Quote:The two commandments Christians are given in the New Testament are to "Love the lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind," and to "Love your neighbor as yourself." These two commands are routed in reality and serve both a purpose for those who obey them and for those afffected. If God's morality determines ours, then the effects could only be determined if he exists. If He didn't exist then the real effects could not be felt because morality would not exist. This is why I asked: where does the evolutionist get his/her standard of morality from? The Biblical theist says that morality comes from God "writing his law in our hearts and minds" and that is realized through our conscience. He is the author of our morality. Natural selection (an abstraction) cannot be the author of morality. This would be the fallacy of reification.
With regard to the first commandment that has nothing to do with morality - its just ensuring enslavement.
With regard to the second its not original and the choice of the word neighbour, as opposed to fellow human being, for example, is poor.
So where does morality come from?
Simple. Natural selection for an intelligent social species equips us with a decent set of tools in order to develop morality within a social context. Note - it doesn't pre-equip us with morality as such, just the tools to develop it.
In essence the set of empathy, reciprocation and fairness give us everything we need to develop complex social rules.
The result is that some rules are common across all societies (on murder, for example or property ownership) whilst others (treatment of women, homosexuals, minorities etc.) vary dramatically.
That variation is fully supported within a framework based on fundamental underlying tools. Its what allows society to adjust its rules continuously - which is exactly what we see today.
Not 50 years ago in the UK homosexuality was illegal, now they can marry. This sort of change is fully supportable on the above basis. The idea of a fixed set of morals is therefore useless and this is why we can eliminate God from the equation.
Biblical God had no problem with slavery but wanted homosexuals stoned. His punishment for a multiplicity of other "crimes" such as adultery and being cheeky to one's parents and a host of others was always the same - stoning.
God lacked the sense of punishment fitting the crime. He turned a woman to salt for turning to look at the fireworks, punished the whole of humanity for a couple eating a forbidden fruit, drowned the world when it pissed him off......
No - the bible is no guide to morality - other than how not to do it.
If you genuinely followed biblical principles as laid down in the bible you'd be imprisoned in a week.
Kuusi palaa, ja on viimeinen kerta kun annan vaimoni laittaa jouluvalot!
