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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (15555)	6/13/2003 12:00:14 PM
From: average joe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

I have often wondered how Greg would interpret the saying ascribed to Jesus in the bible on forgiveness and what happens at 491. "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" "I do not say to you seven times but seventy times seven." This might help Greg... or maybe not - "If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man's only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a 'moral commandment' is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments." AYN RAND My favorite bible hero newadvent.org

To: Solon who wrote (15555)	6/13/2003 2:48:27 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

I have no quarrel with you using "survival of the fittest" as a simplistic view of the matter. <font color=brown>Survival of the fittest</font> was a term used by Herbert Spencer to promote his scheme of social evolution. The original description of evolution by Darwin was <font color=purple>Natural Selection</font>. Natural Selection means that the next generation is selected and not just random. The selection process shapes the characteristics of the next generation, but there is no guarentee that the selection criteria is for "fittest" although it would seem to be a fairly common criteria. TP

To: Solon who wrote (15555)	6/20/2003 12:31:16 PM
From: Greg or e	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

"Rape then, is simply evolution in action." First of all, you completely failed to demonstrate through reason, that rape is rationally and objectively "wrong" based on an evolutionary system. "In fact, to suggest that Spencer, Darwin, Gould and millions of others are brutes because the Catholic-raised Stalin was a brute is to add injury to insult." I don't assert that everyone that believes in evolution is automatically immoral, that's you creating a straw man. It is obvious that humans have an innate and intuitive sense of right and wrong. The Theist has a sufficient answer in that humans are created in the image of a personal, moral God. I would say that Stalin was more honest and logically consistent to his world view than the others you mentioned, but I never equated them to one another. "One can only assume that this stranger is espousing the viewpoint that he himself feels incapable of discerning right or wrong by either reason, empathy, attachment or other forms of self interest and rational survival methods." You might assume that, but then you would be setting up yet another straw man. "You can find no basis in reason or empathy to either feel or think that an action is decent or indecent?" There you go again throwing in emotion as if it had some magical power to make your position rational when it does nothing of the sort. I am not the one who is incapable of discerning right from wrong. Even absent direct revelation; as a creature created in the image of the maker I know intuitively that some actions are right or wrong. What I am asking is how do you explain it using reason alone. It's pretty obvious that you can't, that's why you keep appealing to emotion "This accounts for the ESTABLISHED FACT that opinions of right and wrong show marked variation between groups..." Weak point; shout louder or use caps. The similarities far outweigh the differences and in fact you go on to provide an explanation of similarities which contradicts what you claim to be "ESTABLISHED FACT". The atheist has no objective rational basis to discern right from wrong yet they can't escape that "feeling" in their gut that some actions are in reality evil. If you want to ignore the logical conclusions of your beliefs and rely solely on emotion that's your choice. Just remember the next time that someone steals your car that you have no rational basis to say that he's wrong to do so.