Moral Evolution

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In several different ways we are quite different from other hominid species.  One is the huge brain which is too large for the birthing pelvis and therefore must develop significantly after birth.  Probably associated with this is the hidden estrus which makes a single mating by a dominant male unlikely to be successful in continuing his line.  Both make the human social structure much different from other hominids.  If the male wants to insure his paternity he must pair up long term with a female (and make sure no other male has access to the female.)  This obviously has a huge impact on morality which must have evolved with the brain size of the baby.  

The concurrent evolution of the infant totally dependent on parents for everything from wiping herm ass, learning language, and getting from one place to another for nearly a whole gestation period and the hidden estrus had to have a major effect on the moral relationships between men and women especially for the man.  I suspect the traditional cave man dragging the woman to the cave by the hair would have trouble getting enough sex to maintain his line.  The guy who provided dinner and a dance regularly would have a much better chance. 

The other major difference was the evolution from a hunter/gatherer nomadic life style to an agricultural settlement based society. Again it would seem that the moral evolution would be concurrent with the settled social structure.   

The agricultural settlement where the division of labor among women and men, the men doing the muscle work of tillage and clearing, with opportunistic hunting and field and flock depredation prevention, certainly must have had moral evolutionary effects on both genders:  Women with strong social and community development skills would have much better evolutionary success in the critical chore of  getting a child to puberty.  In the absense of breakfast diners, a man who left home with a substantial breakfast, and could look forward to a substantial dinner, would be much better prepared to concentrate on his daily community chores.   

To be continued ...

Music in Religion

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I am relatively familiar with Russian Orthodox as well due to my interest in Russian Orthodox music.  The music of religion is particularly useful in understanding the tradition, as it is the major vehicle for the transmission of the emotional basis of the tradition.  One can't really appreciate the terror of the Dies Irae unless one has heard an Italian Requiem.  Either Verdi or Berlioz will impress but many others will do the job.  Then one must go to Mass for the Et Expecto to get back to Jesus.

Bible Studies.

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I am qualified to evaluate expertise in biblical studies since I’m a Russian Orthodox seminary graduate. Knowledge of theology appears limited to that of modern evangelical Protestantism. 

I might suggest that a seminary graduate is hardly an impartial evaluator of Biblical analysis.  I suspect you would not have graduated if you didn't have a strong theological bias toward the Russian Orthodox interpretation of Scripture. 

The atheists here have a sophisticated and reasoned interpretation of the stories in the Bible regardless of our milk traditions if only to deal with the incessant proselytization we endure daily.  Certainly modern evangelical Protestantism is the most prevalent.  Other traditions are well represented as well as we try to avoid Fundagelicals when possible. Our associates are well distributed among the other Western Denominations who are not reticent about telling us why we should join them at church. 

As noted I have 8 Bibles on my shelf beside me, and have read all 8 cover to cover at some point in my life.  (Well, I skipped the begats in some of them, but I bet I have read more begats than most Christians.) When interpreting any specific passage I not only compare the eight I am familiar with, but the online comparisons as well. I am also familiar with the belief based interpretations of many of the Western traditions, including Dispensationalism,  (unfortunately) evangelical Protestantism, Catholicism, mainstream Protestantism, Judiasm, UUC and theistic UU.  The last two being the most familiar as they are the churches of choice "when the spirit moves me."

Beliefs, Bias, and Atheism

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Please clarify. Holding a bias in favor of their own positions is a common human trait. Are you claiming that the atheists in this group are extraordinary in their capacity to be fair and objective?

It is commonly recognized that biases are associated with belief.  See Shermer among many others. Scientists are trained to recognize and compensate for biases, especially belief based biases,  and do so relatively well due to the threat of peer review either formal or informal.

Generally atheists reject beliefs in anything, preferring a search for valid knowledge without belief biases.  In addition atheists generally do not generally have positions to support.  As an example I have found that god beliefs are not useful and frequently dysfunctional.  However, if someone would show me a useful god belief, I might consider using it, although it is unlikely that I would adopt it.  I find the panentheistic belief a useful and functional worldview to study and learn from.  However, I need no deity to focus my study. I do very well with the wonder and awesomeness of the world I live on and the Universe which contains it. One might say I take my spirituality unadulterated by imaginary intermediaries.  

