"I take the position that you have not correctly identified the morally relevant properties. Even if one were to take your approach, I believe that potential should enter the analysis and would be decisive. In any event, though, I don't accept a property-driven morality. Killing humans is wrong because they are humans, made in the image of God."

I don't think we disagree here as much as you think we do.

You are adding the quality of 'made in the image of God', which, while i don't recognise it, is a quality which you are using to determine the morality of killing humans. (I might go on to presume you are against war, and allowing migrants to die while the try to cross borders in refrigerated shipping containers or in the hold of aircraft...)

But i do think you are still basing it on qualities/property driven morality - i feel we are only disagreeing on what qualities humans possess.

"Careful with the fetus-as-a-part-of-the-woman's-body argument, as it's factually inaccurate. The DNA argument holds VERY strongly here, as, whatever the fetus is, it's most assuredly NOT a part of the woman's body. Transplants are perhaps the closest other analogy (different DNA, but functioning as part of the same body), but even they aren't a very good analogy, since a transplant is a) given up to the woman by the foreign-DNA host under informed consent (unless there's some unethical chicanery going on), something which is obviously untrue of a fetus, and b) a PART (however important) of the foreign-DNA host rather than, as a fetus is, the TOTALITY of the foreign-DNA host."

You have a point, it is more like cancerous growth than a transplant. It grows and feeds off the woman, and can threaten her health/life. It has DNA which os different to the woman, but is still based on her DNA, and if she dies it also dies. ( though there are two rare cancers which are able to jump host, one facial cancer killing tasmanian devils and another which is sexually transmitter among dogs)

This doesn't address the potential, which Smeck mentions. And that is a teason why some women will choose to risk their lives for their potential children (whether that means leaving other children as orphans is an bigger ethical query, but i leave that aside, as my pro-choice positions amounts to woman bein the best people to make these kinds of decisions for themselves)

@Outside smoker, you said:
"And if, under homo-centrism, humans DO have an elevated/expansive spectrum of rights that they deserve, and that cows do NOT deserve, it is quite important to know who is human and who is not."

Yes, IF you agree with this homo-centrism. And you have yet to convince me that it is deserved. But that raises more questions. Where do we draw the line with DNA?

We know that Chimps have one more chromosome pair than we do and that in recent evolutionary past one of our chromosomes merged so we still have almost all tue same genes as our Chimps ( but packaged slightly differently )this is probably why human-chimp hybrid experiments failed ( in the 20s/30s or whenever the soviets tried them ) and we also know neanderthals existed side-by-side with modern humans up until very recently.

And that we inter-bred with them. (Along with a number of other sub-species of the homo family) Are they to be given human rights? What about a human neanderthal hybrid? Or a human chimp hybrid (if our genetic engineer techniques can figure it out)?

You seem to claim that chimps don't deserve the same rights; and i challenge you to demonstrate what rights they do deserve and why.

Again, cancer has the same DNA, (i would note that fingernails and hair do not contain DNA, they are made of keratin and while you can work out who they belong to, in that the contain a finger print of the person, it is not a full DNA sequence) At what point do we determine that the DNA in a cancerous growth isn't human?

Ok, so i appear to be moving on to your #2. But I challenge your #1 most vehemently. Why does being human matter, and where do you draw the line?

#2 Fine, a cancerous growth is not a person. We can again agree on that.

(Btw, smeck: i would argue that humans and chinps, apart from evolving together and having the same DNA, are both made in the same image, different reflections of the same nature. But i still think you have the same issues with neanderthals)

Oh and before i forget to mention them. People with Downes Syndrome have not got the same number of chromosomes. Are they any less human? Likewise there are several chromosomal duplications which do not make a fetus unviable. So we have people with three X chromosomes, or XXY, or XXYY. Lots of combinations, not all of which are well known, or easily identified.

Should we look at the DNA of a person with Downes Syndrome and say 'well you're not fully human, so lets take away some rights, maybe we can start with your right to reproduce...'

