Quote:

nonsense.. this doesnt follow in the slightest. Consciousness--while evolutionarily emergent, allows humans and higher animals to make choices. This leads to question of morality in general.




How does consciousness lead to a question of morality? Whether or not I'm conscious, sex with whomever I want whenever I want is still going to be pleasurable. Why would I wonder if its right or wrong?

Quote:

Morality is obviously derived from early tribal behavior in which poeple in a small to mid-sized social group needed rules of conduct.




Which I'm sure you've concluded from years of on-location research with tribal humans, and hundreds of hours spent writing peer-reviewed papers. That's why its so apparent to you.

Quote:

Similar rules of conduct are visble in great ape social groups as well. The fact is moral codes are advantageous for a society.




Yes, except humans don't have to act on instinct (although we do quite often). We can act based on conscious decisions that literally can override our genetic code. The 'decisions' apes have to make are nothing like human social interaction. Before you say we're pretty much apes, I'll remind you that apes put their fingers in their butts and smell them, we make airplanes. Apes will pee into their own mouths, whereas we make works of art.

Moral codes are good for society, but that doesn't mean people follow them just because they're good. Much of what our genetic code tells us to do is actually bad for us. Being promiscuous is one that society has yet to make a social rule for, but it causes the rapid spread of disease, causes unwanted pregnancies, etc. Not everything bad is prevented by social rules, and in fact social rules cause bad stuff all the time. You provided me with a prime example.

Quote:

This of course creates a problem for moral absolutists, who cant accpet that practics they find abhorent may have been perfectly acceptable in other cultures. Pederasty in ancient Greece was a normal part of life for many poeple (particularly upper class or warrior classes). Regardless of how WE view that behavior, it was viewed in a fundamentally different way by THEM.




Ok, so basically raping little boys isn't really all that bad, because it was socially acceptable? This goes along the same lines of you thinking that technically the nazis would have been right had they won the war. In fact, your position that all morals are relative is an absolute statement. The fact is, you can't avoid absolutes. Its logically contradicting to believe in relativism. But the fact of the matter is you don't like being told what to do. You want to replace your creator as the only absolute for right and wrong.

Quote:

I could also say the love for God of some of us have wars as a result. I would be closer to the truth than you stating that evolution is evil my friend.




But let's look at it this way. Christianity does not teach killing people for not believing. In order to justify that you would have to act contrary to the teachings. However, justifying rape is NOT contrary to evolutionary teaching. In fact, its a good way to propogate your genes if you otherwise wouldn't have much sexual activity. Its VERY easy to justify just about anything when your belief says that the only absolute is that you've survived. From there, its up to you to figure out what you need to do.

This is ok for intellectual atheists who know not to hurt other people (sometimes). However, most atheists aren't intellectuals. They're petty criminals, punk kids, etc. They hear that society is the only standard for right and wrong, but they don't care. If society is the only standard for right and wrong, then all they have to do is not get caught and that means they didn't do anything wrong. Thanks to 'intellectual' atheists, these people are being force fed this philosophy in my country's public schools. Thanks.

Just last night I was nearly t-boned (I probably would have been hospitalized), from someone driving a van like a madman away from a crimescene where they either injured or killed several people. The ambulance sirens must have spooked him into running away. I literally had to drive all the way off the road just to keep from being hit because he didn't stop before merging onto my road.

This person does not care one single bit about anyone but himself. Really, he's playing right into your philosophy. He stopped himself from getting caught, even if that meant hurting one more random collection of chemicals. You can tell him he's wrong, but no moral is absolutely right anyway. So as long as he doesn't get caught, then no big deal. What's the loss of a few more of nature's accidents anyway?

Tell me, if Hitler had taken over the world, would his version of morals have been right? I can't really remember if I got an answer to this one.

Quote:

Apart from that prove to me that other organisms than humans do not 'love' eachother. You can't really expect that a squirrel loves like the way we do, considering the big differences, especially when it comes to consciousness and intelligence.




Squirrels treat each other fairly because they have no choice. Its hard coded in their genes. We treat each other fairly because we Love each other. Its hard coded into our genes to be able to make the choice, not to be forced into the choice. We have the choice to abuse each other, and we might be able to get away with it, but we choose not to. Some of us. Husbands who beat their wives, people who make fun of different kids at school, don't know love. But that they have the choice between treating someone right and wrong, and they sometimes do choose to treat them right, is the difference between love and simple instinct.

Quote:

I'd say love is a pretty irrelevant argument, not just because while sometimes it strikes you down in a split second and you know 'wow, I'm in love', sometimes it takes time to develop, but maybe you haven't witnissed this yet.




My family is a witness to God's love working to create love. Long story short, there were problems with my parents, and they were on the verge of divorce. However, at some point they became christians, and they also reconciled. I basically owe my life to God. Since God changed their lives through the prayers of my father's uncle, they've been a great example of love for me. I may not have experienced love yet, but I have witnessed it.

Quote:

What implications on my practical live? Again, we can love just like they can .. Infact it's quite arrogant of them to think they can do better, they are not saints and most of them are not acting like they could become one either...




You refuse to accept that nothing really matters, because you're just a random collection of chemicals. That emotions, including love, really have no meaning. That the purpose you think you have in your life is just an illusion because in the end anything you do doesn't matter whatsoever, except that your accidental combination of genes is tricking you into thinking it does matter.

Those implications.


"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."