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Politics : Should God be replaced?

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To: Greg or e who wrote (15546)6/10/2003 6:22:54 PM
From: Solon  Read Replies (2) of 28931
 
"You are simply living on borrowed capital Solon"..."It simply means you have no sufficient basis for morality so you borrow Theistic categories and paste them over top of your own"

Oh, that is what you contemplated by "living on borrowed capital." A rather empty charge. I wonder whom I borrowed these "theistic categories" from? Perhaps we could return to topic...

"If you don't believe in God, but do believe in evolution, then reason would lead you to be a social Darwinist."

Again, you are spouting a thoughtless Fundamentalist bromide.

"Stalin was perfectly consistent with Darwinism"

No more than sexually deviant Popes were consistent with a love of Christ.

"Might is right = survival of the fittest."

Again, you are confusing a value held by some people ("Might is Right") with the theory of evolution. Evolution is not concerned with what is "right"--or at least we have no rational basis for believing so--though some believe it to be the case. In any event, those whom believe that evolution is the working out of moral perfection do not equate such with brutality and other inhuman character traits.

Nor is "survival of the fittest" axiomatic in evolutionary theory; and regardless, it is beside the point. "Fitness" is not measured by character traits such as cruelty, brutality, and coldness. Indeed, the human race has survived and flourished in spite of bloodletting by the followers of Stalin, and by the Conquistadores--and in spite of the murderous Catholic Inquisitors. Instead, people have learned the value of cooperation and mutuality.

Humankind has endured because of the virtues of sharing, and through the benefits of society and social order. "Fitness" as a survival trait has more to do with compassion, empathy, honesty, loyalty, cooperation and trust than it has to do with brutality.

There is a reason why we term needless and wanton cruelty "inhuman". And there is a reason why all decent people condemn the inhumanity of people like Stalin; and that reason has nothing to do with whether or not they are atheists or Christians. Surely you are aware that atheists are much under-represented in the prison population relative to the religious, so you might feel generous enough to discontinue a shallow attempt to insinuate bizarre accusations of immorality and brutality against special groups.

By the way, Darwinian evolution is multifaceted and takes innumerable directions. As well, it is part of a continuum of evolutionary thought which covers Christians, pantheists, mystics, and every other variety of seeker after truth. Here is a link which may give you some perspective on the matter. It is true that Evolutionists believing in a Divine Order, or Absolute, or Demiurge seldom picture the God who makes people eat their own excrement, etc. etc. etc, as the Absolute Principle. But you must understand that seekers of Truth seldom waste a lot of time wrangling over the import of primitive and brutal myths...

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