"Homo sapiens is a select species with dignity and rights that do not inhere in any other species. Membership in the species is sufficient to confer these dignity and rights without additional appurtenances such as self-awareness and rationality (as traditionally understood) [and, I would add here, compassion, empathy, and neighborliness] being necessary. Other species, meanwhile, are quite literally sub-human."

I find it rather odd that you invoke this 'rights' view - which is very modern, 1940s at the most recent, maybe stemming from the french revolution at its earlier. And then in the same post quote genesis.

Either we're made in the image of gods and you think we have souls from birth. In which case i actually disagree with you and do not believe your views should be made law. But i respect your right to believe what you do, and i believe you should not have any abortions; because doing so would be immoral.

OR you believe in fundamental human rights which is a very humanist point of view (and is not supported by the bible, where it supports slavery and raping daughters being preferable to raping men )

OR you have some hybrid of views. You were surprised when i made the claim that humans have something worth protecting. But my position on self-awareness and empathy is that these qualities (and more) are worth preserving. And that goes on to include chimps, and bonobos, to include people with Downes syndrome, and dogs, to include cattle and the more intelligent members of the corvid family.

I could i so far as to say 'all life should be protected' but we usually include bacteria as life, and i have no problem killing bacteria (not infact hosting billions or trillions of bacteria in/on my body... Oh and how much does their DNA affect my behaviour, health, and the proteins circulating around my body??? Oh wait, we've moved on from point 1...) if i make the claim 'all life should be protected' then we have to ask #1 what counts as life? #2 what are the qualities of life that make it worth preserving and #3 under what circumstances is it permissible to kill?

#3 touches most closely on this discussion. I do not have a problem with a Lion killing its prey. Likewise, i do not have a problem with a human protecting itself from an attacking Lion.

I do have a problem with a group of humans destroying the entire habitat of all Lions, and acting like they have a right to take whatever they want.

I do not have any problem with you taking anti-biotics (killing billions of bacteria) to prevent yourself getting ill. Or removing a cancerous growth (killing a bundle of human cells) i do not have a problem with contraception or medicines which prevent implantation (ie stop the small bundle of human cells from attaching to a woman's body and feeding off it, like a parasite).

I do not see the need to tell women how to use their bodies. And more importantly whether it is right for them to bring a child into this world. I believe that we should have caring supportive families, and each woman is capable of making her own decision as to whether she can provide that for each potential child.

I do very much care about that child's quality of life; and believe that nobody but the potential mother is in a position to determine whether the love, affection, time, money, nourishment, shelter and security can be provided. In fact, Smeck, i am very much taking the potential into account. Because i do not believe a child should be brought into this world by a woman who doesn't want to. ( I also think the view that no woman should ever have an abortion is damaging, women will find abortions even if they are illegal, they always have. These just become dangerous and risk more life. )

(You may also point out that an abortion is selfish, and while this may be true, i don't think we want selfish mothers... Again, quality of life over quantity. And something being selfish doesn't mean it is wrong. We are each selfish all the time. And it is often in our best interests to be. )

Also: www.elle.com/culture/a14577/dry-land-ruby-rae-spiegel

@ ora

''OR you believe in fundamental human rights which is a very humanist point of view (and is not supported by the bible, where it supports slavery and raping daughters being preferable to raping men )''

This is a false equivalence taken way out of context to support your views. In this matter I go with Richard Taylor:

The modern age, more or less repudiating the idea of a divine lawgiver, has nevertheless tried to retain the ideas of moral right and wrong, not noticing that, in casting God aside, they have also abolished the conditions of meaningfulness for moral right and wrong as well. Thus, even educated persons sometimes declare that such things are war, or abortion, or the violation of certain human rights, are ‘morally wrong,’ and they imagine that they have said something true and significant. Educated people do not need to be told, however, that questions such as these have never been answered outside of religion.

Richard Taylor, Ethics, Faith, and Reason (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985), pp. 2-3.

In my words: without a theological basis, there can be no rational explanation for morality.

Utter bullshit. To be succinct for once.

Religion is not the basis of morality. God is used as an excuse to leave moral questions unexamined.

