Stupid driver or attempted murder?
Stumble ThisDawkins discusses how morals shift over time, between generations and without regard to religious status.
Here are some of the people, events and topics he references throughout the clip:
Thomas Henry Huxley
Abraham Lincoln
Lady Chatterley's Lover
World War II and the invasion of Iraq
Donald Rumsfeld
Sir Arthur Harris
Adolf Hitler
Genghis Khan
HG Wells
Here are some of the people, events and topics he references throughout the clip:
Thomas Henry Huxley
Abraham Lincoln
Lady Chatterley's Lover
World War II and the invasion of Iraq
Donald Rumsfeld
Sir Arthur Harris
Adolf Hitler
Genghis Khan
HG Wells
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
How to explain the increasing level of violence? Technology doesn't cut it. Just because we can look down our noses at some archaic ways of thinking about racism and sexism proves we are advancing morally? Society has yet to advance a higher moral ground than "love your enemies." That was proposed 2,000 years ago.
Dawkins allows for this morality shift among modern, progressive, "rational," thinking, "civilized," people like we 21st century bohemian aristocrats (covered up with cappuccino grunge), however disallows the same fluidity to the 3,000 year span of time covered by the Bible. He has as fundamentalist interpretation of those documents as is seen in any Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell.
However, he is still among the greatest moral philosophers of all time, because we have to remember that he lived in a very tribal, small and dangerous world. Jesus didnt know, for instance, what the world map looked like. A random 10 year old today knows more about how the world works than Jesus ever did.
We are having conversations here literally over distances Jesus didnt even know about, across seas and continents that for all he knew could lead to the gates of hell if he traveled far enough. We no longer see "the far east" as some distant, far-off abyss we've never been to, instead, we are more likely to have Japanese friends on facebook. It goes without saying that our ability to see this planet as one, small speck in the midst of a gigantic universe, changes our perspective radically, this kind of knowledge and leap in communication accounts for the rapid movement of the moral zeitgeist for the last couple of hundred years.
http://www.videosift.com/video/TED-Steven-Pinker-A-brief-history-of-violence