The way I see it, humanity evolved to remove itself from nature, so now the weak sometimes proliferate, and the strong are kept down, the mutation is ostracized, and evolutionary forces are frustrated. That’s humanity. — Fire Ologist

You seem to be an adherent of the law of the jungle: survival by any means possible. You think anarchy a companion to evolution? You think social welfare programs a perversion of nature?

God as goal has been refuted by science, but replaced with humanity’s self-assessment of “human progress” as goal. — Fire Ologist

You think humanity has internalized God?

Are you proposing sociology as a replacement for the moral authority of church and bible? — ucarr

I don't have much use for the notion of a moral authority. I am (quite possibly naively) hopeful that humanity developing better understanding of human nature and thus more accurate understanding of one another, will continue yielding positive results.

You think anarchy a companion to evolution? You think social welfare programs a perversion of nature? — ucarr

Not a perversion of nature. I think it is good that humans have removed themselves from nature. Charity, and saving the weak are good.

Chemistry spit out a creature that is not only chemical, but lives and evolves, being now biological. Biology spit out a creature that deliberates and uses language to promote rights and laws, being now human. So now, the changes to humanity are not merely evolutionary (biological), they are personal. The personal is of a different category than the biological (subject to evolutionary forces), just as the biological is of a different category than the chemical.

And there is no hierarchy here. Humans may in fact be “better” than a chemical, or an amoeba, but I’d rather just say humans are different, doing things unlike anything done in nature, like an amoeba does things unlike anything chemical.

We won’t evolve to be a better society. We have to invent it whole cloth and then constrain any biological instincts or physical forces that frustrate our invention.

The word evolution when applied to recorded human history is used as a metaphor. Human society is not an environment the same way the Galapagos was an environment for finches. It’s not survival and mutation that brought democracy to topple kings or voting rights to all citizens. We can, like poets, see what we do as like what the ants do and the bees and the other monkeys. But we can see a fire burning as a living animal, consuming, moving itself, etc. These are metaphors, not actual accounts of observed facts.

Nothing else in the universe makes metaphors. This is the human.
Nothing else in the universe makes laws either.

So in the end, if you take away God, we are left with faith in humanity to build any progress. No chemicals or evolutionary forces to guide us. Just us.

But we build all the strife between us as well. We build the problems we are trying to build solutions for.

So I just think it is realistic to be skeptical of human progress from humanly created problems. I don’t have faith in humanity.

But I love humanity, and I love evolutionary forces, and chemicals. Which is why I still believe in God. My hope is for grace for all of us, because we are lousy at being the top of the food chain.

I don't have much use for the notion of a moral authority. — wonderer1

Not even your own? If you refuse to internalize moral principles you believe in and abide by, you're making yourself indistinguishable from a sociopath.

So now, the changes to humanity are not merely evolutionary (biological), they are personal. The personal is of a different category than the biological (subject to evolutionary forces), just as the biological is of a different category than the chemical. — Fire Ologist

Are personal changes roughly equivalent to volitional decisions?

We won’t evolve to be a better society. We have to invent it whole cloth and then constrain any biological instincts or physical forces that frustrate our invention. — Fire Ologist

You don't think personal cognition can evolve?

Are personal changes roughly equivalent to volitional decisions? — ucarr

The mind, however it comes to be (such as consciousness with/in/of the brain) is simultaneous with decisions (judgments, choices) directing reason (logic, language, law). So yes, decisions/choices/judgments are bound up in it. (I have no real idea how, but I also don’t see chemistry or biology alone as ever accounting for what we are doing right now in this conversation).

You don't think personal cognition can evolve? — ucarr

I think the brain can evolve (over at least tens of thousands of years), and our minds can influence the physical world, so in the mix, personal cognition can evolve as our brains evolve; we may get faster at doing logic, higher percentages of higher intelligence in the population, able to multitask better, but thinking we are all subject to a king, and then discovering all men are created equal isn’t evolution in a non-metaphorical sense.

If you refuse to internalize moral principles you believe in and abide by, you're making yourself indistinguishable from a sociopath. — ucarr

That's not a real problem. People who know me don't have any trouble making the distinction.

That's not a real problem. People who know me don't have any trouble making the distinction. — wonderer1

So, your behavior follows patterns exhibiting moral principles, thus you are your own moral authority. If I'm right about this, then you understand other individuals are their own moral authorities. This leads to comparisons of moral concepts. In turn, this leads to a measure of objectivity about which concepts are best. Next, we have a developing consensus towards an external database of more principles acting as a moral authority for a right-thinking society.

How do you suppose your personal authority can have no use for comparison with an objective database of socially sanctioned authority?