> On 11 mei, 16:21, Bill Patterson gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>

>> On May 10, 3:06�pm, James A. Donald echeque.com> wrote:

>

>>> � � --
>>> James A. Donald

>

>>>>> We are a pack animal. �Our mode of survival requires
>>>>> collaboration with others. �We therefore prefer to
>>>>> collaborate with those that seem unlikely to cut our
>>>>> throats, and need to persuade others we are unlikely
>>>>> to cut their throats.

>

>>>>> "Evil" is those characteristics that indicate a
>>>>> willingness to harm friends, associates and random
>>>>> innocents in the general vicinity, "evil acts" are
>>>>> acts indicative of such propensity.

>

>>> veritas

>

>>>> I still have a problem with that theory. �There is no
>>>> group of people, no society in the world that does not
>>>> have a religion. �That indicates that we are born with
>>>> a certain set of genes that guides our morals.

>

>>> No, it indicates that we are born with a propensity to
>>> believe in conscious action and conscious causes even
>>> when that consciousness is not there, for much the same
>>> evolutionary reasons as we are born with a propensity to
>>> see faces even in random shapes that do not look much
>>> like faces.

>

>>> We are *also* and quite independently, born with genes
>>> that guide our moral judgment (for the reasons I gave
>>> above - people are potentially dangerous) but morality,
>>> justice, and right conduct has nothing to do with
>>> religion. �The spirits of most primitive religions are
>>> amoral and for the most part actively hostile to humans.
>>> Most primitive religions are a collection of
>>> superstitions for avoiding things that might supposedly
>>> draw the attention of the spirits. �The objective of
>>> most primitive rituals is to persuade the spirits to
>>> stay away.

>

>>> To the extent that religion addresses morality, it is
>>> actively hostile to what is right and just.

>

>>> People who claim to represent the Gods and speak on
>>> behalf of the Gods are usually wicked people, who do
>>> wicked things, which they claim are virtuous things,
>>> because their God supposedly made them do it. �Further,
>>> they attribute to their God responsibility for anything
>>> that impresses and frightens people, so their God
>>> supposedly does wicked things, which they need to claim
>>> are virtuous things.

>

>>> This is particularly apparent in religions that require
>>> human sacrifice - for example the Aztec religion,
>>> environmentalism, and Allah worship. �Christianity is
>>> considerably less dreadful, having originated in an
>>> effort to rehabilitate the disturbingly racist,
>>> wrathful, and genocidal god of the old testament, but it
>>> is merely a more innocuous form of the disease, as
>>> vaccina is a comparatively harmless form of smallpox.

>

>>>> As for "evil", there is no evil, as there is no "good". �

>

>>> To make such an assertion after the events of the twentieth
>>> century is ludicrous.
>>> --
>>> � ----------------------
>>> We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
>>> of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
>>> right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

>

>>>http://www.jim.com/�� �James A. Donald

>

>> "Genes that guide our moral judgment" is just silly, except in the
>> limited sense that we have individual predispositions to find some
>> things pleasurable or not.- Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht niet weergeven -

>

>> - Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht weergeven -

>
> Why would it be silly?
> Much animal behaviout seems to be gentically predetermened.
> Why wouldn't surivival of the fittest, benefit, genes that make
> "moral" behviour more likely within social animals?
> "Moral" is only the kind of behaviour that benefits others inside the
> social group instead of the individual only.
> Without "moral" behaviour there wouldn't be any social animals,
> and humanity would have become extinct before it ever came into
> being :-)
>
> Peter van Velzen
> May 2008
> Amstelveen
> The Netherlands- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -