“(1700 BC if I am correct)”

You do not believe the Earth to be 6000 years old, do you?

“There is no evidence that moral behaviour is in any way instinctive”

I doubt that. Like I said, I’m no expert, but I remember seeing some studies with very interesting results in that direction. Especially when it comes to reactions without thinking, one would not expect that the Bible’s teachings to be very effective! Rather, it is the instinct that drives such reactions. And most of them are morally “biased”.

“There is substantial amount of evidence and logic against.”

Which is? You make a lot of noise with your claims but without giving any example or evidence whatsoever. I can say that the teaching of a moral conduct does give the “subject” an upgrade of morality. That’s called “Education”. And it comes from “Culture”, which is, culturally biased towards the traditions of the countries we live in. It’s no wonder you equate so much the Bible with Morals, because it has been so for so many years. Still, it fails to recognize that the Bible DOES preach rape and homossexual discrimination, for example, when we already learnt that this should not be the case. It also preaches genocide. The core of what we say is that we KNOW these things to be bad DESPITE what the Bible says, which means that our values don’t come from the Bible, but rather from an empirical method.

“Lorenz’s theories were used by the Nazi’s to justify ethnic cleansing and the mass murder of millions of Jews, gypsies and other misfits to their perfect race.”

So was Democracy. So was the military. So were the people. So were the weapons. So what? If you use the Bible to beat someone to death, does that mean that the Bible is the devil, or you’re the devil? That’s a childish comment.

“If you knew about genes then you will know that no individual action or environmental influence has any impact of the genes we pass on. That is already determined. Yet behaviour, especially moral behaviour, changes not only between generations, but within a generation, even within a day. No gene will ever account for that rapid change.”

If YOU knew about genes you WOULD know that the individual actions of the parents of a child are DIRECTLY responsible for that child’s survival and success. If that parent decides to kill himself, there’s little hope for the child. If the parent decides to kill someone’s child, there’s a chance of a revenge. This is addressed in the theories of evolution: the better the society works as a whole, the better it is prepared to survive, and in the long term, people will choose better solutions and increase their morals. This happens in real History. Our morals today cannot compare to those a thousand years ago.

To the notion that someone can change “in a second”, well yes, but that is a totally different subject.

“The vast majority of human behaviour is learnt.”

Yes, but even culture and society’s behaviours do have evolutionary patterns and phenomenons. Culture evolution is like the gene’s one, but very faster. People not be naturally “sacked” by Natural Selection for the gene to evolve, because culture can be spread throughout the species.

“Should Dawkins bother to walk down the corridors to his colleagues then he would have been told that the theory of attitudes and therefore memes has a number of problems.”

Again, everything that a Evolutionist preaches is very complicated and has a lot of problems, while I’m sure that your solution is simple, straightforward and oh so very true! Bollocks. If they have problems, let them solve them, just like Evolution had its problems and they were eventually solved. That’s called “Science” btw, and not “Dogma”.

“The religious soul is another invention that cannot be seen or measured.”

Allelluiah to that.

“Perhaps because social scientists know that reason will not prevail until the emotions have been exhausted.”

If so, adamantly wrong about that. It’s very very bad for scientists to shut up when the discussion is about their thematics, what are they thinking? They should concern themselves to discuss these matters when they are hot, not when they are iced. If they “decided” to shut up, it is because a) they have nothing to note about this, or b) they agree generally with Dawkins. c) they don’t like Dawkins case but don’t care is not acceptable.

It is not an argument I would accept and there is little doubt for me that moral behaviour proceeded the Old Testament period.

There is no evidence that moral behaviour is in any way instinctive. There is substantial amount of evidence and logic against. It is not for me to rehearse the evidence here, I suggest you do look at the work of the behavioral science disciplines - anthropology, sociology, political science and psychology.

Dawkins is none of these. He is a geneticist. As physical science searches for the THE THEORY EVERYTHING, Dawkins would no doubt like to believe that ‘The Selfish Gene’ maybe the theory of everything in the biological and social science. It is not and never will be. Look closely and you will see Dawkins is not even a Darwinian evolutionist. Dawkins is an evolutionist but more in the mould of ethology and Konrad Lorenz. Lorenz’s theories were used by the Nazi’s to justify ethnic cleansing and the mass murder of millions of Jews, gypsies and other misfits to their perfect race. Lorenze recanted.

Its a very dangerous road you travel when you claim that any behaviour, let alone such a complex behaviour as morality, is genetically given in any way. It maybe very fashionable today but simple logic will tell you that there are not enough genes to account for the infinite variability of human behavior. To say that a gene is a weak or strong is a cop-out in face weak evidence.

If you knew about genes then you will know that no individual action or environmental influence has any impact of the genes we pass on. That is already determined. Yet behaviour, especially moral behaviour, changes not only between generations, but within a generation, even within a day. No gene will ever account for that rapid change.

The beauty of humans, the reason for human adaptability and survival across various environments is that humans, like rats have very few instinctive behaviours. Claim any more that you claim that Pavlov’s salivating dogs tell us all about human behaviour. Some do, you are not alone. The vast majority of human behaviour is learnt. I suggest you look at the behavioral sciences for the mechanisms by which simple, let alone complexity, behaviours are learnt. That will include superstitious behaviour - one of the more simple religious behaviours.

Dawkins gets close to the behavioral sciences wherein he talks about memes, but like so many Dawkins, reinvents the wheel. If a meme is a socially transmitted predisposition to respond, then what is an ‘attitude’? The definition is the same. Atitude theory has substantial body of knowledge gained from research undertaken for decades back into the last century. Should Dawkins bother to walk down the corridors to his colleagues then he would have been told that the theory of attitudes and therefore memes has a number of problems. Not least that attitudes cannot be seen or directly measured but thier existence has to be inferred.

The religious soul is another invention that cannot be seen or measured. Those who search for genetic determination of behaviour may be seeking to establish scientific evidence for a soul.

Which points to a curious fact in this debate. Why are the social sciences so silent on subject about which they know so much? Perhaps because they know this is not a logical debate but an emotionally debate between two sets of beliefs. Perhaps because social scientists know that reason will not prevail until the emotions have been exhausted.