The Evolution of Morality

[Ginger123]

Ummm......let's just assume that those near death experiences actually revealed a contact with a god........how do you know it was yours...?

Because it's been shown that NDEs all see the God they were raised to see, Christians only ever see Jesus and Muslims only ever see Mohamed and so on, they never see a different God because they only ever imagine their own God.

 

[Papias]

Once -

About being busy - yes, I fully understand. Take your time, do what works with your schedule (and that which you enjoy). I'm busy too - that's why I don't post every hour myself.

On a tangent, you wrote:

Originally Posted by bhsmte

Uh huh.

But you stated; "He and the little girl" as if they got together on the plan for her. How could this happen, if she was not born yet?

Right. We have souls. It is possible that we know God prior to being born.

Um, Once, be careful. Many Christian churches deny the pre-existance of the soul, and consider it heresy. It is affirmed in the Mormon heresy.

Blessings-

Papias

 

[Oncedeceived]

Because it's been shown that NDEs all see the God they were raised to see, Christians only ever see Jesus and Muslims only ever see Mohamed and so on, they never see a different God because they only ever imagine their own God.

How many cases of Muslims seeing Mohammed do you know about? Please provide sources.

 

[Belk]

How many cases of Muslims seeing Mohammed do you know about? Please provide sources.

Since they do not consider Mohammed to be a god why would they see him?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Since they do not consider Mohammed to be a god why would they see him?

Ask Ginger he is the one that made the claim.

 

[Davian]

The Soul is the REAL you. There are two parts to us, the body (vessel) and Soul. The Soul is your experiences, memories and even your personality. It contains all the information for your physical make up. Without a body, the Soul is unable to think or dream, it needs a body. Upon death, the Soul receives a new body that is not corruptible, a body of spirit which is eternal. We were trapped until the sacrifice from God, trapped in only being able to have a flesh body which had to die due to sin. We are now able to continue to the next stage and receive a spirit body.

Interesting story. How do I know that you are not just making that up as you go along?

How do we determine if this is possible? well, you could ask the many people who have temporarily died in surgery and been revived. Oh and it isn't a trick of the mind, some research has shown they had no brain activity in that time. No brain activity=no dreams or thoughts.

Can you cite one case that has withstood scientific scrutiny?

 

[bhsmte]

How many cases of Muslims seeing Mohammed do you know about? Please provide sources.

Look up Jody Long on Google and you will see her and her physician husbands research in regards to NDE. Research has shown, a person's personal belief system is part of their NDE.

"One of the near-death experience truths is that each person integrates their near-death experience into their own pre-existing belief system." - Jody Long, NDERF.org

 

[Oncedeceived]

Once wrote:



No problem. From that post, it looks like we have exhausted some topics, agreed on others (from the end of that post -#270), and the main topic we'll get back to is about how morality can develop (below).





I don't remember how many were direct links, and how many were links to pages that had more links. However, I did notice that the bibliography to the Moral Animal is available online, and that has pages and pages of references. Of course, many of those are not what you are looking for, but many are. If you really want to look into the extensive work that has been done, that's a list that will take you years to investigate.

To access that list, go to the link below, click on "index", then page up above the index, and you'll be in the bibliography.
The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology: Robert Wright: 9780679763994: Amazon.com: Books

I went and had a look. Much of the information that was used was really dated. The titles listed were more on present day Physcology.

Sigh. Yes. So I tried to summarize a 500 page book which itself was a summary of decades of research before, and that didn't work. Against my better judgement, I'll try again:

OK, first, imagine that intelligence evovles (I'll cover that more below). Now, in a species of intelligent creatures, I think we agree that hierarchies are expected to evolve (if you don't agree, we can cover that too, but I'm trying to save time). For instance, wolves, monkeys, lions, deer, and many other animals have a hierarchical structure - so I'm guessing you'll agree that's a likely situation.

Its not an issue anyway.

