# Survival of the fittest religion **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 2, 2005, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462 "2005-10-02T16:51:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/81 "2005-10-16T03:57:37Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Human rights are not about what I won’t let anyone else do to me; they are about I won’t let myself do to others. They are (to steal from a recent Terry Pratchett book) not on guard to keep the dark out, but on guard to keep the dark locked in. I think that I’m talking about underlying causes; you’re talking about implementation. In order to keep people from preying on me ( my point ) everyone must be taught that such behavior is wrong ( your point ). People aren’t taught my enlightened self interest theory as children, because they wouldn’t get it. Even as adults, people are often shortsighted; like that quote above, it often looks easier to take the bad path - until it’s too late. > [@DSeid](#): > > Also **Der Trihs** , you are quite incorrect in your earlier portrayal of religion as not being “useful.” Individuals functionally care less about whether or not a concept is _true_ as whether or not it is _useful_. Actually, in my experience people care very much if what they believe is true; unfortunatly, this often leads to willfull ignorance, instead of changing one’s opinions to match the facts. > [@DSeid](#): > > Religion, whether or not it is objectively true, is useful and the proof of that is in the very fact that most people on this planet maintain some religious belief. They would not maintain it if it wasn’t useful to them. No, it just means the religion genes/memes are good at spreading themselves and surviving. > [@DSeid](#): > > No doubt it is a bit less useful now than when science had little to show for itself and less yet that the average Joe was aware of, and a bit less useful now that much of the world accepts secular values in addition to their religious ones. But religion offers believers _certainty_ (in their own minds at least) and that is a very useful thing to have. Especially in today’s very uncertain times. Science is about managing uncertainty and thus has much use too, but doubt remains and is unsettling to many. I think you’re confusing satisfaction with usefulness. Being _certain_ and _wrong_ is not useful at all; in fact, it’s dangerous. > [@DSeid](#): > > And science can not inform on questions of values. Neither can religion; in fact, it’s worse than science at that. At least science can give you accurate data to base decisions on. > [@DSeid](#): > > You do no favors to secularism or to science by disrespecting the value and utility of religion in this world, whether you personally believe or not. I simply don’t believe that the benefits of religion come anywhere near the costs; I don’t think they ever have, and it certainly doesn’t now. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/82 "2005-10-16T03:58:05Z")
I would agree that Trish doesn’t have the best arguements in the world. However, before you start disagreeing with him, perhaps you should look to the holes in your own story. > [@DSeid](#): > > Religion, whether or not it is objectively true, is useful and the proof of that is in the very fact that most people on this planet maintain some religious belief. They would not maintain it if it wasn’t useful to them. \ Secular value systems exist but are in debt to religious value systems for their origins. Don’t even get me started in the holes in the above statements. We don’t have until the end of eternity. And as for the both of you, personally, I think the best think you can do is to cool it. You have both posted excelent questions for mswas. I think the best thing to do would be to wait for him to [del]ignore them[/del] reply, and then reply to what he says, not to what each of you has said to the other. ---
**Author:** ![Wake\_up\_call](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dec6dc/32.png) [@Wake\_up\_call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wake_up_call)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/83 "2005-10-16T04:48:04Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > But religion offers believers _certainty_ (in their own minds at least) and that is a very useful thing to have. Even after watching [this video clip](http://stuntcook.com/index.php?i=12017) from George Carlin?!!! ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/84 "2005-10-16T04:51:15Z")
**Scott** I think you have me confused for someone who disagrees with Erek more than I disgree the militant atheistic POV. Both are intolerant perspectives in my book. Erek, significantly less so from my read than **Trihs** Look, IMHO, we really can never know what is true but we form beliefs about the universe anyway. From the POV of science, a belief is useful if it both explains past observations and, more importantly, allows us to accurately make predictions about future observations. We form models that are tentatively held until a better model comes along. None of these models are the truth, they are merely models that allow us to make better predictions. We hold them with decreasing doubt he more they’ve held up to opportunities to be falsified. For understanding how the world works, it is a system of knowing without compare. Religion is a different beast entirely. It fails miserably at telling us how the world works. A NASA engineer would not consult Koran to decide a launch window. I wouldn’t consult Torah for infectious disease advice. But for informing us about things that the evidenciary method has no comment on, things like right and wrong, and if there is a why, well it can offer answers there. Sure, you may not accept those answers, but those who do gain great utility from them. And, even be it a few steps removed, secular value systems had religious value system in their family trees. Of the two of them, **Trihs** ’s views represents the greater folly. His version of secular values is a self-centered approach. What if Hitler had won and had stopped at the Jews, never coming for Marti? I guess by **Trihs** ’s approach, informed self-interest would inform that doing nothing was ethically A-OKay.\* Moreso, **Trihs** ’s attacks and disrespect of religion feeds a popular misconception that science and secularism are enemies of faith. As a believer in both the scientific method and in the power of secularism to allow for tolerant co-existance and to protect those of minority views, I do not think that contributing to a misperception of science and secularism equaling godlessness is a good idea. So thanks for the advice, but I’ll remain neither fish nor fowl for now. \*For the sake of benefit of the doubt, if **Trihs** was trying to get at how values like altruism could be selected for evolutionarily, then I retract this particular objection. ---
**Author:** ![Philip\_J\_Fry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@Philip\_J\_Fry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philip_J_Fry)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/85 "2005-10-16T05:49:08Z")
This thread contains so many logical fallacies and outright untrue statements that it is hard to know where to begin. So for instance the stuff posted by Der Trihs raises more questions than it answers. As best I can tell he is advocating some sort of atheistic worldview based on “human rights” and “enlightened self interest theory”. Presumably the idea is that we should all respect the rights of others because then we in turn will prosper when people respect our rights. This however raises the following questions 1. How do we determine what “human rights” actually are anyway. Because people around the world and throughout time have greatly disagreed over what is a right and what is not. So for instance many in the west see gay marriage as a right, where as many in Asia and Africa find gay marriage morally wrong. Who is right? Up until recently (in historic terms) slavery was seen as fine, and it has only been in the last few hundred years that we have seen opinion change (of course in the west it was evangelical Christians who were the main opponents of slavery). Who is right? Secondly many rights are a lot more difficult to define than you think, because you not only have to determine the nature of the right, but the extent of it. So for instance take public education. To what level of education is it a right, and when is it a priveledge. Elementary school, high School, college, graduate school, ect. At what point does it (if at all) cross over from being a right to a priveledge. Even some of the ones that you think would be easy, like the right to life are more complicated. How about unborn children? How about the severely mentally handicapped. Not everyone would extend the right to life to them. How then do we decide? 1. What do we do with people who disagree with our definition of rights. In one post Der Trihs said: > [@](#): > > I don’t think human rights qualify as a dogma, but as a choice. Basically, if you don’t approve of human rights, you are essentially declaring yourself as a predator; someone who looks at everybody else as prey. Killing/imprisoning/restraining such people is not dogma, but practicality; if you don’t they will likely harm you or those you care for. So it appears that he would advocate the controlling of people who did not agree with his definition of “rights”. That then raises the question how is this any different to a religious view of morality. Der Trihs (and others) have spent a lot of this thread railing against religion as only arising as a means of controlling the masses, yet at the same time he finds it moral to use his belief system to control others. What then is difference? Is there any real difference in a theocracy where things that go against a religion are outlawed, and a “secular-ocracy” where things that go against the secularist worldview are outlawed. In the end each is legislating their own morality. Why is it OK for one to do so and abhorrent for the other? 1. This thread posits that religion only arose as a means of controlling people. Yet it is clear that many posters in this thread feel that it is OK to use secularism as a basis for law. Is it therefore true to say that secularism only arose as a means of controlling people, if that is how itis being used. 2. In advocating “human rights” there is an unspoken assumption that whatever human rights are, their definition is self evident. Why then is it in practice only people who subscribe to atheistic worldviews who seem to be able to determine what they are, and those that subscribe to “religious” worldviews seem unable to determine them? What is so special about atheistic worldviews that it allows you to see exactly what human rights should be 3. There is also an assumption that “enlightened self interest theory” actually works. That is that you should do good to others so that others will do good to you. If history teaches us nothing else. it teaches us that there have been multitudes of people who have tranpled on the “rights” of others and prospered by doing so, and that similarly there have been many that have abided by the rights of others and have been trampled by those in power. Quite simply if I can benefit from trampling the rights of others, why shouldn’t I? History tells me that there have been many that have gotten away with it. If self interest is my only concern, then in many cases I should logically act to deny the rights of those around me, becuase that will result in the best outcome for me. Besides, if you want to get into the whole “only exists to control the masses”, this would be the by far best philosophy out there. Imagine it. People in power telling those not in power to obey the rules, while they are then free to exploit their obedience. It stops people from fighting back because to do so you have to ignore the rights of others. As a means of controlling the masses this would work far better than any religion. Fry. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/86 "2005-10-16T08:36:00Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > \*For the sake of benefit of the doubt, if **Trihs** was trying to get at how values like altruism could be selected for evolutionarily, then I retract this particular objection. Actuallly, that _is_ what I was trying to say, more or less. I was also pointing out that given people’s natural shortsightedness, it makes sense - even from an amoral point of view - to err on the side of altruism and empathy. To use your Hitler example, I’ll refer to that famous quote I used : > [@](#): > > ``` > First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, > so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and > the trade unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak > out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I > did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one > left to speak out for me. - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984) > > ``` Some people _did_ take the “rational” view you described, and suffered/died for it - because it’s not rational at all, just shortsighted. When it comes to ethics, it actually makes sense to be a little irrational, in order to prevent those kinds of mistakes. People who make coldblooded decisions to abandon people or ignore threats because no danger is posed to them often find out they were wrong the hard way. In fact, a _lot_ of immoral behavior is based on shortsightedness; in the short run, lying, cheating, stealing, killing and so on is usually easier. In the long run it likely catches up with you ( getting arrested, getting killed by a victim ), which is probably why we evolved a sense of right and wrong, both in the biological and social sense of “evolve”. After all, how well would a species of sociopaths do ? ---
**Author:** ![Philip\_J\_Fry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@Philip\_J\_Fry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philip_J_Fry)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/87 "2005-10-16T11:14:58Z")
> [@Der Trihs](#): > > In fact, a _lot_ of immoral behavior is based on shortsightedness; in the short run, lying, cheating, stealing, killing and so on is usually easier. In the long run it likely catches up with you ( getting arrested, getting killed by a victim ), which is probably why we evolved a sense of right and wrong, both in the biological and social sense of “evolve”. After all, how well would a species of sociopaths do ? I see no evidence to suggest that this is true. There are plenty of things that you can do that do not benefit others that you can get away with. As a simple example, buying tickets to ride on the train. In many cases it is cheaper just to pay the fines for fair evasion than to actually buy tickets. And since public transport is a necessary part of society even if it doesn’t make money because no-one buys tickets the goverment will still fund it. If it won’t catch up with me, then why should I buy tickets? There are hundreds of examples such as this, from the every-day stuff to things that are much larger. Also I think your post shows that you really don’t understand what evolution is about. Evolution is first and foremost a blind process that merely selects whichever members of a population are the most successful at breeding and passing on their genetic material. There is no sense in which evolution is able to determine what ought to happen. From the atheistic point of view there is no reason why species evolve particular traits besides that the population members who have those traits are better able to pass them on then competing traits. So because of this there is no general tendancy for evolution to produce a population of people that act justly. In fact many of the mammalian animal societies from a moral perspective would be quite repugnant to us. There are very few, if any mammalian (or other for that matter) animal societies that operate in an altruistic fashion. Yet despite the anti-social nature of their societies these species continue to exist. While their societies are grossly unfair they are still not detrimental to the survival of the species. So in their case societies of sociopaths are still able to survive quite well. Even in terms of human societies there is no evidence that the most altruistic society is always the “fittest” in an evolutionary sense. The great empires of the world were not forged by people commited to the equality of all. The great empires of the world were created by people like the Romans, people convinced of their own superiority over others and of their right to aggressively take over and oppress others. Fry. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/88 "2005-10-16T13:26:10Z")
