Atheism and morality

[Angrboda]

Well, I'd point out more about your use of the law of parsimony, and in particular, the distinction between the strong and weak versions of it, but I'm feeling lazy, so perhaps another time. Unless you are employing the strong version, the law of parsimony is not a deductive inference, but merely a probabilistic one, and therefore your syllogism becomes one of determining the most likely explanation given a range of explanations, and, under that view, must then be probabilistically evaluated in comparison to all other hypotheses. It is no longer a deductively valid syllogism in its present form, given your interpretations.

First, no my original argument showed that morality required the existence of a supernatural agent with immense power over our interests. The 'catcher in the rye' god is still a god - still an agency with immense power over our interests. So the argument stands.

No, your first syllogism concluded that the instructive aspect of morals was the effect of an agent. Your conclusion of your second syllogism was that the agent from whom the instructions came was a supernatural agent with immense power over our interest. You cannot use the conclusion of syllogism #2 as support for the deductive validity of itself; that is a classic example of begging the question.

[genkaus]

Waiting in the wings is the question of why these reasons are compelling if we don't actually believe in the existence of an afterlife, but I'll wait. Note however that your second syllogism doesn't seem to offer, in itself, any reason to prefer the formulation "a vengeful god who has control over your afterlife" to "an unforgiving and inflexible karmic law which will condemn you to an eternity of incarnations filled with suffering if you do not behave morally, as communicated by the uncreated and eternally existing Vedas." In particular, it's possible the Vedas issue from an agent and we are simply ignorant of their true source, so arguing that they require an agent is ineffective. The moral instruction contained in the traditional Indian metaphysics appears to offer an equivalent and equally rationally compelling reason for complying; why prefer one to the other?

Its funny how despite your claims of delusion and poor formal reasoning, you seem to be one of the few on this forum capable of rationally challenging my preconceptions. While I still believe that every known morality has an intelligent (or in many cases, semi-intelligent) instructor issuing its tenets, I realize that that need not be true for any hypothetical morality.

If we assume that the karmic law is true and a part of the universe, then the nature of morality becomes quite different. The instructions contained within it would be rationally derived from the facts of nature - not issued another hypothetical entity. For example, if we take it as a fact of karmic law that if you torture puppies in this life, then you'll be reborn as a puppy and be tortured in your next life, then the instruction that "you should not torture puppies" is not issued by anyone but acquired all the same by the instructee by joining that fact with his own self interest.

Such a morality would be about as "rationally inescapably authoritative" as Inigo's god-given one. You can still torture puppies if you don't care about being tortured as one in your next life and you can still torture them if you don't care about being tortured by the hypothetical vengeful god.

As a matter of fact, within the context of moral realism, this position would be even better than morality being issued by an agent. Not only does it remove the need for what has become a superflous extra, it'd also explain the existence of multiple moralities. If karmic law is a fact of nature and our moral sense something that we perceive this aspect of nature with, then each morality and moral theory would become the philisopher's explanation of it to the best of his perception. If an agent was issuing instructions, then many garbled versions of those instructions would indicate his incompetence at communication. But if it is a fact of nature, then we are simply taking our time in completely understanding it.

On a side not, the increase in human population would also suggest the validity of karmic law. In past, when our understanding of the law was worse, most humans would be reborn as bugs or flies. But now that we are being more moral, a lot of us are being reborn as humans - thus leading to higher population.

---

First, no my original argument showed that morality required the existence of a supernatural agent with immense power over our interests. The 'catcher in the rye' god is still a god - still an agency with immense power over our interests. So the argument stands.

No, your first syllogism concluded that the instructive aspect of morals was the effect of an agent. Your conclusion of your second syllogism was that the agent from whom the instructions came was a supernatural agent with immense power over our interest. You cannot use the conclusion of syllogism #2 as support for the deductive validity of itself; that is a classic example of begging the question.

