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To: donh
No culture will survive long without certain ancient inbuilt restraints--those against murder, stealing, and false witness come to mind readily.

Yes, but what practical purpose does another universal human practice serve -- respect and honor for the dead, including the elaborate funerary practices that we see in all different cultures? Including also the idea that the dead are destined for an afterlife of some kind?

If morality were an evolutionary principle arising from some kind of natural selection, then how does one explain the above -- which would appear to serve no obvious survival purpose for those who are still alive?

I don't think your naturalistic morality holds water, dohn. If you arge a naturalistic derivation or source, then I think it is you who is arguing "post hoc, ergo propter hoc," and are only able to do it by ignoring evidence such as the kind laid out in the immediately foregoing.

1,151 posted on 04/30/2003 1:51:55 PM PDT by betty boop (God bless America. God bless our troops.)
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To: betty boop
I better read post 1116, I hear it's good.
1,158 posted on 04/30/2003 4:27:02 PM PDT by unspun (It's not about you.)
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To: betty boop
Yes, but what practical purpose does another universal human practice serve -- respect and honor for the dead, including the elaborate funerary practices that we see in all different cultures? Including also the idea that the dead are destined for an afterlife of some kind?

It comforts the living.

I don't think your naturalistic morality holds water, dohn. If you arge a naturalistic derivation or source, then I think it is you who is arguing "post hoc, ergo propter hoc,"

What have I assumed, that was to be demonstrated, about natural emotions being a feasable source of the urge to morality in humans?

and are only able to do it by ignoring evidence such as the kind laid out in the immediately foregoing.

Even if I accept the "evidence" that funerals have no central explanation arising from perfectly understandable human impulses of the living to feel comforted from grief, it still does not follow that this is a necessary demonstration of the existence of God's absolute moral laws.

It seems kind of silly to me to argue that any human impulse I can't readily explain is therefore proof of God's Transcendent Moral Laws--it could just be the universe having hiccups.

1,187 posted on 04/30/2003 10:56:45 PM PDT by donh
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