The Evolution of Morality

[OldWiseGuy]

You have yet to describe an emotional event in spiritual terms. Please give an example of a spiritual experience... for the third time.

Don't you mean a spiritual event in emotional terms.

 

[HitchSlap]

Don't you mean a spiritual event in emotional terms.

Will you define "spiritual?"

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Will you define "spiritual?"

Defining spiritual is as difficult as defining pornography, as that judge famously said: "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."

 

[HitchSlap]

Defining spiritual is as difficult as defining pornography, as that judge famously said: "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."

I agree with you that defining spiritual is problematic for you guys, as in you can't.

 

[bhsmte]

I have independent objective evidence in the reason and logic that we use to debate here. Logic and reason if left to naturalistic origins renders them both to subjective relativity. I have independent objective evidence in the fact that the universe is uniform and intelligible to us. I have evidence that speaks to human dignity and personal identity which transcends naturalistic cause and effect.

I have objective evidence in that the universe reflects the intelligence behind it. I see intelligence in the simplest forms of life. I observe Biblical predictions that can be proven in the the outcomes.

I have independent objective evidence when I have prayed and others see the visual result with me.

I see independent objective evidence in all of your denials.

Well, that may be objective evidence for your personally, but it is not independent objective evidence that could be verified to anyone outside of your own mind.

Hey, if it works for you, then thats great, but what you describe is really only how you choose to interpret the examples you gave.

 

[nuttypiglet]

Oncedeceived you are so in love with fooling yourself about a God the very very last thing you want to do is stop,
if you stopped you think you would fall apart, you might but only for a while then you would be free to be yourself.

You really are so full of it. You seem to quote Richard nutty Dawkins word for word in almost all your posts. It is mathematically impossible for this Universe to come about in its current condition by chance, yet you believe it. The same goes for life starting, but you believe it. Let me tell you what Dawkins says about those problems "Just because we don't understand them now, it doesn't mean we never will". So sit back, enjoy the very long wait and hope the truth is discovered one day by science. I think it will astound you when they discover it, IF they do.
On the topic of Christianity, it is very true what someone posted, that the more you read the Bible the more it reveals itself. It has nothing to do with changing ones mind. God wants to see just how sincere you are with your seeking truth. It is also silly to try and put all Christians into one basket. To many it's just a title they've awarded themselves and are not in Christ at all. I was amazed to watch a documentary where they interviewed the general public, asking Christians very simple questions about the faith. Around 80% had no idea what the answers were. Perhaps the church is at fault for not reaching out to people more?
I have been studying Christianity for many years and believe me, there's still plenty I don't understand. It's the same with Science though isn't it. Yes you get fanatics in Christianity who choose certain verses and take them out of context. However, you get that with most religions. Some even use religion as an excuse for their choices.

 

[biggles53]

You really are so full of it. You seem to quote Richard nutty Dawkins word for word in almost all your posts. It is mathematically impossible for this Universe to come about in its current condition by chance, yet you believe it. The same goes for life starting, but you believe it. Let me tell you what Dawkins says about those problems "Just because we don't understand them now, it doesn't mean we never will". So sit back, enjoy the very long wait and hope the truth is discovered one day by science. I think it will astound you when they discover it, IF they do.
On the topic of Christianity, it is very true what someone posted, that the more you read the Bible the more it reveals itself. It has nothing to do with changing ones mind. God wants to see just how sincere you are with your seeking truth. It is also silly to try and put all Christians into one basket. To many it's just a title they've awarded themselves and are not in Christ at all. I was amazed to watch a documentary where they interviewed the general public, asking Christians very simple questions about the faith. Around 80% had no idea what the answers were. Perhaps the church is at fault for not reaching out to people more?
I have been studying Christianity for many years and believe me, there's still plenty I don't understand. It's the same with Science though isn't it. Yes you get fanatics in Christianity who choose certain verses and take them out of context. However, you get that with most religions. Some even use religion as an excuse for their choices.

I'm a mathematician. So I'd be very happy if you can produce the calculations that prove what you say about the existence of the universe and of life.....

And, on the other.....of course you have a myriad of opinions as to what 'being a Christian' means.......this is what happens when people "pretend to know what they don't know", as Peter Bogassian says about those who form their world views based upon faith.....

 

[nuttypiglet]

I'm a mathematician. So I'd be very happy if you can produce the calculations that prove what you say about the existence of the universe and of life.....