Even the first conclusion would be wrong. Even if there is an aspect of reality - like a natural law - that applies to human behavior, the instructive aspect of morality still wouldn't necessarily require an instructive agent. For example, the law of gravity would simply indicate that if you jump off the balcony, you will die. The instruction "don't jump off the balcony" is inferred by the instructee simply by combining that fact with the desire to live without the need for another agent. Similarly, all the moral law would require is statement of a fact like "if you are a dick then no one will talk to you". My desire to talk to others would automatically turn this into the instruction of "don't be a dick".

[Creed of Heresy]

On a side not, the increase in human population would also suggest the validity of karmic law. In past, when our understanding of the law was worse, most humans would be reborn as bugs or flies. But now that we are being more moral, a lot of us are being reborn as humans - thus leading to higher population.

Correlation does not equal causation.

[genkaus]

On a side not, the increase in human population would also suggest the validity of karmic law. In past, when our understanding of the law was worse, most humans would be reborn as bugs or flies. But now that we are being more moral, a lot of us are being reborn as humans - thus leading to higher population.

Correlation does not equal causation.

Really? Then I guess you'd also say that the decline in number of pirates isn't the cause of global warming.

[Inigo]

First, no my original argument showed that morality required the existence of a supernatural agent with immense power over our interests. The 'catcher in the rye' god is still a god - still an agency with immense power over our interests. So the argument stands.

No, your first syllogism concluded that the instructive aspect of morals was the effect of an agent. Your conclusion of your second syllogism was that the agent from whom the instructions came was a supernatural agent with immense power over our interest. You cannot use the conclusion of syllogism #2 as support for the deductive validity of itself; that is a classic example of begging the question.

No, you suggested that one could satisfy the inescapable rational authority requirement without having to posit a vengeful god. This is something I acknowledged - I had pointed it out myself earlier and made essentially the same points about such a possibility, namely that it unnecessarily complicates the picture, cannot capture moral desert, and also does not capture the sense in which it is the source of moral instructions that seems to create the reason for compliance.
You then said that I had not therefore established the existence of a god, only the probability of one. I then pointed out that this was false as my argument establishes that morality requires a powerful supernatural agency - a god. The arguments were both deductively valid. And the conditions mentioned - the instructional nature of morality and the inescapable rational authority of those instructions are both essential, necessary conditions that any account of morality must satisfy. But they are not sufficient, or at least it is questionable that they are.

I do not know why you are accusing me of begging the question. How? Where? Do you just mean that my conclusion follows from the premises?

---

Sure, but it is still technically a god of the gaps kind of thing. It's certainly the weakest form of theism [hence why it gets its own term as deism] and it's definitely the most easy to reconcile with logical thinking. It sure doesn't try to make specific claims and honestly given the choice between deism and every other belief system out there, I'd certainly rather associate with deists than the rest. Still it's one of those things where I have to point out; "are you sure god exists?" Then again it's very broadly defined...god could be the universe and it wouldn't necessarily need to be conscious.

Of course if you go that route, you must throw out concepts of objective morality...something Inigo clearly isn't doing.

Why do you keep suggesting I am making a 'god of the gaps' type case? That's bonkers. I'm not arguing like that at all. You're simply displaying a kind of prejudice - you're assuming that if someone has argued for the existence of a god they just 'must' be committing some kind of fallacy.

The argument is quite straightforward. It is that something we experience - morality - is composed of the instructions and favourings of a god.
Our experience may, of course, be a hallucination. It is if atheism is true. But our moral experiences provide defeasible evidence for a god.
I presented my argument in the form of some deductively valid syllogisms. That means you HAVE to deny one or more of the premises to resist my conclusion. It isn't enough to dislike it.

One argument goes as follows (this argument does NOT establish that moral instructions are those of a god, but it gets us on the way):

1. Morality is composed (at least in part) of instructions and favourings
2. Only an agent - something minded, something capable of believing and desiring - can issue instructions or favour something
3. Morality is composed of the instructions and favourings of an agent (or agents)

Premise 1 is non-negotiable. I'm just defining what I'm talking about. If you mean something else by morality - if you are talking about something that doesn't instruct or favour - then you're just not talking about what I am talking about.

