Morality, Me and Intelligent Design
Human Morality
One of the most daunting challenges to the human race is the question : what is moral behavior? How should humans act out their existence? What is important for humans to do? Religions consider that they are repositories of moral truth and proscribed moral behavior. They would all answer this question with the admonition to prepare for the afterlife by following their teachings. And, the most important virtue is Faith in their teachings. The teachings of most religions center on a code of beliefs with some emphasis on charity toward others, but most religions teach intolerance toward non believers. They can all be dismissed as systems of power gaining based on fear and ignorance. Kind of like a virus that has infected humanity due to our ignorance and fear or death. There is no evidence any religion is true. All are based on dubious historical records. How could it be otherwise? Religion based morality is basically counter productive to human survival.
The question of whether it is more moral to subjugate one’s intellect to belief in ancient scripture is basic to what is moral for man to do. It would seem even if God created man, He would want him to use his intellect to find out new truths. It is most easy to see the error of blind Faith when considering other peoples religion. For example, most Christians would think it an error for Moslems to devote their lives to memorizing the Koran rather than learn modern knowledge. While Christians have moved forward from this medieval thinking, there are still many who consider the Bible literally true and use it to form political and moral thinking . Many are convinced that humans are soon facing the end of times when Christ will come back to Earth.
Even religionists must realize all morality is made up by humans. Humans wrote the Bible. Morality is based on what humans think is good. Even from the Bible, people select what they think is moral behavior, otherwise we would be stoning people for minor transgressions.
John Stewart Mill believed the highest good was the greatest good for the greatest number. That may not be too good in today’s world of over population and excessive consumption at the expense of nature. A moderate good for the optimum number may be a better compromise.
Kant postulated that we should act in such that our actions could be a universal code of conduct. But what about the couple who thinks it’s moral to have ten children? Should everyone have ten children?
The golden rule (do unto others as you would have others do unto you) is a good start, but what if I am a fundamentalist who would want to be forcibly converted if he went astray? Would that justify torture of those judged to be heretics?
If we look to Nature, we see that all Evolution proceeds through a ruthless competition for survival coupled with the continual genetic modifications. Man is no exception. Our rise from earlier hominoid forms involved lethal competition. For example, it is very likely that early man killed off the Neanderthal.
Man’s moral behavior has taken a big step away from this type of competition if for no other reason then the danger it would pose to civilized society. Laws and civil society have generally made good efforts to define moral behavior that will contribute to the general welfare. But, one problem is the continual presence of wars which have institutionalized competition.
I would like to submit my formula for what is good moral behavior. Since we humans find ourselves alive and existing in this world, we can define our obligation to keep it going . Any other actions will ultimately lead to the extinction of our race. So as far as humans are concerned, we should act to sustain the human race. If we don’t, we will prove ourselves defective in an Evolutionary sense and deserve extinction. To sustain the human race, we must also act to sustain nature and the environment. That includes animals in nature’s balance. For example, it would not be moral to drive a species of fish to extinction just to feed more humans.
What about our individual lives. We must live them to insure our own lives and comfort, but no actions should impact negatively against human survival. This morality would be the most consistent with Evolution and scientific understanding of the human condition. On an individual level, the highest good is to achieve a balance between our own goals and those of others. Next is to develop our talents to promote our own prosperity and the welfare of humanity.
There are those who believe “natural law” is the basis of morality. Most of those people I know who promote this are Catholics who think birth control is against Nature. I disagree completely. Man must act contrary to Nature. If we conformed to Nature, we would be competing and killing ourselves more than we are. Nature in Evolutionary terms involves a terrible struggle for existence and procreation. Man’s finest efforts are to rise above Nature and set our own agenda. That agenda must be our survival.
If we examine the fruits of religion based morality, we see that most of it is against human survival.
The Catholic church, by far the most important Christian religion promotes a reckless population explosion based on strange notions of natural law. The results are the destruction of the planet with a possible collapse of society. The Church doesn’t care about the here and now. Their focus is the afterlife and they wouldn’t mind if modern civilization collapsed and a more primitive society formed such as in the middle ages where they held ultimate power.
All religions have tolerated or even promoted war as a way to spread right thinking. Today we have a world where wars rage, we have excessive nuclear weapons build up. Production of nuclear weapons by my sense of morality is wrong. The simplistic thinking better dead than red would be wrong. It assumes living societies will not change for the better in the long run.
Who speaks for the human race? If we don’t wake up and put our survival first, we will become extinct. Our ultimate moral obligation is to future generations to keep this wonderful world going.
Why Me
Probably our most intriguing question is what am I? How does my sense of self arise? I sometimes ask my wife, why am I me and you, you? Then I think, if I were you and you me, we would still have the same question. Why am I me and not anybody else? I think even if science ultimately develops thinking conscious machines, it will never figure out the subjective sense of self.
