JohnStOnge wrote:All living creatures are genetically programmed to attempt survive and reproduce. To reproduce, we must have other members from our species around as well. Reproduction is a means of survival in that part of us, as individuals is "put into," if you will, our children and so on. We strive to reproduce because we wish to survive. To continue our path of reproduction, we must have members of our species alive. To open all opportunities for our descendants to reproduce, one must preserve life as best one can. To murder is wrong because it primarily alters what is natural, in that life and living is natural. When you take the life of another for the sake of killing, you violate the laws of nature in that it serves no purpose. Secondarily it makes reproduction for ones descendants a little harder as the breeding pool is less broad.
^^^^this is a pretty dumbed down argument, but essentially I think one can determine what is moral based off of the "golden rule" because it ultimately serves the interests of the individual and the species. If anything, no one wants to be pushed around or taken advantage of, so we have government to protect the rights that we feel need protecting. Logically, we'd obey those laws because if we didn't we'd be sent to jail. That's not to say that every law is just, but rather it's a broad example.
I do not think that, in general, we strive to reproduce because we wish personally to survive. And I think that the idea becomes especially questionable when we look at most of the history of our species. Rather, I think we have drives that result in reproduction, eating, etc. Also, it is obviously possible to do things that most consider "imoral" while advancing one's own biological interests. Let's say someone actually thinks about promoting the interest of their genetic material in future generations.
Let's think here, why do we take joy in eating, being comfortable, and fucking? because it helps us survive. There's a reason we're genetically programmed to inherently take pleasure in certain things, because if we didn't we'd die out. It is of the nature of our species to survive both individually and as a population. It's just the way we're designed. Now, that doesn't mean it's impossible for one to break from those habits, as many have done it before. But when one breaks those habits one is not doing any good for himself or his species and thus he is doing immoral behavior.
Say the estimate about the descendants of Gengis Khan reported at
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... nghis.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; are accurate. They estimate is that he has 16 million descendants. And it's not because he was a nice guy. He was an extremely ruthless dictator. He wiped out entire peoples. By some accounts he killed more people than Hitler or Stalin did.
But he was very successful both in personal terms and in biological terms.
Trying to make a popluation biology argument for personal ethics is futile. It really is.
One tenet of sociobiology is that it is in the interest of the individual to express his or her OWN genetic material to the maximum extent possible. It is competetive. It is the idea of "selfish genes." Thus a male lion kills all the lion cubs when it takes over a pride. Is that "ethical?"
You're comparing lions and humans. We're talking about the natural behavior of humans, a sentient species that is capable of reason and rationality. It may be in the nature of lions to kill their young, but man has evolved past that. He has developed a social structure. Dare I say, it was the result of evolution, that it happened. Lions possess sentience, they are creatures of instinct. Man is different because he is smarter. Because man has created social structure, he has created morality. Lions can't do that because they haven't developed that beyond basic Darwinism in that the physically strong survive. Humans understand that different characteristics of different people make them superior to other humans in one way or another as a product of their intelligence whether it be one being physically superior intellectually superior, musically superior, sexually superior, therefore one can only resort to blanketly treat others on the same level. Everyone's talent is of purpose or service to other people, whether it be of yourself or another person. You may not value the thing that makes them superior to you (or even think it makes you superior) but others do and therefore they would oppose taking advantage of that person on your part. You can either choose to engage in actions that violate their rights as human beings and suffer the consequences that could range from being physical to social or not and flourish in those senses. It is much more productive (and rational) to engage in perceived moral behavior than it is to be selfish and immoral behavior.
What Genghis Khan did wrong because he took life because those actions sough an unnatural end to a natural course of nature. Violating nature is immoral in settings outside of saving one's self and species. Raping, for instance is wrong because it violates free will, a trait that every creature possesses naturally. Violating nature, especially that of your own species, serves no positive purpose to one's self or one's species because constant alteration will eventually lead to the downfall of our species.
Like, when I marry a woman who already has kids, should I kill her kids? If I am planning to use her to mother some of my own offspring that might be the optimum thing to do biologically. That way I would not have to divert energy and resources into sustaining somebody else's genetic material.
Wow, you are so full of shit 
you can't divide the argument! the points coincide with each other. Let me explain.
It cannot benefit an individual both socially and biologically if you murder others or engage in immoral behavior. It may work one way, but not the other. Ghenghis Khan may have pillaged and raped and biologically maximized his worth, but I'm willing to bet socially not many people took to kindly of him for it. History certainly doesn't.
In the case you stated, it doesn't benefit you socially to kill those children. Those children are probably loved by the woman you married and her family and friends and thus would cause much anger and mistrust and lack of social interaction among them. Your business ventures would much harder to engage in.
All of that stuff is part of biology too. It's not all sweetness and light.
I'm not arguing that morality is objective, I'm arguing that moral values can exist outside of the ethos of a deity. If one is rational he would understand that adhering to traditional moral standards and obeying the "golden rule" can do nothing but benefit him in the long run and failing to do so can hinder him financially, physically, and socially. All these examples you list are wrong for various reasons.
The "selfish" argument in that one can just do whatever one wants if one has the power is flawed because it ignores the social repercussions. If Stalin wasn't the murdering psychopath that he was and his guards didn't fear him so much, perhaps he would have lived longer.
And for Christ sake, can we stop blaming communist crimes against Atheists? They didn't murder because they felt like no God or anything would bring them to justice, they killed because the ones being killed no longer existing served their interests (or it was the result of a failed economic plan) and they felt they had the power to so (or they knew that they wouldn't be opposed rather). If one would notice, EVERY government partakes in actions that would be considered immoral and don't consider the Godly repercussions. In democracies in which we have rights and freedoms of voting, speech, to bear arms, etc, the government doesn't look to its founding document to decide to make law, the government instead looks at opinion polls to decide what they can get away with politically. Look at the Patriot Act, Look at the Trail of Tears, Look at the Japanese Internment Camps. If we (or rather those in charge) in the United States truly believe that those rights were endowed upon us from a creator, or at least if it influenced political decision, would we pass laws or commit actions that clearly violate said rights of Life and Liberty? I would think not. What happened in Russia and the rest of Asia was not the result of Atheist morality but rather what happens whenever the concentration of power is in the hands of a few bad men and when those without power having no means to defend themselves from such oppression. In a governmental sense, Atheists don't kill people, Theists don't kill people, Oppressiveness and injustice kills people. Our freedom and prosperity derives not from where those rights come from, but rather that we have those rights at all. The Constitution is perfect because it is many things, and a social contract is one of them
We The People established the government and believed certain rights were unalienable but also learned from experience that the only way we could maintain those rights was by securing other rights that we all felt all citizens should have, such as speech, etc. We believed these rights were just, not because we believed they were endowed by our creator, but because we agreed that we would thrive with them and all citizens deserved them.
The rights of Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness can all be inherently justified with the Bill of Rights. Though it's maintained in the DOI that those 3 rights come from God, the rights of speech, arms, etc are rights that man believed were necessary in government and thus come from man. Because those 3 rights can be justified by the BOR, I personally believe that a government that upholds rights that are consistent with the BOR can be peaceful and prosperous. Ultimately, that's why the U.S is superior in many senses, we've done our better to uphold those rights toward our citizens than any other country. it wasn't a commitment to natural law.
Oh yeah....and America Fuck Yeah bitches
If you ever cracked a book of his, you'll discover that that he says religion will become purely a "private matter."