@ ora

It therefore falls on you to offer an alternative. All the alternatives I have seen rest on the application of natural selection. For example, this plea to overcome our so called evolutionary instincts:

“Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.” Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene.

One has to admire Dawkins honesty in stating where his (all-encompassing Darwinian/atheist) world-view naturally leads.

(Moreover, in passing, have you ever seen a clearer case of anthropocentricism?)

I too will be succinct - the premise that faith is blind is intrinsically insulting bullshit of itself. Many, if not most, believers wrestle, struggle and doubt, just as Jacob did with the Angel. To pigeon-hole them as you do might well suit your confirmation bias; it does nothing however to approach the truth.

“It seems to me as clear as daylight that abortion would be a crime.”
--Mahatma Gandhi

Read more: Mahatma Gandhi's Views On Abortion http://www.whyprolife.com/mahatma-gandhis-views-on-abortion/#ixzz3jpiHP65c

@fullhamish, i do not doubt yhat believers doubt and question their beliefs.

I made the claim that reliance of God as an answer to these questions is a intellectual dead end.

I don't claim all believers are incapable of making moral judgements, but i do make specific claims.

Lets see, religion provides a framework to provide guidance on moral questions. Which is a useful shortcut, it makes things more efficient because you don't *have* to think. Wrestling woth your beliefs does all you to mutate within this framework exactly how to interpret some handed down 'wisdom' to suit our own circumstances. And this may yet be valuable.

However religion is merely one amog many frameworks upon which we can base our morality. You can use a economic philosophy, like Communism or Capitalism, you can esteem the virtues of greed like Ayn Rand, or you can delve into the basis unit of biological information like Richard Dawkins (and whether he is being homo-centric depends on what he concludes. If we as a species no loger act only for the propogation of our genes, but instead care for all of the biodiversity upon this earth, then you do not have a homocdntric view at all... That is we are not placing humans as the most important thing in creation, here Dawkins merely claims we are the most capable and this perhaps the most responcible for aerving whatever end he imagines - other than our genes selfish behaviour - though serving some end, we could choose any, based on the principles of morality withon whatever framework we choose)

Rochard Taylor has clearly got his head stuck, he can't see beyond his own world view. Thus the only rational justification he can imagine is one based on God's authority.

This is unfortunately a pretty common complaint. The powerful often only see the world through ther own eyes. And fail to acknowledge any other views. Which results in rascism, sexism, white feminism (which has recently been called on for being rascist and failing to acknowledge the intersection between different forms of discrimination)

Frameworks are useful, i do not deny it. And they were probably more useful when only one in ten or one in a hundred people were able to read. Ultimately it is not atheists who go out and picket gay soldier's funerals. It is those who have relie on a framework and authority which has lead them to do wrong.

@orathaic
"And that we inter-bred with them. (Along with a number of other sub-species of the homo family) Are they to be given human rights? What about a human neanderthal hybrid? Or a human chimp hybrid (if our genetic engineer techniques can figure it out)?"
If the line between human and non-human becomes blurry due to the arising of a hypothetical hybrid or the re-emergence of an extinct past species, then I'll make the effort to cogitate about that. But not at this point.

"You seem to claim that chimps don't deserve the same rights; and i challenge you to demonstrate what rights they do deserve and why."
Because they aren't made in the image of God.

"Btw, smeck: i would argue that humans and chinps, apart from evolving together and having the same DNA, are both made in the same image, different reflections of the same nature."
This would be a misunderstanding or misconstruction of Genesis. It would also be incorrectly assuming the "specialness comes from the difference in DNA" argument to be the one that we're making.

"I find it rather odd that you invoke this 'rights' view - which is very modern, 1940s at the most recent, maybe stemming from the french revolution at its earlier. And then in the same post quote genesis."
It may be true that modern egalitarianism had its first flowering in 1789, but I'm not sure I said anything about promoting modern egalitarianism from Genesis (or from anywhere else in the Bible). What I said was that humans possess dignity and rights superior to those of animals because we are made in the image of God. And one of those rights, as semck pointed out, is that humans possess and animals don't is the right not to be killed without having done something to warrant being killed (e.g. committing murder yourself, putting someone else's life in clear and definite danger, having entered an army that's going to war). As a very clear example: for animals, human hunger by itself is enough to trump their right to live; for humans, the hunger of other humans is never enough to trump their right to live.

"But my position on self-awareness and empathy is that these qualities (and more) are worth preserving."
Why are they worth preserving, though? One answer that sometimes gets bandied about is that it's self-evident, which seems a bit like begging the question. A different answer that I once heard Richard Dawkins give was that it's more pleasant to live in a world where these qualities are held up to esteem than in one where they aren't. But that seems to me like a fancy way of saying "because we want to" or "because it feels nicer." I don't deny that I find that mode of thinking very appealing, but I don't see how it carries normative force. I'm wondering if you have a more satisfying explanation.

"Frameworks are useful, i do not deny it. And they were probably more useful when only one in ten or one in a hundred people were able to read."
Now, this is just silly. Everyone uses a framework. In fact, I would venture to say that they are not only useful, they're (in practice) present by default. You're right in that frameworks aren't always religious (by which presumably you mean reliance on an authoritative deity), but they are always philosophical (by which I mean reliance on some authoritative basis, whatever the nature or source of that basis happens to be). And they aren't always internally consistent, but I think they are always present.

@ ora, you miss the point that the key driver for many people of faith is not, in this context, reliance on God, but rather reliance on man. Better yet reliance (expectation or striving might be better) to do the right thing on an individual and collective basis. Free will, if you like - although I would prefer being 'made in God's image'. I have this, perhaps rather personal, take on the matter: free will operates on the individual level as well as a series of outer shells (family, friends, community, society as a whole etc.). Please don’t misunderstand me here, I make no claim that religious people are more moral than atheists – my question is where does that morality derive from. I note that I posed you this specific question in my last email and you studiously avoided providing me with either a direct or indirect answer.

Moving back to the specific content of this discussion -

It is in this context that I find second trimester abortions (and upwards) abortions particularly horrific, they lessen the humanity/the divine in all of us with their barbarity. Please watch this clip and tell me what you think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53tzMV9OmvY. Note it is not overly gory just very matter of fact. Note also that the PP representatives were marketing the products of these 'late' abortions to the fake buyers in the videos.

I also note that you refer extensively to minority rights. In that context there is the rather disturbing matter of gendercide (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw6dR2o15xc ) and, to all intents and purposes, the eugenic treatment of the disabled through the medium of abortion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZGRXNZGvgA).
I also believe that more black babies are currently aborted in NYC than are born – that is some statistic.

I also note that you say this in a previous exchange – ‘’ I suspect everyone thinks a lone (line) should be drawn’’. Do you draw a line ora, if so where and why? I strongly suspect that many advocates of what they describe as ‘’women’s rights’’ are reluctant to draw any line at all. Indeed a previous contributor advocated an, albeit constrained, application of infanticide. I am not sure why he constrained it at all, but anyway I guess that some pro-choice people find this consistent. What is you view?

@ "This would be a misunderstanding or misconstruction of Genesis. It would also be incorrectly assuming the "specialness comes from the difference in DNA" argument to be the one that we're making."

First, ignoring Genesis, i was not the one claiming any specialness in DNA. I am claiming similarity; and that we are not simila


"Because they aren't made in the image of God." - appeal to authority fallacy. I don't see this claim as valuable in the formation of laws which represent all people, some kind of common legal framework.

Also: "(e.g. committing murder yourself, putting someone else's life in clear and definite danger, having entered an army that's going to war)" wow, i didn't see those exceptions in the bible. Is it ok to kill because the state sanctions it? In wartime or capital punishment? (Ok this goes back on what i just said... Here you do not use the prohibitions of your religion to try to limit a states legal framework... That at least is good... Still you allow exceptions to killing where it empowrs the state, but not when it empowers women... Odd choice, we may be back to anti-woman territory)


"for humans, the hunger of other humans is never enough to trump their right to live." - Unless that hunger is for war, oil, exploitation of natural resources, or to protect the property of those who have more... The establishment of authority figures (like police forces in the US shooting black citizens.

