“Don’t worry, guys! I am writing a series! I won’t take a 1 week break!” And it wasn’t even a lie, because I accidentally took 2.5 weeks off. Goood times.

Some days, my head is in worse condition than others, and while this blog has generally been my own personal self-therapy, I just couldn’t make myself write. It isn’t even that I haven’t been writing, I have just been so unsatisfied with what I was writing that I couldn’t bear to publish it. Also, I hate that WordPress moved the settings and options to the left when it used to be on the right.

As Facebook has proven, the smallest changes cause the most irrational anger, for at least a week or two, then everything is ok again. Well, theoretically–I’ve been using the left side bar for a few weeks now, and I still hate it.

My complaining aside, I couldn’t actually publish a post without content, and Creation Today hosted a blog post that was everything I have been talking about since I started this blog, but inverted. I tried to find the original version of that post (pingbacks are the heart of blogging) but it seems to be hidden somewhere.

Onto the meat, though, in that this is a very intelligent writer who, unfortunately, seems very prone to literal application of rhetoric. The part that irked me so was his understanding of morality, and his literal application of “Stardust shooting holes in stardust.” If you’ve not read it, I believe he is referencing the legendary quote by Carl Sagan that “We are all star stuff,” so shooting each other should have no bounds in morality–but this shows a complete lack of understanding in evolutionary morality. I really wanted to link to the source article because I had hoped that it would give my article even the smallest chance of being read by the original author–I think he is capable of critical thought, the switch is just stuck in the off position.

Again, in the off chance that he may read this post some day, I will explain morality from a purely scientific standpoint (though Sam Harris has done it better, in his own militant New Atheist kind of way). Dawkins has also tackled the issue more indirectly, though it is a vein of silver that runs through all of his books and ideas.

The short version is this: evolution is about survival. Our world is complicated and difficult to survive in. Therefore, to maximize chance for survival, we must live in groups. To live in groups, we must have something akin to a ruleset of morality. Throughout the over 3 billion year history of evolution, most, but not all, immorality has been thrown out. That being said, there are some glaring oversights in evolution’s wide scope, and I think they prove evolution rather than prove morals inscribed upon our soul by an Almighty God.

The first is sexual infidelity. Males are generally more susceptible to this, and evolution explains it very well where “morals placed upon our soul by God” does not. If God put these morals in our soul, why are so many so quick to violate them? Why are clergymen prey to them so easily? Why would God write such a power of lust into us that it overrides the morals He put into us?

Evolution explains it well, and it even explains why males tend to be more susceptible. Women are susceptible, too, but to a lesser extent. Women are only capable of reproduction during a certain percentage of the time, a relatively small percentage–and once successful reproduction has occurred, they are unable to reproduce continually while pregnant. For a woman, instinctually, it is preferable to have a male counterpart who will remain present to assist in the upbringing of a child. Males, however, are capable of almost constant reproduction from the time they hit puberty until the time they die, and evolution wants them to. If they could impregnate 1000 women, their progeny would almost guarantee the survival of his genes. For a man, successful reproduction is less about caring for a single offspring as is it is about having enough offspring that (to quote an American colloquialism) their genes are “Too big to fail.”

To that end, men’s eyes wander, searching for more potential mates.

It is not a romantic notion, I have to agree. That being said, it explains why men and women must fight with their own sexual urges, rather than merely relying on God given morality. Science explains our sins, if sins they be, where religion just raises at least one further question: Why did God do such a hack job of making moral humans?

Oh, you can quote The Fall, the Curse of Sin all you want–the reason that argument does not hold water for long is simple: if God is omniscient, He knew humans would eat of the tree before He created humans… And yet He created us in the Garden, by the Tree anyway? That is a parent leaving a 15 year old at home alone, saying “Don’t go into the liquor cabinet, which we’ve left unlocked, and that you can reach easily!” And, of course, with similarly predictable results.

Now we move on to the Monkeysphere. For those not familiar with it, it is currently the modern distillation of Dunbar’s Number, which describes the number of people in your life that you are capable of truly caring about. Before you get up in arms, saying I can’t put a number on such a thing, describe to me your reaction to the thought (or, if it has happened, the event) of your mother dying. Now describe to me your thought of, say, Bill O’Reilly dying. I’ll bet one is outright anguish, and the other is… Well, I suppose that depends on your political leanings. The point is this; if our morals are universal, granted by God, what is it that should cause me to care more about my dogs than, say, cousin Chuck who lives in Albuquerque? (Oh yes, I know about your cousin Chuck!)

