word summation of what Dawkins and others have implied on a number of occasions. Like the following; I hope you can see from this small selection of quotes that; Dawkins believes evolution leads to a moral vacuum, and a society based on natural laws would be very nasty, and one base on Darwinian laws would be a fascist state. I chose to use one word 'anarchy', which I thought best described what these combined statements implied. After re-reading my post however, I can see now how I stated it as if Dawkins had used this exact word, which I apologise for. He may well have, but I cannot find a quote just now, so I will ammend my post.Edited by Minority Report, : No reason given.Edited by Minority Report, : No reason given.

Hello hooah212002, Good point, and you are right. Man did not know good & evil untill eating fruit (not apple) from a specific tree that God had told them not to eat of. But could they have still understood right from wrong before that? I understand that I might be splitting hairs here, but is there a distinction between good & evil, and right & wrong? Adam may not have known what good & evil were, but I could argue that he did know it was wrong to eat the fruit, simply because God had told him not too. (I have suggested before in another topic that as soon as adam ate the fruit, he then suddenly realised that he had disobeyed God, and thus understood what evil was.)Now regarding a created instinctive sense of right & wrong. I know that the paragraph above implies that our knowledge of right & wrong is determined by God telling us so, and I have also previously stated as much, and so you therefore may conclude that it cannot also be a created instinct. So I will try & explain. When writing this, I had in mind that God created us in his image,(Gen1:26-27) and that part of this 'image' included God's sense of right & wrong. I know I may be speculating, as I cannot find Biblical verses that state what exactly this 'image of God' included. But that was where I was comming from.

Hello Jumped up chimpanzee,Just trying to get back to some of your earlier comments which I havn't answered yet. Ok. I can see where you are comming from. From your perspective that evolution is true, morality must be explainable by selection pressures, or invented by man for personal power, etc. Your answers are consistent with your belief, and appear logically feasible from your perspective.It's just that I'm still struggling with the whole objective / subjective thing, which you seem to be ignoring. Any chance of discussing this? Yes I am certain things happen for a reason, because I read in the Bible 'are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your father'. Yes God does not always tell us His reasons, but we can be certain that there is one. You originally asked 'Why didn't God make us in such a way that we would only have eyes for one person?'. Surely you must understand that an answer to this kind of question will most likely be speculative. The Bible describes what God has done, and does not record many reasons for why he didn't do it another way.

Hello Razd,It's kind of funny that your link; Logic v Intelligent Design: Dawkins "Darwinism leads to Fascism" is actually where I copied one of the quotes from. I just vaugely remembered reading about evolution and morality somewhere, and some Dawkins related quotes, so I just did a google search and copied the quotes from the first sites I could find them in. Yes I did read some of the comments on that site regarding the quote, and yes I can see how social darwinism is different from what Jumped up chimpanzee is propposing. In a similar way, just because murders are recorded in the Bible does not also mean they are condoned by the Bible.However, when I mentioned before about Hitler & stalin, they were actually trying to implement social darwinism, and those who supported them wanted to live in a 'facist state'. They thought evolution justified it, and would be a good thing. So the question is, how can one evolutionist who believes what Hitler did, be called morally wrong by another evolutionist who believes otherwise? What is there in Darwinian evolution, that can determine whose morality is right?