the *** sex & religion thread (Religious, quote)

[Inuzuka Skysword]

Originally Posted by The Unfan

Logic 101
Alright, so intersubjectivity is not objectivity. Makes sense.

I don't know if you are being sarcastic or not. All I know is that just because many people believe it to be true, it doesn't mean it is true. What is objective is explained by logic. Therefore everyone can have the same morality, but if it is not logical and rational it is not objective.

So morality is what is perceptively right from the currently known information. As information changes so must morality. This means it is not "concrete" as you later stated. Also, something being logical and rational doesn't make something objective. With my current knowledge it would be logical to assume that I am going to go eat soon. I am hungry. However, I have not ate soon and therefor it is not factual, nor objective.

Logic is the objective way to view reality. Therefore it is the objective way to view morality, which is a part of reality. Morality, as I said before, has a set skeleton that will never change. The skeleton is the fact that your morality must be rational making it objective. However, it may be wrong for one person to eat fast food because he doesn't want to get fat. The other, however, doesn't mind it. Therefore, it is only morally wrong for the person whose goal is to stay lean. The morality is the same in that both are rational and are the same approach to morality. Their goals are what vary (though one could argue that their goals could be irrational). There are some things which are similar among all humans. The non-aggression principle is always rational because it is always irrational to use physical force against another human. When you do so, you acknowledge that you yourself have no right to life.

This also isn't true. There are many species of animals that exist that we just don't know about. They're being discovered. It is not reasonable to state that these species just randomly formed before our eyes and then populated their habitats the instant we discovered them. Rather, with what we know about evolution it is logical to conclude the opposite.

Logic still decides what exists in this situation. If you are observing reality through conjectures that your mind makes really fast such as "I can see it so it is probably real" and stuff like that, logic is deciding whether it exists or not. If it doesn't then you are arguing that logic is should not be held as an absolute. Since there is no reason to believe this, logic is what decides whether something exists or not because it is the way of viewing reality, and our only trusted way of viewing it.

Physical reality is objective,

So why isn't all reality objective? Reality must be objective in all of its parts if reality exists beyond the individual consciousness.

If one picks his morality as he feels is appropriate for his values than morality is just that. Its what you feel is moral. Objective feelings? How does that work? What is an objective sadness? Would that mean that its is 100% correct sad? That doesn't make a damn bit of sense.

I never used the word "feel" in that post. "Feelings" are arbitrary whims and should not be trusted over reasoning. Morality is when one picks his rules based on what his values are. Since morality must be rational, along with the goals, you aren't picking out of a hat. You decide, using logic, which is going to allow me to achieve that goal the best way. One can still choose wrong, and when they do they have the wrong morality even if they reasoned it. It just means that they reasoned wrong.

had written up this long response but after reading this "example" of your "logic" I deleted it all and decided I'm going to stop arguing with you. Not to sound like a complete snob but that was one of the stupidest things I've ever read. I strongly encourage you stop reading Ayn Rand and starting reading things on the scientific method and basic philosophy of logic (especially logic fallacies.) Until then I'm not going to bother arguing with you. There's a reason basically any academic philosopher (and many people who read philosophy) view Rand as a joke you know.

You mention logic fallacies and pull out this bull****. Seriously, how is the logic wrong? If one follows a morality because a god tells him to, and the god is disproven, then whole reason for the morality is rendered void making the morality irrational.

[QUOTEI think you guys are getting off-track on what morality is. I think morality mainly comes from two things. The first is our biology, some sense of morality are adaptations that we have evolved because humans are social animals and morality helps us live together. Second, morality in part changes with culture (including religion).

Evolution of adaptations and "evolution of culture" (if you can accept that as an idea) is predictable and so is morality to some extent.


I'lll provide some examples to illustrate what I'm talking about and I'll start with morality as an adaptation.

One should start with the perception that the gene is the (smallest) unit of selection in evolution as opposed to individuals or populations. Genes are selfish, so that would mean that there is no real altruism. However, altruism (or something like it) would come about because of selfish interest. Think of the gene that gives you blue eyes. That gene on it's own would have very low fitness. It needs all the other genes to make up an eye and then an organism that benefits from that eye in order to be selected for. Even if all genes are selfish, some have higher fitness when grouped with other genes. What you eventually end up with are genes to make humans and other living beings, gene carriers if you will. We will die, but our genes will live on and that's what's important to us, although not consciously.

Remember that genes code not just for our physical bodies, but our emotions. The reward you get from having sex comes from your biology and is supposed to motivate you to having more of it.

As humans, we want our genes to survive and our genes are not just found in ourselves, but also our children and family. This explains kin selection - why we care more for our family members than people we are not related to. Also, just like the gene of blue eye colour needs to work with other genes, humans (as social animals) also enjoy a higher fitness when working together with other people. That means that we must have behavioural adaptations to take care of and/or cooperate with the people around us .. but there's a fine line, at some point you start giving too much and it has a negative effect on your own interest.

So from this point of view, morality should have some rather universal ideas, and it does. Killing other people should be considered bad. Killing your own children should be even worse - and cheating on your partner with other people's partners should be considered bad - and probably even more so if you are a woman because your parental investment is relatively high if you become pregnant. These are extreme examples, but extremes work very well that well. If you are constantly taking more than you give and/or doing things that lead to conflict with other people in your community, like stepping on people's toes and never saying sorry, people will think of you as rude and immoral .. wherever you are.


Next, you have morality as shaped by culture. If you want to get a little pseudo-scientific about culture, you can say that culture evolves kind of like living things do. The things that are selected for are "memes", which is basically a culture-way of saying genes - ideas that sometimes make up bigger ideas when grouped together with many others. Memes are selected for or against in the collective human mindscape and what determines a memes fitness is it's appeal to us. Things that trigger emotional responses, such as joy or fear, are labeled as "important" by our brains and as a result, enjoys a higher fitness.

For example, you may have the meme that there is a god. The god-meme should enjoy a higher fitness when grouped with other memes, for example memes that say if you don't believe in this, you go to hell - and if you do believe - you go to heaven. As a result, you would expect some ideas to get selected for together and as a result, the "evolution" of religions. Also, other parts of culture should evolve roughly the same way.

Religions and cultures usually have their own laws and these may differ from the ones that makes sense from an adaptations-point-of-view. For example, it may be immoral to eat pork or the idea of honour may be elevated to such a degree that it justifies the killing of your own child.

I think it is the cultural moral may seem to be chaotic and ever changing, but not all of it is. Back in the feudal chinese times, society may have accepted that the emperor's men could kill the farmer's wife for a trivial reason, but I'm pretty sure your average farmer would think that was an immoral thing to do - just like he would if it happened today.


I know my post is horribly long, but at the same time, it's horribly short because you could write several books about this. If anyone finds this interesting, you should read famous biologist Richard Dawkins' book, "The Selfish Gene" if you haven't already - or possibly some other work of his. These are not all his ideas alone, but his first book gathered the thoughts of many academics.[/QUOTE]
What is your definition of morality. In order for me to comment on this post I would have to know.