(May 29, 2022 at 8:31 am)Jehanne Wrote:(May 29, 2022 at 8:00 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Let's take the evolution of cooperation. Evolutionary scientist Martin Nowak has identified five rules to explain why humans are the champions of cooperation...
I think that "cooperation" is a somewhat loaded term. The Romans, for instance, were willing to "cooperate" with conquered peoples (and, in doing so, pioneered federalism), so long as the latter did so on Rome's terms; otherwise, the legions would come and destroy you for your lack of "cooperation".
So what are you trying to say? That tribalism exists? Morality is not the only thing that evolved, but so did cruelty.
Cruelty also has evolutionary value. Kindness does too. But we can’t have both at the same time. We still compete and struggle with each other: for food, sexual reproduction, loving acknowledgment, dignity; and we often do it together as a tribe against tribe.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"