Is evolutionary ethics compatible with Christian ethics?

_{Denyse O'Leary

April 22, 2019

Darwinism, Ethics, Intelligent Design}

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UCal Stanislaus historian Richard Weikart writes to draw our attention to his talk at the European Leadership Forum in Poland:

Many evolutionists from Darwin to the present have argued that normative ethics have a biological basis and originated through the evolutionary process. In this view ethics is merely a tool—some evolutionists even say an illusion—that helps humans survive and reproduce. It is neither objective nor universal nor immutable. This talk discusses various historical and contemporary examples, including sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, and then offers a critique of evolutionary ethics. Richard Weikart, “Is Evolutionary Ethics Compatible with Christian Ethics?” at Forum of Christian Leaders (FOCL)

One would have thought that the pop Darwin version of how religion got started would be most informative in answering that question. (At the BBC, a writer offers an explanation of the Christian practice of Communion, Darwinism-style. Along the way, he discovers that apes are spiritual. 😉 )

Weikart offers a scholarly view.

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See also: Richard Weikart: Is life a cosmic accident?

Historian Richard Weikart Is On C-Span Tonight, On The Death Of Humanity And Hitler’s Religion

and

Richard Weikart On The Anti-Semitic Burst In Evolutionary Psychology

Comments

It still comes down to 'IF'..... if one believes in God then there is the reasoning that morals, or right or truth, and good/bad also follow. This is why the board can get loaded up posts that find no correlation to God from a moral belief/expression. There have been plenty of moral scientists that through the years have morphed the early philosophical groundings on morality to just a utilitarian view or just an naturalistic/EVO artifact. Yet none of those have been successful at landing just how we are moral souls...they all certainly do a swell job of describing mechanistic pathways to how it works (and biological too)....but none of which so far get past that (yet some claim to). I'm open enough though, to admit that my morality... is not something I can demonstrate as being from God.... but it has certainly helped me to demonstrate my belief in God. I can certainly choose to act otherwise.Trumper_{April 23, 2019
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Brother Brian:
Yup. never learned to swim.
Not even Phelps could swim for a year.
But now that you raised the issue of the non-existent global flood
How do you know that is was non-existent?
what, exactly, were the sins of the thousands of babies and infants that were killed by God by this event?
Only a fool would ask us, now. Enter Brother Spearshake.ET_{April 23, 2019
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Ask all the people wiped out by the Flood. Clearly they did something monumentally wrong.
Yup. never learned to swim. :) But now that you raised the issue of the non-existent global flood, what, exactly, were the sins of the thousands of babies and infants that were killed by God by this event?Brother Brian_{April 23, 2019
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Seversky:
The other question is that, if it was God handing down these rules to some dude in a robe, how did God come up with them?
God Created them. God Created us.
Either way, in spite of BA77’s pessimism about humanity, what’s to prevent us doing the same? Aren’t we made in His image?
Ask all the people wiped out by the Flood. Clearly they did something monumentally wrong.ET_{April 23, 2019
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Seversky asks
The other question is that, if it was God handing down these rules to some dude in a robe, how did God come up with them? Did He flip a coin –,,, – or did He work them out rationally? Either way, in spite of BA77’s pessimism about humanity, what’s to prevent us doing the same? Aren’t we made in His image?
That is interesting. Seversky, a Darwinist who believes morality is not really real but is merely subjective and illusory, (in fact his materialistic Darwinian worldview is completely amoral), and also believes that free will is not really real but is merely illusory, seemingly concedes the reality of both an objective moral code and of free will. (and also seemingly concedes the 'fallen' sinful state of man), when he asks, "did He (God) work them (the moral rules) out rationally?,,, what’s to prevent us doing the same? Aren’t we made in His image?" In Seversky's misconception of God, moral perfection is something that exists apart from God, and not something that exists within God, and thus God must somehow reason His way, apparently from his initial state of moral imperfection, via His free will, to that independent and self-existing state of objective moral perfection that Seversky apparently believes exists apart from God. Then Seversky goes on to ask "what’s to prevent us doing the same?". In effect, Seversky has remade the living and infinitely holy and perfect God into his own human image of being in a initial state of fallen moral imperfection. Yet moral perfection is not something that exists apart from God and that God therefore must somehow reason His way towards attaining, but moral perfection is a integral part of who God actually is.
Isaiah 6:3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."
And just as all the energy, matter, and space-time, of the universe is shown, via quantum mechanics, to be contingent and thus dependent on God for its continual existence, and just as the timeless, and immaterial, platonic realm of mathematics is shown, via Godel's incompleteness theorem, to be 'incomplete' and therefore dependent on God for its continual existence, so to is this immaterial objective morality contingent and therefore dependent on God for its continual existence.
