RE: what are we supposed to say again when christians ask us where we get our morality?
June 9, 2014 at 8:59 pm
(June 9, 2014 at 7:36 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: So is theft wrong because you had it reinforced to you as a child or is there some higher reason that theft is wrong? I am just trying to get a handle on what your ultimate standard is here.I think there is a combination of those factors. As a child it may suffice to be told that something is right or wrong. As we grow older we want to know why things are right and wrong, and we seek explanations and reasons to determine what is right and wrong.
Statler Waldorf Wrote:So were they immoral acts? How do we know whose opinion is right?I believe that they were immoral acts. How do we tell who is right? I think we consider them in light of the standards that humanity has developed over time, and we consider the motivations and reasons of the people who carried out those acts in light of those standards.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
