The better angels of our nurture

[boztopia]

From author Matt Ridley's Nature Via Nurture:

"To base any moral position on natural fact, whether that fact is derived from nature or from nurture, is asking for trouble. In my morality, and I hope in yours, some things are bad but natural, like dishonesty and violence; others are good but less natural, like generosity and fidelity."I've been

Comments

[bitterbert]

I urge you, again and most strongly, to read Eric Hoffer.

"Evil, in its base form, is the relaxing of responsibility. "He made me do it." "It wasn't my fault." "It wasn't my responsibility." When you shut down your capacity to make reasoned decisions and just blindly follow orders, you are opening the door to the potential for evil.

Mr. Hoffer: "There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Both the strong and the weak grasp at this alibi. The latter hide their malevolence under the virtue of obedience: they acted dishonorably because they had to obey orders. The strong, too, claim absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instrument of a higher power- God, history, fate, nation or humanity."

I am curious why you would not want to submit to God. It seems to me that a rational person invested with free will would, upon finding God, willingly submit to the suggestions of such a superior being. Perhaps your objection to religions reqiring submission is not submission to God, but submission to the preacher?