> [@Philip J Fry](#): > > I see no evidence to suggest that this is true. There are plenty of things that you can do that do not benefit others that you can get away with. As a simple example, buying tickets to ride on the train. In many cases it is cheaper just to pay the fines for fair evasion than to actually buy tickets. And since public transport is a necessary part of society even if it doesn’t make money because no-one buys tickets the goverment will still fund it. If it won’t catch up with me, then why should I buy tickets? There are hundreds of examples such as this, from the every-day stuff to things that are much larger. > > Also I think your post shows that you really don’t understand what evolution is about. Evolution is first and foremost a blind process that merely selects whichever members of a population are the most successful at breeding and passing on their genetic material. There is no sense in which evolution is able to determine what ought to happen. From the atheistic point of view there is no reason why species evolve particular traits besides that the population members who have those traits are better able to pass them on then competing traits. > > So because of this there is no general tendancy for evolution to produce a population of people that act justly. In fact many of the mammalian animal societies from a moral perspective would be quite repugnant to us. There are very few, if any mammalian (or other for that matter) animal societies that operate in an altruistic fashion. Yet despite the anti-social nature of their societies these species continue to exist. While their societies are grossly unfair they are still not detrimental to the survival of the species. So in their case societies of sociopaths are still able to survive quite well. > > Even in terms of human societies there is no evidence that the most altruistic society is always the “fittest” in an evolutionary sense. The great empires of the world were not forged by people commited to the equality of all. The great empires of the world were created by people like the Romans, people convinced of their own superiority over others and of their right to aggressively take over and oppress others. > > Fry. Interesting. I can understand how a strong warlike race or a nation seeking to conquer could assert itself. Is’n’t it possible that the tendency toward violence eventually leads to violence against the race. Perhaps that is not a part of evolution. Here un the US we actually exterminated the Yahi Indians completely. Not because of their violent tendenceies but because we wanted the land they lived on. Are you saying that tendencies toward violence or benevolence have little to do with evolution? How can that be if we are the product of evolution? ---
**Author:** ![Philip\_J\_Fry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@Philip\_J\_Fry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philip_J_Fry)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/89 "2005-10-16T14:08:15Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > Interesting. I can understand how a strong warlike race or a nation seeking to conquer could assert itself. Is’n’t it possible that the tendency toward violence eventually leads to violence against the race. Perhaps that is not a part of evolution. Here un the US we actually exterminated the Yahi Indians completely. Not because of their violent tendenceies but because we wanted the land they lived on. Are you saying that tendencies toward violence or benevolence have little to do with evolution? How can that be if we are the product of evolution? OK, maybe I didn’t make myself very clear (in fact that is entirely possible) What I mean by this is that Der Trihs and others are falling into a common logical trap known as the ontological fallacy. Basically you can’t determine what should be from what is. What Der Trihs and others are arguing is that our morality is a result of societal evolution. If this is all that morality is then there is no reason to follow it. Just because it exists, doesn’t make it correct. One of the things that I wanted to make clear is that people often talk of evolution as if there is some end point that evolution tends towards. This is not how evolution works. Since evolution is blind, it merely tends towards the fittest, not the best. So take cockroaches for instance. Not very sophisticated but very difficult to wipe out. From an evolutionary point of view cockroaches are far superiour to humans, not because they are more intelligent, more compasionate, or even more complicated than humans. They are evolutionarily superiour because they are harder to wipe out, and therefore fitter for survival. It is the same with morality. Whatever morality that evolves will not necessarily be the best, just the most difficult to get rid of. Of course the idea that morality evolves towards some ultimate morality raises a whole other bunch of issues. What is the ultimate morality? Who or what institutes it? Why is that morality the ultimate morality? How can an ultimate morality exist without God? Anyway the point that I wanted to make is that it is by no means certain that the kindest morality would win some sort of moral evolution. True a completely militaristic society may encourage retribution, but a completely altrusitic society would be an easy target for a more aggressive one. Of course I think that morality is objective, and not merely a function of evolution. To claim that morality is merely a product of evolution is in my view to suggest that there is no intrinsic right or wrong, and that all moral views are of equal value. People in the past would disagree on some points of morality. People in the future will probably disagree on some points of morality. Since evolution is blind, then there is no reason to value any morality above any other as being more intrinsically worthwhile Fry. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/90 "2005-10-16T14:26:10Z")
Well **Trihs** , I can accept, nay do accept, an evolutionary perspective on the means by which basic senses of fairness have developed, and a cultural evolutionary perspective on how those intrinsic tendencies were used and trumped by societies and nonlinearly allowed cultures with religions and rules to develop. But I do not accept that such an understanding of “how” informs us as to any possible “why.” I believe that some things are right and wrong even if they are not to the advantage of of my genome or to my tribe. Like all decisions of values, this belief is held in the absence of any evidenciary suppport. Dogmatically. Actually **Fry** is correct here. We have have many small chances to get away things and most of us actually do some of them. Most of the time cheaters will get away with it and the desire to cheat seems hardwired too. As often as not ethical behavior does not end up getting rewarded in the end. But that doesn’t make unethical choices right. On the societal level abuse of power has won as often as it has not. But that does not make abuse of power ethical. Hitler could have won. He did not lose because he was evil, he lost because he made some poor military choices and the Allies made fewer of those mistakes. If he won, and everyone left believed as he did, would he have been right? Otherwise **Fry** , indeed, the function of secularism is to provide a basis for rules, but not only or especially of the masses, but of those in power as well or even more so. Control of behavior is a good thing. Society cannot exist unless we agree to a common basis of what is right and wrong and what is okay to have different opinions about. Religion does the same thing, but religion also provides group identity (us versus them; granfalloons more than karasses, but so be it). Because of that religion is poorly suited to provide a common base of values across a global society of societies, not that some religions haven’t tried (see the Crusades, for example). Religions will conflict and individual group membership will prevail. Early on religion was also means for trying to explain how things worked and thereby allow us some control over future events … in this regard religion failed miserably … sacrifices to the volcano god worked no better than not sacrificing. Science does much better, but secularism makes no attempt. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/91 "2005-10-16T15:39:27Z")
