How Darwinians Approach the Golden Rule

Is nothing sacred?  Gretchen Vogel has written a piece on “The Evolution of the Golden Rule” in the Feb. 20 issue of Science.¹
    Jesus Christ and most religious teachers have taught the Golden Rule as a moral principle and a sacred duty, but to Darwinians, it must have evolved like everything else.  Yet this poses a conundrum, as Vogel states in the subtitle: “Humans and other primates have a keen sense of fairness and a tendency to cooperate, even when it does them no discernible good.”  In a world of competition, fitness and survival, why would animals cooperate, or why would one “lay down his life for his friends”?
    Vogel describes competing theories, such as strong reciprocity, game theory, and reciprocal altruism.  Studies on monkey fairness, neurological signals, and mathematical modeling have each participated in answering the question, but each of the explanations offered have one thing in common.  They assume the Golden Rule is an artifact of an evolutionary process, not a moral absolute.  (The article also touches on the evolution of suicide bombings.)

¹Gretchen Vogel, “Behavioral Evolution: The Evolution of the Golden Rule,” Science, Volume 303, Number 5661, Issue of 20 Feb 2004, pp. 1128-1131.

If this article doesn’t make you mad, it should.  It means nothing less than the demise of personal responsibility and the downfall of civilization.  If suicide bombing is merely an evolutionary behavior, then it is not morally wrong, just unfortunate for the victims.  Pastors and believers everywhere had better wake up and get angry that the ultimate altruism, depicted in The Passion, is being presented by mad scientists as the result of evolution from monkey antics.  This is not only disingenuous (see 12/18/2002 entry) and blasphemous to a large segment of the population, but a self-defeating claim.  A Golden Rule that evolves is neither golden, nor a rule.  It’s fool’s gold.  These charlatans use humans as lab rats (see 06/25/2002 entry), but exclude their own intellects as relics of rat behavior.  Let’s turn the game on them and ask about the The Evolution of Evolutionary Nonsense.  Short circuit!
    Darwinists have a sick habit of talking about “the evolution of” this and that and whatever, even the teachings of Jesus.  Darwinists treat their little catch-phrase the same way some superstitious people talk about “the demon of” this or that, like the demon of alcohol or the demon of bad breath.  “The evolution of” is a mere mantra, an intellectual plaything or hook on which to build any plot (see “The Evolution of Presbyterians,” 09/03/2002, “The Evolution of Rape” 07/18/2003, “The Evolution of Monogamy” 07/03/2003, “The Evolution of Fairness” 09/17/2003, and “The Evolution of War” 09/16/2003).  It is their hammer that sees everything as a nail.  It doesn’t bother them that they can never figure it out (see “Human Kindness,” 10/23/2003, and 06/23/2003).  It’s OK.  They don’t have to figure it out.  They just get kicks out of arguing about it.  They have the audacity to become our preachers (see “User’s Guide to Life” 04/25/2003), and they think creationists are the doctrinaires, beholden to their dogmas (doctrinaire, n., “one who attempts to put into effect an abstract doctrine or theory with little or no regard for practical difficulties”).
    Such nonsense and amorality deserves the severest reproach any respectable human being can muster.  Tough love, after all, is a corollary of the Golden Rule.  If you were spouting a foolish or dangerous teaching, wouldn’t you want someone to correct you?  Then take some advice from the Apostle Paul: “For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers … whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain” (Titus 1:10-11).  Each generation has its deceivers.  It is an abdication of social responsibility to let their lies go unchallenged.
    Watch where you deposit your intellectual and moral treasures.  The Darwin Party Credit Union is going bankrupt.  Jesus said, “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this it the Law and the Prophets” (Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7:12).  Now there’s genuine Gold you can bank on, with real interest, compounded daily.