[Qingu]

I know many people on here aren't fans of Answers in Genesis, but I'd like to start with a quote from their site:

As the creation foundation is removed, we see the godly institutions also start to collapse. On the other hand, as the evolution foundation remains firm, the structures built on that foundation—lawlessness, homosexuality, abortion, etc.—logically increase. We must understand this connection.

In a way, I believe AiG is right. There is a correlation, in a broad sense, between increased secularism and these three behaviors. And I also think they are right to say that evolution directly causes us to be more likely to accept these three behaviors.

Let's look at those three behaviors:
• Lawlessness
• Homosexuality
• Abortion

The big traditional religions—Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism—all oppose these behaviors to a large extent. They all teach that there are certain laws and principles—coincidentally enough, the ones laid forth in their holy books—that simply must never be broken, and to do so is a grave sin. They all teach that homosexuality is likewise a grave sin, an abomination. And abortion is also considered an abomination, an unspeakable injustice. (Hinduism not as much as Christianity and Islam, but traditional Hindus seem to generally disapprove of these things much more than modern, secular society does).

The religious disapproval of all three behaviors—lawlessness, homosexuality, and abortion—can all be explained as being the product of social evolution, possibly even biological evolution.

Lawlessness is bad because it leads to a lack of social cohesion, which in turn leads to less births and more deaths in the group, thus less surviving offspring.

Homosexuality is bad because it leads to less births, less surviving offspring.

Abortion, obviously, leads to less surviving offspring.

You could easily imagine how groups of prehistoric nomads would evolve to disapprove of these three behaviors. The groups that allowed any of the three behaviors would be less likely to survive the harsh conditions of the premodern world than the groups who disapproved of them.

However, from a purely evolutionary sense, these three behaviors are perfectly fine if your social group is not in any real danger of population loss, or if it's overpopulated.

Disapproving of these three behaviors doesn't serve (again, from an evolutionary perspective) to increase the quality of life, or to decrease suffering of living things. It simply serves to increase the number of human beings.

(As a fictional example of this, in the TV show Battlestar Galactica, the human race is nearly extinguished by evil robots. The president of the survivors, who number only about 50,000, was all for abortion-rights before the robot attack. But afterwards, she changed her position on abortion and outlawed it, because allowing it directly harm the chances of the now-tiny and threatened group of human surviving.)

So if you take evolution seriously, you will find it easy—in a modern, non-threatened society—to look at homosexuality, abortion, and lawlessness with relative apathy. Homosexuality and abortion certainly don't harm the chances of modern society surviving anymore, on this overpopulated and overmedicated planet. Lawlessness is still sort of bad, but not bad enough to brutally execute most criminals anymore—we are on the whole more lenient of crime and criminals than the ancient religions today and this is probably because our societies are far more resilient than ancient societies.

In other words, disapproving of lawlessness, homosexuality, and abortion can be seen as vestigal traits that are no longer necessary in modern society.

I also thinks this points to a fundamental divide in how secularists and religious people view the true "value of life."

The values of modern society place a premium on increasing the happiness and comfort of individuals. The values of religions, on the other hand, place a premium on increasing the numbers of the group. In other words, it's between "Life is valuable because of the joy you feel during it," vs. "Life is valuable because it's one more to the group."

So you could also make the argument that, by caring more about opposing abortion, homosexuality and lawlessness than caring about increasing the happiness of individuals, religious morality inherently places the crude evolutionary needs of the human race above the emotional and comfortable benefit of the individuals of that race.

I, personally, feel that increasing the happiness of individuals is a "more transcendent" moral goal than increasing the evolutionary survival rate of humans. Though if evil robots ever try to genocide us then I'd be open to changing my mind.

[comitatus1]

Originally Posted by Qingu

I know many people on here aren't fans of Answers in Genesis, but I'd like to start with a quote from their site:

As the creation foundation is removed, we see the godly institutions also start to collapse. On the other hand, as the evolution foundation remains firm, the structures built on that foundation—lawlessness, homosexuality, abortion, etc.—logically increase. We must understand this connection.

In a way, I believe AiG is right. There is a correlation, in a broad sense, between increased secularism and these three behaviors. And I also think they are right to say that evolution directly causes us to be more likely to accept these three behaviors.

Let's look at those three behaviors:
• Lawlessness
• Homosexuality
• Abortion

The big traditional religions—Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism—all oppose these behaviors to a large extent. They all teach that there are certain laws and principles—coincidentally enough, the ones laid forth in their holy books—that simply must never be broken, and to do so is a grave sin. They all teach that homosexuality is likewise a grave sin, an abomination. And abortion is also considered an abomination, an unspeakable injustice. (Hinduism not as much as Christianity and Islam, but traditional Hindus seem to generally disapprove of these things much more than modern, secular society does).

