Survival of the Fittest

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Gary concludes his interview with Brett Prieto about worldviews and morality.

Author Matt Ridley attempts to account for morality among evolved human animals as “a spontaneous thing produced by social interaction among people seeking to find ways to get along.” How does he know this since it’s hard to trust an evolved brain that arose from lower life forms, something that vexed Charles Darwin? The following is from a letter Darwin wrote to William Graham:

I have had no practice in abstract reasoning and I may be all astray. Nevertheless you have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is not the result of chance. But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

Ridley mentions how the “disapproval of homosexuality has become ever more morally unacceptable in the West, while disapproval of pedophilia has become ever more morally mandatory.” He approves both trends. But on what fixed moral grounds?

There is no guarantee that as time goes on that the disapproval of pedophilia will not one day change. There are no moral guarantees in “the evolution of everything,” including social interactions and their current moral taboos. Ridley does not know what evolution will accomplish in 20, 30, or 100 years just like Darwin did not know in 1859 what his theory would achieve in a social context after the publication of his world-changing book On the Origin of Species.

At best, Ridley is naive. The 20th century was filled with examples of people not getting along by pursuing their own interests in the name of some idealist ideology for the betterment of mankind. What tyrant ever says, “Make me your leader and I’ll make things worse”? The stated goal is for the betterment of society, but there are a lot of people who believe that social betterment means some form of forced equality that in the end makes everyone equally poor. The character Syndrome from The Incredibles film speaks loudly today: “With everyone being super, no one will be.”

Why It Might Be OK to Eat Your Neighbor

The most damning assessment of a matter-only cosmos devoid of a Creator is that we got to this place in our evolutionary history by acts of violence whereby the strong conquered the weak with no one to support or condemn them. Why It Might Be OK to Eat Your Neighbor repeatedly raises the issue of accounting for the conscience, good and evil, and loving our neighbor. It’s shocking to read what atheists say about a cosmos devoid of meaning and morality.

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Gary concludes his interview with Brett Prieto about worldviews and morality. As he always does, Gary brings in pop culture and television and movies to help make his point about the need for an authoritative standard (a Lawgiver) in order to define right and wrong. Many claim to be moral and ethical without any actual basis for it.

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American Vision’s mission is to Restore America to its Biblical Foundation—from Genesis to Revelation. American Vision (AV) has been at the heart of worldview study since 1978, providing resources to exhort Christian families and individuals to live by a Biblically based worldview. Visit www.AmericanVision.org for more information, content and resources