Group prayer on Skype on behalf of our Christian members

[robvalue]

PS: the existence of psycopaths (those incapable of empathy/morality) also runs very contrary to the idea of imbued morality, unless you assume the imbuer makes mistakes.

[I_am_not_mafia]

I just posted from a scientific source that stated animals aren't moral.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_de_Waal

His 2013 book The Bonobo and the Atheist examines human behavior through the eyes of a primatologist, and explores to what extent God and religion are needed for human morality. The main conclusion is that morality comes from within, and is part of human nature. The role of religion is secondary.

*emphasis mine*

What's your response to that?

That it's also strong evidence that it is part of animal nature as well.

You can't properly examine human nature without taking into account their evolutionary origins and that humans are one branch of a larger evolutionary tree.

So yeah, well done. You're effectively arguing that morality is evolved.

[SaStrike]

It's so fucking hard being a theist these days. You keep having to make excuses and ignore logic.

[Edwardo Piet]

Ok so you admit that hell isn't a deterrent...

LOL Huggy. This is terrible even for you! Giving a response that I've already dealt with. Really?

Lol, I am so epic I refute you before you even respond:

The ones who rape and molest you mean? They're awful.

I am aware that you are utterly terrible at logic... but the fact that many immoral people who are so immoral that they need to believe in hell to deter themselves from doing awful things doesn't mean that there aren't people who go ahead and do those things anyway.

In case you're still too stupid to realize... (1) Just because it doesn't deter some people doesn't mean it doesn't deter anyone. (2) Even if it really does deter anyone that's not the point at all! (3) The point is some theists say that without God people would all go out and rape and kill and steal... which is rather concerning.

---

Suck it motherfucker. Goodnight.

I've had better offers.  Sweet dreams, Empathetic Prince.

You deny evidence and logic just like a theist.

Also what you said before about the conclusion being the best indication of what came before. That was awful. It's not about the conclusion it's about the sound premises and the valid argumentation of how you get there. Sheesh. No wonder you're irrational.

---

Just to show you it's not a fluke, Kit, I took the 60 question empathy test again today. Here was the result:



Cue the part where you say I do have empathy because I scored 2 out of 80 this time

---

Hmm. I should make a thread for this test.

[Huggy Bear]

As usual the theist does not understand how science works. Just because De Waal claims something doesn't make it doctrine like in a religion. Science is not writing its own Bible. This is typical of the theist mentality of seeing everything from a religious view point.

There is the evidence. Then there is the interpretation of the evidence. So De Waal has produced some evidence and is inferring things from it. But another scientist can look at that same evidence and say that actually it means something else. This opens up an opportunity for new research to find out which scientist is correct. De Waal has been collecting evidence, but that doesn't mean to say that his interpretation is correct.

For one thing, it comes down to how he is defining morality. The very way he is defining it makes it a uniquely human experience, but morality has developed over time and his interpretation means that he is creating an arbitrary cut-off point where it starts and previous biological instincts that are required for human morality are not defined by him as morality. After all, in your last quote "the main conclusion is that morality comes from within, and is part of human nature". And this is my main point. Many of the same neural functions that give us humans morality also exist in other animals for similar purposes. There will never be a one to one equivalent because we are different species.

De Waal was the source YOU provided as corroborating the idea that animals have a sense of morality. De Waal claims no such thing, so instead of admiting you were wrong, you start backpedaling, that is typical atheist behavior.

Againg De Waal was YOUR source not mine.

What sets human morality apart, he believes, depends on our greater powers of abstraction, and involves "a move toward universal standards combined with an elaborate system of justification, monitoring, and punishment. At this point, religion comes in."

What sets human morality apart. Sure, I can agree with that. But that doesn't mean to say that the other primates don't have their own less developed morality. It's the same error of thinking that leads people to argue that animals don't have emotions (and therefore souls) because they don't have human emotions.

Also the quote makes it look like he is stating that this is the purview of religion when it is not. It is what religion tries to control.

