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

To: Solon who wrote (17523)	5/22/2004 12:17:17 PM
From: Greg or e	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 28931

"Please do me the courtesy of noticing I am not advocating such things only pointing out that they are not morally wrong in (YOR) amoral "natural" system." You have chosen to deny me that courtesy. "<<<Having reduced Man to just a product of evolution you (not I) have removed the ability to "judge between right and wrong".>>>" "There is nothing in evolution which prevents people from playing the piano," What does that have to do with the price of eggs? Talk about non responsive. <<<Having reduced Man to just a product of evolution you (not I) have removed the ability to "judge between right and wrong".>>> "You are all mixed up." You are the one who denies God's being and promotes the ridiculous notion that the universe spontaneously jumped into existence from no-thing and that everything we are is merely the product of a blind purposeless evolutionary process. I'd say it's you that is mixed up. Given the above presuppositions you have nothing but nature to derive ethics from. The Rodney King ("why can't we all get along") ethic asks the question but does not provide an answer any more than you do. "NATURE HAS NO MORAL STANDARDS. Cooperation and competition in instinctual creatures are NOT moral standards." <<<You have not explained why we should "value other creatures>>> "Because cooperation, sharing, goodwill, peace, and harmony all promote survival and happiness. And the drive for both these goals are axiomatic and innate." If you are preaching to the choir then you will find agreement with that, but there is simply nothing logically compelling about it. Lets all hold hands and sing Kum By Ya! These ethical notions are certainly innate but they are by no means axiomatic. They are only logical if you start with the ethic that you are trying to justify. Otherwise it is like a preference for ice cream, you can take it or leave it. "As I said: "Might is right" is no more logical for an atheist than for anyone else. Unless one is mightier than all others, it is just plain stupid. If people lived like this they would eventually get down to a group of several hundred survivors. These would be the most brutal, vicious, and savage human beings imaginable. Their final clashes under the ethic of "might makes right" would be the most bestial bloodbath ever seen in history. To say this is a logical way to live for an atheist or for anybody is just plain stupid." Sadly that appears to be exactly the way the world is heading. Stupid, yes: but logical if you think you and yours will be the last ones standing. "If you believe that ethics come from your God, then how do people who worship Gods who do not exist (people, I mean, of a non-Christian belief) have a transcendent justification for ethics which is superior to a rational basis for atheists??" That is because Theists at least have a rational, if only theoretical basis for transcendent ethics. Atheists/Humanists have only themselves to judge themselves. If "Man is the Measure" then whatever He wants to be ethical is ethical.