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You have a moral gut feeling because humanity as a social species evolved moral instincts. Matt Ridley goes over this in The Origins of Virtue. These instincts however are not totally sufficient to guide us. After all those instincts were formed in a very different natural and social environment, and in any case will not necessarily always be correct just because they are natural.

Very few people think that ethics is 'objective' as in written into the cosmos or the mind of god. However many ethical philosophers have argued that Given the structure of mans mind(Immanuel Kant) or man's nature that we can argue that there is an objective way we should all act. Kant thinks going against his moral maxims is literally contradictory and therefore incoherent for example. Natural rights theories hold that the nature of man as separate, purposeful beings rationally implies that we should respect each other as such. Other moral theories posit an 'if you want this, then do this' kind of reasoning. For example do you wish the greatest happiness in the world? Then you must act according to utilitarianism. Hazlitt in his Foundations of Morality argues that your desire for your own and your loved ones well being and happiness implies that you should obey the moral rules that society has practically worked out for the social cooperation that can help you achieve it.

According to most moral theories the fact that societies accept different moral rules or even actively abhorrent ones does not let you off the hook in terms of a duty to be virtuous. It is not some cosmic force which compels you to be good but your own reason and conscience. Ethics is a practical thing. In the same way that medicine is a practical thing. We can learn to avoid bad things like slavery in the same way we learn that blood letting and frog swallowing don't cure cancer, and we can encourage good moral behavior like politeness just like we encourage good personal hygiene like hand washing.

edit: I am reading Arguments for Liberty (it's free in pdf and ebook) at the moment, which despite sounding like a political book is essentially about different moral theories, It can be a little challenging but it certainly helped open my mind to how the more 'objective' style moral theories can actually make sense. I can recommend at least the first three chapters (as that is where I am up to).

TL;DR

Your moral feelings are down to evolution. But that does not make them objectively right.
Moral rules are created by men but that does not mean that they are wrong or useless or that you should not obey them.

Highly unlikely. There's not even good evidence most of the apostles were martyred. Furthermore, the beauty and utility of marterdom was also a core idea of Second Temple Judaism, and despite people trying to get themselves martyred, it happened much less than you probably think. There's only about 5 named individuals we're confident in, and, for example, one of the most preminant scholars of early Christianity (Rodney Stark) estimates the total at less than 100.

Also, we have records of exactly nobody claiming to have seen Jesus in the flesh, only people claiming many years later that other people claimed to have seen him, and Paul claiming a spiritual vision.

I highly recommend picking up one of Stark's books to get a sympathetic but rigerous view of the actual history of early Christianity and why it grew, which will help you understand your religion quite a bit more. Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity, The First Three Thousand Years is another good history, though IMHO not quite as informative as it doesn't follow the sociological factors quite as closely. Those are both solid books by excellent historians who are more positive toward Christianity than average for experts in the field, and I think you'd find them useful.

> You're assuming the unintelligent only mate with the unintelligent. You're also not factoring correlations between intelligence, wealth and health. The intellegent are liable to have healthier children which in turn are more likely to reproduce.

I don't see how an intelligent person mating with an unintelligent one would have any impact on the trend, you'll have to explain why that assumption is an issue in further detail. The study I linked to tested for other confounding variables: it finds: "A women's educational level is the best predictor of how many children she will have." As for them being healthy, the death rates for children in developed countries is absolutely miniscule compared to the differing numbers given for birth rate by education. even if you assume every single death is to an unintelligent couple, it won't come close to making up the difference.

> Also don't forget, just because there are a lot of stupid people doesn't mean they'll be in charge.

This will likely trend off topic, but suffice it to say that in a democracy it's the job of the populace to ensure that stupid people aren't put in charge.

> What? IQs have gone up worldwide consistently in the modern era.

See my reply to someone else:

> I don't consider IQ tests to be very good measures of intelligence, especially in modern times when people's education is entirely centered around taking tests, not on applying their skills to real world situations or the act of learning, as it has been in the past. The majority of questions on IQ tests that I've seen are more "tricks" or simple knowledge than any sort of quantitative measure of learning potential, as they claim to be. People who have a natural curiosity tend to be better learners and thus know more of these "tricks" and "puzzles" so there's definitely a correlation between IQ tests and intelligence, by not by cause.

> Also worth noting, the same author for whom the effect is named after seems to have come to the same conclusion: The first thing Flynn did is disaggregate the IQ trends into their subcomponents. He observed that the improvement over time were very different depending on the domain. On arithmetic and vocabulary questions, IQs remained virtually flat for decades; Meanwhile, on 'similarities' and 'picture riddles' IQs went through the roof.

Humans are a social species. Our survival, as a group, is dependent on how we operate as a group. The ability for an individual to reproduce is not as important as it is for our tribe to reproduce.

A popular theory that relates this idea to issues of homosexuality, is that gay people serve a sociological purpose in helping to care for children whose parents die or are injured. If every member of the tribe was baby-making, there would be too many kids and some would end up dying anyway. Having some extra non-reproducing care-givers allows us to focus on advancing the tribe, rather than on simply trying to keep as many people alive as possible.

I would recommend the book Sex at Dawn if you want to read more about this. The book covers a lot of other interesting information too.