> [@Philip J Fry](#): > > 1. How do we determine what “human rights” actually are anyway. Because people around the world and throughout time have greatly disagreed over what is a right and what is not. So for instance many in the west see gay marriage as a right, where as many in Asia and Africa find gay marriage morally wrong. Who is right? Up until recently (in historic terms) slavery was seen as fine, and it has only been in the last few hundred years that we have seen opinion change (of course in the west it was evangelical Christians who were the main opponents of slavery). Who is right? Not the evangelical Christians in the south who supported slavery. Even after slavery was abolished they kept segregated churches and sought to keep blacks from equal citizenship. The fact is that slavery has been on the decline for some generations. Does that mean that overall mankind is advancing in it’s pursuit of human rights. > [@](#): > > Secondly many rights are a lot more difficult to define than you think, because you not only have to determine the nature of the right, but the extent of it. So for instance take public education. To what level of education is it a right, and when is it a priveledge. Elementary school, high School, college, graduate school, ect. At what point does it (if at all) cross over from being a right to a priveledge. > Even some of the ones that you think would be easy, like the right to life are more complicated. How about unborn children? How about the severely mentally handicapped. Not everyone would extend the right to life to them. How then do we decide? Education is not a right. We choose what to offer citizens and how that effects our culture. Is it better to fight crime by building more prisons and executing more criminals or providing education and a decent living for the most people possible. > [@](#): > > 1. What do we do with people who disagree with our definition of rights. In one post Der Trihs said: > > So it appears that he would advocate the controlling of people who did not agree with his definition of “rights”. That then raises the question how is this any different to a religious view of morality. Der Trihs (and others) have spent a lot of this thread railing against religion as only arising as a means of controlling the masses, yet at the same time he finds it moral to use his belief system to control others. What then is difference? Is there any real difference in a theocracy where things that go against a religion are outlawed, and a “secular-ocracy” where things that go against the secularist worldview are outlawed. In the end each is legislating their own morality. Why is it OK for one to do so and abhorrent for the other? I really don’t understand the **Der Trihs** quote. There are people who are sincerely confused and concerned about the “moral” issues of gay marriage and I wouldn’t call them predators. It seems to be about those in charge drawing the lines and redrawing them as society changes. > [@](#): > > 1. This thread posits that religion only arose as a means of controlling people. Yet it is clear that many posters in this thread feel that it is OK to use secularism as a basis for law. Is it therefore true to say that secularism only arose as a means of controlling people, if that is how itis being used. Certainly there is a large element of control in lots of religion. Just as there is a money issue. A lot of predators use religion to line their pockets. Does secularism seek to control people? I’d say, as with religion, it depends on where the lines are drawn. **Der Trihs** considers Communism a religion of sorts because of the extent that it controls people. Saddam was considered more of a secular goverment but certainly exerted violent control over the citizens of Iraq. Religions vary quite a bit in the degree they exert their moral code on members. I’m not sure it’s a question of exerting control to expect members to follow the moral guidelines of the church, any more than any group religious or secular asks certain things of it’s members and if you don’t support or follow the guidelines then you probably don’t belong in that group. Even in just a social setting don’t we tend to hang with people who are more similar to us in values and gravitate away from those who are much different from us. Why should religion be condemned for doing what seems to be normal human behavior. > [@](#): > > 1. In advocating “human rights” there is an unspoken assumption that whatever human rights are, their definition is self evident. Why then is it in practice only people who subscribe to atheistic worldviews who seem to be able to determine what they are, and those that subscribe to “religious” worldviews seem unable to determine them? What is so special about atheistic worldviews that it allows you to see exactly what human rights should be One of things I revere about the DOI and the Constitution is the moral concept that in order to claim my rights I must support those same rights for others, even those I don’t agree with. Of course this is an ideal that we didn’t live up to at the birth of this country and still strive for. So evidently those rights are not self evident. Interesting that the DOI allows for the possibility of religious views in defining our unalienable rights. > [@](#): > > 1. There is also an assumption that “enlightened self interest theory” actually works. That is that you should do good to others so that others will do good to you. If history teaches us nothing else. it teaches us that there have been multitudes of people who have tranpled on the “rights” of others and prospered by doing so, and that similarly there have been many that have abided by the rights of others and have been trampled by those in power. Quite simply if I can benefit from trampling the rights of others, why shouldn’t I? History tells me that there have been many that have gotten away with it. If self interest is my only concern, then in many cases I should logically act to deny the rights of those around me, becuase that will result in the best outcome for me. I think what is happened is that our concept of “us” and “they” is changing and possibly our concept of family. From the days when we supported our tribe and saw other tribes as the enemy, we are seeing that perhaps our tribe is larger than we thought and may include all mankind. Didn’t Jesus say something like that? I think if we focus only on ourselves and what’s best for us in this life time then it makes sense to just look out for number one and not give a rat’s ass about the rights of others. It is undeniable that those without religious beliefs also have a deep sense of the future. Not in the after life sense but in the “building a better world for future generations” sense. > [@](#): > > Besides, if you want to get into the whole “only exists to control the masses”, this would be the by far best philosophy out there. Imagine it. People in power telling those not in power to obey the rules, while they are then free to exploit their obedience. It stops people from fighting back because to do so you have to ignore the rights of others. As a means of controlling the masses this would work far better than any religion. > Fry. Yeah, you could say something like “If you don’t support our policies then you must hate America and the freedom and liberty it stands for” NAhhh I can’t imagine that something like that would work. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/92 "2005-10-16T15:59:32Z")
I had missed responding to this > [@](#): > > Why then is it in practice only people who subscribe to atheistic worldviews who seem to be able to determine what they are, and those that subscribe to “religious” worldviews seem unable to determine them? Where did you get his idea?!? Human rights and other secular value systems were mainly designed by individuals with deep religious convictions. The US Constitution, for example, is an archtype for a secular value system that holds certain rights to be self-evident. Most of its framers held deep respect for the value of a God concept, if not for any particular religion. Some were devout Christians. They just felt that no particular religion should be the basis for the laws of society. In so doing they created the stage for a pluralistic society in which different God-concepts and no God-concept could still agree on a basis for law. To continue with my Bokonism allusions, if morals are an illusion, then they are a _foma_, a necessary illusion. ---
