RIP Christopher Hitchens

[JoltinJoe]

The funny thing is that if I started a website with a statement that said nothing more that, "We love Jesus, Sign here if you agree," I'd have more signatures in an hour than this guy@aol.com gets in a year.

Of course you would Joe, you people are delusional and retarded.

In a thousand years, if we survive, you, your religion and your church will be viewed with great disdain by the masses - a big mistake and something to be avoided at all costs. Your churches will be converted to KFC's and Burger Kings and your priests will be vilified in horror movies.

*Oh, read it and sign it, Blowhard. Christian or not, you should sign it and you know it.

D1B reigns supreme!


Happy New Year, Motherfuckers. Especially to my only friend on the cs.com - Joltin Joe. God bless Fordham basketball for killing GT last night - the best evidence to date that god may exist and still likes wiry white dudes.

Oh, will someone take me in for the New Years' weekend? I have no friends, no money and no food. What can be better than spending a holiday weekend with D1B and your family?

I'm serious this time. Please send your offers of support to:
http://www.prometheusbooks.com/index.ph ... ts_id=1895" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Happy New Year to you too, J! And to that brother of yours too!

And thanks for helping to get this thread to its 16th page!

[Vidav]

16 pages, AZ.

[Vidav]

[youtube][/youtube]

[kalm]

Bump for AZ.

[Seahawks08]

This thread is already awesome! Now to make it one of the best ever.



Happy New Years!

[JoltinJoe]

This thread is already awesome! Now to make it one of the best ever.



Happy New Years!

It's a shame that Christopher Hitchens didn't live long enough to see that. (Trying to keep this on topic )

[JohnStOnge]

This thread is already awesome! Now to make it one of the best ever.



Happy New Years!

Dang that DOES look good.

I'll say this for Hitchens: He sure inspired a long thread.

[JohnStOnge]

Bottom line, Dostoyevsky was wrong. He like almost all religious people held an extremely low regard for man. He assumes (like St. Child Molestonge) that without a dog-training god dishing out divine salvation and punishment, man is incapable of creating a foundation for moral obligation and everything is permissible. This has never happened.

Man can try to create such a "foundation." But it's not possible. It only lasts until someone has the power to ignore it. Or until someone thinkgs they can contradict it without consequences. Everything WAS permissible for Genghis Khan. Anything he wanted to do.

I can't believe people will even argue this point. It amazes me that atheists will go through all this stuff bragging about their "reason" while they're making their arguments for why there is "nothing else" then for some reason cling to the idea that there must be some instrinstic morality. It's ridiculous.

When you just look at the physical universe there is no "right" or "wrong." Things come into existence and things pass out of existence. What is just is. Doesn't matter if a species goes extinct. As far as living things go: They're just arrangements of atoms. They have no more significance than rocks do. They all will pass into obivion.

Look, I'm not saying that somehow proves the atheist view with respect to the existence of "something else" wrong. I'm just saying that's how it is if the atheist view is correct. Look....if the atheist view is correct nothing matters. If an asteroid hits Earth next year and all life is destroyed it's just something that happened. If you somehow get the power Genghis Khan had and you can kill anybody you want, force anybody you want to have sex with you, take anything you want that's fine as long as you maintain your power. You'll die and you'll be gone. Same with everybody else.

Doesn't matter.

I'd have a lot more respect for atheists if they'd just admit that instead of going through all these contortions of trying to argue that there's some objective intrinstic morality without the "something else." There just isn't.

[andy7171]

bump 4 AZ!

[kalm]

Bottom line, Dostoyevsky was wrong. He like almost all religious people held an extremely low regard for man. He assumes (like St. Child Molestonge) that without a dog-training god dishing out divine salvation and punishment, man is incapable of creating a foundation for moral obligation and everything is permissible. This has never happened.

Man can try to create such a "foundation." But it's not possible. It only lasts until someone has the power to ignore it. Or until someone thinkgs they can contradict it without consequences. Everything WAS permissible for Genghis Khan. Anything he wanted to do.