There aren't degrees to morality, morality is simply the ability to know right and wrong, it's basic human understanding.

Knowing right from wrong means you understand WHY something is right or wrong. If you don't know why murder is wrong, I'd argue you don't have any sense of morality.

Animals have absolutely zero ability to reason, therefore they cannot be moral.

[I_am_not_mafia]

De Waal was the source YOU provided as corroborating the idea that animals have a sense of morality. De Waal claims no such thing, so instead of admiting you were wrong, you start backpedaling, that is typical atheist behavior.

Againg De Waal was YOUR source not mine.

You seem to either not have read my response, ignored my point or misunderstood it.

De Waal provided evidence and an interpretation of that evidence.

I disagree with that interpretation.

I think he provided evidence of animals with rudimentary morality.

There aren't degrees to morality, morality is simply the ability to know right and wrong, it's basic human understanding.

If that was so then the trolley problem would not be of such interest. There are many situations where it is not clear what is the right or wrong thing to do. This is what philosophy concerns itself with. Philosophers often try to figure out such answers.

Knowing right from wrong means you understand WHY something is right or wrong. If you don't know why murder is wrong, I'd argue you don't have any sense of morality.

Easy with clear cut examples such as murder. What about state sanctioned murder such as the death penalty? Abortion? The answer is not so obvious for these. If it was, they would not contentious issues.

Animals have absolutely zero ability to reason, therefore they cannot be moral.

Wrong.

Here are examples of a squirrel reasoning about how to get to a bird feeder

---

---

Crow understanding water displacement to retrieve food (loads of other videos of them using tools)

---

---

Also dolphins are known to save people from sharks. That sounds fairly moral to me.

[Amarok]

Of course animals can reason . There is a whole fields devoted to studying it . And no morality is not clear cut and is full of issues in philosophy . If it were not then their would not be multiple moral philosophies. And yes different levels of cognitive  abilities and intelligences will have lesser or greater levels of moral behaviour .

Look at some of the behaviours of meerkats
http://www.mommypage.com/2014/02/alpha-m...ther-dies/

[Anomalocaris]

Because people with real knowledge of science can evaluate whether he knows something of what he is talking about.

That is unlike you, who thinks Bible is adaquate substitute for real knowledge of, well, anything, and as a result struts about with an moronic attitude like a baffoon as if time wasted with your bible qualifies you to be a worthy participant in discussion about, well, anything.

I just posted from a scientific source that stated animals aren't moral.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_de_Waal

So a single Wikipedia article about one single researcher is a scientific source now, is it?   No summary or survey of all published Peer reviewer professional papers? No survey of their citations?

His 2013 book The Bonobo and the Atheist examines human behavior through the eyes of a primatologist, and explores to what extent God and religion are needed for human morality. The main conclusion is that morality comes from within, and is part of human nature. The role of religion is secondary.

*emphasis mine*

What's your response to that?
.

Response to what?  To the fact that not only did you cherry pick a non-scientific source and pretend it reflects the scientific consensus, but had to misrepresent the content of what you cherry picked in order to achieve the effect?

The very paragraph before the quote you cherry picked from the source you cherry picked says “the possibility that empathy resides in parts of the brain so ancient that we share them with rates....”

[Amarok]

And even hios cherry picking does not help as human nature does not say what nature . Hmm maybe our evolved nature. Nowhere in sentence does it say morality is solely human. Only that it is part of our nature . It's the Wolves all over again

Oh and there is this 
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/12882#animals

[Huggy Bear]

De Waal was the source YOU provided as corroborating the idea that animals have a sense of morality. De Waal claims no such thing, so instead of admiting you were wrong, you start backpedaling, that is typical atheist behavior.

Againg De Waal was YOUR source not mine.

You seem to either not have read my response, ignored my point or misunderstood it.

De Waal provided evidence and an interpretation of that evidence.

I disagree with that interpretation.