Goo to Zoo to Me

Here are some facts which we each have to interpret.
....wouldn’t you agree that it is also absurd to say that this happened by chance? You might comment that natural selection is a 'non-random process', but going back further you must believe in 'chance' and how did a non-random process evolve from randomness? Is randomness not the right word? Do you think it is reasonable to suggest the universe was always orderly from nothing? Or how would you put it?
Do you just have to shrug your shoulders and say 'existence is weird' and leave it at that?
How do you see the world?  

 I see the world as a scientist, chemist to be precise.

 

Once the plasma of the Big Bang cooled sufficiently for protons and electrons to form, electromagnetics will cause them to form hydrogen.  Gravity clumps up the hydrogen and collapses it eventually getting it hot enough form a star which blows up scattering hydrogen and helium which forms new stars with the carbon – nitrogen - oxygen fusion cycle.  These blow up scattering carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen all over the universe.  These are the main building blocks of amino acids which are found everywhere in the universe.  The other extremely stable compound formed from this mess is water.  No chance just chemistry.

Get these all together on a big rock orbiting a star at the right distance that the water is liquid and all sorts of weird chemistry happens.  Carbon in particular is a promiscuous chemical and joins up with almost anything including itself to form all sorts of stuff including  goo and lipid membranes and bubbles which don’t really dissolve in water but mix with it.  Again no chance just chemistry.

Big complicated carbon molecules with amino acids and bases tend to fold up in ways that keep the amino acids and bases out, again chemistry, carbon bonds tightly to itself and other radicals stick out. Acids and bases sticking out tend to attract other carbon compounds with acids and bases sticking out sometimes end to end sometimes side to side.  The side to side match-ups tend to fall apart, but the end to end are fairly stable.  Still just goo, but some of the goo gets trapped in a lipid bubble which concentrates goo stuff.  But after a while, measured in millions of years, give or take a million, one of those folded goo molecules probably a simple RNA molecule attracts goo stuff sideways in a way that matches up with the RNA.  As mentioned the sideways bonds are weak and the matched goo splits off.  Now there are two replicators attracting goo stuff.  In a while one of the replicators adds something that makes it better able to attract goo stuff, and it becomes the most successful and the other replicators disappear.  In a while a matchup containing thiamine instead of uracil proves to be even more stable and DNA becomes the dominant replicator. Still just goo making more goo. 

When the DNA and RNA start working together to manipulate the lipid membrane we begin to move from goo to zoo.  DNA which splits the lipid membrane when it replicates can be called the beginning of the zoo.  The single cell organisms compete for resources and the most successful live to split again.  Some cooperate with other organisms to be even more successful and become more common.  One group develops a way to react to the environment to compete better for resources and again some compete well enough to replicate and the others die off taking their inadequate DNA with them.  The groups get better and smarter about reacting to the environment in each case surviving long enough to replicate.  This continued for countless generations, each generation getting better at filling its niche on the rock until I won. Hat tip to Mary-Ella Holst from her Lottery 

http://jcarlinsv.blogspot.com/2009/07/lottery.html

Stories as Lore

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Should atheists be against these types of creations which spread religious ideas?

No more than I am against the 8 Bibles on my bookshelf.  Good ideas and even new truth can come from anywhere.  Good stories, music, even video if one can resist the temptation to believe.  (Video is so immersive it is hard to be intelligently critical.) 

Humans live and die by the stories we listen to.  Choose them wisely.

Life After Death.

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Is there life after death? We can't prove that there isn't life after death.

No, but we can live as if it doesn't matter. 

Moral Statements and rules.

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10 Commandments and 613 detailed rules were not flexible enough even for a bunch of desert marauders.  And certainly not for the religious groups that followed, using those Commandments and rules as Scriptural truth. 

Any moral system will be local to a defined group, extremely complex and detailed, and interpreted intuitively by the members of the group.  Some moral systems will include Paul's vague stupidity, others will be based on radical humanistic standards.  There will be a lot of workable moral systems in between. 

But even something as intuitively correct and simple as don't steal. Gets mired down in situational ethics, and definitions of what is not to be stolen.  Is a song property that should not be stolen?  At what point from the composer trying it out on a group of friends to a viral iTune does it become wrong to steal it?  And that is an easy one.  What about that baguette thrown into the restaurant dumpster?

It doesn't matter whence, that is a different issue.  For the purpose of this thread throw away all the commandments, all of the rules, all of the laws and follow your conscience.  At the least it will keep you out of trouble with your family, friends, and neighbors.  In its highest form it will keep you out of trouble anywhere. 

