Posted on 06/09/2010 6:20:24 AM PDT by rhema
Years ago, when our daughter attended a church- sponsored preschool, we were invited to an informal meeting about parenting techniques. After orientation by the school director, we broke into discussion groups. The topic was discipline, a burning issue for preschool parents, swerving naturally to "How do we teach them right from wrong?" One father in our group apparently wanted to stir the pot. Early in the conversation he asked, "But how do we know what's right and wrong? Do those words have any meaning?"
If he was hoping for a Socratic discussion he didn't get it, neither the first time nor the second time he asked. No one even challenged the premise. I didn't know the man: He might have been an amateur student of philosophy, or a Hindu, or just a provocateur. But to parents of preschoolers, the question itself was meaningless. We all had some notion of right and wrong that we sought to inculcate in our young barbarians; the only issue was how.
New research indicates parents may have a little underlying cooperation in that quest. I mean "little" literally. "The Moral Life of Babies," appearing in The New York Times Magazine last month, outlines extensive study by Yale University researchers into the degree that right and wrong is recognized by children as young as a few months. Surprisingly or not, overwhelming evidence points to a sense of morality either inborn or developing very early.
The study involved babies being exposed to mini-dramas, both live and on film. Two puppets or two shapes were shown either helping or hindering a third character, with the babies encouraged afterward to respond. The youngest subjects were capable of nothing but watching, so their response was measured by how long they looked. But 9- to 12-month-olds could register approval or disapproval in a variety of ways, including punishing the bad actors when they had an opportunity. "In the end," writes professor Paul Bloom, "we found that 6- and 10-month-old infants [in a given study] overwhelmingly preferred the helpful individual to the hindering individual. This wasn't a subtle statistical trend; just about all the babies reached for the good guy."
The overwhelming response among the public: interesting. Writes Albert Mohler on his blog, "Does the fact that infants have an innate moral sense underline the importance of the fact that human beings are made in God's own image? It would certainly seem so." Meanwhile, a fan of atheist Richard Dawkins, commenting on Dawkins' website, draws quite another conclusion: "This will be a rather bitter blow to the religious who are convinced that humans are born sinful [and] incapable of telling right from wrong without moral guidance from the bible. . . . What a delicious laugh."
Not so fast. Paul says that even those without the Mosaic Law nonetheless have God's law written on their hearts, "while their conscience also bears witness" (Romans 2:14-15). While babies can't acknowledge the first table of the Law (loving God), the second table, about loving their neighbor, seems firmly fixed. Why?
The evolutionary bias assumed by the researchers can only shrug. Conceivably, a strong sense of group sympathy can help an individual survive in a harsh environment, but what explains the babies' apparent sympathy for animal puppets? Dr. Bloom admits that "the morality of contemporary humans really does outstrip what evolution could possibly have endowed us with." And there's another, rather obvious problem: "If children enter the world already equipped with moral notions, why is it that we have to work so hard to humanize them?"
That's the conundrum C.S. Lewis addresses in the first section of Mere Christianity: (a) everyone seems to have a sense of moral law, and (b) everyone breaks it. The little one who shows sorrow for a thwarted puppet will likely knock down a smaller child someday, or snatch a toy, or lie on a resumé, or cheat on his income tax, and natural selection will not justify him. Someone else will have to.
Like most trolls you have a serious problem with projection.
What exactly do you thing "reproductive fitness" is if not a form of eugenics?
It wouldn't surprise me at all if you and the other advocates of "reproductive fitness" wanted to restrict Second Amendment rights.
By the way, you just slipped up. Real conservatives talk about Second Amendment rights, trolls like you talk about "gun control". Gotcha.
Heh. :)
When all else fails, attack the person.
You’re certainly playing by the liberal playbook, LB.
Through use of projection no less.
I'm sure that "reproductive fitness" goes right along with the "reproductive rights" that Big Murder advocates.
Like most trolls, it’s playing the semantics game.
Change definitions in the middle of discussions, make up definitions to suit yourself, whatever.
At all costs, hide your true agenda with the definition game and if anyone comes close to ripping off the mask, attack them.
>>”reproductive fitness” is if not a form of eugenics?
Reproductive fitness is merely the measurement of a genome’s ability to produce viable offspring. Typically measured over multiple generations.
It could apply to plants as well as animals.
Maybe in your Parrot’s Newspeak Dictionary, Gregor Mendel was a “Eugenicist” when he was measuring viability of (genetic) traits among Pea plants.... but in the real world, he was just a horticultural scientist (and an Augustinian priest) trying to figure out why some plants produced better/more fruit than others.
In other, more modern, words he was measuring Reproductive Fitness of Peas.
All monotheist religions. And I leave Mormonism out of the discussion, just as I do Scientology and followers of “Rev.” Moon.
PS. Hinduism is also a monotheist religion.
"So saying, the Angel Peacock, Melek Taus as we call him, spread his wings and flew away over the inaccessible mountain-tops. That is why we Yezidi, the descendants of that compassionate shepherd, sing hymns to appease and glorify the Spirit of Evil to this very day. Our hymns are scorned by the rest of the world. Both Christians and Muslims alike hate and persecute us. They call us 'Muraddun'-- Infidels and Devil-Worshippers. Our priests, Qawasls, travel secretly and do not wear priestly robes. They carry with them, hidden away from Muslim and Christian eyes, the effigy of a peacock. When we pray, we do not turn towards Mecca like the Muslims but towards the Polar Star, the immovable source of light in darkness, the point of the axis round which the whole universe resolves."
http://www.songsouponsea.com/Promenade/Tale.html
Not everything. Women who are violently raped and get pregnant and have the baby have perfectly normal babies. Adopted kids learn great morals from good adoptive parents.
If genes were everything, we should not let children of criminals free. G-d gives every single person a chance to be good. The sins of the fathers...
>>By the way, you just slipped up.
Guns no more kill people than studying reproductive fitness does.
Hitler Advocated “Gun Control” just like you evidently advocate Knowledge Control, and for much the same reason.
Neither behaviors are indicative of a society whose cornerstone is the premise that “ALMIGHTY GOD HATH CREATED THE MIND FREE”.
You “got” yourself, Idiot.
By monotheistic I mean religions who worship the One Supreme Godhead, which ever name they call Him by. Worshipping a rock, a mountain, or an human created invention, or as in your case, your own pride, does not make a monotheistic religion.
Precious free will. It’s a gift every person is given.
When it comes to Mendel you are playing real fast and loose with the facts. Nothing you said matches with anything about his history or his contributions.
Stopping your evil agenda of "reproductive fitness" IS NOT knowledge control.
Eugenics=reproductive fitness?
Best I can tell.
//a society whose cornerstone is the premise that ALMIGHTY GOD HATH CREATED THE MIND FREE//
So what society are you talking about where is the source for your quote.
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