Homosexuality in Australia (14 Viewers)

[SylviaB]

what was your uai iron

 

[Aquawhite]

Catholics have no problem with the theory of evolution, k. Even St Augustine cautioned against reading Genesis too literally.

I also dont deny that there are alternative explanations of the meaning of life - some of them are very pretty!

oooer, what are some?

 

[dolbinau]

I would love it if Iron turned out to be gay ^_^

Oh, the irony....

It would be ironic, but Iron has suggested ways for gays to remain sin-free etc.. so it (I always imagine Iron as a woman, for some reason) wouldn't really be a problem for him anyway. (Assuming he didn't succumb to his sinful desires )

 

[Iron]

only95.35

 

[SylviaB]

only95.35

lol humanities student

 

[Iron]

i know i know

 

[Name_Taken]

As I said, it's adaptive for the species to co-orporate and see certain activities (e.g. Murder) as wrong. And the ancestry would arise from apparent evolutionary pressures of earlier species we apparently adapted from. (i.e., the species that by chance had instincts not to kill others survived).

But it's not necessarily about what was inherited either. Humans have sophisticated reasoning and learning capabilities etc.. - and we can teach humans to behave in certain ways (e.g. holding certain morals) anyway.

I'm not saying this is all necessarily true, just that it can be plausibly explained without God (which would be the popular scientific opinion).

Isn't that contradictioanry to the theory of Natural Selection anyway? Whereby the strong survive and the weak perish? The environment "selects" individuals of a species who are well adapted to survive while those poorly adapted die out, providing a higher concentration of well adapted characteristics to the next generation?

Surely at least a certain degree of infighting within the species would only accentuate the strengths of the strong in future generations, by ensuring that only the very strongest were allowed to reproduce?

Anyway, I feel this thread has digressed quite severly from where it started. This thread is not a discussion on the existence of God, but on peoples attitudes towards homosexuality in Australia.

 

[Aquawhite]

It would be ironic, but Iron has suggested ways for gays to remain sin-free etc.. so it (I always imagine Iron as a woman, for some reason) wouldn't really be a problem for him anyway. (Assuming he didn't succumb to his sinful desires )

Is it perhaps of his avatar?

 

[dolbinau]

Isn't that contradictioanry to the theory of Natural Selection anyway? Whereby the strong survive and the weak perish? The environment "selects" individuals of a species who are well adapted to survive while those poorly adapted die out, providing a higher concentration of well adapted characteristics to the next generation?

Surely at least a certain degree of infighting within the species would only accentuate the strengths of the strong in future generations, by ensuring that only the very strongest were allowed to reproduce?

You have the wrong idea, lol. Strongest is in terms of reproductive strength - it isn't about physical strength. (But they can obviously be related - see: intrasexual selection). Co-operation and anti-killing-of-species seem like traits that are well-adapted for survival.

Is it perhaps of his avatar?

Yes it is

 

[SeCKSiiMiNh]

But where did these morals come from?

If you like the rest of our species are merely the freak development of some accidental chemical reactions which caused primative bacteria to crawl out of a primeval sludge, then why should you care about the predicament of others? ?

If this is your true ancestory, then you have no creator and should be free to do whatever you please, without fear of consequence or without being hindered by subconscious morality which appears ingrained into your brain.

What is it within you that makes you see certain activities to be inately wrong?

I think that morals are a mixture of what we learn from society (views and forces of family, state, sometimes church and the law) and something we formulate ourselves. I also don't believe that it is something we are born with, since children are unable to grasp concepts of right and wrong from a young age. And of course, morals change. New day morals have replaced old ones to reflect the different views of society.

Socrates however believed that we are innately good, but thats just him. And he's dead.

And yes, I am currently free to do whatever I wish. As are you. But just because I have the option, doesn't mean that I have to pursue it. I mean, I have the option of picking up my kitchen knife and massacre my entire neighbourhood, but my concepts of right and wrong, developed from childhood, tells me that its wrong.

 

[Name_Taken]

You have the wrong idea, lol. Strongest is in terms of reproductive strength - it isn't about physical strength. (But they can obviously be related - see: intrasexual selection). Co-operation and anti-killing-of-species seem like traits that are well-adapted for survival.

So you're argueing that in whatever exact why it did happen, that through the human's concept of morality has devloped from an evolutionary imperative to support each other, thus maximising the species' chances of survival overall?

EDIT: Or in even simpler terms, that morality emerged to as a mechanism increase the species' changes of survival.

 

[Kwayera]

But where did these morals come from?

If you like the rest of our species are merely the freak development of some accidental chemical reactions which caused primative bacteria to crawl out of a primeval sludge, then why should you care about the predicament of others?

If this is your true ancestory, then you have no creator and should be free to do whatever you please, without fear of consequence or without being hindered by subconscious morality which appears ingrained into your brain.

What is it within you that makes you see certain activities to be inately wrong?

"Morals"/morality are evolved. They are a consequence of living in sophisticated societies, itself dictated by our evolutionary biology. There is an evolutionary advantage to living in complex groups, and complex groups require a set of behavioural rules to function. Ergo, "morals" evolved.

 

[Will Shakespear]

A society in which people regularly kill each other is not sustainable

piranha fish don't eat each other even in a feeding frenzy... WHERE DO THEY GET THEIR MORALS FROM?

 

[Iron]

The Mayans did alright until...
[youtube]sR8I1nicYWo[/youtube]

But we're a species that has never stopped killing eachother, k

 

[0bs3n3]

A society in which people regularly kill each other is not sustainable

So what was all that dribble about survival of the fittest?

 

[0bs3n3]

And the bible is a HUGE book? Who wrote the Bible?

It wasn't written by one person. A series of author's inspired by God spanning about 4000 years with little connection to one another.

 

[dolbinau]

So what was all that dribble about survival of the fittest?

That's just your (as is common) misunderstanding of the phrase.

 

[Will Shakespear]

So what was all that dribble about survival of the fittest?

"Fitness" is probably the most misunderstood term in evolution... which is saying something. Some writers like Dawkins avoid using the term altogether.

An organism's fitness is just its contribution to the gene pool of the next generation.

 

[Name_Taken]

"Morals"/morality are evolved. They are a consequence of living in sophisticated societies, itself dictated by our evolutionary biology. There is an evolutionary advantage to living in complex groups, and complex groups require a set of behavioural rules to function. Ergo, "morals" evolved.

It is your view that morals evolved (via the mechanism of evolution) to enhance the survival prospects of a species, amirite?.

This would appear a logical argument and I can empathise with you on how you reached this conclusion.

This theory would indeed explain many things. Like for example, how we see murder as inherently wrong, because we are reducing the size of the reproductive gene pool and numbers of individuals who will gain the chance to mate. Likewise acts like rape could be condemned because it might be shown that the species reproduces more effectively through a means where individuals partner for life (as seen in swans), for various reasons, including possibly that it provides a greater incentive for parents to care for their own offspring and that it diversifies the gene pool by allowing the maximum number of individuals to mate. This is in contrast to the other systems such as that which occurs in packs of wild cats like lions where only the “alpha” male is allowed to reproduce and all other members care for his offspring.

Morals under this explanation fail to deal with some issues, like for example explaining what is wrong with stealing, or lying (IDK perhaps they can?) but I will ignore this for the time being.

If morals developed as and are a means to advance the survival of a species than how is it that today, you see it morals as an argument to justify engaging in homosexual sex, or to justify the use of contraception or the practice of abortion? These are all contradictions to the suggested purpose morals play in our life.

Homosexual sex cannot lead to the creation of life and so it cannot be justified with morals (because they developed purely as a means to advance the species, according to you). Likewise contraception cannot be endorsed either. Abortion is the worst of the three, where despite life having been already created, it is destroyed before the individual is given independence from its mother and the chance to mature and ultimately reproduce itself. So under your description of a moral’s purpose (to increase chances of survival etc.) all three of these acts, homosexual sex, the use of contraception and abortion would be the pinnacle of all that is immoral?

