RE: what are we supposed to say again when christians ask us where we get our morality?
June 23, 2014 at 6:37 am
(June 20, 2014 at 10:40 pm)naimless Wrote: i can't really think of a reason not to murder everyone if there wasn't those consequences to itIf you could murder everyone without negative consequences, you would be god.
I agree that most of us would behave very differently if the negative consequences for a particular action or actions didn't exist. But that is pretty obvious-- consequences are what guide the behavior of all thinking beings, whether deliberately or not. I think that few crimes are committed because the person in question did not fear the possible negative consequences. Rather, they feel that the possible rewards make the risk worthwhile, or are simply so desperate that they feel they have no choice in the matter.
"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