Premise 2 seems solid to me. After all it is absolutely certain that agents can issue instructions and favour things - for I am one and I can do those things. And nobody has yet come up with an example of a real instruction that has no agent behind it as a source. Indeed, it seems quite apparent then whenever we discover that there is no agency behind some apparent instruction that the instruction is, well, merely apparent and not real.

The second argument goes as follows.

1. Moral instructions have inescapable rational authority (they are instructions that anyone to whom they apply has reason to comply whatever his or her ends).
2. Only the instructions of an agent who has an immense amount of control over our interests in an afterlife would have this feature.
3. Moral instructions are the instructions of an agent of the kind described in 2.

Premise 1 of that argument articulates a conceptual truth about morality. I am happy for someone to dispute it, but I want to see their evidence that it is false (there's stacks that it is true).
Premise 2 - well, challenge away. But so far as I can see satisfying this condition does require positing a god and an afterlife. There seems no other plausible way of doing it.

This still doesn't establish the existence of a god. But what it does do is establish that our moral sense data is defeasible evidence for a god. And it establishes that morality and atheism are incompatible. Not moral sensations and beliefs- those are perfectly compatible with atheism - but those sensations constitute a hallucination if atheism is true, and the beliefs are all false if atheism is true.

You're not entitled to have this argument fail. You're not entitled to there being some error in it. Be open minded and follow reason, not fashion.

[paulpablo]

Something isn't wrong just beusae you say so, or because you don't want others to do it, is it? YOu can't seriously be saying that the reason it is wrong to hurt others is because YOU don't want to hurt others or want others to hurt others???

The wrongness of hurting others has nothing to do with you and your tastes. It is wrong to hurt others because MORALITY instructs us not to. Happily, most of us don't want to either. But even those few among us who really like hurting others, or who sometimes have an urge to, do something WRONG if they do so. They have REASON not to hurt others, whether they realise it or not, whether they want to or not. That's the thing about morality. That's what's distinctive about morality.
If you want to rape someone that doesn't make it right to do so. And by the same token the wrongness of rape doesn't amount to you just not wanting to rape someone.
If I want others to rape someone, that doesn't make it right for them to do so. By the same token, if I don't want others to rape someone that isn't what the wrongness of it amounts to.

[/code]



No because morality is a word, it hasn't instructed me at any time. My parents my teachers and my own empathy towards other humans is why I don't hurt people all the time, I do believe people who play their music too loudly on public transport or some greedy people should be hurt, but I wouldn't hurt my own family members, my feelings of who should be hurt are just a combination of learned cultural behavior, and my general animal instincts, the same as every other human out there. There's no need for a god in any of this no matter how you define words or how many times you repeat yourself.

[Inigo]

Waiting in the wings is the question of why these reasons are compelling if we don't actually believe in the existence of an afterlife, but I'll wait. Note however that your second syllogism doesn't seem to offer, in itself, any reason to prefer the formulation "a vengeful god who has control over your afterlife" to "an unforgiving and inflexible karmic law which will condemn you to an eternity of incarnations filled with suffering if you do not behave morally, as communicated by the uncreated and eternally existing Vedas." In particular, it's possible the Vedas issue from an agent and we are simply ignorant of their true source, so arguing that they require an agent is ineffective. The moral instruction contained in the traditional Indian metaphysics appears to offer an equivalent and equally rationally compelling reason for complying; why prefer one to the other?

Its funny how despite your claims of delusion and poor formal reasoning, you seem to be one of the few on this forum capable of rationally challenging my preconceptions. While I still believe that every known morality has an intelligent (or in many cases, semi-intelligent) instructor issuing its tenets, I realize that that need not be true for any hypothetical morality.

If we assume that the karmic law is true and a part of the universe, then the nature of morality becomes quite different. The instructions contained within it would be rationally derived from the facts of nature - not issued another hypothetical entity. For example, if we take it as a fact of karmic law that if you torture puppies in this life, then you'll be reborn as a puppy and be tortured in your next life, then the instruction that "you should not torture puppies" is not issued by anyone but acquired all the same by the instructee by joining that fact with his own self interest.