Immaterial Reality and Community Wisdom.

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I would agree that there is something beyond the material.  That which we can imagine, dream, derive inspiration from, etc. is certainly immaterial.  It may even in a sense be real, that is able to be identified and used coherently by others.  But nonetheless it is an ersatz reality, as the only way to use immaterial ideas coherently is to agree that they are defined in the mind only.  

Mystical experiences point to the collective wisdom of our community as realized within the individual’s mind.  The mystical experience allows the mind to focus on and isolate an aspect of that collective wisdom and reinforce the conceptual memory for future access.  It is nonetheless important to be aware that the realization is within the mind of the mystic, not external.

The human brain-mind (mind from here on) is necessarily well adapted to isolate and store concepts and behaviors that are important to the community.  But that activity is wholly within an individual’s mind.  The community may have effective ways to indoctrinate these concepts and behaviors.  But until they are realized and implanted in an individual mind they have no reality ersatz or other.

Defining Communities.

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How fortuitous that life had not only given us minds to create Gods but also the curious nature to seek these creations, and find experiences to keep us on the trail and validate our belief.....Curious_Soul

The key word here is Gods.  Study a community's God(s) and how the community stays on the trail and validates their belief and you have defined the community and have a reasonable idea on how to relate to them.  It even works well for those who worship no god.  How they keep on the no-god trail and validate their beliefs is extremely useful information.  Which is why my community which studies all gods and trails none is so misunderstood.  No victimization, we like it that way.  But people are always trying to pin a belief where none exists. 

So Help Me God

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An oath to God when one does not believe means nothing. No Christian should support forced oaths to God.

Which is why as an atheist I have no issue with emulating George Washington and adding "So Help Me God" for political reasons in court or anywhere else someone asks.  It would be much better if they made me affirm rather than swear at God but that is their problem not mine.

If it gives me credibility among the credulous why should I care?  I will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, (but not God's TRUTH™) because it is my responsibility as a citizen to do so.   

TRUTH™

Curious_Soul wrote:
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
― Winston Churchill

Politics and Morals

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Politics, religions, cultures, views of reality all greatly differ, yet morals are largely consistent. Why is it just so naturally consistent in the arena of morals, but not these other areas?

Because humans are intelligent, tribal, social animals. The differences in behavior among all of the above are simply the size of the tribe and the power of the leaders. But even the strongest leaders are bound by the simple tribal morality of respect for tribe members, follow the leader, and ultimately do what mama tells you to do before you are six.

Alive with Stories

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 “When you’re ready to wake up, you’re going to wake up, and if you’re not ready you’re going to stay pretending that you’re just a ‘poor little me.’ And since you’re all here and engaged in this sort of inquiry and listening to this sort of lecture, I assume you’re all in the process of waking up. " Alan Watts

 I was born awake and never was put to sleep by dogma.  I never had that rude awakening to find out that God, the divine and everything else was just a story.  Stories to help me learn how to be a better person and contribute to my chosen society but stories nonetheless with some truth and lots of garbage. 

My society is relatively demanding, one must think rationally and independently, one must constantly be aware of the mores of the society and comply with them intelligently rather than dogmatically, and problems must be resolved reasonably for all involved.  The stories are there to help, even the religious ones, but none of them can tell me what is right or even what to do.

Secular, Secular Humanism and Humanism

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I’ve seen the term “secular” used interchangeably with the terms “secular humanism” and “humanism”.

*sarcasm*   I have seen religious used interchangeably with Christian bigots, Televangelists, Bob Jones University and many other manifestations of spirituality.  So it is OK for me to say religious means Christian bigot? */sarcasm*

"Secular" has a well-defined and limited meaning as explained above, and may not involve humanism at all. Communism and Fascism and Capitalism are secular and not humanist by any stretch of the definition of humanist.  "Secular Humanism" is a well-defined organized society not to be confused with "secular humanism" which is a worldview based on the rejection of supernatural influences over human behavior and generally promoting a human centered social philosophy.  "humanism" may or may not involve God, god or gods, but is again a human centered social philosophy.

Many of my social mentors have been theistic humanists.  Indeed the only Christian churches I respect and enjoy visiting are humanist in the sense that they essentially reduce the message of Jesus to the Two Great Commandments.  Note that the First involves God and I have no problem with that.  I might argue that they are not Christian, but that is another definitional blivot.