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Has anyone been pushed to change religions while in the military

palerider116

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Man has evolved to find discomfort in seeing members of his own tribe aggressed against. This has obvious evolutionary benefits at the individual and species level. The drive to prevent harm to one's family and friends is instinctive.

Go ahead. Tell me it's not. Tell me you'd have to make a conscious application of experience-based decision-making before deciding to (say) save your son's life.



Until you can prove morality to be a product of nurture, then do not push this learned/taught morality nonsense.

I win.

You fail.

You equate innate morality to survival instinct. Two different concepts.

Morality is a complex study of different influences that create an individual sense of right and wrong and what is accepted by different societies. If a universal sense of morality was hardwired into the human brain, you wouldn't see the conflict in society that is present. But you cannot explain the divergence in the senses of morality, as the terrorist attempts to kill you for being an infidel. His morality is intact while your morality gets detonated by HE. Kaboom.

Now please argue that his morality is wrong. After all, it is part this evolutionary process, so nature cannot have possibly messed this up. By YOUR moral standard, he is wrong. By HIS moral standard, he is right. Both of you have this universal moral code that is innate from point of fertilization.

Morality is subjective. An individual is amoral until taught some type of belief system.
 

ADobbs1989

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You fail.

You equate innate morality to survival instinct. Two different concepts.

Morality is a complex study of different influences that create an individual sense of right and wrong and what is accepted by different societies. If a universal sense of morality was hardwired into the human brain, you wouldn't see the conflict in society that is present. But you cannot explain the divergence in the senses of morality, as the terrorist attempts to kill you for being an infidel. His morality is intact while your morality gets detonated by HE. Kaboom.

Now please argue that his morality is wrong. After all, it is part this evolutionary process, so nature cannot have possibly messed this up. By YOUR moral standard, he is wrong. By HIS moral standard, he is right. Both of you have this universal moral code that is innate from point of fertilization.

Morality is subjective. An individual is amoral until taught some type of belief system.

You fail.

You equate values and belief systems to innate morality. Two different concepts.

In the case of a suicide bomber their belief system has skewed their sense of morality. Morality is not subjective. Values are subjective. And belief systems can and frequently do implement harmful values that skew your innate sense of morality. You're an idiot if you actually think everyone is amoral until they are taught something, then regardless of what they are taught they are moral. BTW an evolutionary outcome can never be wrong, because it can never be right. It just is, there is no ultimate goal to achieve.
 

Fallschirjmäger

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Morals, values and beliefs are terms that refer to the ways people think, behave and react. These three terms are often interchanged as having the same meanings. However, each has a separate meaning of its own. Each term builds upon the other terms, beginning with beliefs. Values are a type of belief, and morals are a type of value. All three terms refer to ethics, which deals with a person's conduct.

All are subjective, what was once the norm is not prohibited, what was once abhorrent is acceptable, what is now acceptable in one location is unacceptable in another.

Slavery was once legal and there are passages in the Bible about how to treat one's slave (and that didn't mean 'set him free, Today!')
The ancient Greeks not only approved of same-sex relationships but also had military units composed of male soldiers and their lovers in the belief that one would fight harder beside a lover than a stranger.
In our current culture there is no outrage over a well turned ankle as there was a hundred years ago, and in Europe going topless to sunbathe is the norm. In Japan the back of the neck was more an erogenous zone than was the breast.


To say that something is 'intrinsically and morally wrong' can't be done in a world that constantly evolves and changes its morality.
 

marshaul

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Morality is a complex study of different influences that create an individual sense of right and wrong and what is accepted by different societies. If a universal sense of morality was hardwired into the human brain, you wouldn't see the conflict in society that is present. But you cannot explain the divergence in the senses of morality, as the terrorist attempts to kill you for being an infidel. His morality is intact while your morality gets detonated by HE. Kaboom.

Different values. The terrorist would still tell you that murder is wrong, only that jihad against a member of "the enemy" is just war, not murder.
 

sudden valley gunner

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Different values. The terrorist would still tell you that murder is wrong, only that jihad against a member of "the enemy" is just war, not murder.

You mean like how Obama has killed almost 200 children with drones........:(, I believe he thinks he's moral too.

Or how he tried every drug possible with glee, yet now gleefully prosecutes harmless users.
 

marshaul

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You mean like how Obama has killed almost 200 children with drones........:(, I believe he thinks he's moral too.

Or how he tried every drug possible with glee, yet now gleefully prosecutes harmless users.

Yup.

When I say that I believe morality is intrinsic to the human condition, folks assume I'm speaking of the entire spectrum of values; in fact I'm speaking only of the most basic "murder is wrong" level stuff, and I'll be the first to point out that this only applies to people we identify with. Our values can render a person "the other", at which point all bets are off.

I view drug users, gun owners, gays, Christians, metal heads and Bieber fans as Americans. Obama, on the other hand, views gun owners, gays, drug users, and probably metal heads as "the other" (I've no doubt he listens to Bieber, though). This is how he's able to tell himself that he isn't personally and wholly responsible for holocaust-scale deprivation of right (read: aggression).
 
