Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

To: blue-duncan; Right Wing Professor; Alamo-Girl; betty boop; xzins
If conscience is genetic then how can we hold someone responsible for actions if he/she does not have the "evolved moral compass" and "innate sense of fairness" genes?

You have hit the nail on the head, Kimosabe. If morality is genetic and genes are merely the end result of a purposeless evolution from rocks to rock stars, then no one is morally responsible for their own actions.

Why should we punish people who murder when their moral sense is simply the biproduct of random evolutionary processes. We don't punish rocks that slide down hillsides and take out busloads of children. Under what basis then do we then punish the man who deliberatley runs a busload of children off a cliff? His sense of morality is nothing more than chemical reactions driven by a purposeless mechanism of random change through time.

If man has not been endowed by his creator with the ability to know absolute right from wrong and to act freely in accordance with that ability, then punishment for viscious crimes is as viscious as the crimes themselves.*

It is no wonder that since the advent of evolutionary philosphy the tendency in Criminal Justice has been to steer away from "punishment" and to steer towards "rehabiliation."

*Naturally, we have now steered this discussion over into the Soteriological realm. :-)

375 posted on 11/15/2005 8:24:22 AM PST by P-Marlowe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 374 | View Replies ]


To: P-Marlowe
If morality is genetic and genes are merely the end result of a purposeless evolution from rocks to rock stars, then no one is morally responsible for their own actions.

Why? Because you say so?

Why should we punish people who murder when their moral sense is simply the biproduct of random evolutionary processes. We don't punish rocks that slide down hillsides and take out busloads of children. Under what basis then do we then punish the man who deliberatley runs a busload of children off a cliff? His sense of morality is nothing more than chemical reactions driven by a purposeless mechanism of random change through time.

You are hard-wired to divide the world into the inanimate and the intentional. You have constructed a post-hoc rationalization of the categories, in terms of your particular religion; but long before you went to Sunday school, you were distinguishing between people and things. And of course, people all over the world, regardless of religion or lack of same, make the distinction. Now you attribute this distinction to your religious outlook; but of course it's nothing to do with religion. If tomorrow you decided you were an atheist, you wouldn't start treating people as rocks.

378 posted on 11/15/2005 10:40:42 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 375 | View Replies ]

To: Alamo-Girl; betty boop; P-Marlowe; blue-duncan; Right Wing Professor; xzins
Is NOT;
Placing DNA as all we are as evolved DNA'osaurs, effectivly an assault on the spirit of man..
i.e. challenging that man even HAS a spirit as a "thingly" reality.?.(thanks Boop)

And "evolution"(as currently taught) used is an instrument to disprove mans "thingly spirit"..?

AND ultimately an assault on GOD him/its self.?... implying that there is no such thing as a spirit.. which is only a mythical symbol used by aboriginal primitives.. that can't shuck the MYTH.?.

Cause thats what I'm getting in all this..
< /removing intellectual dequise >

384 posted on 11/15/2005 11:46:40 AM PST by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 375 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson