Belinda wrote:
Biological investigation together with zoology and psychology show that mammals have brain structures that allow for empathy and cooperation .
Is this evidence of intelligent design that is ordained by a moral absolute to ensure the survival of a particular species ..or is it an objective truth?
Belinda wrote:All mammals have to be socialised usually and most importantly in childhood or babyhood so that their empathy and cooperation is fostered.Human babies and children mature morally more slowly than other animals, and the stages of moral maturation are apparent in young humans.
Belinda wrote:Some human adults have never matured through all the moral stages.
Does that make those people immoral...or amoral? ..can such a person be held accountable for their immoral or amoral actions if nature had not bothered to develop those human attributes in those particular people? ....and on whom or what authority would we then have to solely rely on to judge those people?...who or what can make a claim to be final judge and arbitrator of what's moral and what isn't here, would that be down to a relative decider ..or would it be down to a moral absolute decider ?
Belinda wrote:Humans have cultures, which span the generations, of both ethics and socialisation which can foster thieving and lack of sympathy. Other human cultures of belief, even limited family or tribal cultures, encourage thievery and lack of sympathy. Other human cultures of belief foster sympathy and conscience. There is plenty of evidence for cultural differences in attitudes towards ethics such as not stealing, or not being sympathetic, or reserving sympathy for those of the same skin colour, nationality, or social class.There is even evidence that some thieves who are actually criminals will condemn with great strength of feeling others who have committed child abuse or animal cruelty.
Can double standards be fair in a moral just world... can there be any real moral objective truths if they were not withstanding to a moral just absolute law?
Belinda wrote:Conscience is apparent in domestic dogs who have been taught not to steal or abuse humans or even sheep. However wild animals such as lions, which you mention, I don't know whether or not they feel remorse if they transgress the behaviour they learned from their mothers, and I doubt if lions in the wild can transgress the behaviours that are proper to the wild species.
Looks like evidence of a moral just rational conscientious mind then, that it can spread to other sentient beings...again pointing to intelligent design? ..or did that mind just accidentally by chance evolve from pond scum? can a living mind come from a non-living mind? ...can a blade of grass ever develop a conscience? ..doesn't that suggest that the living mind must have always existed absolutely?
Belinda wrote:Religions usually describe what natural (i.e. God-given) human nature is and therefore what we as societies and individuals should be so as to be what God ordains.
Or does man aka the mind describe what is unable to be described except as and through the instrument for reasoning and thinking as manifest as descriptions witnessed by the vessel itself...the vessel being the receiving and transmitting part of the mind translating data that's been around since the big bang, which is more evidence for creation... more evidence of a creator ...that creator being a causeless causer that's always existed.. infinitely forever?
I'm like you, just trying to critically think about the nature of reality...who is there to authorise what's right and wrong here? who would that entity be that could do that? You see, I'm also sceptical ..and don't just look at things relatively ...for how Am I doing that? I have no idea who I am except what thought thinks I am, there has to be a much more reliable and bigger absolute knower far greater than my limited ideas could ever come up with.
Can science prove that a conscience exists? ...or it is taken on faith, and if it is, then isn't that the same as saying there is an absolute moral just creator of law aka God? .....
Or is the belief in a conscience a relative objective moral truth which believes it has overall authority on the matter....and can relative moral objective truths even exist without a moral absolute?