But never for a woman who is struggling to feed herself...

Richard Dawkins answer here is sufficient. I fully admit (and have done so in other threads) that i selfishly want to live in a world where my owb life is protected. And thus i want to form norms and agreements with others so we might protect these values.

I believe you'll find the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was just such an aspirational documet. An attempt to present borms which everyone could get behind (though certain Islamic scholars paint it as imperialist and corrosive to their culture, offering an Islamic Declaration of Human Rights... So ot cearly failed to get everyone on board)

What requirement do you have for norm setting?

Oh, i could also go a bit further; acceptance that you are a small part of a greater Universe, and that your duty is to follow your nature. Which happens to be social in our case, and include not killing other social creatures witout need. But that assumes a pantheist perspective that i doubt you share.

Are you actually rejecting the position that we should protect these qualities? You seem to question my motivations, but are you also questioning the conclusion ie that we should protect people??

Ok, so on frameworks, you admit that there are ones which are not reliant on religion for morality. I don't have to go and prove that we evolved morality to protect social groups...

"i was not the one claiming any specialness in DNA."
Good! That makes zero of us who were, then. It appears we are all on the same page here. :)

"the appeal to authority fallacy."
The appeal to authority is only a fallacy if the authority (person) being appealed to doesn't actually possess the authority (right to rule and exercise power) claimed by the person making the argument. Parents who use the "because I said so" answer when their children ask "why do I have to do this?" are appealing to authority (their own) but are not necessarily fallacious in doing so. Likewise, since God possesses authority to tell us what's right and wrong and whatever else He wants, appealing to His standard does not trigger the fallacy. Of course, you don't find that authority legitimate (or even existent), and so the fallacy appears quite real to you, but that's a problem you'd have to take up with Him.

"I don't see this claim as valuable in the formation of laws which represent all people, some kind of common legal framework."
Democratically speaking, I agree with you, and therefore, in a strategic sense, it seems like a non-starter to me at the present time. But as to whether it's a Good Idea as a foundation for public policy, I'll have to disagree with your assessment. Again, no real surprises there.

"'(e.g. committing murder yourself, putting someone else's life in clear and definite danger, having entered an army that's going to war)' wow, i didn't see those exceptions in the bible"
You evidently didn't look hard enough.

"you allow exceptions to killing where it empowrs the state, but not when it empowers women... Odd choice, we may be back to anti-woman territory."
Actually, we're in Romans 13.4 territory here: "if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it [i.e. the state power] does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil." Very consistent with Genesis 9.6, in fact.

"Is it ok to kill because the state sanctions it?"
Not ipso facto, no.

"In wartime..."
Much depends on the purpose of the war. If the purpose is aggression and expansion beyond borders simply because those who happen to be in government at the time wish to do so, then no, there is no justification for it. But if the state is deputizing a number of its people as soldiers with orders to defend against an invasion, then soldiers, as agents of the state power, are justified in killing their enemy counterparts -- with emphases on them killing enemy soldiers in particular and on their doing so as agents of the state power and not on their own initiative without state authorization.

"... or capital punishment?"
Capital punishment is certainly warranted in cases of murder, and the right to carry it out is restricted to the governing authorities (what my friends like to call, using the old-style term, the "civil magistrate"). Under what circumstances and by what means it is advisable for the state to actually exercise this power are separate questions. But just because the state happens to be mighty, this is hardly sufficient reason to deny it the power to execute murderers.

"Richard Dawkins answer here is sufficient."
Oh, the disappointment! But I certainly appreciate the candor.

"Unless that hunger is for war, oil, exploitation of natural resources, or to protect the property of those who have more."
I don't believe I ever advocated for those things (although I would happily advocate for protection of property of those who have honestly come by it; that's also a biblical principle), and certainly I never suggested that I was referring to hunger in anything other than the sense of a need for physical nourishment and sustenance. You're certainly welcome to expand its meaning metaphorically if you suits you, but be aware that doing so moves us off to the side of the point that I had been making.

