Problem of good and evil for an atheist

[ABierman1986]

Whether you like it or not. There ARE things which are absolutely evil and things which are absolutely good.
I know most atheists atempt to discredit this idea (There is a huge problem if there is such thing).

So what is one example of something absolutely evil?
Killing a baby, an innocent baby for any reason is evil. (please dont derail this thread with attacking the Bible)

If you think killing a baby is ever justified, I think it is safe to say, that you are sick and perveted.

Some cultures did practice killing babies, however, we would call them 'immoral'.

There were several societies that killed feeble, frail or disabled children. Was it more immoral to kill the children than to allow them to grow up and handicap already hard pressed civilizations? Maybe you believe so but both sides have valid arguments and that's the point. Anytime you speak in absolutes its treacherous ground, there is absolutely no act you can come up with that has not been acceptable at one point or another in human culture. From cannibalism to sacrifice to mutilation to slavery it's all been done, and accepted as morally acceptable or even required sometimes. By the way, I am NOT sick and perverted and I can see the side of the argument that justifies killing "innocent children" for the sake of continuing survival (ever read Pillars of the Earth? Great opener on this topic!).

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.

That's just a false statement through and through. There have been demonstrated cultures of morality within dozens of species of animals, Chimps and Dolphins most notably. The notion of good and evil had to come from somewhere....sure. Ok, I buy that argument, we all seem to have this sense. But WHY do we leap to God?! Why why why why why why why why why do you give up on the problem so easily?

First the easy one, why should you care if a child was killed in Africa. Evolutionarily speaking we are prone to be protective of our own, to propagate our genes and ensure our survival. We feel the strongest attachment to those who share the most of our genetic material. Dawkins has a fascinating and well researched book on this, "The Selfish Gene" and it's well established among evolutionary biologists. We tend towards less attachment as we get further away from our own genetic likeness, but at the end of the day a human is a human. Our natural instinct is to care when a human is suffering. I would also bet dollars to donuts most of us DON'T care if a child was killed in Africa, unless we were exposed to the individual for some reason, then we feel that instinctual attachment to help an innocent in need; is it so much of a stretch to believe there is evidence supporting that instinct? We find animals cute for the same reason. Cute animals tend to be cute for the attributes they share with human infants. Large head/body ratio, big eyes, symmetric faces, expressive/emotive, etc... We have a natural urge to care for these creatures because they beckon to our evolutionary sense of preservation.

There is an absolutely fascinating field of study called Game Theory, most famous for its role in "A Beautiful Mind" where John Nash (Crowe) develops his famous Nash equilibrium. Enough plugging. Game theory and more broadly sociological experiments on morality can provide numerical, testable, and statistical models for moral behavior and several theories of development are in progress based on these. For example a recent study on generosity between rich and poor globally revealed that the rich have less desire to be generous (this would probably be considered less moral, yes?) while the poor have more desire to give. This crossed religious and geographical boundaries and suggested remarkable findings about how morality is embedded through environmental factors. Also game theory predicts in evolutionary biology that there are conditions of equilibrium and progress within species that require degrees of cooperation and systems of reward and punishment (basic concepts of good and evil). Within species, individuals do trend to behave in ways that provide optimal survival conditions. This same approach reveals the same traits and trends within human modes of thinking. The only papers on this subject I know aren't free to distribute but I'll dig some and post them, they are fascinating.

Another perspective on origins of morality come from the field of evolutionary biology as well, known as "in-group/out-group" mentality. Communities that relied on each other for survival tended towards behavior that promoted group welfare and cooperation to overcome outsiders to the group. So actions that went contrary to this were considered bad and actions supporting this were considered good (actions for or against the church as an example of one hell of a powerful in-group). In reality that is ALL we are doing today, currently. Perhaps our mind has developed this natural cooperative state to a sense of intrinsic good and evil, but this growth has substantial theory and evidence supporting its role in evolution, its neuronal development, and empirical support of instinctual "moral" behavior.

When you stop questioning you stop learning. Just because a person doesn't know where something came from doesn't mean something fanciful created it! I didn't know where the bread went when I made toast as a child, but I never, even then, imagine a fairy had come in and swapped the toast for my bread! I'm perfectly fine with being corrected or challenged, but if we can't escape "Gaps" arguments we won't progress very far.