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Is it necessary to believe in God in order to have a firm sense of morality or to achieve a moral society? Do people need to believe that moral laws are instituted and ordained by God in order to accept their legitimacy? Are the stone tablets containing the 10 Commandments (and their not-quite-so-"hard copy" version in the Old Testament) like the gold standard on which, some argue, a country's monetary policy should be based? Do we have to have something solid to touch in times of trouble? Can we not accept the validity of what the Commandments say regardless of whether they came from God? Is it not the fact that they enable humans to live and prosper that gives the ethical principles their legitimacy? Can they not be seen as part of the evolutionary process? Are they not required for our survival? Haven't we evolved a morality gene just as we've evolved a God gene? Even if we didn't accept the first Commandment, would we not frown on the making of graven images because to worship or make a fetish of them would be idle idolatry? Would we not disapprove of the taking of the name of the Lord in vain, as in saying "God damn it," because in doing so we vainly, uselessly, invoke vainglorious powers for ourselves that we do not possess? Would we not see value in maintaining some sort of Sabbath as an occasional day off for rest and reflection, if not literally the seventh day of the week devoted to God? Would we not believe in the social utility of honoring the fathers and mothers who created and raised us? Would we not find murder reprehensible because we can only live well and prosper if we are not savaged by our own kind? Would we not disapprove of adultery because of the insecurity and disruption it creates in social relationships? Similarly, would we not disapprove of stealing because of the insecurity and loss it creates for individuals and families? Would we not oppose bearing false witness because of the confusion and uncertainty that lying foments? And would we not oppose coveting what our neighbors have because coveting leads us astray from our purpose in life, self-perpetuation? Whether or not the Commandments came from God, are they not necessary for the survival of the species? Whether or not violating the Commandments will cause us to be sent to a literal hell, would not a lack of belief in what the Commandments say cause us to have nasty, brutish, short lives in a metaphorical hell of chaos and anarchy? Hasn't the evolution of moral sentiments reflected in the Commandments and the Golden and Silver Rules ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"; "Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you") made some semblance of a more or less secure life possible? If there were no belief in God as the One who sets moral standards and then upholds them on Judgment Day, would we run amok? Would we not still realize that "What's in it for me" depends upon "What's in it for us"? Did Dostoyevski's Ivan Karamazov have it right when he said "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"? Or would our evolved brain enable us to see that societal laws and moral values need to be honored for our own survival, even in the absence of a belief in God?
If life evolved from a single-celled organism to various human-like creatures to humans, was there a precise moment when two human-like creatures first produced, through genetic mutations, a human offspring? If so, what are the minimal characteristics required to distinguish a human from a non-human? Within the lifespan of that first human, would such mutations have occurred in the production of other offspring from human-like creatures? And would the offspring have mated with either, or both, nonhumans and humans and produced offspring of which some were non-humans and some the superior (because more adaptable, more able to survive) humans, with the result that eventually humans proliferated and became a race? How intelligent were those early humans? If we could somehow give them a culturally-fair I.Q. test, would their norms be many standard deviations below ours? Is it true, as the Flynn effect posits, that the average score today on re-normed I.Q. tests is 30 points higher than that of just two generations ago? Have humans gradually become smarter (in the literal sense of having greater innate abilities to learn) over hundreds of centuries as a result of interacting with their environments? If so, is there a difference in average I.Q.s between people in technologically "advanced" societies and those in less "advanced" societies? Is psychologist Steven Pinker correct when he says that, because of increases in raw intelligence, we are living in a period of extraordinary intellectual accomplishment? Or is it just that there are more of us, and therefore also more brighter ones among us, than in previous generations? Was Fred Flintstone not just less educated but also much dumber than today's Joe Average? Will the Joe Average of generations from now have what we today would regard as the I.Q. of a genius? How far can intelligence continue to evolve? Will Joe Average one day have the I.Q. of God? (And what is God's I.Q.? Is it immeasurable, unfathomable, even by God Himself?) If so, will there no longer be, in terms of intelligence, a Joe Superior or a Joe Inferior? Will everyone be, equally, absolutely brilliant? And will everyone be equally creative and artistic as well? If so, will there be any point in doing anything creative or artistic, since everyone will be able to paint like Leonardo, write like Shakespeare, and compose music like Beethoven? Will there be any point in participating in any kind of game, puzzle, or contest, since everyone would grasp its solution instantly? Is human survivability enhanced exponentially if human intelligence and creativity increase exponentially? Looking at this question in another way, were Adam and Eve created with a fixed level of intelligence and then, having violated God's command to eat not of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and consequently been ejected from the Garden of Eden and sentenced to mortality, suddenly both blessed and cursed with the ability to increase their intelligence, and that of their offspring, through interactions with their new, harsher, environment? Is the theory of evolution saying that increased intelligence enhances the ability to surivive, and is the Bible saying that increased intelligence means death (but with salvation made possible through the intercession of Jesus Christ)?
Why hasn't human ratiocination reached something closer to infallibility through evolution? Why do people continue to think and act so irrationally? If we all took a course in logic (if we learned about logical fallacies like argumentum ad hominem, argumentum ad vericundiam, argumentum ad populum, and argumentum ad misericordiam; if we learned the difference between induction and deduction; if we learned to recognize hasty generalizations and false analogies; if we learned what constitutes a valid syllogism; if we learned modus ponens and modus tollens; if we learned to make truth tables and Venn diagrams), would we then commence thinking logically and acting in accordance with our thinking? Can reason be defined as the mental process which increases the chances for humans to survive? If so, why do people often draw illogical conclusions? Why do they often let emotion sway reason? Is flawed reasoning, such as that found in a political "attack ad," actually a good thing, itself an adaptation which helps persuade other flawed reasoners to accept its view and thus enables it to survive? Is it akin to the optimism gene? Have our brains evolved to over-predict future happiness and success? Is it, paradoxically, irrationality that enables us to get through the moment, the day, the year, the life? Is it our saving grace that we are just rational enough to be irrational? If we were totally rational, would we simply conclude that the survival of the species is pointless and give up?
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