The Horrors of Evolution (Evolution)

by edinburgh04 , edinburgh, Tuesday, September 09, 2008, 13:17 (5717 days ago) @ dhw

1) Do you avoid doing wrong only because you think that God sees you? - In my Agnostic position I tended to view my moral state from the perspective of what I thought it was fair of the various people around me to think of me based on what they knew of me. If someone thought less of me than I thought they had reason to this made me upset (I'd think they were a bad person). In general and (I think like most people) I tried to project an image of myself that was a bit more positive than reality. And depending on what group I was mixing with the direction I would skew reality would change. Reading the Bible forced me to consider what a truly objective spectator would think of my life. I did not believe in God but just used induction to think about what it would be fair of such a being to think of me. With humans I could say based on what he knows of me he should thing well of me, when I tried this with the hypothetical all knowing God who knew my every thought this did not work so well. - Like many people I'd felt misunderstood as a person. There was a kind of Eureka moment when I discovered that the reason I felt misunderstood was because I was the one misleading people about me. It sounds simple but without the hypothetical God I never would have made this step. So at this point I will say that God's all seeing nature is very important it is not the motivation for doing right or wrong but it is important. - Before becoming a Christian my morality hinged around what I could get away with. And I think survival of the fittest can boil down to this too. Imagine two guys both like the same girl. They have a genetic group morality which says murder is not right. However faced with a situation where man A can be certain he can murder person B without getting caught. From the point of view of passing on you genes this it what it makes sense to do. So the group mentality is to catch an punish murderers but the clever individual who knows he can evade capture it is good for gene preservation if he murders. Genetic morality then boils down to publicly upholding the group morality, and only breaking it when you can be sure you will not get caught and it is to your advantage. I think our moral outlook hinges on our view of origins and this is why it is such a passionate subject. At the moral level the disproof of evolution has implications. - (see question 2)