Something which was apparently formed to promote the reproduction of a species cannot be used to justify acts which do not lead to the survival of that species, let alone acts which could be seen as inhibiting its survival (contraception/abortion etc.).

It has been mentioned that morals change. However if morals are a means to increase the likelihood of reproduction (as you suggest), since the human species still reproduces in the much the same manner as it did back in the “cavemen” era when morality was first developed, there is no need for morals, under this definition, to change, as they would otherwise continue to increase the species’ chances of survival.

Morals are not used for this purpose anymore, so, in the case of a Godless world, where they only developed as an evolutionary imperative (which hasn’t changed as humans reproduce in the same manner), does that make them redundant today if they are not used as such? Or is the biological imperative implanted in humans as it is all life suddenly less important to us now than our justification of activities which merely distract us from our original and only biological purpose, the only justification in a Godless universe as to why we exist in the first place (reproduction above everything else).

Now it would make no sense for morals to change at all because in a Godless universe, a human is simply another life form and has no greater importance than any other animal, plant or bacteria. Like all other life, our only purpose would be the continuation of our own species at the expense of all others. An atheist may believe they can live a selfless life without believing in God but this is not true, for if God did not exist, they’re only purpose in life is the biological imperative to reproduce and continue the species, this is a basic evolutionary premise, involving the success of the “strong” and failure of the “weak” to do so.

This primitive biological goal is something that is not achieved through self-sacrifice and the supporting of others beyond what is necessary for the species to continue (e.g. sharing food, hunting in pack etc.) which therefore renders such acts meaningless. Animals do not have time for hobbies or to chase their desires, they exist to live and reproduce, and this is the sole goal to which all their efforts are ultimately directed. Animals do not willingly sacrifice themselves for the preservation of others in their own species and are not even aware of the concept. Likewise, humans wouldn’t be able to grasp the concept either (as the thoughts of the individual are only concerned with himself reproduction as to fulfil their biological imperative), if their only purpose on Earth was to reproduce.

In light of this, I reach the conclusion that morals must represent something much more important to the human than what you suggest they are, an evolutionary adaptation to assist and promote reproduction.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on the science of evolution, but since the only source quoted as part of the argument behind it is Wikipedia, I’ll go out on a limb and make the assumption nobody else here is an “expert" either. That said, please correct me if I have made a mistake with your interpretation.

/Rant

 

[SeCKSiiMiNh]

Morals under this explanation fail to deal with some issues, like for example explaining what is wrong with stealing, or lying (IDK perhaps they can?) but I will ignore this for the time being.

If morals developed as and are a means to advance the survival of a species than how is it that today, you see it morals as an argument to justify engaging in homosexual sex, or to justify the use of contraception or the practice of abortion? These are all contradictions to the suggested purpose morals play in our life.

I think that morals are a mixture of what we learn from society (views and forces of family, state, sometimes church and the law) and something we formulate ourselves. I also don't believe that it is something we are born with, since children are unable to grasp concepts of right and wrong from a young age. And of course, morals change. New day morals have replaced old ones to reflect the different views of society.

This primitive biological goal is something that is not achieved through self-sacrifice and the supporting of others beyond what is necessary for the species to continue (e.g. sharing food, hunting in pack etc.) which therefore renders such acts meaningless. Animals do not have time for hobbies or to chase their desires, they exist to live and reproduce, and this is the sole goal to which all their efforts are ultimately directed. Animals do not willingly sacrifice themselves for the preservation of others in their own species and are not even aware of the concept. Likewise, humans wouldn’t be able to grasp the concept either (as the thoughts of the individual are only concerned with himself reproduction as to fulfil their biological imperative), if their only purpose on Earth was to reproduce.

Bees do. Just wanted to point that out.