(November 21, 2009 at 10:24 pm)Rockthatpiano06 Wrote: Yeah, he's just backing me into a corner with his circular logic. He keeps telling me if life evolved then it cant have value, and if humans make up morals than we can justify genocide. I really dont know how to respond to any of it because its all bs as we know.
Take him head on, look him in the eye with the contempt you feel and educate the fucker. Even if he doesn't change, others who eavesdrop may see a smackdown in progress and think again. If life evolved, it has value as it is constantly adapting and growing. If he can't see growth and change as valuable, then state it for all to see. Luddites and backward morons must be called out for their beliefs.
If humans make morals, it is for a functioning cohesive social group, which is very important. Aberrant actions against the community damage it and standards for group behavior is important in maintaining social groups.
Look at chimpanzees and their group politics - sometimes members act aberrantly. If the group does not remove aberrant members or has more members act out of control, it fractures. Yet they are able to form social groups and maintain them for long periods of time. Members of said groups have been studied and noted that certain trends of behavior emerge in response to destabilizing actions to the group's cohesiveness.
We can see with social primates like chimpanzees that patterns of behavior appear in reaction to other's actions. Can we not note too that in human social groups that we have similar ways to dealing with things as well? Morals for humans are a manifestation of a guideline for basic group politics. Much about the emergence of morals and group behaviors may be learned from primates.