And, on the other.....of course you have a myriad of opinions as to what 'being a Christian' means.......this is what happens when people "pretend to know what they don't know", as Peter Bogassian says about those who form their world views based upon faith.....

If you are a mathematician you wouldn't need me to provide anything. You would have already done the calculations for the odds for yourself surely.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Or the FSM, or fairies, or Romulus, or Thor or Mithras or Bob.

Your argument is from incredulity. You might be entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts. In short, you're free to believe what you need to for the sake of your religion, but you're nowhere near having evidence of a god/s. Even your lead apologists Craig and D'Souza admit you can't prove god exists, so not sure why you persist with these assertions?

Facts are facts. They belong to everyone. Facts come by way of truth. They do not change and do not become the property of ideology or even Religion. So, if the facts support the premise that God exists that is just as valid as any argument made to counter it.

I didn't claim to "prove" God exists, I said that the facts support it.

Now for the FSM, there are no facts to support its existence, nor the others excluding Bob because I am sure we could find some form of existence of a Bob that could be proven.

The fact that you can determine what is factual, or even reasonable has no reasonable or factual origins other than God. Your argumentation is only possible if the Christian God exists.

 

[bhsmte]

Facts are facts. They belong to everyone. Facts come by way of truth. They do not change and do not become the property of ideology or even Religion. So, if the facts support the premise that God exists that is just as valid as any argument made to counter it.

I didn't claim to "prove" God exists, I said that the facts support it.

Now for the FSM, there are no facts to support its existence, nor the others excluding Bob because I am sure we could find some form of existence of a Bob that could be proven.

The fact that you can determine what is factual, or even reasonable has no reasonable or factual origins other than God. Your argumentation is only possible if the Christian God exists.

The facts that you state lead to God in your interpretation and that is fine, have at it.

But, there is no objective evidence, that the facts you state show that God exists. You see, you have to have faith to interpret the facts the way you do and that is not objective, that is subjective.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Well, that may be objective evidence for your personally, but it is not independent objective evidence that could be verified to anyone outside of your own mind.

Hey, if it works for you, then thats great, but what you describe is really only how you choose to interpret the examples you gave.

Objective evidence is not a personal property. It is objective to one and all. The fact that you have the ability and intellect to make reasonable determinations only makes sense if the Christian God exists.

You are right, you have the choice, I have the choice to describe reality in one way or the other. To make the choice to believe that our ability to reason...our intelligence is something that arose from mindless matter or from intelligence. That our ability to understand the universe just happened to evolve in such a way that mathematics can explain it is your choice. Does it make sense to think that evolution could bring about intelligence and to use that intelligence to understand our universe and have the universe intelligible and mathematical by purely naturalistic processes? Or does it make more sense that a powerful intelligent being modeled us after Himself, provided a universe that through His intelligence reflected that intelligence and could be understood and studied by those He created? It is our choice, but the ability to do so is given by God and only makes sense if God exists.

 

[Oncedeceived]

The facts that you state lead to God in your interpretation and that is fine, have at it.

Well thank you I think I will.

But, there is no objective evidence, that the facts you state show that God exists. You see, you have to have faith to interpret the facts the way you do and that is not objective, that is subjective.

Well you see my friend we are in the same boat, are we not? It takes faith to interpret the facts in the way you do, and that is not objective that is subjective. In fact, if we go with your interpretation all is subjective and not objective in any way. If we go with your interpretation, reason is a manifestation of mindless natural processes that can only be subjective in nature.

It takes faith to determine that a mindless naturalistic process could provide for life, the intelligent universe, the intelligence and consciousness of humans, for logic or objectiveness. It takes faith to chose to believe that a mindless naturalistic process could provide truth at all.

 

[AV1611VET]

The facts that you state lead to God in your interpretation and that is fine, have at it.

But, there is no objective evidence, that the facts you state show that God exists. You see, you have to have faith to interpret the facts the way you do and that is not objective, that is subjective.

IN GOD WE TRUST

ONE NATION, UNDER GOD

[youtube]djeFP5mIzNw[/youtube]

If that's subjective, then I say, "Let's get subjective!"

 

[Nithavela]

ONE NATION, UNDER GOD

Since a few decades.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I agree with you that defining spiritual is problematic for you guys, as in you can't.

Not problematic at all. It would be like trying to explain to a bunnyhugger why I hunt. To paraphrase,

"To the believer none is necessary. To the unbeliever none is possible."

 

[Papias]

Wow, step away for a few days, and bam! hundreds of posts. I guess I'm on the same page as you, Once, as you stated earlier about time.

