Friday, October 14, 2011 5:04:15 PM
Actually, it is still an innate moral code. Just because it aids our survival doesn't mean it`s not a moral code, it just means that morals are good things.
Also, nice things aren`t negated just because they benefit the person doing them. That`s the whole basis of the "an eye for an eye", "what goes around comes around," "treat everyone how you want to be treated" types of morals.
I have trouble seeing a difference between "I`ll be nice to him so that he is nice to me" and "I`ll be nice to him so our species will progess".
Also, everything nice you can do does benefit yourself, be it because of karma, because of fearing a god, because it furthers the species, because our brains release chemicals that make us feel happy when we do them, etc. ad infinitum. That doesn`t make us necessarily selfish or negate the nice things we do, it just means we have more reason to do them. Splitting hairs over which reason is
Friday, October 14, 2011 11:28:15 AM
>>>Also dang, there is evidence that humans have natural tendencies towards altruism and similar morals that allowed us to form societies which propagated the species much better<<
My point exactly, and what I was saying from the beginning.
>>>than survival of the fittest.<<<
But it was survival of the fittest gene pool.
Therefore it is NOT an "innate moral code" it is just evolution with the driver being increasing the likely hood that your progeny, or at least the progeny of your clan who likely share most of your genes, survive to the point that they reproduce, not true alturism.
Friday, October 14, 2011 3:13:33 AM
Alternately, God is a weird sort of genre savvy and knew that if a guy came with a book saying "Hey guys, I heard a voice that told me that we need to give freedom to all our slaves and equality to all humanity. It's totally God`s word." he wouldn`t have been locked up or killed or just plain ignored. Same with the case of Jesus. Yes he was crucified, but I would have to imagine that would have happened a lot sooner if he came in talking about the kind of morals we have today.
So perhaps God is trying to ease people into not being pooheads, so we kind of just need to go with the flow and interpret the bible in new ways as we go along.
But again, my personal opinion is that none of it is real, I just felt like throwing that out there.
Also dang, there is evidence that humans have natural tendencies towards altruism and similar morals that allowed us to form societies which propagated the species much better than survival of the fittest.
Friday, October 14, 2011 3:11:50 AM
I am an athiest, but just to play Devil's Advocate (Or God`s Advocate in this case?) about the whole "Bible must be read in context with the time" thing- while I do admit that normally I find it weird that an omnipotent being couldn`t author a rulebook that would always be relevant, I can see a sort of scenario where the bible could be more or less legit, and still context-senstive.
Let`s say that there is/was a god, and back in the biblical ages he did indeed have man write the bible while influenced by himself. It is possible that God only intended to send out the morals themselves, and God`s word was interpreted in context-sensitive ways by those writing the bible, such that there is indeed a god`s word in the bible that still needs some interpreting done. Essentially, like a short but really pooty telephone game.