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Is conscience an evolution baesd or creation based?

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Pray To Jesus said:
Your question is useless and a waste of time because the Bible is the Word of God.

One can easily discern the fruit by the effect it has on the person. The good tree will bear good fruit, and the bad tree will bear bad fruit.

For example, one can fancy concepts like, what if gravity stop existing right now, but it will be useless and a waste of time.
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But humans committed original sin, we are no longer pure, we were cast out of the garden of eden. How are we able to discern between good and evil?
 
HAL9000 said:
in bold.
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Just be careful that you actually found the truth and are not just fooling yourself into believing a lie because of your own reasons.

Just remember what I said about the changes in a man once he finds the truth. Did that happen to you? Does your truth leave you feeling empty and dissatisfied? Perhaps not now, but eventually you will come to have those feelings, then you will question yourself.

I will pray for you right now and ask that God will somehow find a way to save you. Just keep an open mind and don't shut yourself from the truth.
 
Pray To Jesus said:
Just be careful that you actually found the truth and are not just fooling yourself into believing a lie because of your own reasons.

Just remember what I said about the changes in a man once he finds the truth. Did that happen to you? Does your truth leave you feeling empty and dissatisfied? Perhaps not now, but eventually you will come to have those feelings, then you will question yourself.

I will pray for you right now and ask that God will somehow find a way to save you. Just keep an open mind and don't shut yourself from the truth.
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Actually not at all, it has removed confusion given me clarity, and given me wonder at the awe of the complex randomness of the universe, The truth has made my life more interesting and worthwhile. I have been able to have access to higher truth and reason. If I was dependant on an external being none of this would be the case. It has given my life reason, the purpose that I ascribe to it.
 
HAL9000 said:
What I've been sucked into isn't the original OP. This thread has been subject to a derail.
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I believe that there's something inherently fascinating about God. Even people who don't believe in Him often times find themselves sucked into discussions about Him.

Don't you think it's strange that there aren't heated discussions on the reality of Santa Claus or other myths yet with God there are so much debate. Makes you wonder doesn't it?
 
Pray To Jesus said:
I believe that there's something inherently fascinating about God. Even people who don't believe in Him often times find themselves sucked into discussions about Him.

Don't you think it's strange that there aren't heated discussions on the reality of Santa Claus or other myths yet with God there are so much debate. Makes you wonder doesn't it?
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nope, I don't wonder about that at all. There is a whole bunch of people dedicated to bring up god whenever they can. Self-justification is what I call it. It goes something like this.

"I believe in God"
"God is truth"
"Therefore I am right"
"Everyone else who doesn't agree with me is thus wrong"
"I have to do something about this wrong"
 
Pray To Jesus said:
I believe that there's something inherently fascinating about God. Even people who don't believe in Him often times find themselves sucked into discussions about Him.

Don't you think it's strange that there aren't heated discussions on the reality of Santa Claus or other myths yet with God there are so much debate. Makes you wonder doesn't it?
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Not really, it's because no one is arguing for the existence of santa claus and yet there are millions of people devoted to the notion of a god or god's depending on where you were born.
 
I'm going to go with evolution.

If we take a look at it from a psychological standpoint, specifically Freud's structural model of the psyche, we see that almost everything we think, do, and say is influenced by something else. Specifically, I'm talking about what Freud called the super ego – the part of us that governs conscience. According to him, our conscience is learned and developed from our parents and society. It seems to me that conscience wasn't inherent, but learned through years of evolution; essentially, conscience evolved as society evolved. I would even argue that conscience is still evolving to some degree.
 
Pray To Jesus said:
It's because God is real and Santa Claus isn't.
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This is the problem I have with talking to theists, either they are incapable of expressing themselves properly or incapable of explaining why they believe, I am looking for that rarest of things a theist with a logical reason for his beliefs. I am yet to find such a person. All I ever get is "If you search you will find" or "You will know god when he enters your heart" or "to know god is to be one with god" or "god exists you can see it in the wind" It's infuriating that all I ever get from theists is what could very well be Yoda quotes if you transpose the word god with force.

I am at heart a philosopher and I am open to any concept, assuming said concept can be expressed logically and coherently by the proponents of it. I think for myself, I asses everything put to me, I am very analytical and critical of any thought that enters my head, and yet, I see nothing that has ever lead me to conclude there is a god.
 
Dirigible said:
God made some dudes and they were all killin' each other and stealing candy from babies and stuff. God was all, "They gonna be hella whack without a damn conscience." So he thought about the best way to make it happen.

:hmm:

Then he was all, I'll ask my wife. But he got distracted when she presented him with godlike tasty sammiches when he went in the kitchen to ask her.

So it was evolution, 'cause God was too lazy to create it. He woulda done it eventually, but the evolutioning happened first while he was eating sammiches.


True story.
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Which testament is the book of Dirigible in? Cuz I need to read that one.
 
Of course it is a product of nurturing, but far too many people dismiss the role of religion in the scaring of primitive man into adhering to the rules of civilized society. The formation of religion goes hand in hand with the formation of a conscience.
 
sdifox said:
nope, nurture. Conscience is taught.
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Can you provide some back up?


