There is also the immediate value to the individual which makes them feel good that they are helping someone out.

Anyway, I disagree that altruism is at odds with natural selection. Altruism evolved precisely because it is beneficial to the population as a whole. Natural selection works on a population level not on an individual level. You seem to misunderstand that part of the concept. “Survival of the fittest” refers to the population, not the individual.

Imagine two groups of penguins. In one, there are no altruistic members. In the other, there are a few who will jump into unknown waters first to test whether there are killer sea lions in the water. They sacrifice themselves so the rest of their group can live.

Biological studies have shown that penguins groups with these altruistic scouts live and thrive better than groups without. Thus, altruism is a favored trait that propagates. It’s not at odds with natural selection.

I do agree with Dawkins that in reality, there is ultimately no evil and no good. Life is really just molecules in motion. However, as I said before, I ignore these facts as they are irrelevant to life. I accept and live in the illusion my brain creates. The feelings of right and wrong are all part of it. But those feelings motivate my behavior and compel me to live a moral life.

I don’t see that as a contradiction. It’s just a practical way to live.

If I believed that one should be moral simply because there is a reward in heaven, you have not attacked a straw man. But I don’t believe that.

I do believe that those who believe in Jesus & repent of their sins end up in Heaven, but I also believe that those who have their sins forgiven have more than purely selfish motives for doing what’s right. Many people do what is right out of love for God, not out of fear or hope of reward.

I’ve written a response to your arguments about morality at
http://dedwarmo.com/2005/03/08/was-hitler-evil/

By the way, since you said you agree with Dawkins, do you agree with him when he says, “there is no evil and no good”? If so, that contradicts your statement that some things are wrong.

Perhaps I have offered a straw man, but unless you’re some different kind of Christian, don’t you believe that people who live amoral lives will go to Hell and people who believe in Jesus & repent their sins end up in Heaven? If you don’t believe these things, then it is a straw man. If you do, then it’s not. You also didn’t finish the rest of my quote where I said to “to ourselves and our society”. People should act moral for both themselves (selfish) and others (selfless).

I did provide you evidence that murder, deception, etc. are wrong. I believe in a materialistic view of the world, I don’t believe in God, but I do believe murder, deception, etc. are wrong. What more evidence are you looking for?

What I really don’t understand is what benefit does belief in God given morality provide? If Atheists & Christians (and Muslims & all humans) hold basically the same moral sense of right and wrong (as shown by research), then what extra benefit does religion provide? What is wrong with a democratic code of morality?

That way if your conscience tells you murder is ok, and the majority of consciences say it’s not. The majority is perfectly moral in sending you to prison for the rest of your life. That’s the way things work now. No God required.

Incidentally, I agree with Dawkins. Life is just molecules in motion. Free will, consciousness, etc. are just illusions. I just ignore these facts as they are irrelevant.

But you’ve ignored my examples of altruistic behavior that gives no survival advantage (doing the right thing when there is no hope of reward, sacrificing self-interest, etc.) Natural Selection is only interested in survival and “good behavior” is selected only if it aids survival. Much of morality stands in opposition to natural selection, and therefore cannot be explained by it.

Perry, I think you’ve made two errors. First, you’re guilty of attacking a straw man. I made no mention of doing anything because I expect a reward in heaven. That was an assumption on your part. My examples were of doing things because they are the right thing to do, sometimes without the expectation of any reward at all.

However, even if your assumption were true, it’s still a bad argument. You criticize the hope of future reward as “selfish,” but three sentences earlier you defended acting morally because we “derive a benefit to ourselves”!

Secondly, you are confusing an epistemological question (how we come to know or believewhat is right and wrong) with an ontological one (the existence of moral values).

You said we should help other people in part because your “conscience tells you it’s the right thing to do.” But that only attempts explains the Christian’s and the Atheist’s similar sense of right and wrong. It does nothing to defend the existence of moral values. And it is not objective. If your conscience says murder is wrong and mine says it’s right, why should I follow your conscience? How do you know your conscience is correct? After all, your brain is the result of random mutations and natural selection.

You can defeat my “ludicrous” statement that in a strictly materialistic view of the world, murder, deception, etc. are not wrong, by providing evidence that those things are wrong.

In a materialist world, murder is just one group of molecules attacking another group of molecules. How can that be objectively wrong?

Richard Dawkins, Great Britain’s foremost atheist, is at least consistent when he says there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, just molecules in motion.

“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. Housman put it: `For Nature, heartless, witless Nature Will neither care nor know.’ DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.” (Richard Dawkins, “River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life,” Phoenix: London, 1996, p.155.)

I don’t believe in God & also don’t believe in murder, deception, etc. So, Bombo’s assertion that a strictly materialistic view of the world automatically means you conclude that murder, deception, etc. are ok is just ludicrous. How do you reconcile those opposing facts?

People are moral because we evolved a conscious and we derive a benefit to ourselves & our society for being that way. You should help other people because it makes you feel good and your evolved conscious tells you it’s the right thing to do. Helping other people because you expect some reward in heaven is…strange. IMO being moral only because you think you will be rewarded with going to heaven at the end of your life is selfish, childish, and disturbing.