The religious disapproval of all three behaviors—lawlessness, homosexuality, and abortion—can all be explained as being the product of social evolution, possibly even biological evolution.

Lawlessness is bad because it leads to a lack of social cohesion, which in turn leads to less births and more deaths in the group, thus less surviving offspring.

Homosexuality is bad because it leads to less births, less surviving offspring.

Abortion, obviously, leads to less surviving offspring.

You could easily imagine how groups of prehistoric nomads would evolve to disapprove of these three behaviors. The groups that allowed any of the three behaviors would be less likely to survive the harsh conditions of the premodern world than the groups who disapproved of them.

However, from a purely evolutionary sense, these three behaviors are perfectly fine if your social group is not in any real danger of population loss, or if it's overpopulated.

Disapproving of these three behaviors doesn't serve (again, from an evolutionary perspective) to increase the quality of life, or to decrease suffering of living things. It simply serves to increase the number of human beings.

(As a fictional example of this, in the TV show Battlestar Galactica, the human race is nearly extinguished by evil robots. The president of the survivors, who number only about 50,000, was all for abortion-rights before the robot attack. But afterwards, she changed her position on abortion and outlawed it, because allowing it directly harm the chances of the now-tiny and threatened group of human surviving.)

So if you take evolution seriously, you will find it easy—in a modern, non-threatened society—to look at homosexuality, abortion, and lawlessness with relative apathy. Homosexuality and abortion certainly don't harm the chances of modern society surviving anymore, on this overpopulated and overmedicated planet. Lawlessness is still sort of bad, but not bad enough to brutally execute most criminals anymore—we are on the whole more lenient of crime and criminals than the ancient religions today and this is probably because our societies are far more resilient than ancient societies.

In other words, disapproving of lawlessness, homosexuality, and abortion can be seen as vestigal traits that are no longer necessary in modern society.

I also thinks this points to a fundamental divide in how secularists and religious people view the true "value of life."

The values of modern society place a premium on increasing the happiness and comfort of individuals. The values of religions, on the other hand, place a premium on increasing the numbers of the group. In other words, it's between "Life is valuable because of the joy you feel during it," vs. "Life is valuable because it's one more to the group."

So you could also make the argument that, by caring more about opposing abortion, homosexuality and lawlessness than caring about increasing the happiness of individuals, religious morality inherently places the crude evolutionary needs of the human race above the emotional and comfortable benefit of the individuals of that race.

I, personally, feel that increasing the happiness of individuals is a "more transcendent" moral goal than increasing the evolutionary survival rate of humans. Though if evil robots ever try to genocide us then I'd be open to changing my mind.

I imagine that people who have lived in all the "modern" societies of the past felt much the same way you do.

Chris

[Qingu]

Originally Posted by comitatus1

I imagine that people who have lived in all the "modern" societies of the past felt much the same way you do.

Chris

Like who? The Romans? There haven't been many "modern" (i.e. secular and progressive) societies in history.

[comitatus1]

Originally Posted by Qingu

Like who? The Romans? There haven't been many "modern" (i.e. secular and progressive) societies in history.

Yes, like the Romans. The point is not trying to quantify "secular" and "progressive", the point is that they got to the where they all looked around and patted themselves on the back for "making it" and decided that they too could ignore injunctions against things like lawlessness, abortion, and homosexuality because they concluded it was no longer about numbers but about self satisfaction.

This is not an either/or situation [ie follow the rules OR find self satisfaction]and it's about far more than numbers. It stands to reason that if following certain rules gets a civilization to a certain point, then following those rules is necessary to maintain that civilization. There is no such thing as a static society, it is either advancing or retreating. Just because a society is so complex that we can't quantify it's retreat doesn't mean it isn't doing so. The Romans held onto a form of empire long after the empire was truly dead. I think we here in America and Western Europe are in the same situation today.

Chris

[JerryLove]

No one is for "lawlessness".
"Abortion" is only a modern inventionl but infanticide was well practiced by te jews (burying live babies in the ground".

The Romans practiced "homosexuality" from the foundation of the Roman empire. They thrived with it.

[Qingu]

Originally Posted by JerryLove

No one is for "lawlessness".

I think religions attach the concept of "sin" to breaking laws more than secular societies do.

For example, the punishment for transgressing the moral law of the Babylonians, or the Romans, or modern America, is simply the sentence (death, usually, in the first two cases). But the punishment for trangressing theocratic laws is the sentence, plus eternal torture in hell.

I think you're right that no one explicitly supports lawlessness. But in America we have this sort of idolization of outlaws, and we accept that you can break unjust laws—that laws, in fact, may be unjust. You rarely see such an admission in religious societies about their laws.

"Abortion" is only a modern inventionl but infanticide was well practiced by te jews (burying live babies in the ground".