“Yet our common moral knowledge is as real as arithmetic, and probably just as plain. Paradoxically, maddeningly, we appeal to it even to justify wrongdoing; rationalization is the homage paid by sin to guilty knowledge.” - J. Budziszewski, What We Can't Not Know: A Guide Colossians 1:16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
Thus, contrary to Seversky's belief that morality is something that can exist apart from God, morality itself, like everything else, is dependent on God for its continual existence. More ironically still for Seversky is that in so far as Seversky wants to reason his way, via his free will, to moral perfection, and since moral perfection is a integral par of who God actually is, Seversky wants to, in actuality, reason his way to God Himself. :) To which I say, welcome to Christianity Seversky.
Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Of supplemental note: Around the 20 minute mark of the following Near Death Experience documentary, the Life Review portion of the Near Death Experience is highlighted, with several testimonies relating how every word, thought, deed, and action, of a person's life (all the 'information' of a person's life) is gone over in the presence of God and are 'judged' by God's standard of moral perfection:
Near Death Experience Documentary – commonalities of the experience – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uDA4RgHolw Matthew 12:36-37 “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
bornagain77_{April 23, 2019
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Brother Brian @ 5
Aron
I just was good because some dude in a robe told me god said so……
The bigger question is why you would need some guy in a robe to tell you how and why to be good. Some of us figured it out without that guy in a robe.
The other question is that, if it was God handing down these rules to some dude in a robe, how did God come up with them? Did He flip a coin - heads, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ox, tails, coveting is cool, dude, don't worry about it - or did He work them out rationally? Either way, in spite of BA77's pessimism about humanity, what's to prevent us doing the same? Aren't we made in His image?Seversky_{April 22, 2019
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I read Brother Brian's posts in the voice of "Simple Jack". But even that may be a little to sharp for BB.ET_{April 22, 2019
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Aron
In fact from this point on I need everybody to read my posts in Lewis Black’s voice
That’s fine. As long as you read my posts in the voice of Deadpool. And ET’s in the voice of Lennie from Of Muce and Men.Brother Brian_{April 22, 2019
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Vmahuna, are you messaging at me or the thread, because like what you are saying is true and I agree with it, it’s one of the reason I hate evo psych because you are right, society changes and it influences those changes, Hence the reason I raged about the claim girls genetically love pink when 60+ years ago it was a males colorAaronS1978_{April 22, 2019
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You drag this same nonsense out once a week, but it doesn't change anything. What was good and proper a thousand years ago amongst portions of Western Europe was never uniquely true nor widely practiced. Societies create and enforce Truth and Beauty and whatever is the current version of History. Religions change based on whether they want to go extinct or cooperate with the civil governments. So go spend a year or 2 reading some HISTORY, especially histories of now buried societies. And THEN argue that ethics and social customs amongst the ancient Celts and Germano-Norse and Toltecs and all were really exactly the same as 21st century Western Europe. I mean, 21st century Western Europe doesn't even share much with 19th century Western Europe.vmahuna_{April 22, 2019
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BB That’s the point of my sarcasm My last comment was dripping with sarcasm like Lewis Black sarcasm I love that guy. I was waving fingers and everything when I said that :) But my main point is That no matter how we arrive at that conclusion we are aware of it and we are aware of the reasons for it I was just cracking wise about the dude in the robe. In fact from this point on I need everybody to read my posts in Lewis Black’s voiceAaronS1978_{April 22, 2019
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Brother Brian:
Some of us figured it out without that guy in a robe.
No, you didn't.ET_{April 22, 2019
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Aron
I just was good because some dude in a robe told me god said so……
The bigger question is why you would need some guy in a robe to tell you how and why to be good. Some of us figured it out without that guy in a robe.Brother Brian_{April 22, 2019
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What’s funny about evolutionary psychology is that there’s 1,000,000 1/2 ways anything could come into existence. I watched the video it is a lot of why I dislike evolutionary psychology. I can explain how toast actually got on your plate this morning through the formula of Darwinian explanation. Excluding the person all together. I can even include the person and come up with my own variations of how you put the toast on your plate this morning. That does not mean that I am right you probably did a dance, span around, and threw the pieces of toast onto your plate like frisbees for all I know and you were successful. But since my explanation is the only one that can be seen or heard at this point it is the only one that could be right as long as I can find some parallels and connect the dots I have been successful in my explanationAaronS1978_{April 22, 2019