Such a morality would be about as "rationally inescapably authoritative" as Inigo's god-given one. You can still torture puppies if you don't care about being tortured as one in your next life and you can still torture them if you don't care about being tortured by the hypothetical vengeful god.

As a matter of fact, within the context of moral realism, this position would be even better than morality being issued by an agent. Not only does it remove the need for what has become a superflous extra, it'd also explain the existence of multiple moralities. If karmic law is a fact of nature and our moral sense something that we perceive this aspect of nature with, then each morality and moral theory would become the philisopher's explanation of it to the best of his perception. If an agent was issuing instructions, then many garbled versions of those instructions would indicate his incompetence at communication. But if it is a fact of nature, then we are simply taking our time in completely understanding it.

On a side not, the increase in human population would also suggest the validity of karmic law. In past, when our understanding of the law was worse, most humans would be reborn as bugs or flies. But now that we are being more moral, a lot of us are being reborn as humans - thus leading to higher population.

---

No, your first syllogism concluded that the instructive aspect of morals was the effect of an agent. Your conclusion of your second syllogism was that the agent from whom the instructions came was a supernatural agent with immense power over our interest. You cannot use the conclusion of syllogism #2 as support for the deductive validity of itself; that is a classic example of begging the question.

Even the first conclusion would be wrong. Even if there is an aspect of reality - like a natural law - that applies to human behavior, the instructive aspect of morality still wouldn't necessarily require an instructive agent. For example, the law of gravity would simply indicate that if you jump off the balcony, you will die. The instruction "don't jump off the balcony" is inferred by the instructee simply by combining that fact with the desire to live without the need for another agent. Similarly, all the moral law would require is statement of a fact like "if you are a dick then no one will talk to you". My desire to talk to others would automatically turn this into the instruction of "don't be a dick".

A Karmic universe that lacks any god in it does not contain morality. Morality instructs and favours. That's absolutely essential to it. And a law of nature - or supernature - does not instruct or favour. How can they? They are not agents. They have nothing they want you to do. They are just descriptions of what happens. THey enable us to make predictions (or can do). But they don't make the predictions, we do!
This simple point destroys the karmic view. Morality's instructional nature is essential to it, and the Karmic view cannot capture it. So it doesn't even get out of the starting gate.

---

That's the problem with deism. It's a claim of something existing without even a claim. It's the most clear-cut version of "goddidit."

As a certain creator of the planetary orrary is credited with saying... "It works just fine without that hypothesis."

You clearly haven't been paying any attention. The god that I am arguing morality presupposes is not a god who created the universe. The god is posited in order to account for morality's features. That is all. What created the universe is another matter. And indeed, given that the god whose instructions and favourings constitute morality seems to be very pro-benevolence etc, it seems reasonable to assume that she is quite benevolent herself. Why on earth would a benevolent person create a place like this? The evidence isn't there. IN the absence of any, it is unreasonable to suppose that the author of the moral law was also the creator of this world. More reasonable to suppose she had nothing to do with it.

---

Something isn't wrong just beusae you say so, or because you don't want others to do it, is it? YOu can't seriously be saying that the reason it is wrong to hurt others is because YOU don't want to hurt others or want others to hurt others???

The wrongness of hurting others has nothing to do with you and your tastes. It is wrong to hurt others because MORALITY instructs us not to. Happily, most of us don't want to either. But even those few among us who really like hurting others, or who sometimes have an urge to, do something WRONG if they do so. They have REASON not to hurt others, whether they realise it or not, whether they want to or not. That's the thing about morality. That's what's distinctive about morality.
If you want to rape someone that doesn't make it right to do so. And by the same token the wrongness of rape doesn't amount to you just not wanting to rape someone.
If I want others to rape someone, that doesn't make it right for them to do so. By the same token, if I don't want others to rape someone that isn't what the wrongness of it amounts to.

[/code]



No because morality is a word, it hasn't instructed me at any time. My parents my teachers and my own empathy towards other humans is why I don't hurt people all the time, I do believe people who play their music too loudly on public transport or some greedy people should be hurt, but I wouldn't hurt my own family members, my feelings of who should be hurt are just a combination of learned cultural behavior, and my general animal instincts, the same as every other human out there. There's no need for a god in any of this no matter how you define words or how many times you repeat yourself.

