We are either born with them or we are not.

While the Bible is fiction it is not without some merit. When Jesus was separating the sheep from the goats he said to the sheep, "When I was hungery you feed me. When I was naked you clothed me. When is was sick you comforted me, When I was in prison you visited me. The Sheep said that they did not recall ever doing that. Jesus said that when they did it for strangers they did it for him. 

When he got to the goats he said to them that they did not feed him, cloth him, comfort him or visit him in the slammer. The goats said, the didn't know it was him otherwise they would have kissed his ass. He told them they were all going to hell. 

What I get from this is goodness and morality is inborn. We do things because we want to and not because of a payoff or punishment if we don't. I don't think this is learned. Some people are good and others are scumbags. 

It is interesting that agnostics and atheists are under represented in prison and Muslims and Christians are overly represented. Sikhs, Buddhists, Hare Krishnas and Jews are under also represented in prison.

The most immoral people in the US are in the Bible Belt. The support Trump The AntiChrist Hypocrites!

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If goodness is inborn it is at times taken away by religious indoctrination. 

Doing it for him unknowingly while helping strangers?

Fuck him and the donkey he rode in on but leave the donkey alone cuz donkeys are not as jackass as a guy who would outdo Trump in self-importance.  How dear he tell others to be meek and self-effacing and poor! You hypocrite. Who died and made him emperor of the world?  

Religion can't make someone moral or immoral but it can make good people do bad things and it can make bad people do good things.

The sheep and goat story is not literal. Some of us are charitable and we show kindness to strangers with the expectation of nothing in return. They tend to be liberals. Then there are those whose philosophy is hooray for me and screw you. 

Jesus never existed. Jesus is a myth. 

I think the idea is that he did.

No, I don't think that morality is inborn.  Ultimately, morality originated when Homo sapiens learned that, in its formative stages, it could not survive on its own, that it required cooperation among its own kind in order to deal with an environment which varied from barely benign to downright lethal.  In that cooperation, we discovered that there could be conflicts between the interests of the individual and those of the group, where the number one consideration was SURVIVAL, and rules of behavior within a group evolved into what we now call morality.  Facets of human development which support morality, such as mirror neurons, are currently inborn, but an investigation of just WHEN the showed up in human history would make for a fascinating study.

As for the carpenter-turned-rabbi, this is the same guy who said you have to hate your mother, father, sister, brother, and indeed your own life if you wished to become his disciple, never mind the crack about bringing not peace but a sword and wanting to slay those who would not have him rule over them.  The bible is so badly self-conflicted that it may be construed as useless as a moral guide.  It could be argued that Aesop's Fables might be better suited as a reference.

Loren, I agree, the bible is chock full of unhealthy, immoral, unethical examples of human behavior. It is not a positive book of caring, cooperation, and community; it is a book of hate, killing, abandonment of family and community. It is "useless as a moral guide." Dr. Seuss offers positive encouragement without all the hating, killing, and abandonment. 

The Bible is a collection of books. Most of the NT was written by Paul who was a stooge for Rome. The Romans weaponized Christianity. The created Jesus of Nazareth and the turn the other cheek BS. In fact the image that we see of Jesus came from a Egyptian sculpture. The early Christians never heard of Jesus.

There are lessons in the Bible that can be helpful. The story of Jesus separating goats from the lambs was probably taken from an earlier work. For me, that story is about altruism. 

I find it hard to accept that turds like Donald Trump live charmed lives and die in luxury after screwing people over their entire lives. Can you see why people want their to be eternal justice? At least moral people want that.

I have no problem hitting false Christians over the head with their Bibles because of their hypocrisy than then watching them try to lie their way out of it but by the same token I am respectful to Jews and sincere Christians.

Chuck, do yourself a favor and do some research.  The Romans did NOT either invent or "weaponize" Christianity.  Richard Carrier debunked that load of bull years ago, and I suspect he's not the only one to do so.  Certainly, Constantine empowered Christians, whereupon they ran amok and initialized the phenomenon we now know, but Joseph Atwill is full of beans.

Personally, I AM a mythicist.  I do not think that there ever was such a person as Yeshua of Nazareth, but I also do not think he was either invented by the Romans or the early church.

I think it is inborn in humans and other animals because there are things that we do that don't benefit us from and evolutionary point of view. There was a gorilla that had a pet cat when the cat died the gorilla cried for days. We could chalk it up to some evolutionary or socializing advantage but that would be a stretch. 

I had a dog that could somehow tell I was having a bad day. She somehow sensed it and she gave me those dog hugs. I didn't feed that dog. It wasn't cupboard love. I was just a kid. There was no pay-off for the dog.

My father was a compassionate man and my mother was a raging diabolical bitch. How were they served by that?

Again, Jesus never existed. "Jesus" also said that slave should obey their masters and he said give to Caesar that which is Caeser's... The Romans owned slaves and they wanted taxes paid.  The NT was created to control the population of Rome and all the people Rome conquered. 

The Bible is a collection of tiny books than often contradict themselves and other books.



Loren, mirror neurons were discovered in monkeys.  Mirror neurons are in other mammals and some birds as well. Also it has been observed by ethologists that morality is present in other animals. So i think it would be millions of years that our forbears have had mirror neurons. 

And while I'm not evolution scientist, why do I get the feeling that those species who had social structures and developed mirror neurons survived and those that didn't ... DIDN'T?  Thing is, this completely apart from the business of comparing the naturalistic model of the development of morals against the superimposition of morals posed by the bible.  The former explanation makes sense.  The latter doesn't.

"We are either born with them (morals) or we are not."  WRONG! 

"Learning is a change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience."

Learned Behavior includes Imprinting, Habituation, and Conditioning


~ 7 Lovable Personality Traits You're Born With Vs. Ones You Can De... 

"A lot of people have this idea that personality traits are something you either have or don’t have, but really it’s about the level and style of trait you were born with and how they were nurtured throughout your life,"

~ Desiree Wiercyski, life coach

There are people who are just no damn good. They are not confused. Whether you can put some shrink label on it is irrelevant. Cluster B personality types are most often beyond help. 

BF Skinner was full of shit. Neuroscience proved him wrong. Depravity is not learned. We are not blanks slates. Take the racist for example. We hear stories about one of them reforming because those stories are the exception that proves the rule.  An intellectually honest person would reject racism. The moral person would eventually reject the brain washing. 

The moral person does the moral thing. 

Trump supporter summarily reject the the truth. It's not because they are stupid. They are immoral. They are no different than the Nazis. 

Neuroscience says that people are born with different dispositions and personalities. Nurture cannot change nature. Nurture didn't create Donald Trump. Nurture didn't create Hitler. 

A large share of our behaviors are hardwired. It's genetic.  

It's wishful thinking that therapy can help bad people become good people. Actually it's a con. Very few true criminals feel remorse.

Do you think trash like Franklin Graham, Trump, Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, Mike Huckabee, Haggee, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Roy Moore etc etc.. stop being evil bastards and gain morals if someone could "reach' them?  Those guys were no good the moment they slithered out of their mother's hole. They should have been aborted. 




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