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As to 'man being a god unto himself' and 'knowing good and evil', it is also interesting to point out that many, if not all, of the totalitarian hellholes built on atheistic/Darwinian ideology have had a 'cult of personality' built around their Atheistic leader in which the leader was elevated to an almost god-like status. For example Stalin, Mao, and Hitler
Joseph Stalin's cult of personality became a prominent part of Soviet culture in December 1929, after a lavish celebration for Stalin's 50th birthday.[1] For the rest of Stalin's rule, the Soviet press presented Stalin as an all-powerful, all-knowing leader, with Stalin's name and image appearing everywhere. From 1936 the Soviet journalism started to refer to Joseph Stalin as the Father of Nations.[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin%27s_cult_of_personality Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and the founding supremo of its People’s Republic, is not a man who has retreated from history quietly. During the last decade of his life, during the Cultural Revolution he unleashed in part to shore up his command, his presence was inescapable. His words, his actions, the objects he touched, and above all his image reached a peak of talismanic power. His face was everywhere and he loomed—literally—over town squares and public parks, in front of hospitals and above schoolyards, in concrete and stone reminders of who was boss. Today, relatively few of these statues of Mao remain; many were torn down after Mao’s death and in the early years of the Reform era. http://www.chinafile.com/multimedia/infographics/all-chairmans-statues A personality cult was built around the Führer. Hitler’s portraits and photographs were displayed everywhere in Germany. “Heil Hitler!” (“Hail Hitler!”) became legally obligatory as a common greeting, as did the Hitler salute of the right arm fully thrust forward with the palm facing downward. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fuhrer
Not too subdued examples of this 'cult of personality' exist still today in Atheistic China
Why Xi Jinping’s (Airbrushed) Face Is Plastered All Over China https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/09/world/asia/xi-propaganda.html
Whereas Atheistic North Korea still has a full blown cult of personality built around its current leader:
The North Korean cult of personality surrounding its ruling family, the Kim family,[2] has existed in North Korea for decades and can be found in many examples of North Korean culture.[3] Although not acknowledged by the North Korean government, many defectors and Western visitors state there are often stiff penalties for those who criticize or do not show "proper" respect for the regime.[4][5] The personality cult began soon after Kim Il-sung took power in 1948, and was greatly expanded after his death in 1994. The cult is also marked by the intensity of the people's feelings for and devotion to their leaders,,, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_cult_of_personality
So apparently if a nation completely rejects God and tries to implement an atheistic utopia where man becomes a god unto himself, they very often end up having to worship a evil tyrant who wants his people to think of him as a god. It would be a humorous turn of events if not for the untold misery involved.bornagain77_{April 22, 2019
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Hmmm, Man trying to be a god unto himself and derive, (or more precisely justify), his own self-serving standards of morality minus the objective morality of God??? Sounds familiar,,, just where have I heard this before,, Hmmm?? Oh yeah I remember,,, The original sin.
Genesis 2:16-17 And the LORD God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.” Genesis 3 ,,, And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.
And just how has this 'man being a god unto himself' and 'knowing good and evil' worked out for man?
Hitler’s 11 million dead (low end estimate) Mao’s 70 million dead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao:_The_Unknown_Story Stalin’s purges kill 61 million https://democraticpeace.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/what-only-35000000-killed-in-20th-century-war/ From 1900-1987 over 250 million dead through Atheism’s grasp for domination: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.TAB1.GIF http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM Atheism’s Body Count * https://www.scholarscorner.com/atheisms-body-count-ideology-and-human-suffering/ Atheist Murderers http://www.thomism.org/atheism/atheist_murderers.html
Not too good apparentlybornagain77_{April 22, 2019
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Hmmmmmmmmmmm let me try “we strive to be good in general” “being good has a survival advantage, being good will prevent someone else from trying to kill you” “only good people survive” “0nly good people reproduce” Darwin explains it all again, evidence is the obvious logic you won’t piss someone off if you are good to them, here is a bunch of studies (blah) that prove the very common sense logic of being kind to others has a benefit to both. There for my explanation is the best. Darwin wins. I never understood that there was a survival benefit until Darwinian evolution. I just was good because some dude in a robe told me god said so..........AaronS1978_{April 22, 2019
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