Ananda
"Morality flows from spirituality" appears to be an unargued premise of yours (not that I have a problem with all unargued premises, see below). It is up to you to show that this is a real dilemma, that biology and spirituality are the only possible bases for moral knowledge. Of course I deny that it is a real dilemma. I believe there are moral truths and moral facts, in the same sense that there are mathematical truths and mathematical facts. Yet mathematical facts do not depend for their plausibility or coherence on the existence of a god.
In particular, I think that certain moral statements ("it's wrong to torture children for fun", to take an obvious example) are self-evidently true, and therefore do not depend on interpretation of divine will, biological observation, or anything else.
While I certainly agree it is wrong to torture small children for fun (it should only be done for profit), this position is not axiomatic, but is based on biological necessity. Any species which recklessly wastes its young is destined for extinction, so there is a biological imperative which lies behind "women and children first!"
You say you believe that there are moral truths and equate those truths to mathematical facts. Unfortunately these moral truths are, without exception, either based on biological necessity or cultural biases.
Here is my challenge to you. Present one moral truth which does not arise from biological necessity, and is universal in scope, applying to all cultures throughout history. Even your example of torturing children falls short of this test, as unwanted children have been tortured, enslaved, and killed in many cultures.
Ananda
And, of course, evolution as it is taught today does not deny spirituality. To the extent that religious figures make scientific claims (such as that Jesus had no mortal father), science has something to say, but in terms of purely spiritual claims (such as that Jesus died to redeem our sins), no branch of science will pass judgment. Lots of people believe in God and also believe that evolutionary theory is true.
Science, particularly biology, assumes that naturally occurring processes can explain everything about our world, and that 'supernatural' events, ie 'creation', are not required. My position is that if we are nothing more than highly evolved animals, and there is no spiritual presence, then all behaviors must spring from biological origins. There is no other option available. We are either natural or supernatural. In the first case, our ability to reason comes only from the way our brain is constructed, the way it processes information, which was shaped by natural selection. Therefore any 'higher truths' we come up with are constructed on that same basis, and subject to the same limitations. In the second case, our thought processes are not limited by our animal instincts, as they are also influenced by some supernatural presence. The problem here is that once we allow for the existence of a supernatural presence, we have aboandoned our basic assumptions about science.
Ananda
Note that if natural selection is not a complete explanation for the evolution of man, the conditional above does not establish that there is a higher power (that would be the fallacy of affirming the consequent -- in variable form, it would be: a implies b, b, therefore a)....That doesn't stop people from asserting it, though, when what they really mean is: "If natural selection is not a complete explanation for the evolution of man, then either there is a higher power, or there's another part of the
explanation unrelated to a higher power that we haven't discovered yet, or it's all just a great mystery so we might as well say there's a God who designed us all and call it quits."
And excluding your last sentence, this is my position. Finding flaws in current theory does not mean I reflexively embrace creationism, although I am faced with that charge more often than not. As you point out, disproof of one statement is not proof of its opposite.
Rich
If there are behaviors in the human animal which cannot be explained through the evolutionary process, then that indicates that another process, one independent of biology, is at work. This places the entire foundation of modern biology at risk.>
Ananda
I would say it puts the entire foundation of sociobiology, or evolutionary psychology, at risk. Not the same thing at all.
What you are saying is something like "If there are astronomical phenomena not explained by Einstein's theory of relativity, then that indicates something else is at work, and all of physics is at risk." But of course all of physics is not at risk; just that sector of theoretical physics that holds to Einstein's theory of relativity (as opposed to, say, the Copenhagen interpretation, or of some other theories altogether). Note that I am not equating evolutionary theory with relativity theory -- evolutionary theory is far more grounded and well-supported. Rather I am comparing evolutionary psychology, a field whose claims are much more controversial, with relativity.
If psychology is not based upon biology, then what is it based on? Psychology started as an observation of behaviors, with an attempt to find the origins of those behaviors in life experiences. Once again, I am back to my quandry: If our identity, our self awareness, is nothing more than the product of our biology, then our psychology must also be a product of our biology, and therefore subject to the actions of natural selection, which means that our behaviors are subject to the same evolutionary pressures as our genetics are.
Ananda
Just because people disagree about the answer to a question doesn't mean there isn't one. And moral questions get resolved.
Moral questions do get resolved, but most often at the point of a sword. The 'higher' truth is determined by the group with the most power, the ultimate expression of Darwinism. It's hard to base moral absolutes on the exercise of power.
My companion page, Strafing Runs has a couple of essays on this very point, if anybody is interested in reading more.
My thanks to Ananda for a very stimulating exchange.
