--------------- Carvalho wrote: A more fitting response would have been Frazer's viewpoint that anthropologically speaking, evidence points to the fact that all societies evolve to arrive at the same moral values. Some just take a lot longer. The Fijians would ultimately stop using human flesh as canapes before dinner, even without the help of interventionist missionaries. This being a debate, perhaps it's hard to come up with good responses thinking on your feet as it were, whiskey glass in hand.
---------------- GL responds: Selma, I am no anthropologist. Yet I see some contradictions in your posts. Your / Frazer's viewpoint as stated below flies in face of Hitchens' claim. Based on Frazer's theory (as stated by you), any individual / religion that helps the society "evolve to arrive at the same moral values" at a faster rate should be a good thing. After all according to Darwin any sustained evolution is a positive development. Yet, according to Hitchens, religion or any man-made moral philosophy poisons everything (title of his book - "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything"). So atheists / humanists need to make up their mind if moral teachings (endogeous or exogenous) which helps society evolve (faster) is good or bad? Further analysis of perspectives in your various posts, have more contradictions. Above, you claim that left to anthropological evolution, some societies will take (a lot) longer to arrive are the same moral goal post (what ever that may be). Yet in you prior post, you chide God for letting some societies languish (anthropologically speaking). And when moral messengers (who may or may not come from God) arrive to hasten the moral-thinking process (anthropologically speaking), atheists refuse to accept the contributions and teachings of these (endogeous or exogenous) messengers. Finally, Hitchens' (and Dinesh's) responses were hopefully not arrived at by "thinking on your feet as it were, whiskey glass in hand", but rather after careful thought which they present in their books. That was the reason for my prior post to read the books before extemporizing on the views and theories of the two debaters. Kind Regards, GL
