[JackFr]

It's not silly -- it's the whole point.

Suicide bombers see a different purpose to their lives than (presumably) you and I do. By their own measure they are not doing badly, they are doing quite well.

Or consider Richard Dawkin's famous criticisms of Mother Theresa. Mother Theresa unashamedly put religion ahead material comfort among the poor she ministered too. To say she was wrong in so doing is not a statement of fact. It is a statement of ones personal values.

[eli_gottlieb]

>Suicide bombers see a different purpose to their lives than (presumably) you and I do. By their own measure they are not doing badly, they are doing quite well.

And objectively, suicide bombers are dead, which puts them far behind those of us who remain alive -- at least, by any sensible measure. Of course, when you unravel the story behind the average suicide bomber, you usually find that they were shamed or pressured into the deed, and in fact, have not accomplished, in committing a suicide bombing, all their own noble goals in life.

They are actually sad, pathetic people exploited by powerful clerics to be turned into little more than explosive puppets.

[JackFr]

> at least, by any sensible measure

That's pure question begging.

[JoeAltmaier]

Really that's pointing out a bad example, which is fair in a discussion.

[JackFr]

It's question begging because 'any sensible measure' is meant to exclude the subjective measure by which suicide bombers are valuing their own lives. The whole point is that their worldview -- what is important, what is to be valued during our brief time on earth, etc. -- is radically different than yours or mine.

And yet the only argument I seem to get in favor of the worldview that (I believe) you and I largely share is "C'mon. Don't be silly.", which might be rhetorically effective, but is not evidence based.

The important difference is that I am willing to accept that I believe it without proof. You see and the parent seem to need to claim it's 'scientific' and 'rational' to embrace a worldview which values life, freedom, knowledge, etc.

[JoeAltmaier]

Empirically, its obvious. Most people on the planet value these things. Societies are under selection pressure like organisms. So these things must be advantageous to societies.

Clearer?

[JackFr]

So you're willing abandon good and evil in favor of selection pressure? That is to say suicide bombers aren't wrong, they're just the light-colored moths of our day?

[nitrogen]

The existence of personal values is a fact that has biological and cultural origins that can be studied.

Also, you are conflating one person's opinion with science.

On the subject of cultural differences in morality, these can be surveyed empirically and considered within a framework of natural selection (both biological and cultural). One can choose to derive any moral framework they wish, but scientifically speaking, the moral frameworks that survive are those that can yield the greatest memetic survival advantage of the framework itself.

And in the end, it's all just physics anyway.