You're just not addressing my argument or any of the points that I made in that reply to you.
Saying 'morality is a word' is just silly. There is a word 'morality'. But morality itself is the thing the word is being used to refer to.

[paulpablo]

Its funny how despite your claims of delusion and poor formal reasoning, you seem to be one of the few on this forum capable of rationally challenging my preconceptions. While I still believe that every known morality has an intelligent (or in many cases, semi-intelligent) instructor issuing its tenets, I realize that that need not be true for any hypothetical morality.

If we assume that the karmic law is true and a part of the universe, then the nature of morality becomes quite different. The instructions contained within it would be rationally derived from the facts of nature - not issued another hypothetical entity. For example, if we take it as a fact of karmic law that if you torture puppies in this life, then you'll be reborn as a puppy and be tortured in your next life, then the instruction that "you should not torture puppies" is not issued by anyone but acquired all the same by the instructee by joining that fact with his own self interest.

Such a morality would be about as "rationally inescapably authoritative" as Inigo's god-given one. You can still torture puppies if you don't care about being tortured as one in your next life and you can still torture them if you don't care about being tortured by the hypothetical vengeful god.

As a matter of fact, within the context of moral realism, this position would be even better than morality being issued by an agent. Not only does it remove the need for what has become a superflous extra, it'd also explain the existence of multiple moralities. If karmic law is a fact of nature and our moral sense something that we perceive this aspect of nature with, then each morality and moral theory would become the philisopher's explanation of it to the best of his perception. If an agent was issuing instructions, then many garbled versions of those instructions would indicate his incompetence at communication. But if it is a fact of nature, then we are simply taking our time in completely understanding it.

On a side not, the increase in human population would also suggest the validity of karmic law. In past, when our understanding of the law was worse, most humans would be reborn as bugs or flies. But now that we are being more moral, a lot of us are being reborn as humans - thus leading to higher population.

---

Even the first conclusion would be wrong. Even if there is an aspect of reality - like a natural law - that applies to human behavior, the instructive aspect of morality still wouldn't necessarily require an instructive agent. For example, the law of gravity would simply indicate that if you jump off the balcony, you will die. The instruction "don't jump off the balcony" is inferred by the instructee simply by combining that fact with the desire to live without the need for another agent. Similarly, all the moral law would require is statement of a fact like "if you are a dick then no one will talk to you". My desire to talk to others would automatically turn this into the instruction of "don't be a dick".

A Karmic universe that lacks any god in it does not contain morality. Morality instructs and favours. That's absolutely essential to it. And a law of nature - or supernature - does not instruct or favour. How can they? They are not agents. They have nothing they want you to do. They are just descriptions of what happens. THey enable us to make predictions (or can do). But they don't make the predictions, we do!
This simple point destroys the karmic view. Morality's instructional nature is essential to it, and the Karmic view cannot capture it. So it doesn't even get out of the starting gate.

---

That's the problem with deism. It's a claim of something existing without even a claim. It's the most clear-cut version of "goddidit."

As a certain creator of the planetary orrary is credited with saying... "It works just fine without that hypothesis."

You clearly haven't been paying any attention. The god that I am arguing morality presupposes is not a god who created the universe. The god is posited in order to account for morality's features. That is all. What created the universe is another matter. And indeed, given that the god whose instructions and favourings constitute morality seems to be very pro-benevolence etc, it seems reasonable to assume that she is quite benevolent herself. Why on earth would a benevolent person create a place like this? The evidence isn't there. IN the absence of any, it is unreasonable to suppose that the author of the moral law was also the creator of this world. More reasonable to suppose she had nothing to do with it.

---

[/code]



No because morality is a word, it hasn't instructed me at any time. My parents my teachers and my own empathy towards other humans is why I don't hurt people all the time, I do believe people who play their music too loudly on public transport or some greedy people should be hurt, but I wouldn't hurt my own family members, my feelings of who should be hurt are just a combination of learned cultural behavior, and my general animal instincts, the same as every other human out there. There's no need for a god in any of this no matter how you define words or how many times you repeat yourself.