Religions teach that we have a soul that is unique to us and the soul is independent of the body and survives death. Even if that were true, why would I be that soul. Actually it’s hard to justify the existence of an immortal soul. Our brains are composed of billions of neurons connected electrically with trillions of synapses. Stroke victims where parts of the brain are destroyed show that all that hardware is needed for consciousness. Specific functions can be lost by a stroke such as the understanding of prepositions or recognition of faces. If a soul is so spiritual, why does it require all that hardware? It would be easier to believe in the soul if the brain were composed of featureless jelly. Another problem with the spiritual soul is the results of split brain studies. Some patients with severe epilepsy have required the severing of the connection from one half of the brain to the other. When tested, they show a split in consciousness with one each half conscious of things the other half is unaware of. If the soul were spiritual, would that be possible?
Since all questions about life can be understood as due to evolutionary processes, it would seem that the individual sense of self would be no different. Thus, the sense of self would have survival value. A life form is more likely to fight for survival if it feels it’s one life is in danger. This is seen even in the lowly bugs and spiders running for their lives to preserve themselves from the swatter. If they didn’t experience themselves to at least some degree, would they care? Similarly for all the higher animals and humans, the fight for self preservation is our strongest instinct. If we didn’t have a sense of self, we wouldn’t care.
Intelligent Design
I recently watched a DVD from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute on infectious diseases “2000 and Beyond confronting the microbe menace”. As a non biologists, I was surprised to learn how complicated the process is of infectious bacterial invasion into the cell. It got me thinking about Intelligent Design. I was wondering if the proponents of Intelligent Design believe that all biological processes were designed by a higher being or that the natural mechanism of Darwinian natural selection sometimes is operative. The multistep process of bacterial invasion would seem from a Intelligent Design perspective as “irreducibly complex” a standard they use to identify biological processes that could not have occurred by natural selection. But, if that were true, then the intelligent designer (god) would have gone to great lengths to create the infectious agent. If so, it would seem malicious or not intelligently designed. But, if they were to admit that natural selection were the cause, then why not other equally complicated processes.
Proponents of evolution have shown how very complicated systems can arise by natural selection.
It seems to me simpler not to blame anyone, but to understand how natural processes can lead to astounding complexity by Darwinian Evolution.
One of the most daunting challenges to the human race is the question : what is moral behavior? How should humans act out their existence? What is important for humans to do? Religions consider that they are repositories of moral truth and proscribed moral behavior. They would all answer this question with the admonition to prepare for the afterlife by following their teachings. And, the most important virtue is Faith in their teachings. The teachings of most religions center on a code of beliefs with some emphasis on charity toward others, but most religions teach intolerance toward non believers. They can all be dismissed as systems of power gaining based on fear and ignorance. Kind of like a virus that has infected humanity due to our ignorance and fear or death. There is no evidence any religion is true. All are based on dubious historical records. How could it be otherwise? Religion based morality is basically counter productive to human survival.
The question of whether it is more moral to subjugate one’s intellect to belief in ancient scripture is basic to what is moral for man to do. It would seem even if God created man, He would want him to use his intellect to find out new truths. It is most easy to see the error of blind Faith when considering other peoples religion. For example, most Christians would think it an error for Moslems to devote their lives to memorizing the Koran rather than learn modern knowledge. While Christians have moved forward from this medieval thinking, there are still many who consider the Bible literally true and use it to form political and moral thinking . Many are convinced that humans are soon facing the end of times when Christ will come back to Earth.
Even religionists must realize all morality is made up by humans. Humans wrote the Bible. Morality is based on what humans think is good. Even from the Bible, people select what they think is moral behavior, otherwise we would be stoning people for minor transgressions.
John Stewart Mill believed the highest good was the greatest good for the greatest number. That may not be too good in today’s world of over population and excessive consumption at the expense of nature. A moderate good for the optimum number may be a better compromise.
Kant postulated that we should act in such that our actions could be a universal code of conduct. But what about the couple who thinks it’s moral to have ten children? Should everyone have ten children?
The golden rule (do unto others as you would have others do unto you) is a good start, but what if I am a fundamentalist who would want to be forcibly converted if he went astray? Would that justify torture of those judged to be heretics?
If we look to Nature, we see that all Evolution proceeds through a ruthless competition for survival coupled with the continual genetic modifications. Man is no exception. Our rise from earlier hominoid forms involved lethal competition. For example, it is very likely that early man killed off the Neanderthal.
Man’s moral behavior has taken a big step away from this type of competition if for no other reason then the danger it would pose to civilized society. Laws and civil society have generally made good efforts to define moral behavior that will contribute to the general welfare. But, one problem is the continual presence of wars which have institutionalized competition.