The answer, again, lies in evolution. As before, we are programmed to survive in groups by our survival instincts, but we evolved only to live in groups about 100 large. In a world of universal love impressed upon my soul by God, why should I cry more for the death of my cat than I did for the 200,000 who died in the Indonesian Tsunami of 2005? Cry more for the ills felt by my dog than for the 800,000 who were left homeless and starving? And before you call me callous or cruel, did you cry? What was your reaction to 9/11, if you were old enough to have truly been aware of it? I am sure it was a bit of stunned shock, but not nearly so much as the stunned shock you felt when your first pet died. If you never had a pet, then the death of a beloved family member. If you have never felt either of those losses, wait–they will come, and you will realize that love is not universal, it cannot be, by the limits set upon our human brains by evolution.

I think I’ve covered this in implication, but I’d like to cover it explicitly. The author writes “Some will then go on to argue that right and wrong is just what is beneficial to society. But why is benefiting society right?”

The reason is this: the entire goal of evolution is survival of the species. Through 3 billion years of mixing genetic code (FOR SCIENCE!) evolution has come to the conclusion that survival depends on more than just you and your monkeysphere. Protecting the survival of the gene is the highest order goal of evolution, therefore evolution has programmed into us a sense of empathy. The thing about evolution is that while it is masterful at what it does, genetics is complicated enough that other things slip through the cracks; psychopathy, sociopathy, people simply lacking in empathy, a callous disregard for the well being of other humans independent of the above conditions… I can explain those, using both recessive genes and large numbers, allowing for undesirable traits to continue to replicate. The most unfortunate part is how our empathy does not just allow for replication of undesirable traits, but how our empathy enables it. I am not here to preach for the application of Eugenics, my own personal sense of empathy would never allow for it, but the coldly logical part of my brain does realize that the human race could be drastically improved by … Well, if I complete that sentence I know it will be held against me, despite my not agreeing with it.

The funny thing is how much evolution is often in conflict with the teachings of the Bible. Homosexuality is an easy one, a low hanging fruit for me to grasp, and wow–that sentence got weird quickly. In any case, there is evidence that homosexuality may exist at the gene level. This next part is hilarious to me; the stance of the Church that homosexuality is a choice, and the idea that they can be forced to be heterosexual, is basically allowing the homosexual gene to not just propagate in the species, but spread and grow. I’d be willing to bet the percentage of the homosexual population in the Church is a growing statistic, though I don’t have that number.

Man, if it turns out definitively that homosexuality is genetic, and the Church has been forcing homosexuals to reproduce against their instincts… Man, the Church will have so much egg on its face.

“There is no logic behind this, because there is no explanation as to why benefiting society is the correct thing to do.” No, Mr Writer, that is not true — and even a cursory reading of only the most popular books on evolution (A great place to start, as always, is “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins. It is a book purely on science, lacking most of his later vitriol) will show you that even in the 1970s we had an idea of why benefiting society is a personal benefit to the survival of the entire species. We don’t just know, at this point, we’ve plumbed those depths at length.

“But what about the atheist? If it was simply stardust blowing holes in stardust, then what reason is there to cry? What reason is there to demand justice?” Oh dear, we are getting deep into the rabbit hole now, aren’t we, Alice? Most atheists witnessing a random murder will not cry, I will give you that, but shock and horror, disgust, and empathy for the victim? Those, certainly, we will feel at witnessing this–for we have empathy as well as you do. The only difference is that varying strengths of empathy, various emotional dispositions are easily explained by evolution, where I have never heard of a good reason why a psychopath should exist in a world where morals and emotions are impressed upon our soul by God.

To clarify, a psychopath will often have no empathy at all, their actions have no mental repercussions. They are not someone who made poor choices and ended up doing something awful–they were born without the ability to understand why what they do is awful. Did God just miss them? Forget to give them morals? Some serial killers who turned out to be psychopaths, who killed 10 people, each of those with 50 friends and family to mourn their losses… God just forgot to give them morals like the rest of us, and because of that a rough guess at 500 lives being ruined? Explain that.

I can explain it through evolution, but can you explain it through God?