tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4866132102596655836.post7675203208286632668..comments2023-08-21T01:20:49.199-07:00Comments on Meaning Without God: Evolutionary MoralityJeffrey A. Myershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03932419322314950738noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4866132102596655836.post-43098405492588954022010-11-03T12:36:00.274-07:002010-11-03T12:36:00.274-07:00Your vision of the present is crazily rose tinted,...Your vision of the present is crazily rose tinted, and that of our past mimics Hobbes's. When did the situation change from our previous misery and brutishness into our present wonderfully fair and just societies? Presumably from about Hobbes's time! But anthropologists have found almost the opposite. Hunter gatherers like the 'kung in Africa have lives in which they work only about 20 hours a week and live quite contentedly even though they have been driven into marginal land, arid deserts. When our earlier ancestors lived in lush forests, they were living in Eden. If the story of Eden means anything at all, it is a metaphor for when we could reach out and pick a fruit from the next branch to us.<br /><br />Modern life however is ghastly for many people, even rich ones. They are never happy, and their drive to get greater and greater power and money, far more than anyone could possibly need, is a demonstration of their abnormality. The poor meanwhile get less and less and have to put up with genuine worries about just how they will manage in winter, or next year, whether the mortgage will be foreclosed, whether they will have a job, whether benefits will be adequate for their needs, whether their sons will be killed in some fruitless foreign adventure -- fruitless at any rate for most of us but fruitful for the human vampires who live off human bloodshed. <br /><br />We do not need religion because we are intrinsically moral creatures because we are social. Morality is necessary to preserve our sociality, and all the global religions express it as not doing to others whatever you would not like doing to yourself by others. It is universally expressed because it is universal among us as human beings. Yet modern society is being globalized on the western capitalist model, a model that spits in the face of the Golden Rule. It is a dog eat dog principle in which our neighbors are fair game for our get rich schemes and scams. Yes, let us stick to basic human morality, and get rid of the excesses of religion, but we also need to get rid of the shockingly immoral economic system that spreads unfairness and injustice, contrary to your thesis here.AskWhy! Bloggerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06730182811999790194noreply@blogger.com