I can't believe people will even argue this point. It amazes me that atheists will go through all this stuff bragging about their "reason" while they're making their arguments for why there is "nothing else" then for some reason cling to the idea that there must be some instrinstic morality. It's ridiculous.

When you just look at the physical universe there is no "right" or "wrong." Things come into existence and things pass out of existence. What is just is. Doesn't matter if a species goes extinct. As far as living things go: They're just arrangements of atoms. They have no more significance than rocks do. They all will pass into obivion.

Look, I'm not saying that somehow proves the atheist view with respect to the existence of "something else" wrong. I'm just saying that's how it is if the atheist view is correct. Look....if the atheist view is correct nothing matters. If an asteroid hits Earth next year and all life is destroyed it's just something that happened. If you somehow get the power Genghis Khan had and you can kill anybody you want, force anybody you want to have sex with you, take anything you want that's fine as long as you maintain your power. You'll die and you'll be gone. Same with everybody else.

Doesn't matter.

I'd have a lot more respect for atheists if they'd just admit that instead of going through all these contortions of trying to argue that there's some objective intrinstic morality without the "something else." There just isn't.

What if that intrinsic morality is God with atheists struggling about the naming of it and theists creating a bunch of cool stories about the do's and donts?

(when I typed in "donts" ther it auto-corrected to dongs. )

[CAA Flagship]

bump 4 AZ!

[Vidav]

[D1B]

Bottom line, Dostoyevsky was wrong. He like almost all religious people held an extremely low regard for man. He assumes (like St. Child Molestonge) that without a dog-training god dishing out divine salvation and punishment, man is incapable of creating a foundation for moral obligation and everything is permissible. This has never happened.

Man can try to create such a "foundation." But it's not possible. It only lasts until someone has the power to ignore it. Or until someone thinkgs they can contradict it without consequences. Everything WAS permissible for Genghis Khan. Anything he wanted to do.

I can't believe people will even argue this point. It amazes me that atheists will go through all this stuff bragging about their "reason" while they're making their arguments for why there is "nothing else" then for some reason cling to the idea that there must be some instrinstic morality. It's ridiculous.

When you just look at the physical universe there is no "right" or "wrong." Things come into existence and things pass out of existence. What is just is. Doesn't matter if a species goes extinct. As far as living things go: They're just arrangements of atoms. They have no more significance than rocks do. They all will pass into obivion.

Look, I'm not saying that somehow proves the atheist view with respect to the existence of "something else" wrong. I'm just saying that's how it is if the atheist view is correct. Look....if the atheist view is correct nothing matters. If an asteroid hits Earth next year and all life is destroyed it's just something that happened. If you somehow get the power Genghis Khan had and you can kill anybody you want, force anybody you want to have sex with you, take anything you want that's fine as long as you maintain your power. You'll die and you'll be gone. Same with everybody else.

Doesn't matter.

I'd have a lot more respect for atheists if they'd just admit that instead of going through all these contortions of trying to argue that there's some objective intrinstic morality without the "something else." There just isn't.

Ghenghis Khan?! Do your research, fuckhead.

Genghis Khan's religion is widely speculated to have been Shamanism or Tengriism, which was very likely among nomadic Mongol-Turkic tribes of Central Asia. But he was very tolerant religiously, and interested in learning philosophical and moral lessons from other religions. To do so, he consulted Buddhist monks, Muslims, Christian missionaries, and the Taoist monk Qiu Chuji.

Eskildsen, Stephen (2004). The Teachings and Practices of the Early Quanzhen Taoist Masters. SUNY Press. p. 17. ISBN 9780791460450.

Within Mongolia, Genghis Khan revolutionized the social structure and reformed traditional law.

His was an egalitarian society, in which the humblest slave could rise to be an army commander if he showed skill or bravery. War booty was divided evenly among all warriors, regardless of social status. Unlike most rulers of the time, Genghis Khan trusted loyal followers above his own family members (which contributed to the difficult succession as he aged).