"What requirement do you have for norm setting?"
Scriptural warrant or clear and obvious inferences therefrom. Note that this limits the number of available options substantially, but it does not narrow them always to one, nor does it obviate the need to think carefully about what the Bible actually DOES warrant or about how to best/properly apply them in a given set of circumstances. Sometimes there are gray areas, and then prudence and wisdom should be used in developing societal norms (house rules, one might call them) and restraint and care used in enforcing them.

I will clarify one bit more that when I say Scriptural warrant, I don't mean a verse lifted out here or there and violently reshaped to suit one's own particular goals, without any reference to what it is actually meaning to say. I don't deny that this happens, of course (including among people who should know better), but neither do I confirm that this kind of misuse eliminates the Bible as a useable authoritative basis for norms.

"Are you actually rejecting the position that we should protect these qualities?"
No, I just wondered what your basis was for according them the primacy that you do. That's all.

"I don't have to go and prove that we evolved morality to protect social groups."
Well, you might have to prove that this is actually the historical origin of morality, but if you mean that it gets used this way in practice in the present day, then no, you don't have to prove that.

People who have not read the bible have a sense of morality.

Monkeys who have been tested have a sense of fairness and complain when treated unfairly (experiments with tokens, which can then be exchanged for food, if one monkey is given a grape and then the other is given something less appealing, then the second monkey complains and rejects the food, wanting a grape)

If a sense of fairness is inherent in other animals, ( and not even apes, but more distantly related monkeys ) then i think we can see it also comes from natural biological places in humans. If humans who have never heard of God also have a sense of fairness then it obviously doesn't come from God.

@"If the line between human and non-human becomes blurry due to the arising of a hypothetical hybrid or the re-emergence of an extinct past species, then I'll make the effort to cogitate about that. But not at this point."

So you refuse to think about hypothetical situations. Is that a general refusal of all hypotheticals or just this one because it creates a blurry edge-case where you're not sure wtf?

All the evidence points towards cross-breeding with neanderthals. So the only hypothetical is whether we can bring them back (using similar cloning techniques to dolly the sheep, if we can get a full genome sequence) - and whether we should, but if it broadens your mind about morality, then we definitely should, i'd honestly rather you think about it first...

@" "Are you actually rejecting the position that we should protect these qualities?"
No, I just wondered what your basis was for according them the primacy that you do. That's all."

I can rationalise pretty much anything that i want to be true. That doesn't make the rationalisation true (just as your example of false interpretations of lines picked from the bible don't necessarily carry any truth) But i freely admit it is what i want.

This is not hedonistic, or nihilistic, i believe things are good and we should fight for them. You may believe in God, a perfect good, worth striving towards. Whereas i only believe in imperfect good ( reject your god notion ) but i still believe it is worth striving for. We have more in common on that account than perhaps you see.

Still i have no magical claims to make. I want this because i am a rational being and wanting this is in my best interest. That seems like a pretty rational reason.

I want this because i am a machine and this is how i am forced to behave by my programming. Whichever rationalisation you prefer really...

They each contain an amount of truth.

But ultimately it comes down to Richard Dawkins' 'because thats the mind of world i want to live in' - maybe putting it in my own words is more appealing to you?

*kind of world, not mind...

"People who have not read the bible have a sense of morality."
Of course they do. I would suspect that even people who are so handicapped as to be apparently permanently vegetative or apparently permanently incapable of rational thought do.

"If a sense of fairness is inherent in other animals, ( and not even apes, but more distantly related monkeys ) then i think we can see it also comes from natural biological places in humans. If humans who have never heard of God also have a sense of fairness then it obviously doesn't come from God."
I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that I think a sense of fairness or understanding of things that one should and shouldn't do is unique to humans. I think it's likely that humans have a much more highly developed moral sense than non-humans do, but I wouldn't make much of argument to defend it, because I'm not entirely convinced that it's true.

