Post your theological argument here.

[bugfartboy]

Simple. Good morals, the original morals you have from birth, are the rod if iron. You said yourself, you would never accept killing as right. But if the idea of killing being right were drilled in hard and long enough, like hammering the rod of iron, your morals would bend. You get hammered in enough places, you can be bent very easily. Now say someone comes along and sees that your morals are bent. They can hammer them straight once more. But it loosens the metallic bond that the iron has. So they bend even easier than before. Thus, they can be bent out of shape so easily, you end up a twisted person to match your twisted morals. I thought the analogy was pretty straight forward.

[cyso]

Trust me, Duckling, you can hammer morals at any time if you know how to hammer correctly. Sadly, the best hammerer is probably one's own self. Even sadder, I speak from experience.

Why would you decided that them dying would be worse then you dying? Animals don't always seem to think so. A predator kills something, the prey just walk away a little bit and ignore it. Your morals compel you to sacrifice yourself. Granted, they do give you emotional feedback. For example, they convict you if you do something you know is wrong. I guess they reward you if you do something right.

[ArtDrake]

Sometimes, the morals are not unhammered or hammered any more than they were. It's just that the ethical implications and the other consequences are outweighed by an immediate threat.

I'll address your second part if you can make it make sense; the verbs don't agree, the tenses don't agree, the indefinite articles don't agree, and you're using parts of speech where I can't understand their usage.

EDIT:

You can probably hammer in behavior at any point with a long-term threat: "You have to be like us or be killed as an outsider". Then, the long-term threat might outweigh many morals that a person has.

Except for the last part.

The morals, I think, don't convict you, since they are just a mental set of scales and balances between criteria and consequences in multiple directions. Murder's few benefits are so few, and so outweighed by the emotional impact and other consequences, that it is almost universally accepted that it is wrong. In some cases, people can bring justification (add more on the FOR side), and detach themselves from the situation, and dehumanize an enemy (take away from the AGAINST side), so that the balances are tipped the other direction. This is useful for countries in wartime; it provides them with soldiers.

[cyso]

Sorry about my last post, I guess I didn't read it over. I'll edit it some.

You don't need to threaten someone to hammer their morals. You just have to convince them that you are in the right, and they are wrong. This generally works better when you have more than one person helping you. Or, you can hammer your own morals if you do something you don't want to admit is wrong and try to justify yourself. You deny that you are doing something wrong to the point that you believe that you aren't doing something wrong.

Murder's few benefits are so few, and so outweighed by the emotional impact and other consequences, that it is almost universally accepted that it is wrong.

Where does the emotional impact come from? Part of it comes from your morals.

The morals, I think, don't convict you, since they are just a mental set of scales and balances between criteria and consequences in multiple directions.

To convict is to impress with a sense of guilt. Morals will impress with a sense of guilt. If you defy their morals, they will make you feel guilty.

[Steel Ersatz Man]

A lot of animals work together, but they don't have morals. The nearest thing to morals in animals is mothers protecting their children, and that's instinct. Animals aren't altruistic in any way. Humans are different. Yes, they are smarter, but being smart doesn't make much of a difference. The smartest gorilla has no more morals than a buffalo. Morals make us different from other animals.

Yes, I am saying things work by a case-by-case process.

WRONG! Dolphins are capable of feeling empathy and they usually try to protect the weak, they even defend humans from sharks! (yes, they're that smart)

http://www.dolphinworld.org/stories/facts-about-dolphins.htm

(Look under 'Facts about Dolphins')

[cyso]

It's difficult to say if dolphins feel empathy without being a dolphin. Dolphins work in packs instinctively, so they instinctively work together and protect against threats such as sharks. I don't know if dolphins protect people from sharks to protect people or because they don't like sharks. If a dolphin did leave a person to die to die, I doubt it would feel guilty or as if it had done something wrong.

[ArtDrake]

It's obviously not so difficult to say it that it would be impossible to say so. This impression is based off studies. I honestly don't think that scientists would jump to conclusions without making sure htey were controlling EVERY SINGLE VARIABLE. It's not even funny.

[cyso]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm willing to bet the studies suggest that dolphins may be capable of feeling empathy. And when did I try to say something funny?

[ArtDrake]

You didn't. All I am saying is that scientists take their science seriously, and would not just jump to conclusions without eliminating most possibilities. Until you know their method, question what it is, not whether it's right.

[cyso]

Okay. What's their method, and what are the results? A url link would be helpful.

[ArtDrake]

How am I supposed to know? That was Ersatz Man. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't debase a scientific experiment if you don't know the methods. Ask Ersatz Man.

[cyso]

Okay. Ersatz Man, may I have a url link to the findings?

[Steel Ersatz Man]

Okay. Ersatz Man, may I have a url link to the findings?

It's there.

[cyso]

By the looks of it, dolphins have protective instinct, like dogs, can work with tools, and live in packs. I'm not so sure that means they have morals.

[Steel Ersatz Man]

By the looks of it, dolphins have protective instinct, like dogs, can work with tools, and live in packs. I'm not so sure that means they have morals.

''The Social behavior and intelligence of dolphins, without a doubt the most controversial subject when referring to dolphins. It is quite scary how similar these creatures act to humans in respect to love, feelings, emotions, sensations, habits, traits, honor, pride, aggression, war, distrust, betrayals, drama, the list simply goes on and on. Even the use of tool sand the concept of society has been mastered by the dolphins, which is astounding considering that some primitive civilizations in the past could not fully grasp these same ideas. Dolphins are social living in complex attachments, known as "schools" of up to a dozen individuals. In places with a high abundance of food, pods can join temporarily, forming an aggregation called a super pod; such groupings may exceed a thousand dolphins. The individuals communicate using a variety of clicks, whistles and other vocalizations. They also use ultrasonic sounds for echolocation. Membership in pods is not rigid; interchange is common. However, the cetaceans can establish strong bonds between each other. This leads to them staying with injured or ill individuals, even actively helping them to breathe by bringing them to the surface if needed.''

That doesn't look like protective instinct to me.