Wesley Huff

That's not an assumption, especially in societies that have, say, understandings of karmic cycles, whether that's in like Buddhism or Hinduism.

The idea of altruism is actually can be categorized as an evil because in the cycle of samsara, of birth, life, death, and rebirth, you are actually, your lot in this life is due to your wrongdoing in the last life.

So in helping someone like that,

you are actually inhibiting them from being reincarnated better on the other side.

So an idea like altruism doesn't exist within that Eastern society.

And if you look in the ancient world, let's pick on the Babylonians.

The Babylonians, if they were to read Dawkins' River Out of Eden, would basically say, yeah.

Exactly, right?

So they have this creation story.

It's called the Enuma Elish, and it's this big battle of the gods, and it's an origin story, an attempt to explain why everything is here.

But the conclusion of it is basically you are a product of a big battle and a mistake, right?

The one god loses, and you, everything around you, the earth, the sky, it's just the remains of the gods that lost, right?

So meaning, value, purpose, not really ultimately.

You're just the product of time plus matter plus chance as well.

It's just framed within a religious perspective, whereas Dawkins frames it in a natural materialistic perspective.

So where do we get the categories to even say that we should be taking care of people in communities outside of our specific community?

Because in some cultures, they have the ethic of love thy neighbor, but in others, it's eat thy neighbor.

And so the question is, which society do you want to pick?

Yeah, well, I think ultimately there's an aspect of our conscience that's imprinted on us that we understand ethics to some degree or another.

But the framework to actually find the objectivity of that ethic is found in the revelation of specific revelation in Scripture.