(September 21, 2010 at 12:37 pm)tackattack Wrote: @Padriac- So reason alone is indicative without scientifc evidence? I think the point was to defend his lack of scientific evidence of the existance of God.
In the video it says... "Where ever else it comes from it's not from scripture" when if some use scripture to better their own personal morality. Those individuals are then part of society which shapes societal morality. Societal Morality is at least partially based on the Bible (or at the very least people who use the Bible). His contention is that any influence from the Bible would be counter productive to furthering altruis, but one of the key proponents of Biblical teachings are to love thy neighbor as you would want to be loved. Seems to be an inaccurate and unfounded statement.
But morals were around before the bible, it's not like everyone was murdering everyone, stealing, and screwing each others wives. Granted, some people were doing all them things before the bible, but they are still doing them now so the bible dosen't really come into play
I hold that it's an evolution thing much along the lines of how Dawkins is talking in that video and in his book. It's a trait that whilst evolving proved beneficial in the sense that treating anyone you met fairly was likely to mean you were also treated fair. A rather selfish, but mutually beneficial way to look at it. The same can be seen among pack animals now, they don't go around killing each other, they work together and mostly all benefit from that. He also mentions at the end of that video a lot of it can be seen as purely not wanting to act in a way that you wouldn't want a society to act, another yet mutually beneficial way to look at it, one which people unfortunately do exploit . I think that's why people give to charities that wont actually benefit them in any way, a sense that by them contributing they are living in a world in which if they needed help they would expect perhaps to be helped in the same way they did help. So I'd say as long as your friend belives in evolution, there are perfectly good Darwinian answers for morality, but if he dosen't then fuck knows how you will explain that, or anything to him.
