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Originally Posted by Prudence
And the nonbelievers likewise point to the questioning as proof that the belief system is complete poppycock with nary a shred of truth nor utility.
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I don't say that there is nary a shred of truth nor utility. Just that the truth and utility is available outside the framework of religion or spirituality.
If you, in your personal quest for "truth" feel it is found in a religious framework, I really don't care. It is when those who have found it there declare that because that is where they found it, it is the only place it can be found that I have issues. (Or when they claim real world proof for their faith, then yes I'll probe that reality.)
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Originally Posted by flippyshark
Altruism has been observed in other animal species. Does this mean that our own sense of altruism evolved, or is some supernatural agency granting an awakening morality to a few other primates? I'd say more likely the former.
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I've been very consciously keeping my responses in the language of free will. Obviously (if you're aware of my past here), I don't really believe that. We're just biological machines running on an electrical power source with a chemical operating system. The selfishness I've described (I originally used the word narcissism in my post above before changing it; wonder how that word choice would have altered things) isn't something I think we choose; it is just evolved into us and, I would argue, that produces a very general framework of morality that is pretty common across human time and space, though in specifics there is a fair amount of diversity.
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Originally Posted by David E.
Pointing out awful practices that members of a group did does not mean their value system is bad unless those things are proclaimed to be an integral part of it.
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Why do you grant the privilege of this cop out to religion, but not to secularism?