One of my favorite tidbits from the book; Ancient tribes, and even some aboriginal tribes that still exist today, did not practice monogamy, and they believed that a baby was the result of accumulated semen from many men. As such, our ancestors didn't really have the concept of a single father. All the men of the village treated all of the children of the village as their shared cum-blob babies that they helped produce along with the other men of the tribe.

Here's a helpful reading suggestion Shakespeare's Game by William Gibson (Amazon link) Gibson explains in the intro that he felt helpless for a short time, because his uninteresting students could not be taught how to become interesting. Instead, he taught them how to write plays that would not cause an audience to walk out after the first act. He dissects every play Shakespeare wrote, explaining the mechanics of character development, and the importance of each type of line and story arc, etc... I completely disagree with your English teacher. Experience does not cause a person to be more creative. Star Trek is crap, though. Again... read Gibson. If you read the first three chapters, you will better understand your own ideas.

Gene Roddenberry used a lot of legal and quasi-related topics as the basis for Star Trek. So, other way around but good catch.

If you're interested in this topic

Many people here seem to take your assertion in the context of logic, and I think your example made it clear that that's not the right context.

Ellis and Harper expand in your idea in A Guide to Rational Living. I think you might enjoy it (if you haven't already read it :).

Very insightful comment, thank you. I don't find a lot I can disagree with here...it certainly softens, at least, the level to which I think hypocrisy is likely taking place.

As an aside, and just because you delved in to the whole collective vs. individual rights thing, you might be interested to explore what I call the intuitionist moral philosophy of political legitimacy. I believe that it successfully finds hybrid of deontological and consequentialist positions, and it is what I largely adhere to in my personal moral code as it regards rights and political authority.

I only know of it in book form The Problem of Political Authority , so assuming you're not going to buy it, I can suggest this decent review, and also access to the first chapter

A bunch of people have been writing about this idea of power becoming more decentralized for a while now.

> The gradual development of the equality of conditions is therefore a providential fact, and it possesses all the characteristics of a divine decree: it is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all human interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its progress.

And this guy just recently wrote a book about it, and here's a kind of stupid video that sums it up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9AXhmYaob0

And you know how people say that technology develops faster than we learn how to use it responsibly? Let's hope we can do that with information. You're absolutely right that we have more potential now than ever to create an almost utopian democracy where everyone is informed. But so far people seem to be slow on learning how to properly use the internet and TV channels.. lots of bullshit out there you know?

I just hope that we can learn to be more responsible democratic citizens before the people get all the power and we really do ourselves in.

I believe good timing and luck are just as critical, if not moreso, as the other qualities. Outliers makes a good argument for this.

Sorry, should have been more explicit. I mentioned in another reply that I'm about to start on this book which claims that Godel proved that "In any universe described by GR, time cannot exist". A review that I read explains that G. was able to model a universe using E.'s mathematics in which "intuitive" time doesn't exit -- any two events are joined continuously, and G. concluded that time is another spatial dimension, despite the difference in the way we experience it. What I don't understand (not having read the book) is the inference that because GR describes a possible universe in which time "doesn't exist", then it can't exist. E. accepted the result "reluctantly" because he couldn't refute it. Godel was quite the genius eh?

It's a pop-sci book, I've never heard of this result before despite being interested in logic and philosophy myself, and after flicking through it the writing style is a bit sensationalist. But I just found an academic paper on the subject for you, published in a reasonably reputable outlet, might be a better place to look: https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwj_tbjEsqnQAhVjB8AKHS4tCeQQFggiMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhrcak.srce.hr%2Ffile%2F19095&usg=AFQjCNHSsByQUAsaDyjoktOD7WEY6ETxVA

> Starcraft

https://smile.amazon.com/StarCraft-64-Pc/dp/B00002STGV?sa-no-redirect=1

Humans did not eat exclusively raw food in nature. The consumption of cooked food makes the food 'easier' for our bodies to process. While the total nutritional volume is decreased slightly, this ease of processing results in a higher bio-availability of nutrients than by eating raw food. Put simply, we get more nutrients out of cooked food than raw food, even though raw food has more nutrients, because it is easier for our bodies to process.

This reduced the amount of time our ancestors had to spend foraging and grazing considerably. Our nearest ape cousins spend upwards of eight hours per day consuming food, because the lower bioavailibility of raw food means they have to keep eating and eating and eating to meet their bodies needs. Our ancestors using fire and cooking foods allowed us to reduce that time to between one and two hours, allowing us more time as a species for other pursuits. These include tool making, social interaction, the development of more complex languages, culture, trade and so on. There's a book you may want to read on the matter:

https://www.amazon.com/Catching-Fire-Cooking-Made-Human/dp/1469298708

Stop focusing on the big picture. Of course it's all meaningless compared to all of time and the entire universe.

You're alive now. You can find meaning in pleasure or in suffering. Try reading Man's Search for Meaning

Also....

Can I have your stuff?

I've been thinking about this lately. Who decides what is moral and what isn't. One person can say that killing people is immoral, but why does that make it true? Some people probably think that killing people is moral. So what makes one of them "right"?


I haven't actually read it yet but somebody recommended that I look into Ayn Rand, a philosopher who talks about why philosophy is objective. I was recommended this book https://www.amazon.ca/Objectivism-Philosophy-Ayn-Rand-Library-ebook/dp/B002OSXDB4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485900801&sr=8-1&keywords=objectivism+the+philosophy+of+ayn+rand


Maybe you could give it a read. Let me know what you think.