Your personal take on “The Problem of Evil?”

[XK9_Knight]

It's not our fault you haven't bothered to look into the evolution of morality. That stuff is out there, and the concept itself is extremely simple to grasp; our survival niche is cooperation and group building. Moral standards derive from this as a mechanism for keeping the group afloat. Simple, though not perfect, and aided in no small measure by our nature as biological entities with predictable responses to external stimuli.

As to what's "easier" to understand... yes, "big man done it by magic" is probably very easy to understand, especially if you don't know how he did it, and don't care to know. But magic is just an excuse, it can be used to justify anything, making it effectively useless, and some of us have higher expectations for our justifications of things than just the claim itself, absent any kind of explanation or method.

Interesting turn, I think what you and Michael are disputing isn’t so much “a moral standard,” but “moral obligation.” I think it’s a tired analogy of God being the “law giver,” but it has its place; it “requires” of us, and we must “oblige.” Evolutionary morality is actually something I come back too often. I’m faced with the question of whether “moral law” is necessary if there were no way a society like ours were possible without our particular brand of morality. But, at other times I feel like evolutionary morality is simply a joke!

So despite being, from what I can see, a sensible and rational person in most aspects, you abandon that entirely when it comes to your god claim. That's a pity. As I said earlier, the level of explanatory power a thing has, especially a thing that is defined as just being able to do anything, has no bearing on the reality of that thing. I get it, magic solves everything, but that doesn't make it so, and frankly, without a "how?" answer, a "what?" answer just reeks of making things up.

On the other hand, we have plenty of evidence that evolution occurs, research on the evolution of morality that indicates it also exists in other species, and studies that indicate the extent to which it can be manipulated and changed. Plenty more evidence than we have for a god, even if it doesn't explain as much yet.

Allow me to just diffuse this situation? Michael is expressing, perhaps a little poorly, his acceptance of God as being “properly basic.” Like the belief in the reality of the past, existence of other minds besides his own, or the continued regularity of nature, they cannot be empirically verified but they are nonetheless rational to believe. I think the conflict is (and I don’t mean to assume this about you, correct me if I’m wrong) that you Esquilax are an empiricist, “all claims can be scientifically verified.” And if I’m understanding you correctly, it is that altruistic behavior evolves into a “societal moral standard?” What I think Michael is driving at, as I mentioned above, is regardless of evolutionary moral standards, we are compelled to be moral; that there is a “requirement” placed upon us. So, really, I think this goes back to David Hume and when asked whether “ought” can be derived from “can.” I think you two fall into one of these two camps.



Also, let me just say I appreciate these thoughtful responses; those that stick around for more than a romp show a lot of maturity in my opinion; you guys are great.

Except Benny!