The Great Khan forbade the kidnapping of women, probably due in part to his wife's experience, but also because it led to warfare among different Mongol groups. He outlawed livestock rustling for the same reason, and established a winter-only hunting season to preserve game for the hardest times.

Contrary to his ruthless and barbaric reputation in the west, Genghis Khan promulgated several enlightened policies that would not become common practice in Europe for centuries more.

He guaranteed freedom of religion, protecting the rights of Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, and Hindus alike. Genghis Khan himself worshiped the sky, but he forbade the killing of priests, monks, nuns, mullahs, and other holy people.

The Great Khan also protected enemy envoys and ambassadors, no matter what message they brought. Unlike most of the conquered peoples, the Mongols eschewed torture and mutilation of prisoners.

Finally, the khan himself was bound by these laws as well as the common people.

http://asianhistory.about.com/od/profil ... anProf.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Genghis Kahn’s contributions to Western civilization can hardly be overstated. His trade routes introduced to Europe technologies such as printing, the cannon, compass, and the abacus, as well as Mongol products like tea, lemons, carrots, playing cards, rugs, and pants. The Mongols also developed the first international postal system and paper currency.

True, Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people than anyone else in history. Using rapid siege and attack warfare that inspired the German blitzkrieg, Genghis Khan conquered more nations in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. But he extended and sustained his empire by exercising shrewd diplomacy (and wily propaganda) as well as military might. By winning over opponents with his considerable charisma, by marrying and adopting children for political purposes, and by rewarding loyalty and punishing dissent, Genghis Khan accomplished what no one had dreamed possible—he overcame 10,000 years of fierce tribal warfare to unify Mongolia. The khan and his successors ruled their empire so wisely, and so benevolently, that an age of unprecedented peace and open trade flourished over the next 150 years.

Perhaps the greatest key to his success—and the biggest surprise to emerge from Weatherford’s book—was that Genghis Khan was a deeply spiritual man who established laws protecting religious freedom. Unlike most other great conquerors, Genghis Khan did not force his religion on the nations he vanquished. He believed that to conquer a nation, one had to conquer the hearts of its people, and he achieved this by allowing them to worship any deity, and adhere to any scripture, they wanted. And because his empire included every religion, from Buddhism and Christianity to Judaism, Manichaeanism and Islam, each of which claimed to be the one true faith, he hoped to minimize the religious strife he’d seen divide nations.

Genghis Khan even promoted all faiths, exempting religious leaders and institutions from taxation. He wasn’t merely trying to keep the peace; he believed that every religion had something significant to offer. “Just as God gave different fingers to the hand,” said his grandson, Mongke Khan, explaining Mongol religious toleration, “so has He given different ways to men.”

Granted, Genghis was no Mahatma Ghandi. Indeed, at times he resembles a certain hawkish evangelical world leader today, as when he instilled fear in his enemies by declaring, “I am an instrument of the wrath of heaven!” A devout shamanist, Genghis Khan believed that his close standing with the divine helped him to win wars. He had often “felt the presence and heard the voice of God speaking directly to him in the vast open air of the mountains in his homeland,” writes Weatherford, “and by following those words, he had become the conqueror of great cities and huge nations.”

Before engaging in battle, Genghis Khan would sometimes pray for days, alone on a mountain, seeking the guidance of the Eternal Blue Sky. When presenting a case for war to his supernatural guardians, he’d recount the generations of grievances the Mongols held against an enemy. He’d explain why war was necessary, a last resort initiated by his enemy and not sought by him or his people. At other times he’d offer elaborate prayers of thanks for a victory, removing his hat and sash, a gesture that rendered him, the most powerful man on earth, powerless before the gods.

