(August 13, 2010 at 2:58 am)solja247 Wrote: Whether you like it or not. There ARE things which are absolutely evil and things which are absolutely good.Absolutes aren't. We abhor killing baby humans because they're babies of our species. Humans also trigger that emotion in things that remind us of babies, extending to the 'cuteness' of other species as well, including dogs, cats, apes, horses, and so forth.
I know most atheists atempt to discredit this idea (There is a huge problem if there is such thing).
But do you feel guilty for murdering baby ants? Baby spiders? Baby anything that isn't 'cute'?
Have you ever eaten veal? What about children that you've killed indirectly through purchasing goods from companies who severely damage the environment and becomes responsible for murdering vast tracks of wildlife and ruining the families of everyone whose livelyhood depends on there being a stable ecosystem? (You know, like BP, but there are plenty of other examples).
(August 13, 2010 at 2:58 am)solja247 Wrote: Since we are the only creature on this planet, who has the ability to do evil and good and not just to respond to external stimuli. This notion of good and evil had to come from somewhere.
Evolutionarily speaking why should I care if a child was killed in Africa?
There is no natural explanation for the concept of good and evil. So where did it come from?
I personally think it came from a cosmological battle between good and evil, although I cant conclude and prove that it, it explains things much better than anything else.
It came from us. It couldn't have come from anywhere else. Evolution isn't an outlook on life. It's not a system of morals or beliefs - it's a process by which life can diversify.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
