a debate [01/24/2007 17:02:13]

A Christian friend of mine recently asked me where I got my morals and direction in life, since I don't have a god telling me what to do. The conversation kind of broke down into a debate about evolution.

At one point, he asked: did you know that Hitler and Marx were evolutionists?

I said that doesn't surprise me and otherwise let it slide. But it's been bugging me.

First off, I don't think Marx was a bad guy. I don't know a lot about him, and I'm a pretty hard core capitalist myself, but... The dude at least wanted to help people. I mean there's a reason guys like Che Guevara are considered heroes by so many. They took up arms to fight for poor people who were suffering. Did they have it right? Not so much. Were some of the communist leaders paranoid, power hungry butchers? Yes, and that's often still the case today.

Second, Hitler was a horrible person, but I bet he liked puppies. Does that make dog owners nazis? Of course not. This kind of comment is a blatant logical fallacy, and if you bring that kind of talk into a debate, you look stupid for buying into it, and you're insulting to the person you're talking to. Just don't do it. Thank you.

As for the main question of how you know what's right and wrong without a god to tell you, I tried to make the point that principles are just there. Things like helping other people and telling the truth and working hard and not stealing and so on. You can believe that some divine being set things up this way, or you can believe that the principles just sort of emerged as hard wired features of our neurology through evolution, or whatever. It doesn't really matter why.

Anyway, this is all a big tangent from the post I meant to write, so... The end.