The Case For A Non-Absolute Morality

[Medi]

Stumpy is a killer whale that has been severely injured and is no longer able to hunt for himself. He has been observed with several pods over the years. It appears that each time the whales go out to hunt Stumpy tags along with a different one of them. That whale catches fish, bites them in half and allows half to fall for Stumpy to swim up and eat. This has been going on for years.

http://www.freemorgan.org/wp-content/upl..._orca1.pdf

Notes:

Whales don't normally change from one pod to another more than once or twice.
The behaviour appears to be unique.
There is no obvious, tangible benefit for the other whales of keeping Stumpy alive. In every other species (that I have ever heard of) Stumpy would have just been allowed to die by his family.
As Stumpy changes often from one pod to another we know there can't be a familial link for all of them.

Question - basic morality? Altruism?

If this is proto-morality of some form doesn't that mean definitively that morality is a geneticaly triggered behaviour that we have merely expanded upon through ever more complex social structures?
Doesn't it rule out any idea of an absolute moral law giver?

Not necessarily, since the bible, and most theist orientated religions would agree that the 'one' created the animals as well as humans. And to my reading, the bible can coincide with evolution. That concept would make sense. For us to become something beyond animal thought yet to have derived from it; it's evident in our brains, for a start, which from a biblical view; God made. It's evident in human history, physics, science, nature; all things which (taking the view of the beliver) God created and thus designed to be as they are.

It's absolutely irrational and illogical that the world was made 6000 years ago. It's just not true.

In Hebrew, the word for 'day' can have three meanings, one being 'indefinite period of time', like the word 'age'. Another thing to note is that God sees a day as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day, so to speak. Evolution's a blip in God-time (if you believe in god of course).

Another point is, how can there be days when no sun was created?

For all intents and purposes, taking the position that there's the 'one', it would make sense that animals have some form of morality on some level.

And what you're saying suggests that the 'one' actually IS an absolute moral law-giver. Which I dispute. Since God (again, taking the stance of a believer), would have made the immoral with the ability to be so, since the 'one' is the creator of everything.

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I'm not sure how this fits into a religion thread, most of the discussion is of human morality. If however this was suppose to be about religious absolute morality, then which one? The God of Christians is absolutely moral and Christians do not claim they are or can be in this life. God doesn't expect us to be absolutely moral, if He did then why Christ.

GC

Yep, so moral that he murders children and condones rape and slavery.

Yep, indeedy.

'Condones' is strong. Think of it this way; Abraham and Moses were men with barbaric minds, far far far away from the type of person able to emotionally and mentally comprehend 'have compassion for your enemies'.