a1swdeveloper
2 min readJul 31, 2024

--

What a fascinating article. I study philosophy and morality a fair amount, but at the core, I'm a biologist. Interpreting your essay in biological terms isn't hard.

As for the twins, that is the story of the two wolves. A grandfather describes to his grandson his internal battles by explaining that two wolves are fighting within him, with one being good and the other being evil.

To a biologist the evil one is nature's win-lose "red of tooth and claw" while good is the win-win cooperative abilities that the large human brain evolved to allow.

Now faith, that's a blow mind to a biologist... like me. What is faith? One clue is that it is said to be the greatest power. "the truth of faith is moral" so to a biologist, might faith relate to moral instinct? No, they are related but different. If faith is so powerful, what is supposed to be the greatest power in nature to a biologist? Survival instinct, older than moral instinct. Morality is the intersection of moral instinct and a learned moral system. It is how we tell right from wrong. Faith, our survival instinct is why we choose between right and wrong.

So does that say anything about "you can’t force the object of your faith into the world"? It does. There is a way to "teach" faith and this biologist says that we must do it to survive. I mean, we are obviously in a moral crisis. A believer would say that only faith can save us. What if the biologist agrees, but says biology can tell you what faith is. Knowing that gives great power.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

--

--

a1swdeveloper
a1swdeveloper

Written by a1swdeveloper

I work on long term human survival as humans try to adapt to a new ecology after we left the tribal ecology for the farms and cities of civilization

Responses (1)