Why do right?

I don't know what your post is based on, however, if you want me to withdraw, I will. I am at your service.

Speaking of fallible male heirarchy, do you not find it a bit odd that I wrote one paragraph, and had three replies coming from different angles, with three different conclusions?I certainly am agnostic toward little green men, none-the-less, if I met one who matched my criteria for God, I might accept him. So far, the little green part is a no, no.

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But you don't know that they have codes, only conduct. Why can't you just belive that God gave the right conduct to all animals, even those without choice? We have a code because we have choice. They do right naturally.

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Why can't I "just believe Godidit"?Because that's the poorest, least useful explanation anyone could possibly come up with.It leads to no new understanding at all, and is, in all ways, a bucket of cold water thrown on the fire of rational inquiry and curiosity.It is the most anti-intellectual thing one could manage to think regarding this problem.That's why.Have I stated this strongly enough yet?

You misunderstand. I follow no word, but the word of my conscience. Any being, great or small, green, pink, or spotted, who tells me to oppose my conscience, is not God.

Then I certainly did misunderstand. I was under the impression that you had been saying all along that your conscience comes from God.

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Pretty dismissive of our discussion, don't you think?My point was: if you are bored of the discussion, withdraw from it.What other way did you expect me to interpret your response?

Yes I noticed that.However your response to my message Message 138 was tangential and unclear so it was hard to follow exactly what you were trying to say, speaking for myself of course. (ps I am being biblical here in that I am alluding to the fact the male fallibility is ultimately due to female weakness , joke , joke ok?)Let me try again. You believe that our moral sense of right/wrong was given to us by this being call God and described specifically (and uniquely?) in the bible. That this moral sense is not something that can result from nature, red in tooth and claw.I say poppycock! The roots of human ethical propensities can be found in varying degrees in the animal world. This is becoming increasingly well documented in the past few decades.Furthermore an advanced form of extra-terrestrial life or even the forms of life that spring from the H. Sapiens will look back at our crude ethics with the same dismissal that we view ethics within the animal world. I am not talking about God, a being that I presume did not originate via a evolutionary path.I am saying that the course of evolution will eventually give emergence to a ethic that is not primarily centered around our species.I was responding to your statements that put humans on a pedestal as being special and that this is obviously due to some impartation from God.

Yes, what is the problem? I repeat; if any alien creature posing as God were to ask me to oppose my consience, I would not accept said creature as God.

But we're not talking about changing your allegience from one god to another. We're talking about the origin of your conscience.What if the alien had gotten to you first? What if he had told you you have keep slaves and sacrifice virgins? Would that be what your "conscience" would tell you? If the Christian God came along later and told you to love your neighbour, would that oppose your conscience?

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Sorry, Iceage, I guess I was a bit tangential and worse coming from what you had said. I was implying that I do believe we are animalistic in ways (selfish survival tendencies) and that an extra-terrestrial being sees this and has given us morality to draw our minds away from our petty 'natural' self into a more heroic self which loves others. I was sort of thinking how strange it is that people have no problem imaging an extra-terrestrial super-intelligence which views and judges us, but get bashful about calling this 'God'.

Sorry, double post connection problems.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

It is not a great question to ask me. I don't think a conscience can alter. It can only be ignored till you don't hear it. Think about the stories you hear about being 'saved'. People convert from slave keepers of the Spirit every day, and it is not grueling on their consience.In other words, if an alien had me keeping slaves and sacrificing virgins, I believe I could get 'saved' without my conscience being sad. It might even be the first time I discovered I HAD a conscience. And P.S....I am not turning into a 'born again' preacher, just making a point.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

That's not what I asked though. I'm trying to get at the origin of your conscience. If you "discovered" your conscience for the first time, wouldn't that suggest that it's deeper than your beliefs?You claim that your conscience "guides" you to your God, but every believer in every God makes the same claim. That suggests that our conscience isn't just a mere message from God - it's something more fundamental, from a deeper level than mere belief in God - a biological level.As people have been trying to explain to you.

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First of all, I don't mean you personally have to or should believe anything, and I am not asking you to.Once again, I see emotional-type behaviors in animals which resemble our codes of conduct. I see CONDUCT in animals, and have no idea if there is a MORAL CODE which they follow out of choice and which dictates this conduct.The question, 'why can't you just believe that God gave the same conduct to all animals, even those without apparent free-will or choice'? means 'is there any reason not to believe that animals are wired to act morally without having to think about it', and is NOT an attempt to elicit a belief statement from you or anyone. It was one sentence. Pages and pages of preachy preaching doesn't convert anyone, I wouldn't expect one sentence to.I apologize for my ignorance, as I was not aware that there was a competition between learning and believing in God. I thought it was possible to do both.

Oh, silly Ringo, is that the problem? I know it is biological and in my brain instead of imparted by the Spirit in a sneaky whisper. I just think that we've evolved this conscience for a reason more than survival of the body.