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ADobbs1989

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http://thinkingspace.com/post/view/id/9/title/Innate+Morality

Other evidence comes from the study of young children. Children as young as one year old will prefer puppets that have behave well over ones that have behaved badly. Two-and-a-half-year-olds already recognize the difference between moral principles and conventional principles. You can ask them if it would be okay to hit someone at daycare if everyone said it would be okay, versus asking them whether it would be okay to not hang up your coat in the cubby if everyone said it would be okay. These children say it’s never okay to hit someone, but whether or not you have to put your clothes in the cubby could change from daycare to daycare. They already seem to appreciate the difference between the kinds of morality that comes from empathy and the kind that comes from our conventional rules.

Might help some of you learn the difference between our innate morality that is largely based on empathy, and learned morality (values).
 

WalkingWolf

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http://thinkingspace.com/post/view/id/9/title/Innate+Morality



Might help some of you learn the difference between our innate morality that is largely based on empathy, and learned morality (values).

So teach us! Start posting some scientific citations that prove the difference between innate and learned morality. Surely there must be some scientific studies out there to bolster your claims.

To be clear I want clear concise FACTS, not some atheist's opinions.
 
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minarchist

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As for the theory of evolution, it can be lumped into the same trash heap as this innate morality. Neither pass the scientific method of testing a hypothesis.

This is an astounding display of ignorance.

1.We would not expect to observe large changes directly. Evolution consists mainly of the accumulation of small changes over large periods of time. If we saw something like a fish turning into a frog in just a couple generations, we would have good evidence against evolution.


2.The evidence for evolution does not depend, even a little, on observing macroevolution directly. There is a very great deal of other evidence (Theobald 2004; see also evolution proof).


3.As biologists use the term, macroevolution means evolution at or above the species level. Speciation has been observed and documented.


4.Microevolution has been observed and is taken for granted even by creationists. And because there is no known barrier to large change and because we can expect small changes to accumulate into large changes, microevolution implies macroevolution. Small changes to developmental genes or their regulation can cause relatively large changes in the adult organism (Shapiro et al. 2004).


5.There are many transitional forms that show that macroevolution has occurred.

[emphasis mine]

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB901.html

Click here to learn of the numerous observed instances of speciation.
 

minarchist

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Apparently everybody who has their knickers in a twist (clockwise or counter-clockwise) has forgotten that the First Amendment protects us from religion - in the sense of a state-sanctioned religion. It gives us the freedom to choose a religion, or no religion, without consequence from the state.

You are correct, but unfortunately religious zealots insist that not allowing the majority to force its views onto everyone else constitutes persecution of said majority and a trampling of their liberty (how's that for monumental irony?).
 

minarchist

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So teach us! Start posting some scientific citations that prove the difference between innate and learned morality. Surely there must be some scientific studies out there to bolster your claims.

To be clear I want clear concise FACTS, not some atheist's opinions.

Let me guess, you think that peer-reviewed evidence from hundreds of experts in a field is "some atheist's opinion", but faith-based assertions constitute facts (however, only when they come from someone with whom you agree, naturally :rolleyes:).
 

WalkingWolf

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You are correct, but unfortunately religious zealots insist that not allowing the majority to force its views onto everyone else constitutes persecution of said majority and a trampling of their liberty (how's that for monumental irony?).

I have not seen that on this forum, what I have seen is atheist zealots insist on pushing their dogma down everybody's throat doing exactly what the claim that religious zealots are doing, how is that for monumental irony!
 

WalkingWolf

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Let me guess, you think that peer-reviewed evidence from hundreds of experts in a field is "some atheist's opinion", but faith-based assertions constitute facts (however, only when they come from someone with whom you agree, naturally :rolleyes:).
I have made no such claims, and the suggestion that I have is a LIE. IMO people who blatantly lie are?
 
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minarchist

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Humans are naturally polygynous, religion encourages and some laws(which are unenforceable) dictate society doesn't sleep with multiple mates under the same roof and restricts "marriage/civil unions/inter-personal contracts."

lol! What a steaming pile of broccoli.

There is ample evidence that david.ross is correct. Aside from mere anecdotal evidence relating to how numerous extra-marital/relationship affairs are, there is a lot of peer-reviewed research that shows that we are innately f--k machines that love lots of different partners.

The book Sex at Dawn ("Dawn" referring to the dawn of humanity) is a real eye-opener.

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Dawn-Stra...F8&qid=1368302267&sr=8-1&keywords=sex+at+dawn
 

minarchist

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I have not seen that on this forum, what I have seen is atheist zealots insist on pushing their dogma down everybody's throat doing exactly what the claim that religious zealots are doing, how is that for monumental irony!

How is it that religious proselytizers are not guilty of pushing dogma down anyone's throat, but when a nontheist merely responds to their claims, that person is guilty of pushing dogma down other people's throats?

It seems that you think that the only acceptable course of action for non-Christians when Christians initiate a conversation with them and make their faith-based claims is to fall on their knees and immediately convert, because you clearly interpret anything other than that as the party that was approached for evangelizing as being the bully, and not vice versa. WTF?!?
 
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