**Author:** ![Philip\_J\_Fry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@Philip\_J\_Fry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philip_J_Fry)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/93 "2005-10-16T16:08:28Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Otherwise **Fry** , indeed, the function of secularism is to provide a basis for rules, but not only or especially of the masses, but of those in power as well or even more so. Control of behavior is a good thing. Society cannot exist unless we agree to a common basis of what is right and wrong and what is okay to have different opinions about. Religion does the same thing, but religion also provides group identity (us versus them; granfalloons more than karasses, but so be it). Because of that religion is poorly suited to provide a common base of values across a global society of societies, not that some religions haven’t tried (see the Crusades, for example). Religions will conflict and individual group membership will prevail. And this is I think the largest fallacy (posted by many others as well) in this thread. When talking about different views of reality, I think that the term “religion” is confusing at best and is often used dsiingenuously. The problem is that the term “religion” has no technical definition. Even sociologists and others disagree over exactly what a religion is and isn’t. And so what we have seen in this thread has been in part an argument over what exactly qualifies as a religion, with a few different views. I think the term that we should be using is instead [worldview](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=worldview). A worldview is essentially a way of seeing not only how the world is, but also how it should be. Under this definition all religions are also worldviews, as is secularism and other forms of atheism (ie: naturalism, nihlism, existentialism, communism, ect). The great benefit of talking about worldviews is that it recognises that there is a ocmmonality in differing views of the world, in that all differnt ways of looking at the world rest on different axioms. I think this is whas mswas was getting at when he rather clumsily proclaimed different atheistic views “religions”. The different forms of atheism may not be traditionally classed as “religions”, but they are like religions in that they are ways of looking at the world that are based on a set of premises. Anyway, once you realise that there is this commonality between different “religious” and “non-religious” ways of looking at the world, how can you justify the legislation of some as wrong, and yet legislating others as right? Why is it OK to base a society on the secular worldview, and not on say the Christian worldview, or the Hindu worldview? And I don’t think you can say that it is OK to legislate secularism because it provides a fair base that everyone can agree with. The fact is that secularism directly contradicts many other worldviews. Take Islam for instance. Secularism maintains that the state should not be involved in religious affairs. Islam (or at the very least how many people interpret Islam) believes that it is the role of the State to uphold Islamic law. The two are in a fundamental contradiction. I am not Islamic, and quite frankly I would be happy if no-one upheld Islamic law, but I do recognise that it is impossible to be Islamic and a secularist. But more than that it is not even that secularism disagrees equally with all different views. If you take an issue and look at what different worldviews advocate for that issue, in nearly every case the secularist view corresponds to the view held by one or more forms of atheism. While claiming to be a fair system for all legislating secularism is in practice legislating atheism, at least in the public sphere. You may not have a problem with that, but at least you should describe it as it is, enforcing one worldview on people that may not share that worldview. To be honest, I don’t really know what the way forward is. I think no matter what worldview you pick there are going to be some that are fundamentally opposed to it. There is no “neutral” worldview that everyone can agree to. And if you set law using a purely democratic process then you run into the issue of the majority tyranising the minorty. Maybe the only way forward is to simply pick a worldview and go with it. What i object to though is secularists advocating the legislation of their morality under the false premise of it being fair for all, when in reality it can be anything but. > [@DSeid](#): > > Early on religion was also means for trying to explain how things worked and thereby allow us some control over future events … in this regard religion failed miserably … sacrifices to the volcano god worked no better than not sacrificing. Science does much better, but secularism makes no attempt. Actually I disagree. I don’t think the majority of religions really care about the scientific how of of how the world works. If you read the foundational documents of most religions (ie: bible, koran, vedas, torah, book of Mormon, whatever) what you find is that most religions contain very few statements of how things work. What religions are much more concerned with is the character and nature of God, the character and nature of humanity, and the relationship between God and man. Anyway I think the scientific question of “how” something happens is a question that we in the west are fascinated with, and that by and large the ancient world and even some cultures today don’t care about. Sure the ancients wanted to understand how the world worked so that they could manipulate it, but they didn’t seem to really care how it worked in a fundamental level. To the ancients the questions of “who?” and “why?” were much more important that “how?”. I think that in many ways the ancients had the same attitude as Einstein - “I want to understand the mind of God, the rest is details”. 🙂 So when you look at the bible looking for explainations of how things happen, you don’t really get much more than “God does it”. By our standards hardly a scientific statement. But this is because then the bible talks about God doing things the main point is not to explain how they happen, but to illustrate the nature of God. A good example is [Psalm 147](http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?book_id=23&chapter=147&version=31). This Psalm lists a number of things that God does. The point though in the context of the Psalm is not to explain how these things happen, but to demonstrate the power of God and why he is worthy of praise. To read it as some sort of scientific explaination of how the world works is to grossly misunderstand what the Psalmist is saying. Fry. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/94 "2005-10-16T16:41:00Z")
> [@Philip J Fry](#): > > it is impossible to be Islamic and a secularist. Have a care, sir. The legions of secular Islamic thinkers over the past 100 years will give you an argument. In fact, their thought is earning renewed respect and attention these days. ---
