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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greg or e who wrote (9591)	11/8/2010 11:51:38 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 69300

>objective Moral Law exists. It exists in itself, and we all know that it does. The risible New Atheist assertion that the Moral Law is merely a product of evolution, like earwax, is so far removed from genuine insight that it's difficult to satirize, let alone defend.< (I am probably being stupid and kicking an old wasps' nest here. Tough. I'm bored...) I am unaware of [an] objective moral law. The examples you cited seem to me to be not entirely to point. Agreeing that humans perceive the existence of right or wrong ... or more safely, righter and wronger ... does not necessarily or naturally allow me to make the huge logical step to constructing a moral code, either de novo or from my experiences. A shared belief in the existence of morality does not obviously lead to that morality having a definite, defined, internally and externally consistent structure. Allow me to weave an extended metaphor to illustrate what I mean. I am not a geologist, even though I have read some geology in a strictly amateur capacity. I hold a handful of sand and say to you: Look. Sand. A geologist can hold that very same handful and (after an interlude with a polarizing microscope and an atomic absorption spectrometer etc.) describe the mountains that bred that sand. A skilled and inspired geologist can deduce a history of several waves of orogenesis and erosion as told by the myriad grains in that one handful. I find that idea awe-inspiring but somehow not satisfying. I don't want to discuss mountains using a handful of sand as the basic premise. Maybe I am too picky for (polite) words, but if we talk about mountains, I'd like to be shown a mountain. cheers js