I dunno. You take two kids (brother and sister if you like, Dawkins acolytes), give one a bag of sweets and the other none. How many kids would share one one, never mind equally, those sweets without someone telling them (or having previously told them) they should?

Strikes me humans are born bad and society/religion/law forces them to be good.

Not born good and religion forces them to be evil (which is one of the most bizarre statements from an academic I've ever read)

Mod74 wrote:

You're either missing or avoiding the point I've made several times that "faith" isn't just a belief in things that can't be proved.

I have stated more than once that Faith requires belief without evidence. To be clearer, this doesn't mean that evidence for their conclusion being true doesn't exist, it just means that it plays no part in their belief that it is true. Even if you were not sure that that was the context in which I am discussing the word you could deduce it from that fact that I spent two entire posts talking about how believing in things without evidence is not a reliable path to discerning the truth about reality. It may very well be that one arrives at a true conclusion through faith, but given the method it is extremely unlikely that they will, and they are in no more of a position to defend their faithful views than someone who believes in a fantasy. Choosing to believe that something is true without having any evidential basis on which to assert such a claim, is delusional. Is there something about this which you do not understand? Can I take it that we are in agreement on this? Can you provide an example of faith not requiring someone to believe in something with disregard to if their belief is supported by evidence or not?

Mod74 wrote:

I'm sure you're not stupid enough to think that faith or religion isn't simply accepting wholesale every element of that faith.

I suppose your assurance as to my aptitude comes from the fact that I never said that's what faith was, nor did I talk about faith as a substitute word for religion. I am pointing out that faith requires people to believe things to be true without any evidence, and that this is delusional. The fact that every religion or 'faith' (as you put it) in existence requires people to do this means that one necessarily has to engage in at least some delusional beliefs in order to follow them. The fact that one doesn't buy into all the un-evidenced beliefs a religion offers wholesale does not make the ones they do buy into any less delusional.  They are just cherry picking their delusions.

Mod74 wrote:

You want to ridicule the fantastical or cherry pick certain passages but you're ignoring everything that's a perfectly sensible rational way to live your life.

I am ridiculing the faithful bits, hence singling them out for ridicule and ignoring the parts that do not include faith because they have no bearing on the faithful bits still being delusional. Are you unsure of how keeping a discussion on point works?  You've already tried to shift the goalposts once by changing a discussion about faith into a discussion about the benefits that religion provides.  You're not going to do it again are you?  Either faith is delusional or it is not.

Mod74 wrote:

I don't understand why you're willing to accept societal rules handed down from millenia but religious ones are delusional. If you're religious or not you're still placing faith in a set of life rules/lessons someone else created.

I'm not sure how you know which social rules I do and do not accept, but I explained with extreme lucidity that I endeavour to base my acceptance of truth claims on reason and evidence and if someone can point out where I have failed to do this I will change my mind about those claims being true because I am not bound by faithful dogma to still accept them as true. Can you point out where I have failed to base my truth claims on reason and evidence?  If you can I want to know.

Mod74 wrote:

If the only thing you know about faith is it's a belief in a beardy guy on a cloud creating a universe then I could understand why you would think that was delusional. I'm sure you understand faith is a lot more than that so I don't know why you'd ignore everything else other than the fact only talking about unprovable (note, not untrue) elements supports your viewpoint.

Considering I have defined how I am using the word faith over and over again for you before this post, and again in this post, I am at a loss as to how you think the only thing that qualifies as belief without evidence is the belief in a 'beardy guy on a cloud creating a universe'. I have also not only talked about the unprovable, I seem to remember writing a two part magic-dice analogy talking about how faith can come to conclusions which are provable, but that the fact that their conclusions may be provable using reason and evidence has no bearing on the fact that the process the faithful person used to arrive at a conclusion is still as delusional as is their reason for accepting their conclusions as true.

Also, if something that makes rational sense is unknown, un-evidenced, unknowable or un-provable then there is no rational method for coming to a conclusion about whether that something is real or not until some evidence for it is found. The things for which we have no evidence that could possibly be true are myriad and often at odds with each other, so choosing one and claiming that it is true while disregarding all others (ie: talking it on faith) is delusional and very likely to be wrong.

Let me illustrate the point with an example. Let's consider that we have an idea about a god that is rational.  Either this god does or does not exist, but there is no evidence to support a belief in either the existence or non existence of such a god. Either of these claims are possibly true, but one of the claims is necessarily true, and the other is necessarily false, so if we have no evidence by which to tell which is true and which on is false then simply choosing one and claiming it is true (ie: taking it on faith) is delusional, even though you have a 50% chance of being right. The rational stance is to not make a truth claim about either, because you cannot know until some evidence is forthcoming. If you do not know, then why pretend to know?

Mod74 wrote:

I'm sure you must have talked in the past about the benefits, but right now saying faith=delusion makes you come across as just as closed minded as they monsters you're fighting.

Believing in something without evidence is indistinguishable from believing in something which is made up and not part of reality, which is delusional. If you find a flaw with my rationality then I will change my mind, but I have no reason to take it on faith that you might have a magical way to prove me wrong that for some reason you are not sharing. All the evidence I see points to man who want me to open my mind to his way of thinking, abandon a rational understanding of my own ideas and then promptly close it again. Maybe you should open your mind instead?