The khan’s undeserved bad rap, Weatherford shows, traces back to 18th century European anti-Asian sentiment. Though Renaissance writers praised Genghis Khan’s virtues extravagantly, Enlightenment thinkers blamed him and the Mongols for Europe’s most detestable qualities. In a play intended to attack the French king, Voltaire, perhaps fearing for his head, substituted Genghis Khan for his nation’s cruel and ignorant ruler. He described the khan as a “wild Scythian soldier bred to arms” and his people as “wild sons of rapine, who live in tents, in chariots, and in fields.” They “detest our arts, our customs, and our laws,” Voltaire wrote, “and therefore mean to change them all.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, pseudo-Darwinian scientists linked criminal behavior biologically to the Mongols, and eugenicists coined the term “Mongoloid” to describe retarded children, who they believed had inherited degraded Mongol genes through centuries of interbreeding.

Genghis Khan’s true legacy wasn’t accessible until the fall of the Soviet Union. Once Mongolia opened in 1990, Jack Weatherford was among the first scholars to visit and begin peeling away the misperceptions. Among these was the notion that Genghis Khan was a reprobate, a hedonist who collected women and luxuries as the spoils of war. Although the khan was polygamous and had accumulated tremendous power and wealth, Weatherford shows that he possessed a sober manner and was devoted to leading a simple life. “I hate luxury,” said Genghis Khan, summarizing his ideals, and “I exercise moderation.” Raising his sons to become rulers, he insisted that the key to leadership was self-control, and he cautioned them against pursuing a “‘colorful’ life with material frivolities and wasteful pleasures.”

[CAA Flagship]

A lot of "believers" at Morehead.

[JohnStOnge]

D,the point is that Genghis Khan did a lot of things we in Western Civilization of today consider immoral and doing so did not harm his interests. Whatever he did to constrain his own behavior in some respects there was little external constraint on his behavior. He killed tens of millions of people. But he was very successful both materially and biologically. He is an illustration of the fact that the idea the you need to be "moral" by some particular set of standards in order to further your own interest in a physical sense is false.

The author didn't mention that he frequently killed every man, woman, and child in settlements and/or cities he conquered. Basically if they surrendered without a fight or not much of one he was relatively nice to them. If they resisted he would wipe them out. Even on his last day he ordered that a people be wiped out and that any in the public who knew he had died be killed:

On August 18, 1227, while putting down a revolt in the kingdom of Xi Xia, Genghis Khan died. On his deathbed, he ordered that Xi Xia be wiped from the face of the earth. Obedient as always, Khan's successors leveled whole cities and towns, killing or enslaving all their inhabitants. Obeying his order to keep his death secret, Genghis' heirs slaughtered anyone who set eyes on his funeral procession making its way back to Karakorum, the capital of the Mongol empire. Still bringing death as he had in life, many were killed before his corpse was buried in an unmarked grave. His final resting place remains a mystery.

From http://www.history.com/this-day-in-hist ... -khan-dies" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. He did not at all fit that set of humanist moral rules proposed by the guy you quoted paying tribute to Hitchens. He was NOT a nice guy. But he was about as successful as successful can be. He did not harm his own material and biological interests by doing what he did.

The idea that some objective, innate morality that an individual must follow in order to further their own interest can be constructed based on things like the need for populations of social organisms to cooperate is absurd. It just doesn't work.

[youngterrier]

And for Christ sake, can we stop blaming communist crimes against Atheists?

YT, it's great you obviously are interested in ideas and learning, but keep an open mind throughout college. As my father said to me when he dropped me off at college, "You're going to spend four years here and, when you're done, I'm going to be much smarter."

You said a lot of things I think you will eventually disavow, but this one is low-hanging fruit, so I'm going to take a swipe.

You have an officially atheist government which orchestrates a massive and brutally repressive purge focused largely against religious dissidents, and atheism was not the cause??

Communism is an economic system. Atheism is a belief which infuses a moral outlook. (Watch and you will see that, when you study ethics in your philosophy class, every ethical system which seeks to challenge the concept of objective truth will start from the proposition that there is no objective source of truth). So which is to blame? I think you will eventually discover the answer.

Considering many of the deaths attributed to Communism were the results of things such as the Great Leap Forward, or occurred mainly when one leader was in office, we can assume that the deaths were not attributed as a religious goal of the government, but rather the political goals of one particular Autocrat in power. The Soviet Union was still technically Atheist after Stalin's death, but I'm not even sure of the death tole after 1953.

