Reply to Question for atheists: What governs how you live your life?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Look at colonies of ants or bees and see how they cooperate. Do they cooperate because the sweet baby Jesus told them to? No, they cooperate as a result of evolution. 
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Yes.  This.

Bees are an example of the mindless imperative to cooperate regardless of morality.

It's when an organism becomes more intelligent, more emotionally sophisticated, that cooperation requires empathy - the desire to avoid causing pain to others, the desire to see others experience well being and joy.

In the absence of a developed sense of empathy, one might require, say, an organized religion to enforce mutually beneficial behaviors.  [/quote]

Yes, but bees have no concept of good and evil (I guess, I don't really know). Humans have this concept. Why? What originally dictated what is good and what is evil? To simply say that society dictates it speaks to the product, not the creator.

[/quote]

Again, which creator are you talking about? Have you ever taken time to read up on creator gods, besides the one you believe in? Why does that particular creator god resonate with you?

Concepts of "good" and "bad" are not inherent in nature or humans. What is inherent in humans, is a desire for order and structure - to make and create social patterns that we can predict and have greater control of. Those orders and structures obviously change depending on what society thinks is important, but we all have the inherent need to have order - though the details change as cultures change. That's why there are so many religions and gods - they're somewhat codified examples of the order and structure created in a particular socio-cultural context. But as the needs change, the details change. You never lose the need for order & structure, however - but the specificities evolve to suit new socio-cultural needs. [/quote]

Where did this need for order come from? Are we born with it? Why is order important? Why is chaos not okay?[/quote]

The need for order is an evolutionary mechanism - it's the same reason why we don't repeatedly touch a hot stove - predictability and having order makes our species survive. Knowing what will happen is essential for survival. The droughts, bad storms, tsunamis, were explanations that a god was angry with us and punishing us. The need to explain those phenomenon, and further control them by being good to the gods, was critical to feed communities. Of course, now we know it has nothing to do with any gods, but we still like to know so that we can plan. Planning and knowing drive us forward towards greater survival success rates. [/quote]

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