Add to that the ability of the creatures to remember past interactions with each other. This is also common among many animals, including vampire bats, gazelles, dogs, and so on. It's a requirement to have a hierarchy, because otherwise it would not be remembered who was the alpha male, etc.

Memory is another evolutionary mystery. We don't know when or how it evolved. We do not know how it even works now. So you put forth memory as a requirement but have no evolutionary explanation for it.

Now, as you know from daily life, situations arise often where helping someone helps them much more than it hurts you. For instance, giving some extra food to a starving person saves their life, yet cost you little (because you have a surplus), or releasing them from a trap/entanglement takes only a minute of your time, and saves their life, etc. So a brain structure that causes generosity will benefit yourself, because now and then the tables will be turned, and you'll receive a great benefit from someone you helped before. However, if someone always helps everyone, then they are taken advantage of even by those who themselves never help anyone.

This explains altruism on today's terms. In man's early existence (if we even start at man) life was not of surplus, it was not about time on one's hands. It was an existence of constant struggle to stay alive.

This is structurally the same as the classic "prisoner's dilemma", and a lot of research has been done using computer programs to simulate societies of hundreds of individuals, and a mix of very different brain structures (responses) including those who always take advantage of others (while never helping), those who help everyone, those who only help those who have helped them (tit-for-tat), and a whole mix of other strategies (such as "random"). Then, the simulations allow the next generation based on those who have benefited the most (natural selection).

After the fact material. This isn't about the arising of morality.

These simulations have shown repeatedly that tit-for-tat is a winning algorithm. Tit-for-tat is what one gets if mutations have structured the brain to respond according to a moral code, including a sense of fairness. It's the moral code we share with many other primates, including monkeys, as seen here: Fairness Experiment: Moral behaviour in Monkeys - YouTube

You are interpreting the actions of the monkey to show fairness, what I see is that the monkey sees that the rock gets grapes, it gives the rock intending to get the grape and doesn't get it. It doesn't want the cucumber so it throws it back and tries to get the grape itself. It is a desire for the grape, not fairness that is being shown.

This is but one of many parts of the growing body of research on the evolution of morality, and that's about what I have time for now.

Which I feel is not showing what it is trying to show and only is being interpreted in the way they want to interpret it.

OK, trying to see what your objection here is....

Maybe it is that you don't see it possible for intelligence to delope gradually - "you either have it or you don't".

Yes, I am saying that intelligence does not evolve from mindless processes.

If so, then consider this. Intelligence, like so many other traits, is a gradual scale. A newborn is obviously doesn't have intelligence. It can't reason, think, consider, or anything. As time goes by, the intelligence develops gradually, and a 12 year old is obviously intelligent. (or, if you are going to claim a newborn is intelligent, then simply go back to a zygote, and that's clearly not intelligent.

I have read studies that provide evidence that intelligence is present in infancy and in fact, is present at birth and brought out in stages. It is there it is just revealed in stages.

Or maybe your objection is that intelligence is not an advantage for survival. However, a more intelligent creature is better at getting food and avoiding being food. You can see this in the advantage of a greater degree of intelligence in most given situations, such as, say, stalking a prey animal.

That is not a problem for me.

In either case, our earlier agreement - that God created mt. Vesuvius - even though we also agree that Mt. Vesuvius was made by natural geologic forces, gradually, often under the observation of people - may help here. In some ways, that is like the evolution of intelligence from a mammal like Eomaia to a dog, or from an animal like hylonomus to a parrot. In those cases, intelligence has clearly increased over time. Morality could be the same way - selected for due to it's demonstrated advantages for natural selection, and developing gradually - a naturalistic process that God is using to create.

We can always develop a way that things could be possible, is it true is the question. We agree that God created and that we observe the result of that. I don't understand that you seem to be unable to see the possibility of God ingraining anything into the life forms that allow for morality and intelligence to come into existence.

Papias[/quote]

 

[Oncedeceived]

But you do?

Once you invoke ignorance of why God does this or that you open the door to God using pain and suffering for immoral uses. Like you say . . . you don't know.