**Author:** ![Philip\_J\_Fry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@Philip\_J\_Fry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philip_J_Fry)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/95 "2005-10-16T16:41:40Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > Not the evangelical Christians in the south who supported slavery. Even after slavery was abolished they kept segregated churches and sought to keep blacks from equal citizenship. The fact is that slavery has been on the decline for some generations. Does that mean that overall mankind is advancing in it’s pursuit of human rights. That was just a quick jab at the "religion is responsible for every piece of human suffering ever experienced and has contributed abloutely nothing to the life of anyone, anywhere, ever :rolleyes: " schtick that is common in these types of threads. I would argue that it is not possible to be an evangelical Christian and racist, since the gospel is not racist. Nevertheless the anti-slavery movement in the North was heavily influenced by evangelicals, and very few if any atheists in the South were arguing for the freedom of the slaves, so still Evangelicals had more to do with it than atheists. And I would say that we have progressed on human rights by outlawing slavery, but only because I believe that there is an objective morality that we can progress towards. > [@cosmosdan](#): > > Education is not a right. We choose what to offer citizens and how that effects our culture. Is it better to fight crime by building more prisons and executing more criminals or providing education and a decent living for the most people possible. Maybe you should have a talk to some of the student union people at my university. They will tell you loudly and at length that “education is a right, not a priveledge!!!” 🙂 > [@cosmosdan](#): > > Certainly there is a large element of control in lots of religion. Just as there is a money issue. A lot of predators use religion to line their pockets. Does secularism seek to control people? I’d say, as with religion, it depends on where the lines are drawn. Der Trihs considers Communism a religion of sorts because of the extent that it controls people. Saddam was considered more of a secular goverment but certainly exerted violent control over the citizens of Iraq. Religions vary quite a bit in the degree they exert their moral code on members. I’m not sure it’s a question of exerting control to expect members to follow the moral guidelines of the church, any more than any group religious or secular asks certain things of it’s members and if you don’t support or follow the guidelines then you probably don’t belong in that group. Even in just a social setting don’t we tend to hang with people who are more similar to us in values and gravitate away from those who are much different from us.\* Why should religion be condemned for doing what seems to be normal human behavior.\* (Emphasis mine) My point exactly! People will use whatever they can, be that religion, be that sex, be that money or anything else to control people. To assert that because religion can be used for controling people that is its only function is asinine > [@DSeid](#): > > I had missed responding to thisWhere did you get his idea?!? Human rights and other secular value systems were mainly designed by individuals with deep religious convictions. The US Constitution, for example, is an archtype for a secular value system that holds certain rights to be self-evident. Most of its framers held deep respect for the value of a God concept, if not for any particular religion. Some were devout Christians. They just felt that no particular religion should be the basis for the laws of society. In so doing they created the stage for a pluralistic society in which different God-concepts and no God-concept could still agree on a basis for law. > > To continue with my Bokonism allusions, if morals are an illusion, then they are a _foma_, a necessary illusion. My point (probably poorly expressed) is that not everyone agrees on what human rights are. If you have a religious worldview then that gives you something higher than yourself on which to construct your ideas of rights an morality (to put it simply a religious person can define morality as what their God wants) Of course if people are to agree to your morality they probably would also have to agree to the premises of your worldview. Nevertheless it is possible to define a consitent morality from your worldview. If you are not religious then there is nothing higher than the self by which you can define morality. Therefore if you wish to claim some sort of objective morality your only real arguement is that your morality is self-evidently right. However this also requires that all others that disagree with you cannot see the self-evident nature of your morality and are therefore defective in some way. That is what I meant. Der Trihs seems to be advocating some sort of morality, especially since he continually describes religion and relgious people as immoral. This quote > [@](#): > > Oh, and there’s a simple reason so many religious people find it alienating; namely the fundamentalists. Secularism is about tolerance and civilized behavior, and fundamentalism is barbarism; hatred and cruelty distilled and given God’s label. It’s not surprising the two conflict. is a typical example. However as someone who does not believe in God he has no real way of defining any sort of objective morality other than “I am right and everyone else is wrong”. Fry. ---
**Author:** ![Philip\_J\_Fry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@Philip\_J\_Fry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philip_J_Fry)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/96 "2005-10-16T16:46:07Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Have a care, sir. The legions of secular Islamic thinkers over the past 100 years will give you an argument. In fact, their thought is earning renewed respect and attention these days. True, but the point is not really about what Islam _actually_ advocates, but what many who identify as Islamic _believe_ that it advocates. Regardless of the recent secularist thinkers there are still many in the Islamic world who do still believe that the role of the state is to uphold Islamic law. And for these people it is impossible to be both Secularist and Islamic, and by forcing them to be secular you are in fact forcing your belief system onto them. Fry. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/97 "2005-10-16T16:51:49Z")
Gosh. So much to disagree with! 🙂 First off though items of agreement. Yup, “worldview” is a good inclusive term. And yup, some religious views are incompatible with a secular worldview and its postulates. But secularism provides a bigger tent than any individual religion, and that is why it is becoming the lingua franca worldview. The society of societies can only contain those members who agree to acccept the tenets of the worldview that can contain multiple members. Those whose worldview is exclusive of most other worldviews, such as Islamists (but not other Moslems), and some Christian fundamentalists, must either try to force the rest of the world to their worldview, or attempt to live apart from the rest of the global community. You can be Islamic and accept secular values as well. You can be Jewish and be a secularist too. You can have fundamentalist Christian values in your private life but accept that the public sphere runs on a secular system. They do not need to be mutually incompataible. Can you have a government that is both overtly Islamic and respectful of secular values? That is the experiment going on in Iraq right now. We’ll see. But the future of democracy and other secular values in the MidEast depends on that answer. I know of few religions that do not offfer up some mythology or how the world came to be and some implication that certain actions will in some way control future events. And even those who do not, have history in their origins that includes that desire. For some, science and religion were well comingled - as much as you portray science as a product of the West, Islam was producing great science while Europe was mired in the Dark Ages. But the point remains, religion no longer serves that role, despite the efforts of some to reassert its place in explaining how. (Have you missed all about ID in the schools?) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/98 "2005-10-16T17:04:09Z")