You're just not addressing my argument or any of the points that I made in that reply to you.
Saying 'morality is a word' is just silly. There is a word 'morality'. But morality itself is the thing the word is being used to refer to.

But you're calling morality a thing then saying I'm being instructed by a thing.
Ok so how did this thing instruct me of the things that are wrong or right, when did the thing instruct me, and what about the seemingly plausible things which I mentioned which are where I believe I have got my sense of right or wrong from?

And when i say it's just a word I mean this directed towards normative morality which you keep on mentioning, it is used to describe morals which every reasonable person would have, but this is totally flawed because it does presuppose the existence of a supernatural being who can detect what is truly right or wrong or what is reasonable.

[simplexity]

Inigo, all you are doing is making up a definition of morality, even though that is not how most people use the word, and then based on YOUR definition, say that only an agent can provide these instructions. Only an agent can want. Fine, but so what? How do we know what this agent wants is moral? Why are these instructions morality. Just because if you don't follow these 'instructions' you are screwed, does not mean it is moral or morality. Morality only has to be what is right and wrong for us, nothing more. And even if these instructions from this god are moral, where is this god getting it's morality from, if morality is defined by you to be instructions from an agent? If this god can have an internal morality that is not provided by an agent or this god somehow embodies morality, then it follows that we as agents can have the exact same thing and we don't need the god in the first place. Your argument completely defeats itself.

Basically this is entire thread is you trying to prove your own point from a made up definition of morality. It's ridiculous. Morality does not need to come from something that wants. It only needs to have instructions. I don't nor do most others here care what YOUR made up definition is. It's worthless. Morality can have instructions and can cause instruction indirectly as perceived by the agent, as explained multiple times by multiple posters on this thread, including myself. It only needs to be what we perceive subjectively that we should or should not do, indirectly based on these built in instructions. Through a desire to not suffer, morality does indirectly instruct people to do what is right. Some people don't have any morality, and they are a detriment to society. Simple as that.

[Creed of Heresy]

Correlation does not equal causation.

Really? Then I guess you'd also say that the decline in number of pirates isn't the cause of global warming.

Well yeah.

---

I'm only gonna address certain points because I have come into this argument late and honestly some parts of what you said simply do not comprehend. I'm not sure if that's a failing on my part or yours.

One argument goes as follows (this argument does NOT establish that moral instructions are those of a god, but it gets us on the way):

1. Morality is composed (at least in part) of instructions and favourings
2. Only an agent - something minded, something capable of believing and desiring - can issue instructions or favour something
3. Morality is composed of the instructions and favourings of an agent (or agents)

Premise 1 is non-negotiable. I'm just defining what I'm talking about. If you mean something else by morality - if you are talking about something that doesn't instruct or favour - then you're just not talking about what I am talking about.

My head's starting to hurt already.

Premise 2 seems solid to me. After all it is absolutely certain that agents can issue instructions and favour things - for I am one and I can do those things. And nobody has yet come up with an example of a real instruction that has no agent behind it as a source. Indeed, it seems quite apparent then whenever we discover that there is no agency behind some apparent instruction that the instruction is, well, merely apparent and not real.

Still don't see what you're getting at, here...

The second argument goes as follows.

1. Moral instructions have inescapable rational authority (they are instructions that anyone to whom they apply has reason to comply whatever his or her ends).
2. Only the instructions of an agent who has an immense amount of control over our interests in an afterlife would have this feature.
3. Moral instructions are the instructions of an agent of the kind described in 2.

Premise 1 of that argument articulates a conceptual truth about morality. I am happy for someone to dispute it, but I want to see their evidence that it is false (there's stacks that it is true).
Premise 2 - well, challenge away. But so far as I can see satisfying this condition does require positing a god and an afterlife. There seems no other plausible way of doing it.