Once wrote:

Yes, there is a mix of old and new stuff. The old stuff is still relevant if it hasn't been found wrong by newer work. At any rate, this gives you a lot to look into if you are interested in understanding how morality can result from an evolutionary process, in addition to the descriptions from the book which I wrote out, and of course newer work, like that in the several journals on this topic.

OK, that sounds like we agree that the evolution of intelligence and of hierarchy are agreed to be feasible.

​

Only in the fact that God ingrained the intelligence within the living forms. There is nothing in evolution that would create mindfulness from mindlessness.

Um, no. That's like saying that evolution can't create sight from sightlessness, or walking from nonwalking. In those and countless other cases, the evolutionary path is clear, straightforward, and supported by evidence.

It's as if you didn't read the dozens of references given so far which spell out in detail the specifics of the steps, and the overall references showing the overall process.

Just doesn't work. Hierarchy had to begin with some intelligence to evolve from.

Sure, a hierarchy can't arise until there is intelligence, but no one posited otherwise. From intelligence (such as an early mammal could evolve), memory can arise, hierarchy can then arise, then reciprocy, then a rudimentary moral code, then a more advanced moral code, etc. I've walked you through some of these, and provided resources for more explanation if you'd like that. Forgive me if it's sounding more and more to me like those Cardinals who refused to look through Galileo's telescope.

Memory is not an evolutionary mystery. The physical and chemical way memories are formed, retained, and recalled is well understood in detail, and is based on the binding of magnesium ions on neural synapses. I don't have a biology degree and I even know that. It's described in more detail in basic biology courses like this one: Biology: The Science of Life

Yet, understanding how information is encoded in our brains and how memories are maintained, both at the conceptual and molecular levels, remains one of the greatest challenges in the life sciences. Through decades of research, biologists have answered many fundamental questions about the brain, and more recent work has revealed the identity of several crucial molecules involved in the storage and retrieval of information. This has at last begun to shed light on the major scientific puzzle: how do we form and maintain long-term memories?

Ancient rules of memory. The molecules and mechanisms of memory evolved long before their ‘modern' use in the brain

OK, perhaps I overstated it a bit, but not much. Notice the line after the one you highlighted - that many fundamental questions are answered, and notice that this is one researcher - others have additional pieces to the puzzle, and also notice that this article itself is from more than 5 years ago. If even 5 years ago we had "begun to shed light" on the full picture of memory, then you can see we have an even better handle on it today.

Worst of all, perhaps, is that again we appear to see a Christian taking a position of hoping we don't figure out more. That's not the type of Christianity I hope for, and certainly not the type that will survive into the future.

The upshot is that memory is decently understood on many levels, especially on the molecular level of how it works. Questions like "exactly where in the brain is each memory stored?" or "why are no memories apparently stored in the amygdala?" are details that may well be unsolved now, but are not relevant to understanding the basic mechanism involved.

However, it is not as complete and said and done as you would like lead me to believe.

​

OK, as I agreed, I overstated it a bit. Nonetheless, both the basic function and the evolutionary path to it are far from being blind mysteries.

Are you a neurologist?

No. That's why I don't disagree with those who are, nor do I reject their body of knowledge without knowing the full extent of it. I think that's an important thing to remember for anyone, especially a Christian.

​

It again sounds like you are making false assertions from a position of ignorance.

Do you have a degree in neurology?

No. That's why I don't make assertions saying that those who are don't know anything.

It's also worth mentioning that the evolution of nervous systems is also well understood, with plenty of intermediates.

What intermediates. I don't want your copy and paste usual response. What intermediates are there?

You know, there is a huge amount of wonderous information out there waiting for you. A sponge has the cellular machinery which could be used to make a crude nervous system. Cnidarians take this one step further by having an unorganized placement of cells that act as crude nerves, making a nervous network. Flatworms take this one step further in having a net with a preferred axial pathway. Lancets take this one step further by beefing that up to a neural cord. Agnatha take this one step further by differentiating those nerves to serve more than one function, and form a cluster of nerves at one end. Fish take this one step further with a bigger brain (formerly a cluster) and additional differentiation. Moving along our ancestry up to us, we have a much more complex nervous system, with a half dozen different kinds of sensory neurons, motor nerves going the other way, an extremely complex brain, and so on. Plus, there are of course intermediates between all those intermediates. It's worth repeating - you know, there is a huge amount of wonderous information out there waiting for you.

What does that say about fairness or morality?