So? You have multitudes of things you don't know in your own position.

 

[bhsmte]

So? You have multitudes of things you don't know in your own position.

Here is the difference. Science doesn't make stuff up when the answer is not known and they say; we don't know.

Many people with faith, have a very hard time when they are asked to explain something about their faith and stating; I don't know. So, they make up a story to try and rationalize their belief.

Could be why there are so many denominations of christianity, because you have so many people inventing stories to rationalize their beliefs.

 

[Oncedeceived]

None of us will ever have "all the knowledge" about anything.........but why do we need that to decide what is right and wrong...? I would never deliberately create a situation whereby an innocent child would suffer terribly.....and I dare say, given some of your previous comments, neither would you...

And why would we act that way...?....because, without having anywhere near "all the knowledge", we nevertheless know enough to realise that causing suffering to others is just plain wrong...!

What a lot your god could learn from good people like us.....

I can't make a judgement call on God, I don't know His reasons or purpose. I don't know if it is due to the fall of mankind. However, I do know God and I know Him to be loving and concerned with details in my life. So I will trust Him and that will be one answer I look forward to having.

 

[Oncedeceived]

I think this shows just how hopelessly you have lost your way, you're dreaming up ways to get around what you know you should be believing, what purpose could it possible serve to give a child a horrible disease?
But I have no doubt given the mind set you're in you will think of one.

Do you admit that this would be a possible situation that would allow for pain and suffering to someone, if they themselves chose to do so?

 

[bhsmte]

I can't make a judgement call on God, I don't know His reasons or purpose. I don't know if it is due to the fall of mankind. However, I do know God and I know Him to be loving and concerned with details in my life. So I will trust Him and that will be one answer I look forward to having.

If you can't know God's reasons or purpose, how can you make a statement that God knows us before we are even born and together with the soul of someone who is not born yet, agrees on a plan that may include immense suffering?

 

[Oncedeceived]

No....you've obviously forgotten what the "why" was in reference to.....

You said that it was necessary to show that morality had developed BEFORE the evolution of intelligence....I want to know how you arrive at that claim.....My contention would be that moral codes, of one kind or another, developed within sentient species as they evolved brains that were capable of holding such concepts. In some species, of course, these would not be 'conscious' concepts, but would be hard-wired into the genetic make-up...

You actually have that backwards, I said that you had to have intelligence prior to morality and that you didn't have an explanation for that.

Wrong. Your god (or any imaginary force) could produce evidence of its existence.....doesn't mean I would have to accept it. Moreover, even if I accepted its existence, there is still no "force" acting on me to worship or obey that god.....the story of Satan is illustrative here....So my free will would still be intact.

Satan knows God exists.

Also, why does someone like Paul of Tarsus supposedly receive the clear evidence of your god, in order that he might convert, but the rest of us can, literally, go to hell......

Paul of Tarsus had a purpose and died doing it.

 

[Oncedeceived]

If you can't know God's reasons or purpose, how can you make a statement that God knows us before we are even born and together with the soul of someone who is not born yet, agrees on a plan that may include immense suffering?

I said that could be possible.

 

[bhsmte]

I said that could be possible.

So you just made that up, correct?

 

[Oncedeceived]

So you just made that up, correct?

There are scriptures that support that type of possibility. However, do you agree that would shed a different light on the question?

 

[bhsmte]

There are scriptures that support that type of possibility. However, do you agree that would shed a different light on the question?

There are all kinds of scripture that make all kinds of statements. Unknown authors from 2000 years ago can write whatever they desire. What would be nice, is to have any logic or evidence to show any of it could be true.

 

[Oncedeceived]

There are all kinds of scripture that make all kinds of statements. Unknown authors from 2000 years ago can write whatever they desire. What would be nice, is to have any logic or evidence to show any of it could be true.

There are all sorts of things we don't have evidence for with your position.

 

[bhsmte]

There are all sorts of things we don't have evidence for with your position.

Such as?