What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[abaris]

There are plenty of animals who kill their own specie's babies (or their own babies), yet we don't think of them as cruel because we know that they don't know any better. We would not have the same leniency with people, because whether we know it or not, we do hold people to a higher standard. As we should.

And if the early humans knew nothing about God or sexual morality, they too would be held to a lower standard.

No, there aren't than many species killing their own babies. They don't kill their own babies at all, but the babies of other males. And the ones that do that do it for the exact same reasons, human rulers of old have done the same in the past. Securing their own position when taking over.

And I would really recommend to look up the work of Brian Hare and Frans van der Waal on youtube to name only two. Their research is humbling from a human perspective. Also, you could look up a Gorilla named Koko while you're at it. She's learned human sign language while still being a baby.

And then there would be the holding to a higher standard issue. As long as we're at each others throats, fighting wars against each other, pounding our breasts over territorial issues as well as over ressources, there's no indication that we have moved very far from our ancestry.

We don't have the same strong instincts as animals, but we are still at the top of the food chain because our intelligence above theirs makes up for it.

Sure about that? Ebola says differently. And it's even one of the viruses that can still be contained. Truth is, a simple virus is able to take care of our superiority complexes once and for all.