[youngterrier]

Bottom line, Dostoyevsky was wrong. He like almost all religious people held an extremely low regard for man. He assumes (like St. Child Molestonge) that without a dog-training god dishing out divine salvation and punishment, man is incapable of creating a foundation for moral obligation and everything is permissible. This has never happened.

Man can try to create such a "foundation." But it's not possible. It only lasts until someone has the power to ignore it. Or until someone thinkgs they can contradict it without consequences. Everything WAS permissible for Genghis Khan. Anything he wanted to do.

I can't believe people will even argue this point. It amazes me that atheists will go through all this stuff bragging about their "reason" while they're making their arguments for why there is "nothing else" then for some reason cling to the idea that there must be some instrinstic morality. It's ridiculous.

When you just look at the physical universe there is no "right" or "wrong." Things come into existence and things pass out of existence. What is just is. Doesn't matter if a species goes extinct. As far as living things go: They're just arrangements of atoms. They have no more significance than rocks do. They all will pass into obivion.

Look, I'm not saying that somehow proves the atheist view with respect to the existence of "something else" wrong. I'm just saying that's how it is if the atheist view is correct. Look....if the atheist view is correct nothing matters. If an asteroid hits Earth next year and all life is destroyed it's just something that happened. If you somehow get the power Genghis Khan had and you can kill anybody you want, force anybody you want to have sex with you, take anything you want that's fine as long as you maintain your power. You'll die and you'll be gone. Same with everybody else.

Doesn't matter.

I'd have a lot more respect for atheists if they'd just admit that instead of going through all these contortions of trying to argue that there's some objective intrinstic morality without the "something else." There just isn't.

Please John, you're so full of shit

You ever wonder why Humans grasp the concepts of morality while animals don't? We're more evolved. Is morality objective? It depends on your perspective. Right and wrong are relative to each individual, and as a species it's defined by what's beneficial to the species. In other words, if there was an alien race who decides their God wants them to wipe out the rest of all existing humanoid life as long as they exist as as species, to them it would be the moral thing to do. For our species, it would not be the moral thing to not defend ourselves because it betrays the species's interest. Would it be immoral to wipe the other species out, knowing that it wouldn't stop attempting to wipe out the human race until it was gone? Morally you could go either way with that one, and you could reasonably as well, however if you believe in objective morality, you believe in only one right answer in this situation. So which one is it?

Morality is the result of human evolution, just like trade, art, culture, technology, and other such things. It's evidence that we've evolved past our special brethren. Morality, objective in that it holds the interest of the species, is an instinct of right and wrong that programs each individual to do what's best for the species. Surely, there are those deficient in that area, however there's a list of different disorders of the mind and reasoning.

You want to know why what Ghengis Khan, Stalin, Hitler, etc did was wrong? It took lives, which defies nature. Furthermore, the instinct of morality that most people possess, tells us it was wrong. Why do we think it was wrong? Because we don't like the idea of ourselves as individuals being killed, we're going to condemn every action involved with killing. The same goes for rape, torture, and theft, etc. Because we don't like the idea of ourselves being hurt in such ways, it troubles our mind when we see these things occur on others. We understand that these acts aren't beneficial to the individual in which they happen to, thus it harms our pattern of evolution; additionally it scares the shit out of us if someone did those acts to ourselves. So we condemn that action as immoral and those who do those things are frowned upon and brought to justice. Morality exists in our consciousness, and it is objective to our species, but only as a means for survival.

Your whole "die and be gone" shtick is overused and dumb. Humans evolve, Animals evolve, everything evolves. You say there isn't a point if there's no God, I say if there is no God it is our destiny to evolve and become God. To concede that there is no point to our existence and thus we should live for our own interest and stop learning, stop imagining, stop striving to improve ourselves, stop striving to improve others, is probably an immoral act on itself. If we continue to live and continue to better ourselves, we will continue to evolve. Evolutionary theory states that the animal best suited for its environment survives, who says that our environment is going to be restricted to this country, this continent, this planet, this solar system, or this galaxy for the rest of our existence? We're destined, with our improving technology, to reach beyond the stars and expand our environment and soon after adapt to that environment. If the entire universe is our environment, we would have to be God to be best suited to survive in the environment that is the universe. That's the point. Just by existing and interacting with other people, I impact the world and the evolutionary process, it's like the butterfly effect. Our life has meaning whether you like it or not, and it's our duty to try and speed up and participate that evolutionary process.