This still doesn't establish the existence of a god. But what it does do is establish that our moral sense data is defeasible evidence for a god. And it establishes that morality and atheism are incompatible. Not moral sensations and beliefs- those are perfectly compatible with atheism - but those sensations constitute a hallucination if atheism is true, and the beliefs are all false if atheism is true.

You're not entitled to have this argument fail. You're not entitled to there being some error in it. Be open minded and follow reason, not fashion.

Ok, I'm just gonna cut through the red herrings and fling up a wikipedia article quote because apparently you think morality is something that it isn't.

The development of modern morality is a process closely tied to the Sociocultural evolution of different peoples of humanity. Some evolutionary biologists, particularly sociobiologists, believe that morality is a product of evolutionary forces acting at an individual level and also at the group level through group selection (though to what degree this actually occurs is a controversial topic in evolutionary theory). Some sociobiologists contend that the set of behaviors that constitute morality evolved largely because they provided possible survival and/or reproductive benefits (i.e. increased evolutionary success). Humans consequently evolved "pro-social" emotions, such as feelings of empathy or guilt, in response to these moral behaviors. Conversely, it has been argued by other biologists that the humans developed truly moral, altruistic instincts.

On this understanding, moralities are sets of self-perpetuating and ideologically-driven behaviors which encourage human cooperation. Biologists contend that all social animals, from ants to elephants, have modified their behaviors, by restraining immediate selfishness in order to improve their evolutionary fitness. Human morality, though sophisticated and complex relative to other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive individualism that could undermine a group's cohesion and thereby reducing the individuals' fitness. On this view, moral codes are ultimately founded on emotional instincts and intuitions that were selected for in the past because they aided survival and reproduction (inclusive fitness). Examples: the maternal bond is selected for because it improves the survival of offspring; the Westermarck effect, where close proximity during early years reduces mutual sexual attraction, underpins taboos against incest because it decreases the likelihood of genetically risky behaviour such as inbreeding.

The phenomenon of 'reciprocity' in nature is seen by evolutionary biologists as one way to begin to understand human morality. Its function is typically to ensure a reliable supply of essential resources, especially for animals living in a habitat where food quantity or quality fluctuates unpredictably. For example, some vampire bats fail to feed on prey some nights while others manage to consume a surplus. Bats that did eat will then regurgitate part of their blood meal to save a conspecific from starvation. Since these animals live in close-knit groups over many years, an individual can count on other group members to return the favor on nights when it goes hungry (Wilkinson, 1984) Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce (2009) have argued that morality is a suite of behavioral capacities likely shared by all mammals living in complex social groups (e.g., wolves, coyotes, elephants, dolphins, rats, chimpanzees). They define morality as "a suite of interrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate complex interactions within social groups." This suite of behaviors includes empathy, reciprocity, altruism, cooperation, and a sense of fairness. In related work, it has been convincingly demonstrated that chimpanzees show empathy for each other in a wide variety of contexts. They also possess the ability to engage in deception, and a level of social 'politics' prototypical of our own tendencies for gossip and reputation management.

Ok, so...in the face of evolutionary scientists bringing forth this evidence that makes a lot more sense, your arguments that commit the logic fallacy of begging the question ring very hollow and your statement that "Atheism is not compatible with morality" rings about as hollow as my schizophrenic room-mate's claims that 500,000,000 people are out there specifically hunting for him for the sole purpose of killing him and that they tell him so via forum posts wherein they ban him from rap battle websites for posting images of baby gore porn.

Try to form a coherent argument without begging the question and jumping to conclusions based on presuppositions, and then I'll take you seriously when you use the word "reason," alright? You're trying to make morality something it isn't. You yourself have no evidence of your own claims and then you demand I must reject them. Well, ok, I reject them. I reject them on the grounds that they come from the natural imperatives of natural selection and social dynamics that has resulted from us evolving as a very socially-reliant species. That's a reason that makes MUCH more sense than your claims that "morality must come from an agent" and that there is a god responsible for creation and a goddess responsible for benevolence. You have no proof of either of these claims so your entire argument rings hollow from that point onwards, anyways. Everyone else may want to rise to dismantling your points everywhere but I'll stick with just demolishing the foundations to let the rest crumble.