The monkey has a sense of what is fair and what is not, and refuses a treat because it is unfair, even though a treat is better than no treat. Did you watch any of the additional videos like this? Do you need links?

Why would you think that this is being interpreted in a non-objective way? After all, this work is being done by people with all kinds of different motivations and worldviews - some Christians, some Muslims, some Atheists, and so on. How could they possibly be all trying to support these disparate worldviews, yet agreeing on the data?

​

They all have the same goal? The video was said to show that the monkey was upset due to the unfairness of the reward. However, that is a subjective conclusion. It is in fact subjective in all cases due to the monkey's motive or intent.

​

Then how are you interpreting the monkey's turning down of a treat?

OK, so consider an egg cell with a sperm cell next to it. It it intelligent?

According to the study, yes.

​

Um, help me out here. How again are you saying that an egg and sperm cell are intelligent?

I'm really curious about that, since you seem to have implied it before too.

Thanks

OK, good. So we agree that intelligence confers an advantage, and hence would experience positive selection pressure by natural selection. Oh, I agree that, aside from any evidence about what actually happened, that God could well have ingrained something into life forms that gave rise to intelligence. In fact, in that way I agree that God could have poofed intelligence into being at any time, or at multiple times. Or that God could have poofed all life into existence instantaneously, or that He could have poofed Mt. Vesuvius into existence instantaneously, or that He could have poofed you and I into existence instantaneously last Thursday.

​

Why would He necessarily need to poof into existence?

You are saying that at some time He poofed intelligence into existence (made it from nothing). I am pointing out that God's revelation in His creation shows that he developed it from precursors, just as he made you or I.

I'm simply looking at the evidence and seeing HOW God likely actually did the creating - since He could have created it in by using any of literally millions of methods.

I think we agree that God did the creating, and that God is vast and powerful enough to have used any of millions of methods, right?

​

We agree that God did the creating, He is powerful enough to do anything He wishes. We are just looking at that differently.

Are you looking at God's entire revelation, including that from His creation?

Have a good day-

-Papias

 

[bhsmte]

Objective evidence is not a personal property. It is objective to one and all. The fact that you have the ability and intellect to make reasonable determinations only makes sense if the Christian God exists.

You are right, you have the choice, I have the choice to describe reality in one way or the other. To make the choice to believe that our ability to reason...our intelligence is something that arose from mindless matter or from intelligence. That our ability to understand the universe just happened to evolve in such a way that mathematics can explain it is your choice. Does it make sense to think that evolution could bring about intelligence and to use that intelligence to understand our universe and have the universe intelligible and mathematical by purely naturalistic processes? Or does it make more sense that a powerful intelligent being modeled us after Himself, provided a universe that through His intelligence reflected that intelligence and could be understood and studied by those He created? It is our choice, but the ability to do so is given by God and only makes sense if God exists.

Absolutely, we have a choice how we interpret the reality around us.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Absolutely, we have a choice how we interpret the reality around us.

So we do have a choice, we then take that one step farther and decided which interpretation fits better with reality.

 

[bhsmte]

Well thank you I think I will.



Well you see my friend we are in the same boat, are we not? It takes faith to interpret the facts in the way you do, and that is not objective that is subjective. In fact, if we go with your interpretation all is subjective and not objective in any way. If we go with your interpretation, reason is a manifestation of mindless natural processes that can only be subjective in nature.

It takes faith to determine that a mindless naturalistic process could provide for life, the intelligent universe, the intelligence and consciousness of humans, for logic or objectiveness. It takes faith to chose to believe that a mindless naturalistic process could provide truth at all.

To make the leap, that God did it, is the ultimate subjective claim. You are welcome to do it if it works for you and makes you a better person. Did I ever claim to know how life started? No, I don't believe I ever did. Because I don't know, does not mean I automatically attach a super natural being to it to fill in the gap, because there is no evidence of that. There is also no evidence of where this supreme being came from and who created him. Do you know where your God came from?

But there is tons of evidence to explain the world we live in, that do not require that God be inserted. About 100 years ago, there were all sorts of gaps to insert God, today, many of those Gaps have vanished. I would suspect, 100 years from now, the gaps will narrow even more and religious folks will have to keep adjusting their faith to account for it, just as most christians have adjusted by accepting the overwhelming evidence for evolution.

So I am not like you and I don't take anything that explains the world on faith. I come to a conclusion based on objective evidence and If none exists, I say I don't know.

 

[HitchSlap]

Not problematic at all.

Then why don't you give it a shot.

Please define "spiritual."