Why religion is fading in the West

[LTX]

145. I find this a curious response. You seem unwilling to commit yourself to any vehicle for

moral guidance, whether oral or written. Indeed, you seem to be suggesting that ethical and moral decision making is independent of any such oral or written vehicles.

As a footnote, while there is certainly some indication that altruistic behavior has evolutionary advantages (although the extent of altruistic responses to feeding patterns in bacteria are not as conclusive as originally thought, as opposed to strictly selfish behavior patterns for which there are decidedly apparent and observable advantages), there is little to indicate, beyond familial and tribal survival saturation points, that human ethics and morality is anything but learned behavior. I am not at all persuaded that our present (if somewhat fractured) state of ethical and moral development has anything but a fraction of a genetic component. Education, it seems, is the very largely predominant medium by which ethical and moral principles are passed from generation to generation in humans.

As a second footnote, I would actually recommend Spinoza as a reference for moral education. But then, to fully understand and appreciate Spinoza's writings, one would have to have a biblical grounding.