Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[TD1]

Humans decide what is right and wrong mainly depending on tribes, too. Penalties are much more likely to a foreigner than a native. It's why we have racism - we give people different attributes, and justify our moral perspective with it. For example the blacks were just animals, interestingly for this conversation.

Animal packs are known to help others - a lone wolf may become integrated into a pack it did not know previously.
Morality, at its core, is about picking the right and wrong action. But for me it's wrong to rape women. For others it's acceptable, especially if they were flaunting themselves. Morality, even in humans, is varied and relative. Wolves choose not to kill each other. This is presumably as a result of evolution - they work together towards a common aim, and all share the spoils. No doubt they don't think that, though. They just don't kill other wolves because it's the right thing to do, despite the fact that to kill them as they slept would grant a good, albeit temporary, supply of food. Similarly, what's good for humanity is good for the person, which is why we have a concept of working towards a common good. Perhaps we don't think of it like that - it's just the right thing to do after all - but we still do it, and we reap the benefits. You wouldn't kill your employer, 'cause then you're out of a job.

Perhaps human morality is more nuanced - we certainly seem to add in more rules from various religions than any animal would - but that doesn't mean animals don't have morals. They just have different morals, and aren't particularly good at expressing them to humans.

[origamiscienceguy]

Well, you have your opinipons and I have mine. I suppose that's all it comes down to.

[TD1]

Well, yes...but I'm backing up my opinions with evidence. I'm giving cases in which animals demonstrate what may be called morality - group work, striving for a similar goal. Lions, as an example, don't kill random animals when they're already full, just as human morality would have us not being wasteful. If you don't need to eat, you shouldn't hunt is a prominent moral out look.

[k33n]

Mainly in morality. I have seen no indication of animals deciding what is right from wrong. This really depends on your worldview. For example, I assume your morality code is "whatever benefits mankind as a whole" or something like that. (feel free to correct me) While animals are limited to helping themself and possible others in a pack and children. Therefore human morality (whatever it might be) is already more complicated than what animals think. And if you are a christian, than it is even more complex. Much more decision making about what is right and wrong for humans than for animals.

(the "r" button on my keyboard is not working very well, so if I type words with missing r's that's why.)

Humans, as animals, often decide between right and wrong. Animals do also, specifically social mammals. It is entirely based on the "instinctual code" of the species. Wolfs et all suffer punishment and even execution for serious injustice. Humans are no different. We just also have very strong brains, and so we can build upon our instinctual code to better it and create better societies with nuanced ethics.

[TD1]

Ha. It amazes me how people can give similar arguments to mine, and yet make it so much more concise

[origamiscienceguy]

Well, yes...but I'm backing up my opinions with evidence. I'm giving cases in which animals demonstrate what may be called morality - group work, striving for a similar goal. Lions, as an example, don't kill random animals when they're already full, just as human morality would have us not being wasteful. If you don't need to eat, you shouldn't hunt is a prominent moral out look.

But that depends on your opinion of what morality is.

[TD1]

Okay. My view is that morality is choosing between right and wrong. The dictionary says something similar: They are

principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.

And yourself? What is morality, would you say?

[origamiscienceguy]

But that depends on you opinion of right and wrong. (this is going to go on forreverr, isn't it  )

[TD1]

Of course it does. But my morality is still morality, despite not being your morality. I have my values and stick to them - some say I hold to too many values. I take it you'd agree it's still morality, despite the fact that yours is different? Well, I apply that to animals too. Though quite a few times the morality isn't so far removed from that of humans.

[origamiscienceguy]

It probably comes down to the end goal of your life. You compare humans and animals because their morality is based on getting the best life and the most prospeity. And you aren't wrong about that, but I myself, (and most christians) have a goal beyond that which is pobably where the difference is.

[TD1]

I think the main difference here is that you think your morality is right. I know my morality is right for me.

So yes. If you're right, then animals are devoid of proper morality. So am I, as a matter of fact, for my secular morality.

Which raises the question - am I an animal because I don't have the right - see your- morality?

[Orange Wizard]

Christian morality is God's law. Animals (as far as we know) don't really have the capacity to learn and understand God's law. Of course you could enforce it in a tribe of intelligent monkeys or whatever, but it takes a human (again, as far as we can tell) to actually come to the conclusion that the Law must be followed, despite it being of an entity that we can't see or interact with directly.

...

Which raises the question - am I an animal because I don't have the right - see your- morality?

Scientifically, we're all animals. But you were also born human, and as such are superior to beasts and fish and so on, even if you don't acknowledge it.

[TD1]

Christian morality is God's law. Animals (as far as we know) don't really have the capacity to learn and understand God's law. Of course you could enforce it in a tribe of intelligent monkeys or whatever, but it takes a human (again, as far as we can tell) to actually come to the conclusion that the Law must be followed, despite it being of an entity that we can't see or interact with directly.

More to the point, it takes man to impose a form of man's morality.

Some basic Christian rules - do not murder - are upheld by animals as much as they are by humans. They don't believe in God, of course, but nor do I and I wouldn't consider myself as below a Christian in any way.

[Orange Wizard]

What about the most basic of Christian rules: "You shall have no other gods before me"? Animals can't follow that because they have no concept of gods and spirituality. You don't follow that because you chose to reject it.

[TD1]

If I wanted to be pedantic, I could say that there is one animal species that follows gods.

But no, animals don't follow that. That's a morality imposed on humanity by humanity (humans of a specifically Christian flavour, that is) much like morality imposed on a gorilla would be. Take away the imposition of a child's elders, and they wouldn't follow that morality. In fact, they don't - most people don't follow God, but rather various other gods.

I'm not trying to say animals are Christian moralists, in some way, just that many share values which are common enough in humans that they were recorded in a religious text. These values, presumably, predate the texts.