What I AM arguing is that the idea that justice (or fairness) is a Good Thing for the reason that and in the way that God defines it to be so. What your argument from the monkeys suggests is that justice is a Natural Thing and has an identifiable origin that is far from supernatural. Full stop. There's no evidence of any normative reason to treat fairness and justice as positive goods to be taken up and advanced -- as opposed biological weaknesses to be overcome.

Also, for what it's worth, the monkey example and fairness as you described them are a bit tricky (and maybe I would feel differently if I knew all the details), but from your description the grape-vs.-non-grape "rewards" could be read to demonstrate that a sense of selfishness is present across species boundaries at least as much as they could be read to indicate a widely-present sense of fairness.

"Is that a general refusal of all hypotheticals or just this one because it creates a blurry edge-case where you're not sure wtf?"
I have a general dislike for hypotheticals unless I find them to be realistic and/or having a decent probability of occurring.

"So the only hypothetical is whether we can bring them back (using similar cloning techniques to dolly the sheep, if we can get a full genome sequence) - and whether we should, but if it broadens your mind about morality, then we definitely should, i'd honestly rather you think about it first."
You can explore it all you want, absolutely, but I don't think I'll be joining you on the journey.

"But ultimately it comes down to Richard Dawkins' 'because thats the mind of world i want to live in' - maybe putting it in my own words is more appealing to you?"
No, I was just hoping to hear a deeper reason given for it so I could cogitate about it.

@"Also, for what it's worth, the monkey example and fairness as you described them are a bit tricky (and maybe I would feel differently if I knew all the details), but from your description the grape-vs.-non-grape "rewards" could be read to demonstrate that a sense of selfishness is present across species boundaries at least as much as they could be read to indicate a widely-present sense of fairness."

I guess, though i don't have a link to the study at hand, that they had several control groups where monkeys given non-grapes without the opportunity to get grapes, and they didn't complain...

of course this could be seen as selfishness, but that would also be a part of our nature. We certainly look out for ourselves more than we do for others. (take Syrian refugees fleeing into europe right now as an example...) Even if it is a our group...

"No, I was just hoping to hear a deeper reason given for it so I could cogitate about it. "

I see no greater reason, the world is as it is; and while fascinating, i don't see the need for any higher 'why' to be answered.

The only meaning of life is what we choose to make of it. You can choose worship of God if you like, and I can reject that meaning in my life.

But each of us will make our own choice for our own reasons.

As to your dislike of hypotheticals, i pity you.
If you haven't heard of the Flynn effect, look it up, and then watch this talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/james_flynn_why_our_iq_levels_are_higher_than_our_grandparents?language=en

Oh and here is the monkey/fairness article: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_monkeyfairness.html

@ OutsideSmoker: If God suddenly appeared to humanity, and decreed that killing people with ginger hair was something he approved of, would that, in your eyes, make killing a ginger-haired person a good and noble act?

Is "because God said so" always enough, no matter what?

(does jamie realise orathaic is ginger? has he got a plan in motion? Am i to be matyred to prove that God is imoral?)

@Jamie, don't bother, Outside doesn't do hypotheticals.... unless this isn't hypo... oh damn. If anyone wants me i'll be off the grid :p

@jamie99uk
"If God suddenly appeared to humanity, and decreed that killing people with ginger hair was something he approved of, would that, in your eyes, make killing a ginger-haired person a good and noble act?"
At the risk of producing an echo, I have a general dislike for hypotheticals unless I find them to be realistic and/or having a decent probability of occurring. Or, what orathaic said.

@orathaic
"(does jamie realise orathaic is ginger? has he got a plan in motion? Am i to be matyred to prove that God is imoral?)

@Jamie, don't bother, Outside doesn't do hypotheticals.... unless this isn't hypo... oh damn. If anyone wants me i'll be off the grid :p"
THAT was funny! :-)

@jamie
"Is 'because God said so' always enough, no matter what?"
As long as He actually said it, then yes, it's enough. If He didn't say it but someone wants to put words in His mouth, then no, it's not enough. But either way, whatever He says, we'll only actually do and follow (and believe) what we want to, and we'll ignore or oppose the rest. That's true for everyone, believer or non.