JonB wrote:

djchump wrote:

Seems incorrect to attribute only humans with inner conscious life and decision-making ability, and deny that animals are able to do the same - in fact, not just incorrect, but dangerous even:

I was talking about moral decision-making ability (i.e. some concept that an action is good or bad), not claiming that animals have no thought processes at all.

I don't think I've understood what you mean with respect to moral decision-making TBH.  
I see moral decisions as the same as other thought processes - so my presumption is that if animals can think, then animals can make decisions, then animals can make moral decisions. 

The thrust of you're point seems to be that animals don't have a concept of "good or bad" - i.e. intrinsic moral value to an action - which itself relies on an agreement that an action is "good or bad" and that somehow only humans are privy to this knowledge (or that "good and bad" is a human-only higher-level mental abstraction).
If we were to take a utilitarian stance on the nature of the "goodness or badness" of an action, then I don't see how animals wouldn't be able to distinguish if an action would lead to better circumstances for their social group, etc.

JonB wrote:

But, even if they had such moral abilities, without any way of communicating it to us or some technology that can measure intentions it would be impossible for us to tell.

Well, that way lies solipsism - Schopenhauer argues that we only understand other minds, that other people have their own internal consciousness and life, through extrapolation from our own. If they have mind, arising from brains as nearly complex as human, then what's to say they don't have internal consciousness and some level of abstract concepts/thought?

JonB wrote:

A scientific approach would presumably mean not jumping to such conclusions, I'd imagine. 

Well, a scientific approach first requires curiosity and not jumping to conclusions, sure - but there is evidence of altruism and empathy in animals so it's not completely pie in the sky.

Also, it's my belief that I'm the one applying Occam's Razor here - I am claiming that humans aren't all that different to other animals, you are claiming that humans are special in some unique, unexplained way that is unattainable by other animals.

JonB wrote:

In fact it would be an act of faith to attribute morality to animals.

Doesn't seem that way to me - if animals can show altruism and empathy (with evidence, so that's not on faith), why could they not hold concepts that something is "good" or "bad"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_in_animals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_ethics

revelthedog wrote:

Really? I think you will find that every living thing on the planet is here to breed, make copies of itself, pass on genetic information. Other base actions are generally learned. They are bred for certain physical attributes that allow them to carry out certain actions. they may even be breed for aggressiveness or passiveness.  But being born with these abilities you stated above? I can't say I agree with you.

Fight or flight? You don't learn that. If you had to, you would fail to do either and end up as something's lunch.

Broadly, humans are born Social. So far as we align being social with being good, humans am gud.

Ali wrote:

revelthedog wrote:

Really? I think you will find that every living thing on the planet is here to breed, make copies of itself, pass on genetic information. Other base actions are generally learned. They are bred for certain physical attributes that allow them to carry out certain actions. they may even be breed for aggressiveness or passiveness.  But being born with these abilities you stated above? I can't say I agree with you.

Fight or flight? You don't learn that. If you had to, you would fail to do either and end up as something's lunch.

You weren't talking about fight or flight. You were talking about a dog herding ducklings.
Even still, that is a learned behaviour.

show me otherwise please.

Proof. Woof...

revelthedog wrote:

Proof. Woof...

My eyes? I'm a vet BTW ; )

I'll get the blue juice. Just sit still, this won't hurt a bit......

Brooks wrote:

Broadly, humans are born Social. So far as we align being social with being good, humans am gud.

Humans are born with a variety of potentials, including some form of social instinct but also some very self-interested ones. Also, particular forms of social are aligned with being good and there's no agreement even within cultures as to what those forms are. Some might say a concept of 'free love' with no regard for family is as social as things get, while others would say that's the very way to destroy society. You either say that one of these is privileged in our birth state, or both of them are inherent potentials, but either way that means we are born both social and anti-social.

Generally, since good and bad are relative and contingent on the particular form of society, it is absurd to make any claim that people are born either good or bad. Is a person born in one country good in accordance with the local dominant idea of the good, while a person born in another country good in a different way in accordance with that country's dominant value system? Or is everyone born good in the same way, and then whose set of values are we using as the measure of the good and how did we decide those were the best ones? That way leads to some absolute idea of the good, ie a religion or similar metaphysical construct. Good and bad are things we become by making choices based on the particular social norms we learn and assimilate. They do not exist anywhere else.

In fact coming back to animals, the best way to demonstrate the existence of free choice based on concepts of good and bad would be to find examples of rule breaking within a particular community. If animals are capable of good behavour they must also be capable of bad behaviour, otherwise they are not being good, only following 'the way things are done', the expectations of their community. If there are accepted social norms then the only way to show that the animals accept them because they are 'good' is to show the that they also sometimes reject them because they are 'bad'.

Ali wrote:

I'll get the blue juice. Just sit still, this won't hurt a bit......

nah, no chance. Most animals learn through play. Is fight or flight instinctive or learned? And how can you prove it? Or am I being daft.

By the by, I listed to the In Our Time podcast earlier about Game Theory and how it influences human decision making, particularly things like alturism. Guy on there said the only way a decision is rational is if it benefits oneself.

Anyway, listen again here if you like

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01h75xp

or

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/iot/rss.xml

There's one dedicated to Altruism as well.

revelthedog wrote:

At a base genetic level we are preprogrammed to breed. 
Nothing more.
Good and Evil are completely subjective, depending on the society you are in. 

As I said generaly, don't overstate.

I always find Evil a problematic concept, or at least used way to freely.

Gods a woman?!

Bedtime. Pick this up tomorrow. I've added everyone to my psn list as well.
have fun