**Philip J Fry** , I’m quite aware that evolution has no intrinsic direction; I’m claiming that in humans there are environmental pressures that tend to drive us towards more moral societies. Chief among these, I believe, is the fact that humans are much more dangerous to one another than other animals are to each other. An alpha male or female can beat down and abuse less impressive animals relying on little more than sheer strength. A human tyrant needs an elaborate system of control, otherwise he’ll be torn from power by his victims. If a lion kills a lioness’s cubs, he doesn’t need to worry she’ll spend years of planning and effort to achieve revenge; she doesn’t have the brains. If a pack of wolves hunts in another packs terroritory, it doesn’t need to worry the rival pack will invade, hunt them down to last cub, then set the forest on fire and salt the earth. Humans have a long memory for wrongs done for them, and a vindictive streak that makes it hard to get away with treacherous behavior, compared to other animals. Did you know that humans are among the least violent of animals ? When you actually obverve a species and count how many acts of violence they indulge in, humans are far less violent than other animals. The difference is, we tend to be better at it. Deer will shove each other and whack horns; humans will pull a knife or shoot you or poison you. The murder rate in really primitive cultures tends to be enormous; IIRC in many cases it’s the top cause of death. _That_ is evolutionary pressure; strong pressure. If you could travel back and observe the first homo sapians, I suspect they would be far more violent than moderns, even if you were to raise them in a culture like ours. In summation, I think that over the millenia, we’ve slaughtered ourselves into having a more civilized set of instincts. This does not contradict any instincts we have to prey upon each other; several different sets of impulses can coexist. I’m simply saying that over the long run, in humans fairness and self restraint have a statistical advantage over treachery and predatory behavior. That’s all evolution needs. Your argument that a belief in a god is some sort of superior source of morality is nonsense; someone who bases their “morality” on a god isn’t moral at all. They’re just obeying orders; if that’s what they base their pseudo-morality on, then they’ll cheerfully run araound committing atrocites if they think their god orders them to. Blind obedience to authority is _not morality_. > [@Philip J Fry](#): > > If you are not religious then there is nothing higher than the self by which you can define morality. How about the general welfare of people ? How about an abstract philosophy of justice ? Where is your evidence that religious people are even _as_ moral as atheists, much less more so ? > [@Philip J Fry](#): > > Anyway, once you realise that there is this commonality between different “religious” and “non-religious” ways of looking at the world, how can you justify the legislation of some as wrong, and yet legislating others as right? Why is it OK to base a society on the secular worldview, and not on say the Christian worldview, or the Hindu worldview? Because religion is factually wrong and/or irrational. A non religious law has a chance of being right; a religious law is only going to be right by sheer luck ( and lots of it ). ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/99 "2005-10-16T21:23:20Z")
> [@Der Trihs](#): > > Secularism a religion, atheism a religion, is their anything you _don’t_ consider religion ? Simple answer is that any doctrine vehemently insisted upon becomes a religion. Ultimately, any certainty is a religion. You might revolt against that notion, but simply because for you “_religion_” means “_bad_”. But it’s not “bad”, it’s natural, with all attendant positives and negatives. Militant atheism can’t be antithetical to religion, because it affirms something, even by denial and criticism. Atheism is vigorous and agressive, and therefore religious. True anti-thesis to religion is a state of constant uncertainty, denial of any permanence to this world, to the point of suspicion that the Sun might not rise tomorrow, for example. Anti-thesis to religion is indeed an extreme mental disorder. Once you take something for granted and plan for the future in this world, you put your trust in something that is beyond your control and thus act in faith. Which is possibly the only way to function for any sentient being in this Universe. The notion that religion is some kind of con job on mankind is complete nonsense (just another version of Rousseau’s “social contract”). There is a deeply felt need in all people for faith, just like there is deeply felt need for medical help and justice, etc. So everything needs to be taken with a _healthy_ dose of scepsis, denial of religion as well. Also, it’s very important to ditinguish between universal spiritual earning for Faith and regular bureaucratic abuses by human institution of various Churches. ---
**Author:** ![Philip\_J\_Fry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@Philip\_J\_Fry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philip_J_Fry)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462/100 "2005-10-17T01:12:12Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Gosh. So much to disagree with! 🙂 > But secularism provides a bigger tent than any individual religion, and that is why it is becoming the lingua franca worldview. The society of societies can only contain those members who agree to acccept the tenets of the worldview that can contain multiple members. Those whose worldview is exclusive of most other worldviews, such as Islamists (but not other Moslems), and some Christian fundamentalists, must either try to force the rest of the world to their worldview, or attempt to live apart from the rest of the global community. You can be Islamic and accept secular values as well. You can be Jewish and be a secularist too. You can have fundamentalist Christian values in your private life but accept that the public sphere runs on a secular system. They do not need to be mutually incompataible. Can you have a government that is both overtly Islamic and respectful of secular values? That is the experiment going on in Iraq right now. We’ll see. But the future of democracy and other secular values in the MidEast depends on that answer. The problem here is that if you take secularist and religious worldviews seriously they just about always conflict. One of the central tenants of secularism is that God is irrelevant, and therefore there should be no reference to or expression of God in the publich sphere. This is anathema to just about every religious tradition on earth. Just about every religion requires their adherents to express their faith in the public and the private aspects of their life. Indeed the division of life into the public and the private spheres is a secularist idea. Most religous views see no difference between the public and the private. To insist on people having one set of beliefs for the public sphere and one for the private is to insist that people are hypocrites. So for instance take morality. Each religion has its own particular view of morality, and what should be legislated for the good running of a state. Secularism also contains its own morality, a morality which it dictates must be implemented regardless of the moralities of others. To have a secular state is to effectively ignore the morality of every other worldview. And if you look at a lot of expressly secular nations it is nearly impossible to adhere to some religious worldviews and function in that society. Take France for instance. Because of the insistence of secularism that there be no religion in the public sphere, I can’t wear anything overtly religious in government buildings. This means that if I am an Islamic girl and I want to go to school I am forced to fress in a way that I find immodest and which is against my religion. The only real set of worldviews that can happily co-exist with secularism is the atheist worldviews. The tenant that there should be no expression of God in the public sphere is abhorrent to most religions, but perfectly acceptable to atheistic worldviews. In practice legislating secularism is legislating atheism. Given that then it seems that your whole argument boils down to we should legislate secularism because it it the most popular worldview. But then how is that not the majority tyranising the minority. You mention that secularism does not play friendly with some other worldviews. Fair enough. Why not pick those worldviews. If secularism does not play well with “fundamentalist” Islam, then why not pick fundamentalist Islam? If dofferent worldviews disagree, why should the most popular be the one that is chosen, and if in the future it ceases to be the most popular should we change the nature of our society. > [@DSeid](#): > > Gosh. So much to disagree with! 