(January 22, 2017 at 7:55 pm)Joz Wrote: Hi guys, I am a Christian and I like to compare worldviews with atheists/other religions etc. If you're up for it I have some questions for you, I promise these are not so I can preach or assert irrational beliefs, I've read the forum rules for theists
Also I am not trying to catch anyone out, I am a thinker and I just genuinely want to know what you think about these things too.
1. What is morality? Do good and evil exist?
2. Presuming that we are highly evolved biological machines whose main motivation is to survive and adapt, why, in societies in general, is there such a collective fixation with love? By this I mean the romantic love expressed in movies, pop music etc. In many movies there seems to be one story, that is, there is a hero, things go bad, the hero finds love, the hero fights for love, the bad is defeated, the hero wins the love. Why is this story so deeply ingrained in our collective subconsciousness?
3. Why does justice matter to each of us? If someone harms us or someone we love, we want them to pay the consequences. But why should there be consequences for our actions? That would imply judgement and an judge. What if the person that harmed us was merely executing their right to survival of the fittest?
1
From an atheist perspective the opinion varies.
Some people believe in universall preferable behavior. Others believe morality is entirely subjective. Personally I try and stick to my own rules, a lot of my rules are based on other people's rules though, on ethics taught to me by family and associates or learning by example.
I don't know if good and evil exist but I have a feeling that belief in good and evil might contribute to a society that's relatively nice to live in. So if I had to lean one way I'd lean towards that belief.
2
Why would there not be a fixation with love? We're not machines, we're evolved as social animals. Love, heroics, being the hero of the tribe. We have those things because we're evolved social animals.
3
I personally as an atheist believe in judgement. I judge people. I don't understand the bit where you say "Consequences for actions would imply there's a judge." Yeh there would. But I see no contradiction in having judgement and a lack of belief in God.
If someone assaults me in an effort to show their superior fitness I'll use the power of government violence against them as a display of my superior fitness and call the police. They'll probably get fired from whatever job they had if they have one, give up at least some resources of some sort and it'll reduce their value as a sexual mate. We have governments who usually have some kind of monopoly on violence because we're a very social intelligent ape with a hiarachy of dominance.
Sometimes the police can't do anything so you have the choice of either running the person over in your car or just letting it go.
Are you ready for the fire? We are firemen. WE ARE FIREMEN! The heat doesn’t bother us. We live in the heat. We train in the heat. It tells us that we’re ready, we’re at home, we’re where we’re supposed to be. Flames don’t intimidate us. What do we do? We control the flame. We control them. We move the flames where we want to. And then we extinguish them.
Impersonation is treason.