Your arguments are pretty weak sauce, I hadn't answered before because I didn't feel like putting up with your BS and stressing over a response.

bumpity bump bump for AZ

[youngterrier]

D,the point is that Genghis Khan did a lot of things we in Western Civilization of today consider immoral and doing so did not harm his interests. Whatever he did to constrain his own behavior in some respects there was little external constraint on his behavior. He killed tens of millions of people. But he was very successful both materially and biologically. He is an illustration of the fact that the idea the you need to be "moral" by some particular set of standards in order to further your own interest in a physical sense is false.

The author didn't mention that he frequently killed every man, woman, and child in settlements and/or cities he conquered. Basically if they surrendered without a fight or not much of one he was relatively nice to them. If they resisted he would wipe them out. Even on his last day he ordered that a people be wiped out and that any in the public who knew he had died be killed:

On August 18, 1227, while putting down a revolt in the kingdom of Xi Xia, Genghis Khan died. On his deathbed, he ordered that Xi Xia be wiped from the face of the earth. Obedient as always, Khan's successors leveled whole cities and towns, killing or enslaving all their inhabitants. Obeying his order to keep his death secret, Genghis' heirs slaughtered anyone who set eyes on his funeral procession making its way back to Karakorum, the capital of the Mongol empire. Still bringing death as he had in life, many were killed before his corpse was buried in an unmarked grave. His final resting place remains a mystery.

From http://www.history.com/this-day-in-hist ... -khan-dies" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. He did not at all fit that set of humanist moral rules proposed by the guy you quoted paying tribute to Hitchens. He was NOT a nice guy. But he was about as successful as successful can be. He did not harm his own material and biological interests by doing what he did.

The idea that some objective, innate morality that an individual must follow in order to further their own interest can be constructed based on things like the need for populations of social organisms to cooperate is absurd. It just doesn't work.

yet we all still think he was immoral because he killed people. Think about it, no one is going to rationalize the killing of innocents as moral, so obviously we hold that value to objectively wrong. Because we know it doesn't benefit us biologically or socially and it also contradicts the mainstream mental-moral-programming that we all have.......and by mainstream I mean like 95% of the population.

Morality is objective to our species because it is in our nature

[kalm]

Nice work YT. The theists would be better off arguing the miracle of creation than the presence of morality.

[89Hen]

You ever wonder why Humans grasp the concepts of morality while animals don't? We're more evolved.

Will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

[D1B]

D,the point is that Genghis Khan did a lot of things we in Western Civilization of today consider immoral and doing so did not harm his interests. Whatever he did to constrain his own behavior in some respects there was little external constraint on his behavior. He killed tens of millions of people. But he was very successful both materially and biologically. He is an illustration of the fact that the idea the you need to be "moral" by some particular set of standards in order to further your own interest in a physical sense is false.

The author didn't mention that he frequently killed every man, woman, and child in settlements and/or cities he conquered. Basically if they surrendered without a fight or not much of one he was relatively nice to them. If they resisted he would wipe them out. Even on his last day he ordered that a people be wiped out and that any in the public who knew he had died be killed:

On August 18, 1227, while putting down a revolt in the kingdom of Xi Xia, Genghis Khan died. On his deathbed, he ordered that Xi Xia be wiped from the face of the earth. Obedient as always, Khan's successors leveled whole cities and towns, killing or enslaving all their inhabitants. Obeying his order to keep his death secret, Genghis' heirs slaughtered anyone who set eyes on his funeral procession making its way back to Karakorum, the capital of the Mongol empire. Still bringing death as he had in life, many were killed before his corpse was buried in an unmarked grave. His final resting place remains a mystery.