The early Christians, however, were against it (so were the Greeks, for that matter—the Hippocratic oath forbids doctors from performing abortions). For whatever reason, it seems to have become attached to the big three religions.

The Romans practiced "homosexuality" from the foundation of the Roman empire. They thrived with it.

I don't see the Romans as a really religious society, though. And I would argue they thrived with it because, like modern society, they had a stable, well-off population not in danger of being wiped out. In other words, the Romans had evolved, as a society, to where they didn't need to devote their energies to growing the population.

[tlj009]

So if you take evolution seriously, you will find it easy—in a modern, non-threatened society—to look at homosexuality, abortion, and lawlessness with relative apathy. Homosexuality and abortion certainly don't harm the chances of modern society surviving anymore, on this overpopulated and overmedicated planet. Lawlessness is still sort of bad, but not bad enough to brutally execute most criminals anymore—we are on the whole more lenient of crime and criminals than the ancient religions today and this is probably because our societies are far more resilient than ancient societies.

I fail to see how you can argue for abortion because we are overpopulated but you argue that we are more leniet on the execution of criminals also because we are overpopulated. Wouldn't it follow that we would have more capital punishment because "certainly don't harm the chances of modern society surviving anymore, on this overpopulated and overmedicated planet." I mean I know we can say that criminals killing someone isn't as bad for the same reason, but it would also follow that the criminals life isn't very valuable either.

[tlj009]

I think religions attach the concept of "sin" to breaking laws more than secular societies do.

For example, the punishment for transgressing the moral law of the Babylonians, or the Romans, or modern America, is simply the sentence (death, usually, in the first two cases). But the punishment for trangressing theocratic laws is the sentence, plus eternal torture in hell.

Isn't that really comparing two different things? I mean that you have religion and you have government (occasionally the two overlap). Government proclaims a sentence before you die. Religion proclaims a sentence after you die. So theocratic laws would have to combine the two and proclaim both sentences. Theocratic is by definition a government that is subject to a religion. So I don't think that it is fair to compare government to governement+religion.

[Chrysostom]

Originally Posted by Qingu

You could easily imagine how groups of prehistoric nomads would evolve to disapprove of these three behaviors.

The hidden premise in your argument is that if you can come up with some sort of mechanism that could bring about certain effects at least partially, then the one true cause is naturalistic: If x brings about an advantage to survival then that advantage to survival is its primary "cause." But obviously this is an argumentative fallacy -- you may have told a story that could work partially, but is it the actual, primary explanation? Secularism/naturalism is always a bias that is brought to the table and determines one's perspective on "religion" (or sociology or whatever else), rather than a conclusion which arises from the evidence.

Originally Posted by Qingu

Disapproving of these three behaviors doesn't serve (again, from an evolutionary perspective) to increase the quality of life, or to decrease suffering of living things. It simply serves to increase the number of human beings.

Secularism (or at least the British-American empiricist varieties) is founded on the quantification of the universe. E.g., Utilitarianism's "hedonic calculus" -- "ethics" had to be quantifiable in order to live up to secular standards, so moral judgments turned into statements about varying quantities of pleasure and pain. Secular Humanism generally subscribes to some sort of pleasure-based ethic, hence it engenders practices like the use of narcotics, casual sex, etc. So it would be wrong to say that the secular life is qualitative where the "religious" life is quantitative.

I'd also suspect that the infants who where saved from desertion by Christians would say that their quality of life had improved, and similarly that anyone who entered one of the beautiful Christian cathedrals couldn't help but see a qualitative interest in the world.

[Jeffrey]

Originally Posted by JerryLove

The Romans practiced "homosexuality" from the foundation of the Roman empire. They thrived with it.

This is a bit misleading, since homosexuality wasn't conceptualized in the same terms as we term it now. The idea of two men shacking up wouldn't fly in the Roman empire. Discreet bisexuality might be okay, but remember that at many points in their culture, being the penetrated was less desireable and it wasn't becoming of an upper status man to let himself be the physically "beloved" of any man of a status below him, or even equal to him.

Also, Qingu: looking at your Battlestar Galactica example of abortion being outlawed in response to unexpected events, doesn't this start to suggest that we should restrict abortion in case of such emergencies? A plague, a zombie apocalypse, a major war, whatever your heart desires? We might look up and go "Whoops, having twice as many people would have been good, because now we're down to 10,000 when it might have been 20,000?"

[Lightknight]

Um... in what possible way would homosexual behavior be supported by evolution? It sounds like a behavioral trait that would have been wiped out before it ever took hold. Abortion doesn't even make sense in considering what makes a being successful where it comes to survival of the fittest (most reproducing-capable offspring). I mean, we talk about platypuses screwing with the balance of nature, but humans really take the prize.