I would like to submit my formula for what is good moral behavior. Since we humans find ourselves alive and existing in this world, we can define our obligation to keep it going . Any other actions will ultimately lead to the extinction of our race. So as far as humans are concerned, we should act to sustain the human race. If we don’t, we will prove ourselves defective in an Evolutionary sense and deserve extinction. To sustain the human race, we must also act to sustain nature and the environment. That includes animals in nature’s balance. For example, it would not be moral to drive a species of fish to extinction just to feed more humans.
What about our individual lives. We must live them to insure our own lives and comfort, but no actions should impact negatively against human survival. This morality would be the most consistent with Evolution and scientific understanding of the human condition. On an individual level, the highest good is to achieve a balance between our own goals and those of others. Next is to develop our talents to promote our own prosperity and the welfare of humanity.
There are those who believe “natural law” is the basis of morality. Most of those people I know who promote this are Catholics who think birth control is against Nature. I disagree completely. Man must act contrary to Nature. If we conformed to Nature, we would be competing and killing ourselves more than we are. Nature in Evolutionary terms involves a terrible struggle for existence and procreation. Man’s finest efforts are to rise above Nature and set our own agenda. That agenda must be our survival.
If we examine the fruits of religion based morality, we see that most of it is against human survival.
The Catholic church, by far the most important Christian religion promotes a reckless population explosion based on strange notions of natural law. The results are the destruction of the planet with a possible collapse of society. The Church doesn’t care about the here and now. Their focus is the afterlife and they wouldn’t mind if modern civilization collapsed and a more primitive society formed such as in the middle ages where they held ultimate power.
All religions have tolerated or even promoted war as a way to spread right thinking. Today we have a world where wars rage, we have excessive nuclear weapons build up. Production of nuclear weapons by my sense of morality is wrong. The simplistic thinking better dead than red would be wrong. It assumes living societies will not change for the better in the long run.
Who speaks for the human race? If we don’t wake up and put our survival first, we will become extinct. Our ultimate moral obligation is to future generations to keep this wonderful world going.
Why Me
Probably our most intriguing question is what am I? How does my sense of self arise? I sometimes ask my wife, why am I me and you, you? Then I think, if I were you and you me, we would still have the same question. Why am I me and not anybody else? I think even if science ultimately develops thinking conscious machines, it will never figure out the subjective sense of self.
Religions teach that we have a soul that is unique to us and the soul is independent of the body and survives death. Even if that were true, why would I be that soul. Actually it’s hard to justify the existence of an immortal soul. Our brains are composed of billions of neurons connected electrically with trillions of synapses. Stroke victims where parts of the brain are destroyed show that all that hardware is needed for consciousness. Specific functions can be lost by a stroke such as the understanding of prepositions or recognition of faces. If a soul is so spiritual, why does it require all that hardware? It would be easier to believe in the soul if the brain were composed of featureless jelly. Another problem with the spiritual soul is the results of split brain studies. Some patients with severe epilepsy have required the severing of the connection from one half of the brain to the other. When tested, they show a split in consciousness with one each half conscious of things the other half is unaware of. If the soul were spiritual, would that be possible?
Since all questions about life can be understood as due to evolutionary processes, it would seem that the individual sense of self would be no different. Thus, the sense of self would have survival value. A life form is more likely to fight for survival if it feels it’s one life is in danger. This is seen even in the lowly bugs and spiders running for their lives to preserve themselves from the swatter. If they didn’t experience themselves to at least some degree, would they care? Similarly for all the higher animals and humans, the fight for self preservation is our strongest instinct. If we didn’t have a sense of self, we wouldn’t care.
Intelligent Design
I recently watched a DVD from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute on infectious diseases “2000 and Beyond confronting the microbe menace”. As a non biologists, I was surprised to learn how complicated the process is of infectious bacterial invasion into the cell. It got me thinking about Intelligent Design. I was wondering if the proponents of Intelligent Design believe that all biological processes were designed by a higher being or that the natural mechanism of Darwinian natural selection sometimes is operative. The multistep process of bacterial invasion would seem from a Intelligent Design perspective as “irreducibly complex” a standard they use to identify biological processes that could not have occurred by natural selection. But, if that were true, then the intelligent designer (god) would have gone to great lengths to create the infectious agent. If so, it would seem malicious or not intelligently designed. But, if they were to admit that natural selection were the cause, then why not other equally complicated processes.
Proponents of evolution have shown how very complicated systems can arise by natural selection.
It seems to me simpler not to blame anyone, but to understand how natural processes can lead to astounding complexity by Darwinian Evolution.
posted by PCD at 3:53 PM
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