From http://www.history.com/this-day-in-hist ... -khan-dies" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. He did not at all fit that set of humanist moral rules proposed by the guy you quoted paying tribute to Hitchens. He was NOT a nice guy. But he was about as successful as successful can be. He did not harm his own material and biological interests by doing what he did.

The idea that some objective, innate morality that an individual must follow in order to further their own interest can be constructed based on things like the need for populations of social organisms to cooperate is absurd. It just doesn't work.

He was a very religious man.

This shit don't happen anymore because we evolved.

Almost all crime that ever has happened was perpetrated by the religious.

Your argument is bunk.

[Ibanez]

I once ate insulation, thinking it was cotton candy. It hurt.


Sent from my iPhone.

[kalm]

I once ate insulation, thinking it was cotton candy. It hurt.


Sent from my iPhone.

Going down or coming out?

[youngterrier]

You ever wonder why Humans grasp the concepts of morality while animals don't? We're more evolved.

Will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

I tried to edit my post last night, but the site froze up some how and I don't know if it went through or not.

Anyway, we disapprove of acts of "immorality" because we understand
1) Harming others does not benefit our species in the long run (biologically)
2) Harming others does not benefit ourselves as individuals in the short term (socially)

When you see someone committing an immoral act, what concept inspires you to interfere and stop said act? Do you say that's wrong "because God said so?" Or do you interfere because you say to yourself "I wouldn't want anyone to do that to me" or simply"that's wrong?"

The act is considered wrong by the individual, regardless of what their motivation is. Folks like St. Orange say it's wrong because God said so, I say it's wrong because it harms another individual.The concept of one harming another individual with out repercussions whether it be social or otherwise scares me, because if they can do that to someone else, they can do it to me, and I don't want that because it makes me uncomfortable, thus I condemn the action. If I'm in power and put in a position to do immoral things I wouldn't do them, not necessarily because I fear the consequences of those actions, but because the concept of another person doing said action to me is quite bothersome.

The uncomfortableness that the immoral acts of others cause me is in itself an instinct to preserve my species. For instance, it's similar to the way love is a means to preserve our species. No one can explain why we love, other than it's a chemical feeling that biologically is used as motivation to reproduce for posterity and for prosperity to prosper. We know that love is the motivator for reproduction, but does that mean we all reproduce, or that we all love? Certainly not. The same can be said of morality. We know that the actions of immorality make us uncomfortable, just as the actions of love make us feel comfortable. Morality is the motivation of which each individual has to preserve their species. Because humans possess morality, it's just another example of how we're more evolved than the rest of the animal kingdom. We've evolved past the primitive desires to advance and preserve the interests of our own individual selves alone because we've developed a desire and a need to advance and preserve the interests of society and our species by pure instinct. The interesting part is that we're still individuals, and some often look to advance their own interests over the interests of society.

My point is, we're essentially different and higher from the rest of the animal kingdom because we've developed this sense of special preservation, whether it be the result of seeking one's best interest, rational thought, or natural instincts associated with sympathizing. Sympathizing is the result of compassion, a virtue which is the result of love, a human emotion. Emotion is a physical state that we can attribute to evolution. One can rationalize morality easily, however one knows what is moral simply because they're programmed to be that way. Does that mean we're capable of immoral behavior? Certainly. But we're also capable of unloving behavior, so does that mean love is something that is unnatural? I would think not

[89Hen]

Anyway, we disapprove of acts of "immorality" because we understand
1) Harming others does not benefit our species in the long run (biologically)
2) Harming others does not benefit ourselves as individuals in the short term (socially)

While I don't dispute your point that you don't have to believe in a higher power to have morality, your statement above can absolutely be refuted quite easily.

Killing off people that have mental and physical disabilities can absolutely have a positive impact on our species biologically. That's not to say I think we should do that, but to say there is no benefit biologically is simply incorrect.

BTW, my comment on where we go from here was really meant to ask what will become immoral in the future.