Morality and Gravity, cont.

But here is the problem. Gravitation can shown to exist independently of human opinion.

Exactly where is the problem?

Steve, you are contradicting yourself. You imply (above) that, unlike gravity, morality can not be "shown to exist independently of human opinion," yet in a prior post, you raise the "issue of the presence of moral behavior in other species," and that there is "clear evidence of such behavior in complex animals such as apes, cetaceans and elephants."

In response to my claim that "Life is sacred" was an irreducible principle, you said that "Principles don't become irreducible simply because we state they are. They have to be shown to be."

Nor are they reducible simply because we say they are. I suppose you could just say "Life is," but that wouldn't really be a "principle," per se. But hey, if you can reduce it, I'm open to correction.

On where people's derive their sense of morality, you said "I say they have evolved that way. A species like ours would not survive for long if we hadn't!"

Well, to paraphrase something you said, "Claiming that morality evolved doesn't make it so. It have to be shown to be." I'm sure you are aware there are scientists who share your view on evolution, but strongly disagree with you on the notion of "evolved morality." (And by the way, I would take your statement one step further and say I don't know how a species like ours would have survived at all without it!")

Would you like to move on to another topic? I kinda feel like we're not making much progress here.

(By the way, I visited Brian's site (he made a comment). Sharp guy, as are some of his commentators.