I think he provided evidence of animals with rudimentary morality.

I must point out yet again that De Waal is the source that YOU provided. If you're disagreeing with your own source then that puts you back at square one... Provide a source to back up your claims.

As far as I know, no expert is claiming that animals are moral beings, especially your own source.

Further, de Waal doesn't go so far as to equate animal goodness with morality. "I am reluctant to call a chimpanzee a 'moral being'," he writes.

Chimps are the closest you're going to get to being human like, and if he wont call a chimp a moral being, then no animal is a moral being.

There aren't degrees to morality, morality is simply the ability to know right and wrong, it's basic human understanding.

If that was so then the trolley problem would not be of such interest. There are many situations where it is not clear what is the right or wrong thing to do. This is what philosophy concerns itself with. Philosophers often try to figure out such answers.

The trolley problem? A totally hypothetical situation? I'd argue that the person who tied  people to the tracks in the first place bears the responsibility for any deaths that occurred.

Knowing right from wrong means you understand WHY something is right or wrong. If you don't know why murder is wrong, I'd argue you don't have any sense of morality.

Easy with clear cut examples such as murder. What about state sanctioned murder such as the death penalty? Abortion? The answer is not so obvious for these. If it was, they would not contentious issues.

I don't think anyone would have a problem with the death penalty if the justice system was perfect...

As far as abortion goes, it seems some would play fast and loose with the definition of life...

That being said, the answer to both of those issue would be obvious if the justices system was perfect, and if an unborn child was considered a 'person'.

Animals have absolutely zero ability to reason, therefore they cannot be moral.

Wrong.

Here are examples of a squirrel reasoning about how to get to a bird feeder

---

---

Crow understanding water displacement to retrieve food (loads of other videos of them using tools)

---

---

Also dolphins are known to save people from sharks. That sounds fairly moral to me.

I think you need to learn the difference between the ability to solve problems vs the ability to reason.

Young children have the ability to problem solve, yet we don't hold them responsible for their actions, why?


Self-taught, ‘superhuman’ AI now even smarter, says creators

THE computer that stunned humanity by beating the best mortal players at a strategy board game requiring “intuition” has become even smarter, its creators claim.

Dubbed AlphaGo Zero, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) system learnt by itself, within days, to master the ancient Chinese board game known as “Go” — said to be the most complex two-person challenge ever invented.

It came up with its own, novel moves to eclipse all the Go acumen humans have acquired over thousands of years.

After just three days of self-training it was put to the ultimate test against AlphaGo, its forerunner which previously dethroned the top human champs.

AlphaGo Zero won by 100 games to zero.

“AlphaGo Zero not only rediscovered the common patterns and openings that humans tend to play ... it ultimately discarded them in preference for its own variants which humans don’t even know about or play at the moment,” said AlphaGo lead researcher David Silver.

The 3000-year-old Chinese game played with black and white stones on a board has more move configurations possible than there are atoms in the Universe.

My question to you is, do you belive a computer posses the ability to reason?

---

I just posted from a scientific source that stated animals aren't moral.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_de_Waal

So a single Wikipedia article about one single researcher is a scientific source now, is it?   No summary or survey of all published Peer reviewer professional papers?   No survey of their citations?

*emphasis mine*
What's your response to that?

Response to what?  To the fact that not only did you cherry pick a non-scientific source and pretend it reflects the scientific consensus, but had to misrepresent the content of what you cherry picked in order to achieve the effect?

The very paragraph before the quote you cherry picked from the source you cherry picked says “the possibility that empathy resides in parts of the brain so ancient that we share them with rates....”

*emphasis mine*
First of all, as far as I know, one source beats ZERO sources; Which is the amount YOU provided after repeated requests...

Second of all were not discussing "empathy" (I don't know how one would measure 'empathy' in the first place) were discussing morality. De Waal clearly stated he would not call a Chimp a moral being, are rats more evolved than a Chimp?