🙂 > I know of few religions that do not offfer up some mythology or how the world came to be and some implication that certain actions will in some way control future events. And even those who do not, have history in their origins that includes that desire. For some, science and religion were well comingled - as much as you portray science as a product of the West, Islam was producing great science while Europe was mired in the Dark Ages. But the point remains, religion no longer serves that role, despite the efforts of some to reassert its place in explaining how. (Have you missed all about ID in the schools?) I don’t doubt that a lot of religious views include creation stories or whatever. My point is though these stories are not there to act as some sort of way of predicting the natural world. These stories are there to make a larger point about the nature of God, and that looking at them in a naturalistic type of way is to misunderstand them completely. And I don’t doubt that a lot of religious societies have done good science. (in fact I think that the rise of monotheism was instrumental in the rise of science, but that is an argument for another thread) But this kind of proves my point. In the case of the early Islamic societies they had the Koran, and then they went out and did science. They did not look to the Koran to explain the natural world around them, because they knew that was not the point of the Koran. The Koran was there to tell them about Allah, not the world that he made. If they wanted to find out about the world they would have to do it themselves 🙂 Maybe it would help your case if you could come up with some concrete examples. Merely asserting that religion tries to explain how the world works without giving any examples isn’t very convincing. > [@Der Trihs](#): > > Philip J Fry, I’m quite aware that evolution has no intrinsic direction; I’m claiming that in humans there are environmental pressures that tend to drive us towards more moral societies. I would love to know what you mean my **more** moral societies. Do you mean that we have evolved from rather amoral societies with few rules to societies with more moral rules. If so, so what. Just because we have more moral rules does not make us any better. If you mean more in the sense that we have progressed closer towards some absolute “corrcet” morality, then how do you define what that morality is. Especially since you acknowledge that evolution has no intrinsic direction that therefore just because we have headed there has no inherent meaning. > [@Der Trihs](#): > > Chief among these, I believe, is the fact that humans are much more dangerous to one another than other animals are to each other. An alpha male or female can beat down and abuse less impressive animals relying on little more than sheer strength. A human tyrant needs an elaborate system of control, otherwise he’ll be torn from power by his victims. If a lion kills a lioness’s cubs, he doesn’t need to worry she’ll spend years of planning and effort to achieve revenge; she doesn’t have the brains. If a pack of wolves hunts in another packs terroritory, it doesn’t need to worry the rival pack will invade, hunt them down to last cub, then set the forest on fire and salt the earth. Humans have a long memory for wrongs done for them, and a vindictive streak that makes it hard to get away with treacherous behavior, compared to other animals. > > Did you know that humans are among the least violent of animals ? When you actually obverve a species and count how many acts of violence they indulge in, humans are far less violent than other animals. The difference is, we tend to be better at it. Deer will shove each other and whack horns; humans will pull a knife or shoot you or poison you. The murder rate in really primitive cultures tends to be enormous; IIRC in many cases it’s the top cause of death. That is evolutionary pressure; strong pressure. If you could travel back and observe the first homo sapians, I suspect they would be far more violent than moderns, even if you were to raise them in a culture like ours. > > In summation, I think that over the millenia, we’ve slaughtered ourselves into having a more civilized set of instincts. This does not contradict any instincts we have to prey upon each other; several different sets of impulses can coexist. I’m simply saying that over the long run, in humans fairness and self restraint have a statistical advantage over treachery and predatory behavior. That’s all evolution needs. And I still see no reason why this should be true. There are quite a few logical problems in this 1. You assume that morality is a trait available to evolution. Since evolution strictly only works with genetics, this must mean that there is some genetic component to morality. Given that parents and children can often have quite different moral outlooks, I see no reason to suggest this is the case. 2. You ignore the case where people destroy their enemies completely. If I attack a people-group and wipe them out completely, I not only benefit I also have no fear of retribution because there is no-one left to get retribution. Supposing your “you can’t be immoral because others will come get you back” that would also tend to select the most ruthless and efficient killers who were able to destroy all their enemies. 3. You ignore the fact that perfectly altruistic people make easy targets for the ruthless. According to your view people who have some altruism, so as not to incur the wrath of others, and some ruthlessness so that they are not an easy target is what should be selected. 4. There is no evidence in any other species that morality actually incerases your survivability. You hand wave a bit and say that humans are unique because of our intelligence, but even in modern society there is no evidence that being moral will make you any more successful. 5. Finally even IF you evolutionary view of marality is true, so what? Just because these are the morals that we have evolved, does not make them significant in any way. As I said before you can’t determine what should be from what is. > [@Der Trihs](#): > > Your argument that a belief in a god is some sort of superior source of morality is nonsense; someone who bases their “morality” on a god isn’t moral at all. They’re just obeying orders; if that’s what they base their pseudo-morality on, then they’ll cheerfully run araound committing atrocites if they think their god orders them to. Blind obedience to authority is not morality. > > How about the general welfare of people ? How about an abstract philosophy of justice ? Where is your evidence that religious people are even as moral as atheists, much less more so ? If God does exist I would think that he knows more about morality than you. Besides, if God is real why is it wrong to obey him in matters of morality? And it’s not like the moralities that have been suggested by atheists are all sweetness and light. Have a look at some of the “morality” that people like Nietzsche proposed. How it was fine for the uber-mensch or over-man to ruthless rule over the common herd. Anyway, my point is that when you talk about religious views of morality, since they are predicated on particular beliefs about the world there is a basis for discussion with these views. Since religious people acknowledge a higher reality than the self whatever moral systems they construct canbe compared to the higher reality. This doesn’t make them right, it just means that there is some basis to their construction. Atheistic worldviews however, since they are based on the denial of anything higher than the self, have no such basis for comparison. You could argue that something like “justice” or “the common good” provides a way of judging moralities, but you would first have to show as an atheist why you care about justice or the common good, and then what those terms actually are. And again in defining what they are you have no objective standard, so you end up back at the relativist square one. > [@Der Trihs](#): > > Because religion is factually wrong and/or irrational. A non religious law has a chance of being right; a religious law is only going to be right by sheer luck ( and lots of it ). OK, so we should go with your view on morality because you are the great wise one that has realised falseness of all religion and now present the one true moral system :rolleyes: How is this any different to a religious person claiming that atheism is wrong and/or irrational and therefore only has a chance of being right? Fry. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/survival-of-the-fittest-religion/324462.md?page=6)