How do you explain folks that grew up with conscience-absent parents etc. but still have the capacity to decipher right from wrong? In other words there are people who were exposed to very UN-nurturing environments/people but who still have & use their conscience...


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Squisher said:
Of course it is a product of nurturing, but far too many people dismiss the role of religion in the scaring of primitive man into adhering to the rules of civilized society. The formation of religion goes hand in hand with the formation of a conscience.
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why couldn't the conscience exist before religion?
 
If you believe in evolution, then everything is evolution based. Pretty much everything is spawned from previous iterations.

If you believe in creation, then God programmed man with a conscience.

We can argue a lot about it, but it's ultimately down to what your core worldview is. Randomness leading to organization and change, or purposeful design by a higher power.
 
TheWiseOne said:
Can you provide some back up?


How do you explain folks that grew up with conscience-absent parents etc. but still have the capacity to decipher right from wrong? In other words there are people who were exposed to very UN-nurturing environments/people but who still have & use their conscience...


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Observation and clear thinking.
 
Pray To Jesus said:
It's because God is real
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If you are going to make this assertion, the onus is on you to prove it. You have claimed in this thread to be able to do so via logic and reason, yet you have not posted either that logic or reason. I invite you to do so now.

I would speculate that you cannot do so, that your "logic and reason" will boil down to tripe such as "I have had experiences in my life that can only be explained by the existence of God". You may have had events in your life that reinforce your belief and faith in God, but that is NOT logic.
 
Kadarin said:
If you are going to make this assertion, the onus is on you to prove it. You have claimed in this thread to be able to do so via logic and reason, yet you have not posted either that logic or reason. I invite you to do so now.

I would speculate that you cannot do so, that your "logic and reason" will boil down to tripe such as "I have had experiences in my life that can only be explained by the existence of God". You may have had events in your life that reinforce your belief and faith in God, but that is NOT logic.
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The onus is on no one. You can't prove or disprove the existence of God, and any such statement about the existence or non-existence of God is a statement of a fundamental belief. One could no further "prove" the existence of God than prove the existence of his or her own mind (mind =/= brain).

Anything prior to or greater than the universe cannot be proven, simply because what we observe is within the universe. It doesn't mean such a being doesn't exist, but it does mean we would be limited to identify such a being other than by a representation of that being within the universe. Something akin to using an avatar - an image of that entity.

The question becomes whether or not there is or was such a being that made itself known to man. Obviously the answer would be dependent on faith, because there is no doubt that many have made the claim to be God, or that God existed in such a form in this universe. I - as a Christian - do believe that Jesus was the image of God. And yes, it does take faith to believe so.

There is no such thing as he absence of faith, though, as everyone inevitably puts their faith in something: in other gods, in material things, in spirits, in nature, or in themselves. Even atheism is not a rejection of faith, it is the belief in an eternal universe (or one that is born and dies in a never ending cycle). Even a refusal to deal with the question of first cause (i.e. "I don't know how the universe came into existence") is a statement in faith, because in practicality the person lives as his or her own god.

In any case, there is no proof or evidence for the fundamental question "how did the universe [or ominiverse, if you believe in other universes] come into existence?". Any answer is dependent on faith, not physical evidence.
 
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TheWiseOne said:
Can you provide some back up?


How do you explain folks that grew up with conscience-absent parents etc. but still have the capacity to decipher right from wrong? In other words there are people who were exposed to very UN-nurturing environments/people but who still have & use their conscience...


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I take it you aren't familiar with the phrase "it takes a community to raise a child."

Children in the developed world, while learning a great deal from the parents, learn far from in total from all the people they interact with. Teachers, classmates, neighbors, parents of friends, anyone else the kid meets, all lend a hand in raising that child, so to speak. They may not even be doing anything consciously for the child, simply interacting with him/her.

But nobody learns much of anything from only a single source. What gets repeated is learned most rapidly, and well... nobody really effectively teaches ethics and morals, but most of us put it all in practice for our daily lives, and the little things help mold the overall shape of a person.

Really, all of this is an unconscious conditioning we all commit ourselves toward.

I mean, think about it, we're entirely conditioned. And we continue to condition each other. We continually drill each other with admonitions against various crimes, but aside from legal code... what are the roots of our ethical and moral ideals?
To put it another way: why is something wrong?
"Because"
We are continually taught fairly simple ideas, with very little actual reasoning also included in the lessons. We aren't taught any detailed "why", we are given a short "well because so and so says so" (if it doesn't sound like that, it's likely only a more wordy sentence that, in all likelihood, equates to the shorter quoted sentence).
Because these simple lessons are being pummeled into our brains without end or mercy, it just becomes a simple fact that needs little rationale or further analysis.

This wasn't all in reply to the quoted post. I just branched further to get into the discussion already underway.
 
Pray To Jesus said:
Reason, logic, and experience tells me that God exists and that Jesus is his Son.

Therefore I feel that people who thinks otherwise are suffering from delusion. Usually it's the people who sin and likes to keep on sinning that tries their hardest to disbelieve. They feel more comfortable in their sins if they can convince other to behave and believe just as they do.

Just remember that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross has saved you from your sins, but only if you believe in him.
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That just cheapens the Sacrifice if there is a condition that goes with it. Would an all loving God make conditions, save all or none.
 
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